at-Largely

Hands down the funniest parody of Glenn Beck evah!!

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Let me introduce you to 'The Bard' - Vladimir Vysotsky

Vladimir Vysotsky was a legendary poet and singer (sometime actor). He was so beloved, that even the Soviets could not disappear him or ban him. Although he is often compared to Bob Dylan in the impact his music and words had on his country, most Eastern bloc people who appreciate both will without doubt say that Visotsky is by far more important and influential. I would compare him to the impact that both Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac had on music and poetry. Adding to this mix, his many affairs and the often questioned death bring echos of Jim Morisson to mind as well.

My two favorite songs by The Bard are as follows (you can use this site for some great translations of his work):

Fastidious Horses

My Gypsy Song

Sunday Funny

This is so funny that I was rolling in laughter. You sort of have to be a Star Wars geek (present and accounted for) to really get it.

Political rapper talks about 'dark side of revolution'

This is a long interview, but well worth it. If you can, read the whole thing and of course, please digg it up. Here are some snips:

Felipe Coronel is, all at once, a Peruvian-born student of history, a thickly-accented New Yorker, a child of Harlem, and an incredibly well-read man. Better known by his stage name – Immortal Technique – he writes and performs some of the most politically saturated and emotionally charged music to appear in the work of any American artist since perhaps Bob Dylan, only darker and more raw.

Tech does not create music that is peace-oriented or anti-war. He does not create music about gang violence or the need for racial equality. Instead, he explores the history of all of these issues and shows, rather than tells, his listener why he believes we – humanity, America, African Americans, Latinos, et cetera – are where we are.

In a song called The 4th Branch from his second album, Revolutionary Volume 2, for example, Tech sings:

Media censorship, blocking out the video screens
A continent of oil kingdoms, bought for a bargain
Democracy is just a word, when the people are starvin'
The average citizen, made to be, blind to the reason

The song is an exploration of how the United States got into the Iraq war, rather than something as overly simplistic as a call for peace. Who is responsible? How could this war have happened? Tech places the blame for the selling of this war on the shoulders of the fourth estate, the press.

Have US War Crimes Become So Ho-Hum as that nobody cares?

Posted by David L Steinhardt

A New York Times article today reports that faculty and students at New School University are united in demanding that university president Bob Kerrey resign. The reason for the demand that he resign is because of his job performance, not because he's an admitted war criminal who slaughtered civilians in the tiny hamlet of Than Phong in the southern Mekong Delta on the night of February 25, 1969. No one seemed to mind when he got the job nor is anyone asking him to resign as a result of those unlawful acts.

I've written about this before. To recap briefly, Kerrey admits in his own memoir that he "could have stopped" his men from slaughtering at least 19 Vietnamese civilians. That's command responsibility, a war crime. 

When one of his Navy SEALS, Gerhard Klann, went public with his own, differing version of the atrocity, in which Lt. Kerrey ORDERED the machine-gunning of civilians, and personally sat on the chest of one unarmed old man as his throat was slit, Kerrey declined to contradict that version of the event, claiming he's not sure enough of his own memories to deny others' versions. 

In other words, he not only accepted command responsibility, he accepted Mr. Klann's version that he himself is a cold-blooded murderer.

Leaked Menu of George Will's Catered Dinner Party for Barack Obama (Satire)

Posted by Brad Jacobson

Conversation at the recent dinner party thrown by conservative pundit George Will for Barack Obama may remain shrouded in secrecy. But one thing will not: the menu. And there was no shortage of food. An anonymous source leaked the detailed catered menu to The Wounded-Courier today. (Other conservative pundits in attendance included William Kristol, David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, Larry Kudlow, Paul Gigot, Peggy Noonan, Michael Barone and Rich Lowry.) Here is what was served:

Hors d’oeuvres

Skewers of Unmitigated Gall

Fingerless Sandwiches

Record Dow Asiago-Spinach Dip

Mercury-Infused Bay Scallops with Deregulation Coulis

Chickenhawk Balls Wrapped in Old Glory

Political Proseuctions Documentary...

