Oliver leaves no Stone unturned in new series about America's untold history
The triple Oscar-winning director and screenwriter shines a light on the lesser-known aspects of US history in an epic 10-hour TV series. For Oliver Stone to call something his “life’s work”, it must be pretty special.
But the 66-year-old’s latest project is quite an extraordinary feat, having taken five years of his energy and commitment to complete.
The triple Oscar-winning director and screenwriter is shining a light on the lesser-known aspects of American history in an epic 10-hour TV series called The Untold History Of The United States.
It’s a collaboration with professor of history Peter Kuznick, who’s known the director for a decade and has co-authored the accompanying book.
Spanning Stone’s lifetime, starting with the Second World War and first testing of the atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert in 1945, the series explores how events from the past have shaped the present, and how they still resonate today.
“This gave me a chance to get deeper into history and understand my own origins because I come out of World War II,” says Stone, easily switching into storytelling mode, with a gentle voice that makes him the perfect narrator for the series.
“My father was a soldier, my mother was French, he picked her up in Paris on the street and brought her back to New York, I was born in the dawn of the atomic age.
“The meaning of the bomb eluded me for 40-something years, until I met Peter and he explained his view. It changes American history because it becomes a founding myth of our global security state and it starts when I was born.”
He and Kuznick decided on the project in 2008 – “when Bush was in office, after eight years of nightmare”, Stone explains.
“One thing became another and it became this megalithic 10-hour series, which I’m glad we made because it’s a culmination of all my work efforts,” he adds.
Stone modelled the series on 1970s British documentary series The World At War, produced by Jeremy Isaacs and narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier.
His passion for the project is clear – and he’s determined to set the record straight for future generations of Americans.
“It’s crucially important because unless we know our past, the future is uncertain. The education level of the American teenager is crucial now. If he doesn’t start to find out a little bit about how we’ve come to this place of being a paranoid global security state that sees enemies everywhere, he’s going to believe it and he’s going to go to war and that’s a big issue of our time, war and ecological damage.
“A new generation will not see a difference. In fact, they will have believed things like the mentality of George Bush, who after 9/11 said, ‘They hate us because we’re free’. He made up these excuses of American exceptionalism, like ‘the Muslims attacked us because we’re American’, as opposed to ‘they attacked us because of blowback, because they were upset that we had done certain things in their country’.
“Americans don’t bother to understand what we did that was aggressive in the first place, whether it’s Iran in 1953 or Iraq in 2003.”
Stone’s especially concerned about a recent poll that apparently showed 51% of the younger generation of Americans think the Vietnam war was a good thing rather than a terrible mistake.
“High school students know that six million Jews died, everyone can tell you that. What they don’t know is that almost four million Vietnamese died. I think there’s an outrageous disproportion.”
He fought in Vietnam himself, as a soldier in the United States Army, and has since made three films – Platoon, Born On The Fourth Of July and Heaven & Earth – about the war, which helped him process his feelings.
Britain and Churchill don’t come out entirely unscathed either in Stone’s estimation.
“British history is fascinating to me. I read Churchill’s version of it when I was young and I was a big empire believer. But when you read our book and watch the series, boy, the British empire is re-examined and it’s quite a Wizard of Oz game, that a small island is able to control so much wealth and perception.
“Churchill always spoke about the English-speaking union of the Anglo-Saxon race. And Henry Wallace, our anti-Churchill, as well as Roosevelt and Stalin, took him to task for saying he believed that only English-speaking people run the world. It doesn’t work that way as we’re finding out now.”
However it’s received, he hopes the series will be a legacy for his grandchildren.
“It’s really the climax of my dramatic life, to dramatise history well, it gives me great pleasure. I could go to my deathbed... I’d love to see my grandkids, if I ever get ’em, watching the television series and saying: ’Grandpa did that’. It’s corny, but I’m proud of it.”
The Untold History Of The United States starts on Sky Atlantic 9pm, Friday, April 19
Obama is just another cog in the wheel of war.
ReplyDeleteWatched the 1st part. Just starting #2.
ReplyDelete“Americans don’t bother to understand what we did that was aggressive in the first place, whether it’s Iran in 1953 or Iraq in 2003.”
ReplyDeleteStone’s especially concerned about a recent poll that apparently showed 51% of the younger generation of Americans think the Vietnam war was a good thing rather than a terrible mistake.
“High school students know that six million Jews died, everyone can tell you that. What they don’t know is that almost four million Vietnamese died. I think there’s an outrageous disproportion.”
Why we accept the bullshit that has been handed down by our rulers and masters as fact and ignore the facts is puzzling to me. The biggest disgrace of all is the US media.
ReplyDeleteLet's face it. The United States has never ever done one thing right.
ReplyDeleteLincoln was a tyrant, and we let ourselves get sucked into both World War I and World War II.
