whitebeard

Don't curse the darkness, light a candle.

posted by: Whitebeard at 07:59 | link | comments |

 

Keren Yedaya

I come from Israel and we are responsible for the slavery of 3 million Palestinians.

Jury President Tim Roth bestowed the Camera d'Or to the first feature film, Or, by Israeli director Keren Yedaya.
"I would like to say a big thank you because it's not easy to choose a film like mine," declared the Israeli director. "This week has been like living a dream: my film has received a lot of love and also animosity. This proves to me that people want things to change. Thank you all [...] I want to dedicate this film, from the bottom of my heart, to all the people who are not free, to all those living in slavery. I hope that with this prize we can construct a home for all women who want to get out of prostitution. It's very difficult for me to say that because I come from Israel and we are responsible for the slavery of 3 million Palestinians. I love Israel; I love my country. But, please, there are many people in Israel who are fighting this occupation, help them, help the Palestinians."

Here

 

posted by: Whitebeard at 07:25 | link | comments |

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CIA's interrogation manuals

CIA interrogation manuals written in the 1960s and 1980s described "coercive techniques" such as those used to mistreat detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, according to the declassified documents posted today by the National Security Archive. The Archive also posted a secret 1992 report written for then Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney warning that U.S. Army intelligence manuals that incorporated the earlier work of the CIA for training Latin American military officers in interrogation and counterintelligence techniques contained "offensive and objectionable material" that "undermines U.S. credibility, and could result in significant embarrassment."

here

The Israeli Torture Template
With mounting evidence that a shadowy group of former Israeli Defense Force and General Security Service (Shin Bet) Arabic-speaking interrogators were hired by the Pentagon under a classified "carve out" sub-contract to brutally interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, one only needs to examine the record of abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel to understand what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meant, when referring to new, yet to be released photos and videos, he said, "if these images are released to the public, obviously its going to make matters worse."

here

posted by: Whitebeard at 06:17 | link | comments |

 

Cowardice

Friends,

Below you will find today's New York Times Editorial. Please pass it around.

Thanks for all of your letters of support. No news to report today, hopefully tomorrow.

Yours,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com

May 6, 2004 – Editorial, New York Times

Disney's Craven Behavior

Give the Walt Disney Company a gold medal for cowardice for blocking its Miramax division from distributing a film that criticizes President Bush and his family. A company that ought to be championing free expression has instead chosen to censor a documentary that clearly falls within the bounds of acceptable political commentary.

The documentary was prepared by Michael Moore, a controversial filmmaker who likes to skewer the rich and powerful. As described by Jim Rutenberg yesterday in The Times, the film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," links the Bush family with prominent Saudis, including the family of Osama bin Laden. It describes financial ties that go back three decades and explores the role of the government in evacuating relatives of Mr. bin Laden from the United States shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The film was financed by Miramax and was expected to be released this summer.

Mr. Moore's agent said that Michael Eisner, Disney's chief executive, had expressed concern that the film might jeopardize tax breaks granted to Disney for its theme park, hotels and other ventures in Florida, where Jeb Bush is governor. If that is the reason for Disney's move, it would underscore the dangers of allowing huge conglomerates to gobble up diverse media companies.

On the other hand, a senior Disney executive says the real reason is that Disney caters to families of all political stripes and that many of them might be alienated by the film. Those families, of course, would not have to watch the documentary.

It is hard to say which rationale for blocking distribution is more depressing. But it is clear that Disney loves its bottom line more than the freedom of political discourse.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/06/opinion/06THU4.html?ex=1084420800&en=dd695e1433b69ff3&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

posted by: Whitebeard at 07:19 | link | comments |

 

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

- "A government that habitually ignored expert advice, habitually pressed its interests abroad in ways that ignored manifest needs and priorities in the wider human and non-human environment, habitually repressed criticism or manipulated public media - such a regime would, to say the least, jeopardise its claim to obedience".

- "Part of the continuing damage to our political health in this country has to do with a sense of the events of the last year on the international scene. There were things government believed it knew and claimed to know on a privileged basis which, it emerged, were anything but certain".

- "It is not that we face regular campaigns of huge public disobedience; there may be a time for these, as in the Civil Rights struggles of sixties America, but they are rightly rare, confined to cases where government's inattention has become a matter of serious and lasting injustice. It is more that we face a general weakening of trust in the political system of our nation".

- "It is incumbent on believers to argue for and to exemplify obedient attention for the sake of Christ and in the name of Christ in all places where it is threatened by haste and self-interest - beginning (need it be said?) in the idle and selfish hearts of those who so readily talk about it and are so slow to bring their own thoughts under obedience to Christ".

Glance

posted by: Whitebeard at 17:35 | link | comments |

 

 

 

 

 

 

American people, wake up!

posted by: Whitebeard at 10:26 | link | comments |

Found in my email

 Yesterday I was told that Disney, the studio that owns Miramax, has officially decided to prohibit our producer, Miramax, from distributing my new film, "Fahrenheit 911." The reason? According to today's (May 5) New York Times, it might "endanger" millions of dollars of tax breaks Disney receives from the state of Florida because the film will "anger" the Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush. The story is on page one of the Times and you can read it here (Disney Forbidding Distribution of Film That Criticizes Bush).

The whole story behind this (and other attempts) to kill our movie will be told in more detail as the days and weeks go on. For nearly a year, this struggle has been a lesson in just how difficult it is in this country to create a piece of art that might upset those in charge (well, OK, sorry -- it WILL upset them...big time. Did I mention it's a comedy?). All I can say is, thank God for Harvey Weinstein and Miramax who have stood by me during the entire production of this movie.

Yours,

Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com

 

posted by: Whitebeard at 19:01 | link | comments |

target shooting

"Sometimes a guy will go down, and I'll let him scream a bit to destroy the morale of his buddies. Then I'll use a second shot."

Here

posted by: Whitebeard at 09:28 | link | comments |

From Israel

 

 

 

push

found here

posted by: Whitebeard at 21:10 | link | comments |

War Is Kind

Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment
Little souls who thirst for fight
These men were born to drill and die
The unexplained glory flies above them
Great in the battle-god, great, and his
kingdom -
A field were a thousand corpses lie.

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Swift, blazing flag of the regiment
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die
Point for them the virtue of slaughter
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand of corpses lie.

Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son
Do not weep.
War is kind.

War Is Kind, 1899 Stephen Crane ( Newark 1871 - Badenweiler 1900).

Guantanamo -- A Holding Cell In War on Terror Prison Represents a Problem That's Tough to Get Out Of By Scott Higham, Joe Stephens and Margot Williams
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 2, 2004; Page A01

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- The newest prison in the war on terrorism is a multi-winged $31 million complex of gray concrete and steel designed to hold 100 captives for years to come. It stands in stark contrast to the original detention camp here, a collection of chain-link cages used two years ago to hold suspected terrorists and Taliban fighters caught when their sanctuary in Afghanistan collapsed.

 Continue

TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?

General Karpinski, who had wanted to be a soldier since she was five, is a business consultant in civilian life, and was enthusiastic about her new job. In an interview last December with the St. Petersburg Times, she said that, for many of the Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib, “living conditions now are better in prison than at home. At one point we were concerned that they wouldn’t want to leave.”

A month later, General Karpinski was formally admonished and quietly suspended, and a major investigation into the Army’s prison system, authorized by Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq, was under way. A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the Army prison system were devastating.

Continue

posted by: Whitebeard at 16:20 | link | comments |

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted by: Whitebeard at 11:30 | link | comments |