There is apparently a new documentary out called Project Save Justice, about the DOJ political prosecutions. It gets into other, many other cases not as well know as the Siegelman case or even the Paul Minor case. I have not seen it yet, but wanted to pass it along for you to give it a gander.  It is in several parts on YouTube, re-posted below:

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

News in the News Roundup...

The New York Post's Page 6 (the gossip rag) has apparently learned that non other than Rudy Giuliani is in talks to replace Bill O'Reilly's radio show. See, you don't need talent, morals (adultery, mob ties, corruption), or even a personality to score a gig on the bible belt network. I wonder if Bernie Kerik will be the sidekick?

Apparently a film called Nothing but the Truth - which is based on the case of scandalized reporter Judith Miller (minus the facts I hear), has been released. I know from those who have seen it that the truth is almost entirely missing, which should make this fiction, right? So why even bother saying it is based on Judith Miller's case? Marshall Fine says it best:

The reporter as victim is a tough sell in a society that places increasingly little trust in the press. But Lurie makes it work by diverging significantly from his source material: the Valerie Plame case and the jailing of New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

In other words, just forget the source material. The film is fiction, nothing more. So if you go to see it, then just pretend Judith Miller has nothing to do with the film, and you might actually enjoy it. I will let you know if/when I see it.

More on the shoe-throwing journalist here. He also had a court appearance, which you can read about here.

Glenn Greenwald takes The New Republic to the wood-shed and rightfully so.

David David Shuster is named anchor of MSNBC's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

CBI/ABC News rolls out Shock & Awe Barbie collection

Some are surely stunningly attractive. Some are indeed incredibly popular. And some - gasp - can actually reason. None, however, are described accurately. What am I talking about? Well the Claire Booth Luce Policy Institute has released its right-wing pin-up girl tribute called "Pretty in Mink," a stupid take on the popular John Hughes film, Pretty in Pink. If you know anything about the film, you know that the main character is not establishment, not a propagandist. Is not part of the rich-folks on campus. Not a racist. Not a female version of Joe McCarthy. Rather, she is an artist, a loner, a loser in a world surrounded by these types of pin-ups. But I digress, as I often do. In addition to this tribute and for reasons unknown, ABC News is showing off this bizarre collective in a slide-show.

Here is how CBI describes their calender:

"We took some of your favorite leaders of today’s conservative movement on a journey back in time, and made them up into glamorous movie stars of classic Hollywood. Back when the big screen was a little more glamorous, women were a little more feminine, the men a little more charming—and the world a little less politically correct."

Cute no? I wonder what they mean about the world being "a little less politically correct" back then. Perhaps they mean that in those days, a white-power groupie would easily admit to such a thing in public? Or that a Neo-Nazi would not be celebrated by a so-called woman's leadership forum, but instead run out of town? Let's examine one of these "leaders" in some detail and see what would have been written about her when the world was "less politically correct."

I also urge you to look up each Neo-Con Barbie in this  Shock and Awe collection, clearly developed by Mental, not Mattel. Do some research and compare their little bio with the reality of who they are. Feel free to share your findings in the form of bios in the comments.

Since the Neo-Nazi Barbie is the most obvious one, I will focus on this "leader" as an example.

Ann Coulter - Neo-Nazi Barbie
Here is what her calender entry says about her:

"Ann Coulter is the author of six New York Times best-sellers, a popular syndicated columnist and a frequent TV pundit. She is the 2004 recipient of the Luce Policy Institute's Woman of the Year Award and the 2001 recipient of the Institute's Conservative Leadership Award. Coulter is wearing a brown mink coat from her personal wardrobe."

Here is Coulter's real bio, as written by me:

Ann Coulter is a paid propagandist who makes her living with shock-jock books such as one entitled Treason, in which she mostly fabricates the recent history of the United States and places Joe McCarthy into sainthood. Coulter finds nothing too be beneath her if a buck is to be made.