All those countries in eastern Europe would have been better off except for our monkeying around. There might still be a Soviet Union.
Now look at it. The Euro is collapsing, and that is our Empire's fault too.
If Henry Ford and Lindbergh had not been such great fans of Hitler maybe Prescott Bush would not have been his banker.
DeleteIn 1923, Harriman and the Thyssens decided to set up a bank and appointed George Herbert Walker - Prescott's father-in-law - as president. Later, in 1926, they established the Union Banking Corporation (UBC) with Prescott Bush at the helm. That same year, he was also named vice president and partner at Brown Brothers Harriman. Both firms allowed the Thyssens to send money to the United States from Germany via the Netherlands.
...
... UBC became a secret channel to protect Nazi capital leaving Germany for the United States via the Netherlands. When the Nazis needed to retrieve their funds, Brown Brothers Harriman sent them directly to Germany.
In this way, UBC received money from the Netherlands and Brown Brothers Harriman sent it back. And who was on the executive of both of these companies? Prescott Bush himself, the Nazis' first money launderer.
...
in October 1942, the U.S. authorities confiscated Nazi bank funds from the New York UBC, whose then president was Prescott. The firm was condemned as a financial and commercial collaborator with the enemy and all its assets were seized.
Later, the U.S. government also ordered the seizure of the assets of a further two leading financial agencies directed by Prescott through the accounts of the Harriman banking institution: the Holland-America Trading Corporation (a U.S.-Dutch commercial firm) and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation.
Then on November 11, 1942, an embargo was imposed on the Silesian-American Corporation - another firm headed by Bush and Walker - under the same Trading with the Enemy Act.
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the Bush family's fortune arose as a result of its unconditional support for Adolph Hitler's political project.
The UBC, under Prescott Bush's direction and with the long-term cooperation of Fritz Thyssen's German Steel Trust participated in the emergence, preparation and financing of the Nazi war machine through the manufacture of armored vehicles, fighter planes, guns and explosives.
Hitler WAS an American proxy.
If, of course, the Bush family are considered American.
Delete.
DeleteYour mind works in strange and wondrous ways, rat.
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Edsel Ford, a NAZI collaborator
DeleteFord Motor Company (USA) was the owner of a substantial majority of the shares of Ford Werke A.G. during the period of time in which Hitler's Third Reich was in power in Germany 1933-1945.
The plaintiff, Elsa Iwanowa, is a citizen of Belgium, and a resident of Antwerp. Iwanowa, was compelled to perform forced labor under inhuman conditions for Ford Werke A.G. at its Cologne plant. She has never received compensation for her forced labor, or for the inhuman conditions she was forced to endure at Ford Werke A.G.
Historical records show that, unlike most American-owned property in Nazi Germany, the Ford Werke A.G. plant was never confiscated by the German government. It continued to be owned by Ford Motor Company throughout the war. Edsel Ford and Robert Sorenson, high-ranking officials of Ford Motor Company, served as directors of Ford Werke A.G. throughout the Nazi Third Reich.
During that period, Ford Werke A.G. generated enormous profits, and other economic advantages, from the use of unpaid, forced labor.
Ford Motors, that was an American Company, back in the day.
DeleteRun by the Ford family.
boobie, the anon, just told US that the US was responsible for Europe's condition.
DeleteSeems he was correct.
Just as Saddam Hussein was an American proxy, for the last part of the 20th century, prior to becoming the greatest threat to whirled Peace and Security in the 21st.
All those countries in eastern Europe would have been better off except for our monkeying around.
DeleteHe is correct, without US influence the NAZI could not have financed their military build up, or their aggression.
Main battle tanks do not grow on trees.
Germany was bankrupt, where did the money come from?
History shows Harriman and Bush financed the Party.
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DeleteI do not dispute the facts you present, rat; merely the broad, generalized conclusions you draw from them.
In every age, there are those who are opportunists, powerful men willing to dip their beak, even if it's into polluted water.
Adolph Hitler as manchurian candidate and American proxy? I can't quite buy it.
The workings of those little grey cells of yours would make an excellent dissertation topic for a doctorate candidate in clinical psychology.
:)
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That Hitler was seen as a stalwart character, in the early days, easily referenced.
DeleteThat many of the American elite supported and funded him, historically accurate.
You make the leap to him being a Manchurian candidate, I merely state the historically accurate facts. The conclusions are fairly obvious and mundane. The dots easy to connect, in retrospect.
Hitler's political assent was funded by Brown Bothers Harriman, led by the banking skills of Prescott Bush, CEO.
Ford Motors was there, in Grmany, for the duration.
If US interests had not funded Hitler, he'd never have left Munich.
Delete.
DeleteI merely respond to the premises you yourself establish.
