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Review of “The Great Gatsby” (2013)

31 May

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Introduction: Classic Literature Doesn’t Always Make a Classic Film

Whenever a classic work of fiction is adapted for the silver screen, there is both a feeling of excitement and dread. Sometimes an essential work of literature like Les Misérables becomes a near-perfect film, moving audiences and refreshing old works for new times. However, more frequently the “liberties” taken by directors and producers turn great writings into cinematic trash unworthy of the price of admission. The Great Gatsby (2013) is such absolute cinematic trash, perpetuating misogyny, whitewashing racism and otherwise contributing little and detracting much from the original work.

This Film is Misogynistic

One of the most striking features of this bucket of cinematic bile is how women are depicted as existing for the sole purpose of fulfilling the sexual desires of men. Most women we see can either be seen clinging to the arms of men in suits two at a time or are shown in the near-nude dancing for a man’s entertainment. Black women in particular are sexually objectified. In one scene Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), the protagonist of the story, looks out of a window of his cousin’s husband’s mistress’ apartment to see a young black woman in lingerie dancing for an older white man, who later pulls her away from the window, most likely to a bed.

The primary female characters fare little better than the rest. Daisy (Carey Mulligan), Nick Carraway’s cousin, essentially exists as the disputed sex toy between Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton). She is portrayed as an idiotic, child-like person whose primary motivation is “having fun.” When speaking about how her husband was most likely with another woman while she was alone giving birth to their daughter, Daisy says that she was glad it was a girl so she could grow up to be “dumb.” Daisy is, as far as characters go, the weakest in the movie, lacking any development whatsoever. The other most prominent female character is Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki), Daisy’s friend, whose primary motivation is bedding powerful, wealthy and notorious men. The only other female who even has a name is Tom Buchanan’s mistress Myrtle Wilson (Isla Fisher) who appears in only a handful of scenes and has no purpose in the story other than having sex with Tom and being hit by a car. All women in this film are shown either in revealing flapper attire, barely-there cocktail dresses, or in their underwear.

Another fault of this film’s engagement with gender is how, like other Hollywood films, it reduces love and romantic relationships to sex, with the feelings that romantically-involved characters have for one another being measurable by the number of times they have sex during the course of the film. What this kind of perspective on love does is perpetuate the notion that the pinnacle of human intimacy and human relationships is intercourse. The only “evidence” that Daisy and Gatsby are in love comes from the cluster of scenes wherein the two have sex. There are no deep talks or any real communication; just scenes of Gatsby allowing Daisy to admire the wealth he has accrued interspliced with sex. What this kind of depiction of romantic relationships does is it motivates the sexual objectification of women, communicating the idea for women to have intimate and committed relationships, they need to be willing to submit to the sexual advances of their partner for their love to truly exist, and that men need to dominate a woman sexually before he can be said to “have” her.

This concept of a man possessing a woman motivates the central conflict of the story. Both Gatsby and Tom Buchanan are motivated by possessing Daisy physically and psychologically. In the main confrontation between Tom Buchanan and Gatsby, Gatsby is determined to make Daisy say that she never loved Tom and her husband, who is widely known as having a mistress, expresses hypocritical indignation toward Daisy’s affair with Gatsby and argues that Gatsby is of insufficient “breeding” to be with her. Daisy is ultimately unable to chose, making her seem more like sexual cattle than a person with thoughts, feelings and goals in life. With this being the female lead in the story, it’s safe to say that The Great Gatsby‘s depiction of women leaves much to be desired.

This Film is Racist

Any student of U.S. history should know that the 1920′s was not a good time to be a black person in America. The south was an open apartheid regime which enforced the second-class status of blacks through all-white juries and terrorist violence, with some being lynched and even burned alive. The north fared little better, with entire towns enforcing racial homogeneity by expelling all black workers from their community by sundown (these towns were called “sundown towns” and existed in the north as well as the south). While American communists were fighting the opening battles of the civil rights struggle, liberalism hadn’t yet caught up, and blacks all across the country lived lives of discrimination, exploitation and comparative poverty.

This film whitewashes this history by showing well-off black men adorned in gold jewelry, in scenes reminiscent of current rap videos. In a scene where Nick Carraway has lunch with Gatsby in a speak-easy in the rear of a barbershop, we see black women in the near-nude dancing before a crowd and singing the chorus of Jay-Z song “Hundred Dollar Bill.” Black women in the film are viewed exclusively as sexual objects, and frequently the sexual objects of wealthy white men. Black men are either well-dressed members of a criminal underworld or servants to the wealthy white characters. There is only one black person who has a speaking role in the film, and his only contribution is to describe a car used in a hit-and-run.