She has often called for the mass murder of her fellow citizens whose only crime is that they are of a different political party. She has openly lamented that terrorists did not kill more journalists. She has spent the better part of the past few years advocating that a nuclear weapon be used to commit genocide against the entire Muslim world.

Coulter was a star on the Conservative stage for several years until her plagiarism, extremist views, and alleged drug use got her booted from a majority of publications she had previously been published in. Coulter has a law degree as well, but that did not stop her from getting a snitch to steal the grand jury evidence relating to the impeachment of President Clinton - in the form of the Linda Tripp tapes - and carrying them around in her purse. In short, Coulter is the epitome of the right-wing world. She is white, rich, a WASP, who advocates the mass extermination of people who are liberals, Muslims, Jews, and anyone not entirely white enough or christian enough. That is why she is this years Neo-Nazi barbie.

I am sure you will have no problem locating Fascist Barbie, Idiot Barbie, and any other true identity of each starlet on display in this warped homage to extremism, nicely wrapped in fur, but not much truth.

The flu and Dune

I still have this God-forsaken flu (going on over a week now). So I have spent my days asleep or watching some of my favorite films (which always includes the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice).

  Today I managed to watch the Dune mini-series, which is in some ways far better than David Lynch's original adaptation of the classic book. But I like Lynch's interpretation of the Bene Gesserit much better. The Dune books and subsequent films are not only brilliant in their own right, but an excellent metaphor of what we are living through today (the first book was written well before our time, specifically in the 1960s, but it applies and translates to today rather nicely):

    * Spice: Oil (the most valuable thing in the universe) no travel can take place without it, no commerce can happen without it, it provides the same type of escape and subsequent addiction when used as a drug that heroin does (and we know well that heroin funds terrorism and is primarily grown in the Middle East.

    * Dune/Arrakis: The barren planet where spice is found -like oil is found in the Middle East, which is one way of interpreting Arrakis. From another angle, it is also earth itself, because the ecology can and must be transformed if people are to survive and if peace is to be had. 

    * House Atreides: The noble family is the epitome of honor and justice, ultimately symbolizing democracy and equality. If I had to place a real person into this fictional noble family, then it would be hands down JFK and the short rule of Leto Atreides akin to that of JFK's Camelot.

    * House Harkonnen: The noble family that symbolizes greed, power-lust, corruption, self-enrichment over generations forming an alliance with the only corporation that controls the spice. There is no question that the House Harkonnen is Fascism. Unlike the Atreides, who briefly brought honor and justice to Arrakis before the coup, the Harkonnen family has ruled and profited for centuries. If I had to place a real person or family into the fictional noble family of Harkonnen, I would easily place the Bush dynasty into this role. Although the Barron Harkonnen is how I envision Dick Cheney likely looks on the inside.

    * The Empire: The empire and its emperor symbolize the United States, its abuses in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world, and all for the sake of oil and power. The empire of Dune overreaches, causing a holy war, which determines both the fate of Arrakis and of the universe itself. In the end, Dune can be read as the fall of Rome too, the fall of the empire.

    * Sardaukar: The empire's evil killing machine, militaristic fanatics who are a mix of Blackwater mercenaries and other proxy killing machines created and employed by the US.

    * Bene Gesserit: The most complex of all of the people in Dune, they are a sect of priestesses who are both guiding the destiny of man to its full fruition, but also playing with it in dark ways. It is difficult to place them in the current reality we live in, but if I were pressed, I would say they symbolize both the gifts and the curses of religion.

And now back to bed I go.

War comes to RNC in Minnesota...

Well, looks like Minnesota is going to be a hopping place during next week's RNC convention. Check this out:

True Blue Minnesota will be parking a jumbotron outside the convention where they plan to show videos of Guantanamo detainees, scenes from the Iraq war, movies like "Body of War," and they will be playing the trailer and clips from WAR, INC. as well.  They will also be doing a screening of WAR, INC. as part of their public policy forum. 