Hitler WAS an American proxy.
Definition of Proxy:
prox•y
ˈprɒk siShow Spelled [prok-see] Show IPA
noun, plural prox•ies.
1.
the agency, function, or power of a person authorized to act as the deputy or substitute for another.
2.
the person so authorized; substitute; agent.
3.
a written authorization empowering another person to vote or act for the signer, as at a meeting of stockholders.
4.
an ally or confederate who can be relied upon to speak or act in one's behalf.
From your statement above and the definition of proxy, one must assume you're saying Hitler was acting as an American agent or, using the broadest definition possible, he was our ally or confederate. I'm sure there are quite a few here who would disagree with that.
However, there is another assumption built into your premise, that being that Ford and Prescott Bush personified America in total, a rather presumptious claim to my mind.
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DeleteThe rat:
He is correct, without US influence the NAZI could not have financed their military build up, or their aggression.
Simple or simplistic?
To my mind, the German military was rebuilt in conjunction with the restoration of the German economy.
Without Ford and Prescott there would have been no German military build-up and aggression?
:)
Rather than Prescott and Ford, I think you would be better off looking towards Hjalmar Schacht, Fritz Todt, and MEFO bills.
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DeleteOr perhaps an explanation like this:
When the Nazis came to power the most pressing issue was an unemployment rate of close to 30%. The economic management of the state was first given to respected banker Hjalmar Schacht. Under his guidance, a new economic policy to elevate the nation was drafted. One of the first actions was to destroy the trade unions and impose strict wage controls.
The government then expanded the money supply through massive deficit spending. However at the same time the government imposed a 4.5% interest rate ceiling, creating a massive shortage in borrowable funds. This was resolved by setting up a series of dummy companies that would pay for goods with bonds. The most famous of these was the MEFO company, and these bonds used as currency became known as mefo bills. While it was promised that these bonds could eventually be exchanged for real money, the repayment was put off until after the collapse of the Reich. These complicated maneuvers also helped conceal armament expenditures that violated the Treaty of Versailles.
According to economic theory, price control combined with a large increase in the money supply should have produced a large black market, but harsh penalties that saw violators sent to concentration camps or even shot prevented this development. Repressive measures also kept volatility low, reducing inflationary pressures. New policies also limited imports of consumer goods and focused on producing exports. International trade was greatly reduced remaining at about a third of 1929 levels throughout the Nazi period. Currency controls were extended, leading to a considerable overvaluation of the Reichsmark. These policies were successful in cutting unemployment dramatically.
Most industry was not nationalized, however industry was closely regulated with quotas and requirements to use domestic resources. These regulations were set by administrative committees composed of government and business officials. Competition was limited as major companies were organized into cartels through these administrative committees. Selective nationalization was used against businesses that failed to agree to these arrangements. The banks, which had been nationalized by Weimar, were returned to their owners and each administrative committee had a bank as member to finance the schemes.
While the strict state intervention into the economy and the massive rearmament policy led to full employment during the 1930s, real wages in Germany dropped by roughly 25% between 1933 and 1938.[7] Trade unions were abolished, as well as collective bargaining and the right to strike.[8] The right to quit also disappeared: Labor books were introduced in 1935, and required the consent of the previous employer in order to be hired for another job.[9]
(continued below)
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DeleteThe German economy was transferred to the leadership of Hermann Göring when, on 18 October 1936, the German Reichstag announced the formation of a Four-Year Plan. The Nazi economic plan aimed to achieve a number of objectives. Under the leadership of Fritz Todt, a massive public works project, the Reichsarbeitsdienst, was started, rivaling Roosevelt's New Deal in both size and scope. It functioned as a military-like unit, its most notable achievements being the network of Autobahnen and, once the war started, the building of bunkers, underground facilities and entrenchments all over Europe.
Another part of the new German economy was massive rearmament, with the goal being to expand the 100,000-strong German Army into a force of millions. In comparison, a military buildup had also been a part of the New Deal (regarding the Navy) and Stalin's First Five Year Plan. The Four-Year Plan was discussed in the controversial Hossbach Memorandum, which provides the "minutes" from one of Hitler's briefings. Some use the Hossbach Memorandum to show that Hitler planned a war in Eastern Europe in the pursuit of Lebensraum, believing that the Western powers of the United Kingdom and France would not intervene, leaving him free to take over the USSR, the "natural enemy" of Germany. However, this intentionalist view is disputed.
Nevertheless, the war came and although the Four-Year Plan technically expired in 1940, Hermann Göring had built up a power base in the "Office of the Four-Year Plan" that effectively controlled all German economic and production matters by this point in time. In 1942, the growing burdens of the war and the death of Todt saw the economy move to a full war economy under Albert Speer.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_German…
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There is little doubt that there were Germans involved in the management of the German economy, during the pre-war period. The period you reference, Q, is after the NAZI had already come to power.