While the film does make passing reference to the eugenics movement, with Tom Buchanan being an open proponent of scientific racism and the domination of “inferior races” by whites, this was done mostly to cast him in the role of villain and make the viewer more sympathetic to Gatsby as the “lesser evil.” In all, this film is reprehensible for its casual racism and whitewashing of racial oppression in U.S. history

Everything Else about This Film is Terrible

As if racism and misogyny aren’t enough to condemn this film, every other aspect seems purposefully designed to alienate all audiences. Fans of the original book will loathe the butchery of Fitzgerald’s work through a combination of bad acting, a musical score that is entirely inappropriate for the time and theme of the original story, and costume design which, combined with the other factors, make this film a gaudy mess – with the gaudiness being celebrated rather than condemned.

Those drawn in by the trailers featuring grand parties and modern music will have to experience a ham performance of Fitzgerald’s original tragic love story. Fans of film will be disappointed by these two aspects combined as gaudy visuals, boring plot execution, unlikeable characters, a protagonist you strongly expect to be a sociopath and an ending far from satisfying, fulfilling or instructive make this film decidedly unwatchable.

The Great Gatsby (2013) is a waste of time and talent, and there is no audience imaginable who wouldn’t find some aspect of this film offensive.

Of Flags & Butter: An Analysis of American White Supremacy Through Symbols

23 Apr

confederate butter

American racism and white supremacy is not limited to the physical realm, but is also a mental phenomenon – it is possible for the mind to be colonized by racist and white supremacist ideology, just as it is possible for entire nations and peoples to be colonized and occupied by foreign powers. The ideological superstructure of a nation can thus be used as a weapon by a dominant racist ideology in order to reinforce the rule of a dominant set of ideas; those belonging to the ruling class of society which benefits from the status quo of institutionalized racism against non-European groups and modes of thought. Examples of this use of prominent symbols in the continuing process of racial objectification are the issues regarding display of the Confederate flag and the “Indian maiden” mascot for Land O’Lakes brand butter. The battle flag of the Confederate States of America and the logo of Land O’Lakes demonstrate the use of symbols to perpetuate and reinforce white supremacy in the realm of ideas through the technique of racist stereotyping and whitewashing of history, respectively. Both examples are important symbols of race that have their roots in historical events, but remain relevant to contemporary Americans.

Native scholar and activist Ward Churchill aptly describes perpetuating and implementing a white supremacist agenda through the spreading of such symbols in his book, From a Native Son: Selected Essays on Indigenism, 1985-1995. “As was established in the Streicher precedent at Nuremberg, the cause and effect relationship between racist propaganda on the one hand and genocidal policy implementation on the other is quite plain” (Churchill 450). He mentions specifically that “Land-o-Lakes [sic] finds it appropriate to market its butter through use of a stereotyped image of an ‘Indian Princess’ on the wrapper” (Churchill 450). Stereotypical and degrading images of racial minorities have been used to sell products in the United States for centuries, serving the interests of the capitalist class by selling the products themselves and reinforcing white supremacy through the use of images as an added bonus. As these stereotypical images are often associated with products that people have come to know and love, discussing the racist implications of the images and logos themselves remains a touchy subject. From Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima to Chiquita Bananas and the recent controversial Brooklyn restaurant selling Obama Fried Chicken, food commodities do not stand above promoting stereotypes and reinforcing white supremacy in American society. Racist imagery and symbols are visible everywhere, one primary example being right in the dairy section of your local grocery store – the Land O’Lakes butter mascot known as the “Indian maiden.”

Land O’Lakes Inc. itself is based in Minnesota, the home territory of the fictional Native woman Minnehaha and the real-life legend Hiawatha. Land O’Lakes decided in 1928 to capitalize on this history to sell their product, and have resisted many attempts and petitions by activists to change their logo. The “Land O Lakes” logo on their butter and other products features the famous image of a Native American women on her knees in a servile manner presenting the butter to the customer. The Native woman herself is in a traditional buckskin outfit with beaded embroidery, with two braids in her stereotypically long, straight black hair, and also wear a headdress with feathers sticking upwards. She bears a bright and cheery smile as she presents the product. The background of the logo features lakes and pines in a relaxing natural setting. The image itself is well-known and widely spread. The Land O’Lakes company is one the largest producers of dairy products such as butter and cheese in the United States, and the logo featuring the Native woman has been a mainstay of their butter’s packaging since 1928. Despite controversy, they have repeatedly refused to change it. What message does the content of the logo itself send?