You can check out more info on this big party over at True Blue Minnesota.

And remember, War Inc., is Johnny Cusack's film (see here and here) which all of you helped so vigorously promote. You can read more about the film on Johnny's blog, here.

All of you who are going, just remember, bring plenty of film and many cameras. Or do I have to remind you what a threat citizens organizing peacefully represents to the RNC? . The truth is the most dangerous of all weapons and the reaction of the war profiteers gathered to select themselves 4 more year of more war profits will likely be aggressive when their crimes are put sky high for all to see.

Tech - Point of No Return

I post this song often here, so it is time once again. Immortal Technique is not someone you just listen to or dance to or hang out to. He is too intense, articulate, educated, and passionate for just a cursory listen. Sit down, hear it, then tell me if this did not blow you away? Just fyi, adult language advisory. You may now proceed:

l'art pour l'art - resistance

I have not done one of these in ages - so all of you keep reminding me. I thought it being the weekend of America's birth, i would do a resistance theme. If you are new to the l'art pour l'art series, see below:

Preface: Halliburton/Death Start Explained
l'art pour l'art  Part I
l'art pour l'art  Part II
l'art pour l'art  Part III - Treasure Hunt
l'art pour l'art  Part IV - The Darklings
l'art pour l'art Part V - Adaptations
l'art pour l'art  Part VI - Portishead's New Album, "Third"

##

Pan's Labyrinth - One of the most visually stunning films in recent times (I would say since The City of Lost Children). The story takes place in Franco's Spain and inside the imagination of a little girl who cannot escape her circumstances. It is resistance of mind and soul, perhaps even through another reality. I know I desperately wanted the legend of the princess (I won't say more, I don't want to spoil it) to be true. Particularly at the sad end:

Good Night, Good Luck - The story of a true journalistic hero Edward R. Murrow as a snip from a moment of his historic battle against the Red Scare. The story takes place during the height of McCarthyism and Murrow's push-back against the anti-Communist hysteria of the era. More importantly, as this last scene illustrates, it is a warning to the future, to future journalists - our present and our current journalists - to resist the easy, entertaining, and commercial. The final scene still makes me cry as it urges journalists to be responsible and ethical:

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - One of my favorite films and a true classic. It is a story of a naive average citizen who goes to Washington to idealistically hopes to change the world and instead, finds out just how corrupt and purchased our government is. It is a story of resistance to greed, power, corruption  and most importantly, corporatism. This last scene is awe inspiring:

Can you tell McBush and McSame apart? Really?

The Truth "Gagged" and Treason Hidden...

Cross-posted at HuffPo

##

My God, we have lost our country completely. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) stood ALONE on the House floor last night for nearly five hours reading 35 Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush. Yet this has not been mentioned once on US news tevees (with the exception on MSNBC's Countdown).  Why do you suppose that is? Is it because corporate America is not interested in ratings?

Surely the wave of chatter this has created in the last 24 hours since Kucinich read the first Article of Impeachment would have been good for TV ratings? What then? Are they gagged? Well, considering the war on truth we have witnessed over the last 7 years, I would not be surprised. Let's take a look at today's news from the UK regarding the massive abuse of power by the Bush administration with regard to covering up the largest war profiteering "in history" - something you will likely not hear about from American news outlets either:

For the first time, the extent to which some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding has been researched by the BBC's Panorama using US and Iraqi government sources.

A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations. The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.

War profiteering

While George Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted. To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq. The president's Democrat opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq.

Henry Waxman who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said: "The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, its egregious.

"It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history." In the run-up to the invasion one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth seven billion that was given to Halliburton, a Texan company, which used to be run by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president.

Unusually only Halliburton got to bid - and won.

Missing billions

The search for the missing billions also led the programme to a house in Acton in West London where Hazem Shalaan lived until he was appointed to the new Iraqi government as minister of defence in 2004.