DeleteThe period in which Mr Bush and Mr Harriman became involved with financing the political efforts of Herr Hitler, 1922. More than a decade before Hermann Goring had built his "power base" in the Office of the Four Year Plan.
In 1922, Averell Harriman traveled to Germany to set up a W.A. Harriman & Co. branch in Berlin. The Berlin branch was also run by Walker. While in Germany, he met with the Thyssen family for the first time. Harriman agreed to help the Thyssens with their plan for an American bank.
Early in 1924, Hendrick J. Kouwenhoven, the managing director of Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart, traveled to New York to meet with Walker and the Harriman brothers. Together, they established The Union Banking Corporation. The UBC's headquarters was located at the same 39 Broadway address as Harriman & Co.
DeleteAs the German economy recovered through the mid to late ‘20s, Walker and Harriman's firm sold over $50,000,000 worth of German bonds to American investors, who profited enormously from the economic boom in Germany. In 1926, August Thyssen died at the age of 84. Fritz was now in control of one of the largest industrial families in Europe. He quickly created the United Steel Works (USW), the biggest industrial conglomerate in German history. Thyssen hired Albert Volger, one of the Ruhr's most influential industrial directors, as director General of USW.
1930s: Hitler Rises – Thyssen/Bush Cash In
DeleteThyssen would later try to claim that his weekends with Hitler and Hess at his Rhineland castles were not personal but strictly business and that he did not approve of most of Hitler's ideas, but the well-known journalist R.G Waldeck, who spent time with Thyssen at a spa in the Black Forest, remembered quite differently. Waldeck said when he and Thyssen would walk through the cool Black Forest in 1929-30, Thyssen would tell Waldeck that he believed in Hitler. He spoke of Hitler "with warmth" and said the Nazis were "new men" that would make Germany strong again. With the depression bleeding Europe, Thyssen's financial support made Hitler's rise to power almost inevitable.
By 1934, Hindenberg was dead and Hitler completely controlled Germany. In March, Hitler announced his plans for a vast new highway system. He wanted to connect the entire Reich with an unprecedented wide road design, especially around major ports. Hitler wanted to bring down unemployment but, more importantly, needed the new roads for speedy military maneuvers.
DeleteHitler also wanted to seriously upgrade Germany's military machine. Hitler ordered a'"rebirth of the German army" and contracted Thyssen and United Steel Works for the overhaul. Thyssen's steel empire was the cold steel heart of the new Nazi war machine that led the way to World War II, killing millions across Europe.
Thyssen's and Flick's profits soared into the hundreds of millions in 1934 and the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart and UBC in New York were overflowing with money. Prescott Bush became managing director of UBC and handled the day-to-day operations of the new German economic plan. Bush's shares in UBC peaked with Hitler's new German order. But while production rose, cronyism did as well.
On March 19, 1934, Prescott Bush handed Averell Harriman a copy of that day's New York Times. The Polish government was applying to take over Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation and Upper Silesian Coal and Steel Company from'"German and American interests" because of rampant "mismanagement, excessive borrowing, fictitious bookkeeping and gambling in securities." The Polish government required the owners of the company, which accounted for over 45% of Poland's steel production, to pay at least its full share of back taxes. Bush and Harriman would eventually hire attorney John Foster Dulles to help cover up any improprieties that might arise under investigative scrutiny.
Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939 ended the debate about Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation and Upper Silesian Coal and Steel Company. The Nazis knocked the Polish Government off Thyssen, Flick and Harriman's steel company and were planning to replace the paid workers. Originally Hitler promised Stalin they would share Poland and use Soviet prisoners as slaves in Polish factories. Hitler's promise never actually materialized and he eventually invaded Russia.
Delete1940s: Business As Usual
Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation was located near the Polish town of Oswiecim, one of Poland's richest mineral regions. That was where Hitler set up the Auschwitz concentration camp. When the plan to work Soviet prisoners fell through, the Nazis transferred Jews, communists, gypsies and other minority populations to the camp. The prisoners of Auschwitz who were able to work were shipped to 30 different companies. One of the companies was the vast Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation.
"Nobody's made the connection before between Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation, Auschwitz and Prescott Bush," John Loftus told Clamor.
"That was the reason why Auschwitz was built there. The coal deposits could be processed into either coal or additives for aviation gasoline."
Even though Thyssen and Flick's Consolidated Steel was in their possession, Hitler's invasions across Europe spooked them, bringing back memories of World War I. Thyssen and Flick sold Consolidated Steel to UBC. Under the complete control of Harriman and management of Bush, the company became Silesian American Corporation which became part of UBC and Harriman's portfolio of 15 corporations. Thyssen quickly moved to Switzerland and later France to hide from the terror about to be unleashed by the Nazi war machine he had helped build.