The appearance of the “Indian maiden” owes more to stereotypes of Native peoples and culture promoted in the media and Hollywood than it does any reality of the Native nations that inhabited the plains of North America. The name itself “Land O Lakes” comes from a phrase used by European settlers to describe Minnesota – the land of ten thousand lakes. The name used by the company for this logo is the “Indian maiden,” a term deemed derogatory today, with most Natives preferring the terms “Native peoples” or “first nations.” The term “Indian” to mean the Indigenous nations of the Americas is based upon the European settlers’ mistaken belief they had landed in the West Indies. The design of the logo on Land O’Lakes butter exploits racist stereotypes of Native American culture and the mascot’s servile pose serves to place both Natives and women into a position of servitude to the customer, presenting them with a product as a servant would. The kneeling of the “Indian maiden” clearly puts her in a position of service to a higher power.

Every aspect of the Native woman in the logo is based on American stereotypes of Natives, from her animal skin outfit and beads, to her headdress and hair style, and even the to the idea of the slender, cheerful and naive Native princess character, epitomized in other infamous portrayals of this archetype such as the wildly inaccurate adaptations of the story of Pocahontas. The wide smile donned by the woman in the logo serves an ideological purpose as well, quite literally putting a smile on a history of ethnic cleansing and genocide of Natives. The image of the Native woman offering the butter in a servile pose is offered as a positive image, associated with a widely-consumed food product. It amounts to dehumanization of Natives and women and the further stereotyping of an entire culture, all for the purpose of selling a commodity. In this equation, someone is clearly benefiting from having descendents of Europeans ignorant about Native Americans.

The Land O’Lakes logo clearly promotes a simplistic characterization of both the history and the present of Native Americans. The efforts at cultural genocide by the contemporary United States government and U.S. companies are undeniably “concerted, sustained, and in some ways accelerating effort has gone into making Indians unreal” (Churchill 450). White supremacy does not have to be such an overt practice as vocally advocating genocide – why bother with such incriminating statements when actions speak louder than words? Propaganda through the use of symbols such as these can influence perception and opinion more effectively in a thousand subtle ways during everyday activity. Consciously or unconsciously, these images help shape our views of reality, sometimes on a mass scale. “Some of the most common stereotyping traps are various forms of romanticization; historical inaccuracies; stereotyping by omission; and simplistic characterizations” (MediaSmarts). The issue of the racist or chauvinist nature of such symbols is by no means a small issue. Symbols are powerful tools to communicate messages in a compact form, including messages of stereotypes and white supremacy.

The article “Common Portrayals of Aboriginal People” demonstrates the influence of such widely consumed media: “[f]or over a hundred years, Westerns and documentaries have shaped the public’s perception of Native people” (MediaSmarts). The Land O’Lakes butter logo can be understood in the context of its historical roots; that of both physical genocide against Native Americans and the cultural genocide within the mental realm. Even more troublesome is the origin of the Native princess archetype in the first place. “The Indian Princess is the Native beauty who is sympathetic enough to the white man’s quest to be lured away from her group to marry into his culture and further his mission to civilize her people” (MediaSmarts). From examining the logo, we can see that the composite imagery presented on Land O’Lakes butter falls within the criteria of this archetype.

Another example of a popularized and hotly debated symbol of racism is the infamous battle flag of the Confederate States of America, an unrecognized separatist state that existed from 1861-1865 in the southern slave states which declared their secession from the United States, has been the source of strong controversy and debate on the nature of symbols in perpetuating racism. Since the end of the American Civil War, use of the flag has continued, both in the form of personal use of the Confederate battle flag and the use of variant flags with the “stars and bars” and battle flag design as basis for the state flags of Southern U.S. states, such as Mississippi and Georgia, which were once part of the pro-slavery Confederacy.

