-- SEX POLITICS RELIGION ARTS -- SERIOUS AND HUMOROUS --
It is just a place to come with an open mind,
though ours are not always-Please tell us if they're not!
The first film of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq’s descent into guerrilla war, warlord rule, criminality and anarchy, NO END IN SIGHT is a jaw-dropping, insider’s tale of wholesale incompetence, recklessness and venality. Based on over 200 hours of footage, the film provides a candid retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials such as former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Ambassador Barbara Bodine (in charge of Baghdad during the Spring of 2003), Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, and General Jay Garner (in charge of the occupation of Iraq through May 2003) as well as Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, and prominent analysts.
This haunting film examines the manner in which the principal errors of U.S. policy – the use of insufficient troop levels, allowing the looting of Baghdad, the purging of professionals from the Iraqi government, and the disbanding of the Iraqi military – largely created the insurgency and chaos that engulf Iraq today. How did a group of men with little or no military experience, knowledge of the Arab world or personal experience in Iraq come to make such flagrantly debilitating decisions?
It vividly dissects the people, issues and facts behind the Bush Administration’s decisions and their consequences on the ground to provide a powerful look into how arrogance and ignorance turned a military victory into a seemingly endless and deepening nightmare of a war.
“I think this decision to disband the [Iraqi] Army came as a surprise to most of us…” Q: What was your reaction? “I thought we had just created a problem. We had a lot of out of work [Iraqi] soldiers.” – our interview with Richard Armitage, former Deputy Secretary of State
NO END IN SIGHT alternates between U.S. policy decisions and Iraqi consequences, systematically dissecting the Bush Administration’s decisions. The consequences of those decisions now include 3,000 American deaths and 20,000 American wounded, Iraq on the brink of civil war, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths, the strengthening of Iran, the weakening of the U.S. military, and economic costs of over $2 trillion. It marks the first time Americans will be allowed inside the White House, Pentagon, and Baghdad’s Green Zone to understand for themselves what has become the disintegration of Iraq.
Much has been made recently about the potential dangers of religious zeal and fervor. Though it is not a new subject by any means, as there has been conflict between thinking and believing since the beginning of the written word.
Even before the enlightenment more than 300 years ago, when science began to crush many commonly held beliefs like 'the world is flat' or that we weren't meant to fly, philosophers considered every position that came to conclusions without sufficient evidence to be invalid and delusional while others saw fit to kill millions in the name of God if they refused to believe the way they did.
There was a very pacifist atheist movement that seemed to peak in the '60s, exemplified by John Lennon whose song, Imagine, stated an aspiration for a world where people walked 'hand in hand' and had no religion. That generation seemed satisfied with feeling intellectually superior to those who lived by faith.. These anti-establishment figures seemed to accept 'live and let live' as their mantra.
With the rise of the sexual revolution and drug experimentation, the right wingers worldwide decided they had to act affirmatively, not only within the confines of the church but to re-cross the line into government. The US seemed to be the place where this would least likely happen as there was a strong statement of belief in separation of church and state. But in the early eighties, we saw the rise of a disease that not only inconvenienced the sexually active, but killed them.
People like Jerry Falwell proclaimed AIDS had been sent by God to punish sinners. A thunder on the right made a minority of very loud evangelicals believe they were actually a majority, the "Moral Majority". They convinced enough people in the middle that conservatism was a good idea whether religiously inspired or not. Reagan was elected only 4 years after the fall of Nixon, and though he was nowhere near religious, he traded on the terminology of faith and managed to attract people from both the right and middle.
AIDS was initially thought to be simply sexually transmitted, but soon they discovered it could be transmitted through other means. This factor slightly quietened people like Falwell, but a huge new generation had already sprung forward, reacting to this biological imperative that was perceived to threaten the very continuation of the species. Resultantly, conservative, pro-big business, religious flag wavers, literally swept away a huge Democratic lead in the US legislature which had held since FDR.