A portion of the slave labor force in Poland was "managed by Prescott Bush," according to a Dutch intelligence agent. In 1941, slave labor had become the lifeblood of the Nazi war machine. The resources of Poland's rich steel and coal field played an essential part in Hitler's invasion of Europe.
DeleteAccording to Higham, Hitler and the Fraternity of American businessmen "not only sought a continuing alliance of interests for the duration of World War II, but supported the idea of a negotiated peace with Germany that would bar any reorganization of Europe along liberal lines. It would leave as its residue a police state that would place the Fraternity in postwar possession of financial, industrial, and political autonomy."
Six days after Pearl Harbor and the US declaration of war at the end of 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau and US Attorney General Francis Biddle signed the Trading With the Enemy Act, which banned any business interests with US enemies of war. Prescott Bush continued with business as usual, aiding the Nazi invasion of Europe and supplying resources for weaponry that would eventually be turned on American solders in combat against Germany.
On October 20, 1942, the U.S. government had had enough of Prescott Bush and his Nazi business arrangements with Thyssen. Over the summer, The New York Tribune had exposed Bush and Thyssen, whom the Tribune dubbed "Hitler's Angel." When the US government saw UBC's books, they found out that Bush's bank and its shareholders "are held for the benefit of ... members of the Thyssen family, [and] is property of nationals ... of a designated enemy country."
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DeleteI notice you didn't provide a link, rat.
This couldn't have possibly come from John Loftus or someone like that could it?
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DeleteRegardless, of where you are quoting from, what the passages tell is a story of money-grubbing by individuals. It does not point to Hitler being a proxy for America. If anything, it shows that while the industrialists involved profited from the relationship, it was Hitler using them for his own ends.
By the early thirties, Hitler had done away with the power of banks in Germany. Eventually, Bush was punished for violating the 'Trading with the Enemy Act'.
While he may have kinoodled with Bush and Ford in a financial sense, I see nothing here that shows Hitler was a proxy of America, which was your initial claim.
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Western and Middle Eastern nations trying to help the Syrian opposition in its war against President Bashar al-Assad will meet in Turkey on April 20, a U.S. official said on Wednesday as G8 foreign ministers gathered in London for a summit.
ReplyDeleteU.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will attend the meeting of the so-called Friends of Syria “core group” in Istanbul, said the official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.
The G8 talks, which began in London over dinner on Wednesday and were due to end on Thursday, will also be the first chance for the ministers to discuss face-to-face the failure of last week’s meeting in Almaty on curbing Iran’s nuclear programme.
North Korean threats of war also will be high on the agenda of the Group of Eight nations - the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia - meeting.
Britain was expected to call for more help for the Syrian opposition but there are no signs of a major shift in policy.
Leaders of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) were present on the sidelines of the G8 meeting and were expected to hold talks with those foreign ministers willing to meet them.
During a lunch meeting earlier in the day, Syrian opposition members said they needed more humanitarian assistance and Kerry talked about the importance of the opposition becoming better organised, a senior U.S. official told reporters.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague, in a statement issued after the talks, said Britain was committed to finding a political solution to the crisis.
“We discussed what further assistance the UK could provide to save lives in Syria, and how we could work together to ensure this support was channelled most effectively,” he said.
No promises
The United States, which on Feb. 28 said it will for the first time give non-lethal aid to Syrian rebel fighters and more than double its aid to Syria’s civilian opposition, has so far chosen not to provide arms to the rebels and did not make any commitments at the lunch, the U.S. official said.
“He didn’t promise anything,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters travelling with Kerry.
During a more than one-hour meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, another U.S. official said there was no sign of any change in Moscow’s stance on Syria.
“It certainly didn’t sound like they have changed their position a lot,” said the official, who added that Kerry and Lavrov’s talks on Syria were relatively brief and that the Syrian civil war was expected to be among the main topics of conversation at Wednesday’s dinner of G8 foreign ministers.
Just as the Western "elites" wish to choose the "Winner" in Syria, they choose the "Winner" in Germany.
DeleteMore things change, the more they stay the same.
That there have been and continue to be unexpected consequences to American machinations, historically accurate, too.
DeleteThe arc of history is important, as Mr Stone states ...
“It’s crucially important because unless we know our past, the future is uncertain. The education level of the American teenager is crucial now. If he doesn’t start to find out a little bit about how we’ve come to this place of being a paranoid global security state that sees enemies everywhere, he’s going to believe it and he’s going to go to war and that’s a big issue of our time
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ReplyDeleteI used to think Oliver Stone was merely a conspiracy theory whack job. Over the last decade or so, my opinion has changed.