Despite the flag’s history of being the battle standard for the slave states, “the flag is seen by some Southerners simply as a symbol of Southern pride, it is often used by racists to represent white domination of African-Americans” (Anti-Defamation League, Hate on Display). The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) classifies the flag as a general racist symbol and a common standard to use for racist and white nationalist groups who believe in a revanchist South. The manifestations of this phenomenon are contemporary but once again rooted in the historical context from which they arose. The design is a dark blue St. George’s Cross on a red field. The flag’s stars represent the states of the Confederacy. The popularized flag is not the state flag of the Confederacy, but rather the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, the primary military force for the Confederacy in the Eastern Theater of the Civil War. This Army of Northern Virginia battle flag was also adopted by many other Confederate military units which fought in the Civil War. The flag, therefore, is not a governmental or official flag of the Confederacy, but specifically a military standard, often being called the “Battle Flag.” In Germany and many other countries, display of the Nazi swastika and other fascist symbols has been outlawed except for scholarly reasons. This option should be considered in an American context in order to suppress the intentional glorification of slavery and racism.

The Confederate flag is undeniably a racist symbol, not primarily a cultural one. Many hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan use the Confederate battle flag as a symbol of white supremacism, and southern states have chosen to display variants based on the Confederate flags on state property. The historical role played by the military flag in question addresses a history of the American continent that is seldom told and might undermine the common perception of the United States as a bastion of freedom, democracy and justice in the world. This being the case, there is a historical falsification of the Civil War being promoted here. After the end of the Civil War, groups like the KKK unleashed a campaign of racist terror across the American South during Reconstruction. There is little attention given to these days, or to how widespread institutionalized racism was and is in the United States, and myths of a “post-racial society” abound.

Historical revisionists and Southern nationalists, as well as various neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups, now weave together stories of the Ku Klux Klan as a benevolent human rights organization, of the South’s independent spirit, and, most of all, of the supposed social and racial progress of the system of the Confederate States of America. The entire exercise of pretending to be uncertain about the racist implications of the Confederate flag only serves to muddle the issue of America’s slave history even more. The dominant ideology, to exist, must perpetuate the myth that the United States of America ever saw the emergence of white supremacy as an institution, never fought a war over slavery, never failed at Reconstruction and usher in the Jim Crow laws, and doesn’t have a problem with racism today. The main feelings evoked by the display of the Confederate flag are prejudicial and therefore the symbol itself must be considered to promote discrimination. Even when viewed by those with no obvious prejudice, the symbol encourages stereotypical and racist views.

The history of the Confederate States of America is undeniably connected with slavery and oppression of Africans. Some people may claim the flag represents the Southern heritage. But for black Americans, the flag symbolizes a dark period of history filled with slavery, racist terrorism, lynching, oppression and racial apartheid, all approved at the highest levels of the American government. As has been demonstrated, the Confederate battle flag never actually represented the Confederate government. The many versions of Confederate flags depended on the region they were used in and what Southern regiment they represented. The blatant waving of the so-called “rebel” or “Dixie” flag, a flag of bloodshed and war, a battle flag specifically designed for violence in defense of slavery, cannot help but encourage racist attitudes.

Both the Land O’Lakes logo and the Confederate battle flag are symbols which hold the power to communicate racist messages. Part of the cultural genocide in the United States for such oppressed groups is the denial of any continuing reality of unconscious racism and white supremacist thought. The symbol has the greatest capacity to influence perceptions and attitudes in the South. The meaning of the Confederate flag is not limited to history or fetishization of a particular “heritage,” but is far more complex. Advocates of such symbols as the flag’s display may argue that to outlaw or forbid their display may in of itself be whitewashing of the history of slavery and downplaying the significance of the Civil War. However, since these particular legal measures against such hateful imagery in countries such as Germany include display and recording for scholarly and historical reasons, the most emphatic proponents of display the symbol can reasonably be expected to have much darker motivations.

On the one hand, you have the Land O’Lakes logo, which appears to be a bright, warm and generous depiction of a Native woman offering butter but hides one example of many of white supremacy in American culture, and on the other, you have the militaristic battle flag of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, aggressively emblazoned with its signature red and dark blue, being justified as heritage. In both cases a rather insidious agenda of embedding white supremacy into such innocent, appealing or romanticized symbols can be discerned. There can be no assertion these symbols go without much notice – the Land O’Lakes logo with the “Indian maiden,” as she continues to be referred to by the company, has continued to adorn all their products. The Confederate flag continues to be the basis for the flags of more than a dozen U.S. states and the defining symbol for the white nationalist movement in the U.S. Although both symbols can be considered more contemporary manifestations, by no means can it be said that the many years since their origin have reduced their importance, meaning or potency as symbols.