Is this a "high crime?" Yes. Moreover, it is treason. Let's look at the Constitutional definition of treason for a moment:

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."

You tell me if robbing the US treasury and abusing the power of the federal government to cover up such crimes from the public is not an act of war against the United States of America? Oh but this is just one of many acts of treason, to say nothing of "high crimes and misdemeanors," which originated from the single most criminal abuse of Judicial power - the 2000 Supreme Court ruling that installed and enthroned George W. Bush as  puppet-princeling, fully owned and operated by corporations.

Sunday political musique...

We don't have the amount of artistic protest that we had in the 1960s, but we do have some powerful voices and I a mixing it up from then and now:

Eminem's Mosh

Immortal Technique's Peruvian Coke

Roger Waters doing Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall at Live Earth

Right-wing goes after John Cusack...

Cross-Posted at HuffPo
##

The extreme right is not happy about John Cusack's new film, War Inc.. With the helpful panning of the corporate press as proof - the same corporate press that sold us the Iraq war to begin with - the right-wing is trying make the film seem to be a total flop, despite the grassroots success that it actually is.

Take this fine example of right-wing propaganda, titled idiotically "Cusack: Laugh While Bush Ideology Destroys America:"

Leftist actor John Cusack explained his new anti-war comedy (read: the next box office flop) this way: "The ideology behind this war is so radical and it's so destroying the country that I think a somber serious take on it would just add to the sense of depression and inevitable doom that this administration has unleashed on the country."

Cusack added War Inc. was Bush-inspired: "And the argument of the Bush administration is that there's nothing, no function of state, there's no national interest that is not a corporate interest. Everything is to be privatized, everything is to be -- the core function of government is to create the optimal conditions for a feeding frenzy."

Leave it to Tim Graham, the Director of Media Analysis for the Media Research Center, to misrepresent political satire as slap-stick-comedy and Cusack's accurate criticism of privatized war as somehow inaccurate because of the comedy-routine meme.

Satire, my dear Mr. Graham, is ridicule, not comedy. It is the examination of difficult topics through a more comfortable lens, that of irony. Satire unnerves, it does not simply entertain. In short, satire is condemnation, not a barrel of laughs.

But really, the most important thing you need to know about the Media Research Center, for whom Graham works, is that it is entirely a right-wing propaganda group, funded by corporatists - the very people War Inc. satirizes.

Consider the MRC's rather interesting mission, something they are proud of too:

"[to]provide immediate exposure of liberal media bias, insightful analysis, constructive criticism and timely corrections to news media reporting."

Does that not entirely prove everything I have just stated? No? Well maybe I should add a bit more about who throws money at the MRC.

Did you know that the MRC is founded and funded by Brent Bozell, the wealthy NeoCon who helped bankroll the 2004 smears on John Kerry, painting a war veteran as a traitor? Nice, eh? No wonder Tim Graham is praying with this pen that War Inc., does flop, he gets paid to echo George W. Bush.

You Want Courage? Are You Willing to Support It?

Cross posted at Huffington Post

When I tell any truth it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those who do. ~ William Blake

---

I am not a film-critic as most of you know. So the below is not meant to be a plot summary and some catchy thumbs-up-down analysis of the brilliant new John Cusack film -- a political black comedy on the Iraq war called appropriately War Inc.  If you want background and snippets, then see here.

My interest in writing about the film right now, before its opening on May 23rd, is in the hope of saving it from what appears to be a distinct stench of blacklisting. No, I do not believe there is an organized, conspiratorial effort to shut-down a wide release of War Inc. Just to be clear, that is not what I am saying. In reality, we no longer need any organized effort because the mechanism of censorship is now so fully integrated into the body-politic of this nation anyway.

But I do think that there is an unspoken mega-understanding within mega-corporations and their wholly owned mega-writers that the film should be quietly escorted from the reach of the general public and instead, relegated to the outskirts of art-houses and small venues in a land far, far away.