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ReplyDeleteWhether it comes from a theocracy, a dictatorship, or a democracy, there is no excuse for restricting access to ideas regardless of what they are. We say it here in Michigan, yesterday, when a local school administrator tried to keep Rick Santorum from speaking at an assembly and today we see it in the unanimous vote taken in Ireland.
Only cowards and incompetents are afraid to openly argue their ideas and point of view.
At its annual congress in Galway, the Teachers Union of Ireland unanimously approved a boycott that obliges “all members to cease all cultural and academic collaboration with Israel, including the exchange of scientists, students and academic personalities, as well as all cooperation in research programs.”
The TUI made unsavory history – it became Europe’s first academic union to arbitrarily blacklist all Israelis…
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Irish-boycott-309393
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Quirk wrote:
Delete"Only cowards and incompetents are afraid to openly argue their ideas and point of view."
In your view is publishing a video, or a movie, say, and posting it online a valid way of arguing a point of view? In other words should an individual be free to say what they like in this way?
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DeleteYou can't control thought, you can only suppress the expression of it. When it comes down to it, what person, what elite, can we elect who is qualified to tell us what is the 'right' view or opinion, what we should think?
I tend to agree with SCOTUS which has taken a liberal view of what is allowed under the First Amendment. In my opinion, there is much out there on the web that is disgusting, views that I vehemently disagree with, websites I find perverse, media that I am at odds with. However, if a website offends you, you are not forced to visit it. If you disagree with opinions that are expressed, you can either ignore them, or you can do what I usually do and argue against them.
The repression of news, the control of information, the manipulation of history, are standard memes running through most dystopic novels.
Welcome to the future.
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While I tend to be a free speech advocate there are a number of issues that do arise that make things pretty complex. For example is making a man with boy sex video a free expression (one can depict an 'of age' person as a minor thus not breaking any laws in the making. Should this be an opinion one is allowed to 'freely express'? Or, more simply, one may argue that pedophilia in print form (i.e. just the written word) or anti-Semitic writings (often portrayed as Pro Aryan, or Pro White be allowed? Many argue (i.e. Canadas anti-hate laws) that these anti-Semitic writings should not be protected speech as child pornography is not protected speech.
DeleteWith respect to your expressed disgust with Teachers Union of Ireland banning exchanges with Israel individuals and groups are allowed to express (or in this case not-express) views of their choice. While I think it is beyond the bounds of a Teachers Union to engage foreign policy I support their right to act that way if they choose (you wouldn't find me join such an organization though).
In the
Pardon my poor writing...gotta run
Delete.
DeleteDefine anti-semitic for me.
Even the UN doesn't attempt it.
As we have seen here, it is a slippery slope, as disagreement over something as controversial as the U.S.S. Liberty incident can get you accused of it.
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DeleteLikewise, what is the role of a teacher?
IMO, it involves not only the passing on of facts but also teaching the student how to think, logic, the ability to look at opposing views and come to rational conclusions about them, the art of critical thinking.
You say it is their right to take whatever stand they want, in this case to simply provide a narrow, one-sided view. To my mind, as has been noted, that is about a liberal as book burning.
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ReplyDeleteMedia Silence on Philadelphia abortion clinic case.
I'll leave out the graphic parts.
Infant beheadings. Severed baby feet in jars. A child screaming after it was delivered alive during an abortion procedure. Haven't heard about these sickening accusations?
It's not your fault.
A Lexis-Nexis search shows none of the news shows on the three major national television networks has mentioned the Gosnell trial in the last three months. The exception is when Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan hijacked a segment on Meet the Press meant to foment outrage over an anti-abortion rights law in some backward red state.
The Washington Post has not published original reporting on this during the trial and The New York Times saw fit to run one original story on A-17 on the trial's first day. They've been silent ever since, despite headline-worthy testimony...
Let me state the obvious. This should be front page news. When Rush Limbaugh attacked Sandra Fluke, there was non-stop media hysteria. The venerable NBC Nightly News' Brian Williams intoned, "A firestorm of outrage from women after a crude tirade from Rush Limbaugh," as he teased a segment on the brouhaha. Yet, accusations of babies having their heads severed — a major human rights story if there ever was one — doesn't make the cut.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/04/10/philadelphia-abortion-clinic-horror-column/2072577/
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Hitler as an American proxy.
ReplyDeleteheh
The workings of those little grey cells of yours would make an excellent dissertation topic for a doctorate candidate in clinical psychology.
Abnormal division.
It's all Lester Crown's fault.
The two of you could keep the PhD industry running for years.
DeleteDeny history, if you wish.
DeleteDoes not change it, or the analogies to the present.
Germany was in crisis, Germany was in need of a Strong Man.
US corporate interests saw this clearly.
Hitler was Time Magazines "Man of the Year", in 1938.