If the 60's and 70's were a 'sexual' revolution, the 80's and 90's have been a 'fear' revolution, as the right began to reverse many freedoms and to prevent others from ever coming about from race to reproductive to marital rights. Despite the election of Democrat, Bill Clinton, there was still a deep undercurrent of religiously driven conservatism. But both sides liked Clinton as he sounded like a Southern preacher, but demonstrated his intelligence as a Yale-Rhodes scholar. He and his Yale lawyer wife seemed to be taking America and the world back toward the middle.
His presidency came to symbolize the conflict between religion and thought, values and results. And despite the results Clinton achieved in every category, the prevailing notion that conservatives continued to push was that religious values were more important than social and economic justice.
By this time, the atheists were no longer comfortable with a sense of intellectual superiority, but they began to affirmatively organize and frankly achieved a level of evangelical zeal equal to the religious right, though admittedly in smaller numbers.
With both sides feeling cornered and threatened, politics has become more and more polar. Though strange bedfellows, the atheists and other minorities formed an alliance against well-organized and funded right. The advantage the right had over the left was that there was a commonality of Christianity. Though lacking fervor, they were homogeneous. The right wing had convinced moderate Christians you had to be an atheist/communist /"pinko-fag" if you were voting for anyone other than those whom God had endorsed from the right.
Now with a conservative Christian (in name only) as President, proclaiming a mission to attack the 'axis of evil', in response to what he conveniently considered Christianity vs Islam (and everybody else), the right-wing had the US government there to officially advance their mission.
"You're either with us or against us," became the war-cry for George W. Bush, but it went further than foreign wars but resounded a sense that part of America had been disenfranchised and world opinion had been ignored.
Atheists began to speak with greater zeal than ever. They were angry. Websites and even "churches" of Atheism began to demand equal access to the pulpit. Armed with their heroes, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan and now, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have formalized their attack. And with the apparent failure of Bush's religious war they are feeling muscular and vocal. Hitchens morphed from a gentle, open minded, concerned academe, to a hell-fire and brimstone evangelist, with the same angry fervor as Bush. Hitchens even resoundingly celebrated the recent death of Jerry Falwell saying, "If there were a hell, Falwell would be there now."
Many atheists now are on a mission to remove what they consider a danger to society, ignorant religiosity. They truly believe we must act now to prevent the Religionists from committing new genocides in the name of God.
Now, we have both sides screaming at each other and the middle looking for an escape. Moderate Christians came back toward the middle and elected Democrats and began to exhibit tolerance for those with whom, in some cases, they differed spiritually. Meanwhile, now there is a resurgence among atheists who separate themselves from the extremists among them by calling themselves "agnostic" (not-knowing).
Please watch these films to get a sense of where Dawkins began and where he is now.
The premise in this introductory chapter, SLAVES OF SUPERSTITION, of a British TV series, ENEMIES OF REASON, is that society appears to be retreating from reason. Apparently harmless but utterly irrational belief systems from astrology to New Age mysticism, and clairvoyance to alternative health remedies, are booming. Evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins confronts what he considers an 'epidemic of irrational, superstitious thinking'. He considers 'the dangers the pick and mix of knowledge and nonsense poses in the internet age', and passionately re-states the case for reason and science.
48min2sec
Here, Dawkins asserts that belief in a god is irrational and inflicts great harm upon societies. BBC's Jeremy Paxman interviews Professor Dawkins about "The God Delusion".
9min35sec
Most recently, Hitchens' celebration of the death of Falwell. Watch as Hitchens demonstrates what EXACTLY Jerry Falwell is and stood for, a malevolent bigoted bully:
9min45sec
Most have seen plenty of examples of extreme religious zealots, so I will avoid supplying examples of the hatred expressed by those who profess love in all religions.
However, often misunderstood and mischaracterized, there are many peace-loving Muslims. This film, THE COLLAPSE OF ATHEISM is presented by a highly cross-denominational Turkish Muslim, Harun Yahya and is one of a series of religious films. However, this one should not be mistaken as evangelical in that it simply offers one of the most reasoned presentations of creationism and a long series of debunking of what through time, have been accepted scientific principals.