Consider this idiotic review from the Toronto Star:

"It all adds up to a fast pace, lots of shooting, and a movie that, in its heart, is as corrupt as the politics it attempts to satirize."

That is a rather strong statement, is it not? Yet the writer of this nonsensical assertion never explains how War Inc. is "as corrupt as the politics it attempts to satirize." The words sound impressive, presented all glossy-like on the pages of a news publication. But read this idiocy again. It is total non-sense. This is the kind of contorted acrobatics the corporate press is entangling itself in so that they can justify why they are trashing this film. Seriously, unless War Inc. is responsible for the deaths of nearly a million Iraqis or even one Iraqi frankly, this assertion by the Star is closer someone's idea of acid-trip wit than it is a serious review of the film.

Are you surprised?

In an interview I recently did with John Cusack about his film he told me what a hard time he had getting a studio interested in the project and getting distributors to look at the finished product. I wondered how this could be possible given the all-star line-up which includes Marisa Tomei, Ben Kingsley, Dan Aykroyd, Hillary Duff, and Joan Cusack.

And even now, after many well respected journalists and thinkers have fully backed the film, it still hangs in the balance of opening weekend results, or else it will be moved straight from its limited release to DVD - in other words, to a land far, far away.

But Look Here

Most mainstream critics have described War Inc. as either a failed attempt to recreate the political and social potency of Dr. Strangelove or as a tepid attempt at satirizing the Iraq war using over-the top and idiotic humor as the tool. Yet still others have described the film as failing simply because of timing. You see, we are still in the Iraq war; it is still too fresh, so the truth still hurts too much. In short, they don't "get" it.

Indeed the people who "get" War Inc., in their critiques and reviews are a smaller contingent than those who are busy panning it. But that smaller contingent is not a collective of "movie-critics" working for corporate owned publications. Rather, the people who "get" War Inc., are people I read, admire, and whose opinions I trust. They are people you read, admire and whose opinions you trust.

They are serious writers and thinkers who have spent a great deal of time in Iraq; who have broken new ground in reporting on the extent of corporate abuses and war profiteering; who many consider to be heroes.

The voices backing War Inc., include Gore Vidal, one of the finest thinkers of our time, Naomi Klein, one of the most respected journalists of our time, Jeremy Scahill, one of the few journalists to take on corporate profiteering in Iraq and at home, Lara Logan, the chief foreign correspondent for CBS and who has been stationed in Iraq all this long while, nearly losing her life while trying to inform us, the public (ensconced safely at home). To these voices I add my own, although much smaller voice, of support.

Surely these people should have more weight with distributors, movie theaters, and all the folks who come together and decide if something is thumbing up or down? Apparently not for those who decide if and when a movie becomes a flop.

Mike Malloy reads my Bush appeasement essay

As a writer, I sometimes have a difficult time reacting to my own work once it is written, because all of the emotion is spent in the writing of it. I have to somehow see the work through a reader's eyes to react - afresh - to my own emotions at the time of writing a particular piece.

Mike Malloy's reading of my essay on Bush's comments about Nazi's on the Knesset floor brought me to tears. I listened to his passionate reading and I simply reacted while listening. I got up and paced around, sat back down, got up again, all the while shaking because I heard what it was that I had conveyed to someone when they spoke those words back. I don't know if my piece is as powerful as Malloy's reading - somehow I doubt it - but I urge you to listen to his reading of it and see for yourself if in hearing it, it added something more than I think I alone could ever have gotten across.

I think it us ultimately our many voices, our many pens in hand, our many words spoken, our many songs sung, etc., that together make the monumental primal scream that can change everything. Thank you Mike for reading this the way you did.

Someone posted it on YouTube. I hope they don't mind me borrowing it for you.

Part I

Part II

Wow, Obama Video...

Incredibly powerful video in support of Barack Obama made by Zoe Kravitz (daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet):

H/T to Pammy