As to the responsibility of Lester Crown, in reference to blog entries, that is to the career of Barack Obama. Starting him in the publishing whirled with a $3 million dollar advance and culminating in the Obama Presidency.
DeleteNow, if you wish to compare Obama to Hitler, then Mr Crown would be comparable to Mr Harriman, with Prescott Bush acting as his agent.
Delete
ReplyDeleteThe Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has claimed that agents do not need warrants to read people’s emails, text messages and other private electronic communications, according to internal agency documents.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request, released the information on Wednesday.
In a 2009 handbook, the IRS said the Fourth Amendment does not protect emails because Internet users "do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications." A 2010 presentation by the IRS Office of General Counsel reiterated the policy.
Under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986, government officials only need a subpoena, issued without a judge's approval, to read emails that have been opened or that are more than 180 days old.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/292989-irs-claims-it-can-read-emails-without-a-warrant#ixzz2QBKs7Gq8
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Here’s another ominous sign for ObamaCare’s future: The Department of Health and Human Services admitted yesterday that setting up the law has cost twice as much as expected so far. And you can’t really blame Republican opposition for the overrun: That’s just accounting for the cost of building exchanges in states that said they want to run them.
ReplyDeleteHere’s The Hill with the report:
The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) said in budget documents Wednesday that it expects to spend $4.4 billion by the end of this year on grants to help states set up new insurance exchanges. HHS had estimated last year that the grants would cost $2 billion.
The department also is asking Congress for another $1.5 billion to help set up federally run exchanges in states that do not establish their own.
Just because HHS is asking for the money, of course, doesn’t mean it’s going to get it. So if not, then what? The HHS has promised it will, er, do something—something!—to make it all work. But it won’t say what. At least not yet:
HHS Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources Ellen Murray punted Wednesday when asked about the consequences if Congress also denies the new request.
The department is "determined to make them work," she said of the exchanges.
A big chunk of the grant money doled out so far went to California. It has reportedly received $909 million in federal funding to build its exchange. But even with the hefty funding it's not going smoothly. The state's insurance regulators have warned that residents should expect "rate and market disruption" when the state's health insurance exchange opens.
ReplyDeleteTojo went first to Switzerland in 1919 where he spent about two years. Afterward, he was posted to Germany, in 1921, for a few months. Due to financial constraints Tojo traveled alone during this period. He returned to Japan in 1922 via the United States.
The Razor
We know now of course that Tojo was actually an agent of the United States, and attacked Hawaii to draw us into the war, which he knew we would win. This was all done in cahoots with Henry Ford and Lester Crown and the Queen of England. The aim was to expand The American/British Empire to the shores of Asia, and it worked.
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The Drone War Has More Victims Than the Bush-Era CIA Scandals
ReplyDeleteThe agency's detention and extraordinary rendition program was an abomination. Its targeted killings are even worse.
In a must-read column, Micah Zenko of Foreign Policy notes the many ways the Obama Administration has misled Congress about its targeted-killing program, and calls for a comprehensive official history so that we're no longer at the mercy of dishonest national-security officials. If you haven't heard, they've been talking as if American drone strikes are mostly killing members of al-Qaeda who pose an imminent threat to the United States. In fact, a minority of the people they've killed belong to al-Qaeda far fewer than that pose an imminent threat to America, and many victims of U.S. drone strikes are killed without the CIA knowing their identity.
What grabbed me about Zenko's piece is when he puts the drone war in perspective: "For all of the historical accounts and professed concerns over the CIA's detention and extraordinary rendition program, which involved '136 known victims,' it is time for an accounting of the CIA's drone strikes, which have killed between 3,000 and 4,000 people in Pakistan and Yemen," he writes.
Let that sink in.
If you objected to CIA detention and rendition in the Bush era, as I did, know that you'd have to double or triple its victims to equal the number of innocents estimated to have been killed in U.S. drone strikes. Compare known victims of CIA rendition to the total number of non-al-Qaeda killed in drone strikes and the difference is significantly bigger. And don't forget the noncombatants affected by the presence of drones. Just as in the Bush Administration, the full magnitude of Obama-era transgressions are sinking in slowly, and won't penetrate the consciousness of most Americans until the end of his second term, if it even happens that rapidly.
But the truth will out.
Eventually, more Americans will realize what ought to have been obvious all along: The Obama Administration is cloaking its actions in extreme secrecy, prosecuting whistleblowers with historic zeal, willfully misleading Congress, and refusing to reveal even the legal basis for its behavior because the reality of its actions are so shocking, ugly, indefensible, and potentially criminal. I don't know if extreme power always corrupts. But extreme power exercised in secret?
To permit such a thing is foolish.
The US under President Obama has continued to prosecute the war on terrorists as authorized by the 14SEP01 Authorization.