Yesterday in Washington, thousands of Christians marched against the war in front of the Whitehouse. More than 200 were arrested and fined, not for violence, but for standing instead of walking on the sidewalk.
If anyone thinks there is a liberal bias in American news reporting, take a second look, and a third... First of all, as Stephen Colbert likes to say, "Truth has a liberal bias". The big problem is, who is telling the real truth? Nobody on your cable dial.
Since it has become apparent that Fox "News" is winning the profits war and has for years with their conscious punditry for the right wing. In the documentary, "Outfoxed" ex-producers, writers and even some possibly still at work in the organization, outline a clear effort to play cheerleader for the Republican party, and to attack Dems, no matter what they do. Led by Britt Hume, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, they make no pretense of offering equal time to liberals while claiming in every other sentence, to be "fair and balanced."
Though nothing at CNN comes close to their blatant ignorance of the objectivity standards taught in every journalism school and heralded throughout US history, Fox is not the only one now as MSNBC tries to outfox fox by hiring Tucker Carlson (yes, the bowtie guy) and Chuck Scarborough to give them free reign to tell "terrorist sympathizers" and "leftists" to "shut up!" It's in this pervasive and accepted usage of the previous terms, "terrorist sympathizers" and "leftists" to describe anyone who disagrees with the war, that we find Fox has won, no matter how up popular the war becomes. Bottom line: it's more profitable, as advertisers are among the super rich that benefit from war.
As a professor of Critical Thinking, I teach students to convert editorialized/emotional terms to what they really are. In this case, "anti-Iraq war advocates" and "Democrats and moderates" should objectively replace the value laden, pejorative labels that are consistently used in every major media source, including CNN. True, CNN still is heads above the rest for their professionalism after they cleaned house of Carlson and shows like "Crossfire" which never offered an objective voice; however, even CNN barrels ahead with sensational conformism in their vocabulary.
Some may say they are simply unaware they are doing it, but anyone who actually went to Journalism School knows otherwise, and writers/producers of conscience are shaking their heads at every turn while the promotion departments and accountants apparently call the shots on editorial content and official terminology.
Since May 1, 2003 when we announced "Mission Accomplished", the war continues and some continue to think we are eventually going to be greeted as liberators, and that we will "win their hearts and minds." Though overwhelmed with the political commentary over this war, nothing speaks louder than the stark images of its horror
Al Gore is becoming a beloved figure very quickly. His movie, "Inconvenient Truth" has been a documentary blockbuster (trailer on this site). The Spike Jonze documentary-2000(Complete on this site) portrays him as very smooth and likable. If you still think he's plastic after this, you must have been a busted rubber!
Here's his animated version of the movie from Futurama--Very Funny! "A Terrifying Truth" 1min23sec
Al Gore Sings Grease Summer Nights about Global Warming
2min
Congratulations, Al! You're the best! Prez? Hand me the envelope please?
Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House. BY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. Illustration by Matt Mahurin
Are we in an era when the biggest threat to national security may be the belief that US elections are illegitimate?
If people of one party or all, stop voting because they believe the results are either not counted or purely fabricated, we face the likelihood of our government being perceived no differently than those in countries like Cuba or Venezuela. Some may believe that both parties are equally involved in "dirty tricks" or that there is just one. Both scenarios destroy faith. In America, we like to advertize that we are the beacon of democracy for the world.
At this juncture, we stand to lose our internal sense of representation but the larger concern is the rest of the world will lose faith in our example and may even totally ignore our elected officials believing they are not the voice of the American people. With more and more areas turning to paperless ballots, and of those with paper, more and more ballots being lost, destroyed or altered, what can we do?
This is the complete documentary film, Why We Fight.
What are the forces that shape and propel American militarism? This award-winning film provides an inside look at the anatomy of the American war machine.
Is American foreign policy dominated by the idea of military supremacy? Has the military become too important in American life?
Is the US government in the business of encouraging war around the world, just to sell arms?
This goes back to once General, President Eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex.
