Did you know that Baghdad has an Anglican vicar? Well, it does -- and he says that life was better for Iraqi Christians under Saddam.
Adam Curtis. In the past, I've highly recommended his BBC documentaries, The Century of the Self and The Power of Nightmares. They are available on the net, for free -- if you know where to look. Here's a guide.
The torture tapes. It's beginning to seem very much as if the White House pressured the CIA's Jose Rodriguez to destroy the evidence. Larry Johnson is quoted in the afore-linked story, and he repeats what I consider an important claim:
“It looks increasingly as though the decision was made by the White House,” said Johnson. He believes it is “highly likely” that Bush saw one of the videos, as he was interested in Zubaydah’s case and received frequent updates on his interrogation from George Tenet, the CIA director at the time.
4 comments:
Nearly two decades ago, Ronnie Dugger's long piece in the November 7, 1988 New Yorker magazine exposed all the frauds and pitfalls of computerized voting machines:
http://www.newsgarden.org/columns/dugger.shtml
One of Dugger's experts wonders why there has to be such a hurry in tabulating and counting. So what if it takes a day or two to count all the ballots?
Maybe three more decades will pass before Nader won't be blamed anymore.
Back in '88, Bush the wiser had finished THIRD in Iowa, behind Dole and PAT ROBERTSON. Reagan had refused to endorse Bush, favoring his friend Paul Laxalt for the nomination. Bush looked like a sure loser going into NH.
There, his campaign manager, John Sununu, governor of NH, had GUARANTEED not only that Bush would win, but the PERCENTAGE by which he would win. Sununu held an MIT mechanical engineer masters and PhD degree, and had been the dean of engineering at other schools. As such, he can be assumed to be computer savvy, and the theory of his guarantee was that he knew how to manipulate the computer voting systems in place.
For this rescuing of GHWB's failing candidacy, he got the Chief of Staff job from Bush.
...sofla
Adam Curtis is simply my favorite filmmaker out there. He's able to make though intellectual concepts very palatable and digestible without loosing their essence. Moore could learn a thing or two :)
After watching Century of the Self and the Power of Nightmares, you have to watch his new one : The Trap
The Trap: Episode One
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8372545413887273321
The Trap: Episode Two
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7849982478877371384
The Trap: Episode Two
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2308982976092763099
The Trap: Episode Three (in 3 parts)http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3291992041130722257
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-121006630030775636
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1343199130780182696
I see on Google Video that his previous documentary are also available: Pandora's Box (to understand how the Soviet system was collapsing without the help of Ronald Reagan) and the Mayfair Set (Four stories about the rise of business and the decline of political power).
this was written a long time ago (forty or fifty years) and we still don't get it. What dies it take to snap the consciousness of Americans out of their stupor?
"... in this particular epoch a conjunction of historical circumstances has led to the rise of an elite of power ... The men of the circles composing this elite, severally and collectively, now make such key decisions as are made; and that, given the enlargement and the centralization of the means of power now available, the decisions that they make and fail to make carry more consequences for more people than has ever been the case in the world history of mankind."
Taken from "The Power Elite" by:Professor C. Wright Mills
Columbia University
Then, President Franklin D. Roosevelt once warned the American people about "a simple truth concerning the liberty of a democratic people;" he remarked that -
"… the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of a private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is FASCISM - ownership of government … by a group, or by any other controlling private power."
C;mon bothers and sisters let's resolve in this coming New Year to tell all our friends and neighbors the truth about this once great country.
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