DeleteThe Administration has chosen to utilize the CIA rather than DoD to carry the burden forward as the US stays the course. By using target drone attacks the US has drastically reduced civilian casualties. As posted in previous threads civilian casualties in Iraq during the occupation were multiple higher than between three or four thousand.
Let that sink in.
In Iraq, under occupation tactics, tens of thousands of civilians died. In Pakistan and Yemen the total, including the primary targets and other combatants, is 'tween three and four thousand.
That the US often does not know the names of those killed, in Yemen or Pakistan, understandable.
Who in the US knew the names of the Japanese in Tokyo when General LeMay fire bombed it?
That the campaign is cloaked in secrecy, well, everything the Federals do is a secret.
DeleteWish it were not, but secrecy may be the price we pay, to prosecute the war.
Now if someone wants to argue for the repeal of the 14SEP01 Authorization, that'd be an interesting discussion.
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DeleteI would have no problem arguing that the AUMF should be repealed, but it may turn into a long argument and I need to eat dinner.
Maybe tomorrow.
.
Least you now recognize there is such a thing.
DeleteA while back the war was unconstitutional, illegal and everything else.
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DeleteLord, you are thick as a brick. I have on a number of occasions tried to explain to you the difference between illegal and unconstitutional and you still don't get it.
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DeleteLet that sink in.
In Iraq, under occupation tactics, tens of thousands of civilians died. In Pakistan and Yemen the total, including the primary targets and other combatants, is 'tween three and four thousand.
:)
You praise the efficiency of the drones, which is commendable; however, you say nothing of their effectiveness. And I don't mean their effectiveness as a tool, as a tactic, as the current go-to tool in our offensive arsenal. I mean effective in healping us achieve our goals and our overall strategy.
People who support the drone program usually concentrate on their efficiency and the fact that they save American lives; but the real question is net/net are they helping us to advance our goals.
To answer that question, you have to define what our goals are. And that is a toughy since the best you could offer is an educated guess. The administration is always willing to announce the death of some high profile target when they are killed by a drone attack but they are unwilling to officially say that the drone attack came from us.
That being said, let's assume all the reports we see in the press are true.
What is our strategy and our goals?
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DeleteOnce you have defined our goals, the next question is are the drones as they are currently being used actually helping us advance those goals.
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ATLANTIC _ CONOR FRIEDERSDORF
ReplyDeleteConor Friedersdorf is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he focuses on politics and national affairs. He lives in Venice, California, and is the founding editor of The Best of Journalism, a newsletter devoted to exceptional nonfiction.
Obama has lied about what he’d do in office while campaigning and has repeatedly misrepresented his actions which are immoral and illegal. He has gone to great length to ruin those that have risked careers and their freedom by reporting illegalities to a nation of dummies and the obscene mutant US MSM. Any questions google any of these:
ReplyDeleteColleen Rowley
Bradley Manning
John Kirakou
Susan Lindauer
Gwenyth Todd
Sibel Edmonds
Leiutanent Colonel Anthony Schaeffer
Thomas Drake
Ray McGovern
OOrah
On this day in 2007, the charges against three Duke lacrosse players accused of rape were dropped.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the main ingredient of WD-40?
ReplyDeleteWater displacing hydrocarbons, but don't tell anyone, it's a secret.
DeleteOtherwise known as fish oil, *shhh...*
Deletefrom Chickens Coming Home To Roost Department:
ReplyDeleteThe daughter of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- the controversial former pastor to President Barack Obama -- was indicted today in an expanding federal probe of a state grant tied to a former suburban police chief.
Jeri Wright of Hazel Crest is accused of helping former Country Club Hills Police Chief Regina Evans convert fake paychecks from Evans' nonprofit to Evans' personal use, allegedly hiding money that was supposed to be used to train minority and female workers in the building trades. (snip)
Jeri Wright, 47, faces two counts of money laundering, two counts of making false statements to officers and seven counts of giving false grand jury testimony. She couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/04/reverend_wrightd_daughter_indicted.html
Lied like hell to the Grand Jury.
(You're not supposed to do that)
DeleteWD-40 use #22:
ReplyDeleteRids kids rocking chair and swings of squeaky noises.
Whoever heard of a kid's swing without a squeak? That doesn't sound like fun.
ReplyDeleteWD-40 is great for getting frozen bolts unfrozen though. Might take overnight.
I believe everything typed was actually very logical.
ReplyDeleteHowever, consider this, what if you added a little information?
I am not suggesting your information isn't solid., however what if you added a title that grabbed a person's attention?
I mean "Most people and nations have to face reality when they are defeated in war. What happens to nations when they have not been defeated?" is kinda boring.
You should peek at Yahoo's home page and see how they write news headlines to get viewers interested. You might try adding a video or a related pic or two to get people interested about what you've written.
In my opinion, it would bring your website a little livelier.
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