When discussing the potential racist impact of these symbols, the issue that is often skirted and ignored in favor of individualistic reasons of personal motivation and individual freedom is that of “color blind” racism. The claim that these symbols can be divorced from the material conditions of colonialism that gave them birth owes its existence to the idealist idea of equal discourse in the context of a European-dominated society, and this relies on faith in the idea of American “color blindness” or “post-racial society” to imagine equal opportunity discourse between racist ideas, when in reality, discourse in the United States is not equal for each race and will invariably produce unequal results. The idea that the game being played is absolutely fair is an idea that benefits the party that’s winning, but the winners and the losers in American society are not usually emphasized by discourse as long as the competition can simply be deemed to be fair. The attempts to address the issues that these symbols raise without getting into the question of racism, or through the lens of “color blindness,” are really just ways to avoid acknowledgment of the very real racial discrimination in American history as well as modern-day America. In practice, this amounts an intentional failure to acknowledge white supremacy, and must be viewed in objective aid of the perpetuation of white supremacy. If humanity is ever to create a world where such stereotypes and racist imagery don’t shape our reality, we must call out white supremacist imagery for what is truly is.

Sources

Anti-Defamation League. (n.d.). Hate on Display: A visual database of extremist symbols, logos and tattoos. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.adl.org/hate_symbols/racist_confederate_flag.asp

Churchill, W. (1999). From a Native son: selected essays on Indigenism, 1985-1995. (p. 450). South End Press.

MediaSmarts. (n.d.). Common Portrayals of Aboriginal people. Retrieved from http://mediasmarts.ca/diversity-media/aboriginal-people/common-portrayals-aboriginal-people

‘Innocence of Muslims’ filmmaker was a federal informant

27 Sep

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (2nd R) is escorted out of his home by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officers in Cerritos, California.(Reuters / Bret Hartman)

Much remains unanswered about the US-made film that sparked riots across the Arab World, but more is unraveling by the day regarding the movie’s producer. Now it’s reported that the man behind ‘Innocence of Muslims’ was once a federal informant.

In the wake of a serious of violent outbursts that have targeted American facilities abroad and left at least 40 dead including one US ambassador, authorities and media outlets in the United States continue to comb through information about the film that’s considered the catalyst in the attacks, an anti-Islam flick branded overseas under the name ‘Innocence of Muslims.’ Less than a week after four Americans were killed at a US consulate in Benghazi, it’s now being revealed that the film’s producer, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, worked for the feds.

A court transcript obtained by the Smoking Gun shows that, as recently as 2010, Mr. Nakoula was identified as a federal informant, a title that his attorneys hoped would help in his case when he went before sentencing that year over an earlier conviction for check fraud.

According to the transcripts, attorneys for Mr. Nakoula pleaded for leniency when their client was sentenced in June 2010, arguing that “cooperation” with prosecutors in a separate case should be taken into consideration. Authorities had hoped that Nakoula would provide them with an direct link to Eiad Salameh, the mastermind of a check kiting scheme described in court papers as “a notorious fraudster who has been tracked for more than a decade by state and federal investigators.”

On his own part, Nakoula pleaded that he had agreed to assist the government in order to reverse his wrongdoing.

“I would like to start that I’m sorry for what happened,” Nakoula told a judge, the transcript reveals. “Now I know that it was wrong. Therefore, I decided to cooperate with the government to retrieve some of these mistakes or damage happened. I want to cooperate with the government so that they can catch with this other criminals who is their involvement.”

That wasn’t Nakoula’s first run-in with the law, and might not be his last either. Authorities are currently investigating his role with ‘Innocence of Muslims,’ which has since been tied to an array of mob assaults in the Muslim World. Before his conviction for check fraud, though, he was charged with “intent to manufacture phencyclidine,” or PCP, back in 1997 after he was caught with dozens of boxes of pharmaceuticals and $45,000 in cash.

Source

Journalist arrested for defacing anti-Muslim ad in NYC subway

27 Sep

Mona Eltahawy.(Screenshot from YouTube user yt4wa)

An Egyptian-American activist was arrested by the NYPD on Tuesday and charged with criminal mischief and graffiti for spray-painting an advertisement in a New York subway station that had been viewed as hateful to Muslims.

Mona Eltahawy, 45, was detained by officers with the New York Police Department and held overnight after her attempts to cover-up an anti-Islamic advert in a Manhattan subway station yielded a minor scuffle with a woman who insisted on shielding the poster with her own body.

On Monday, ten advertisements went up across New York City that were paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), a group spearheaded by Pamela Geller, a 54-year-old activist and author who co-founded the Stop Islamization of America organization and has been chastised by both the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The posters all read “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” Authorities in New York first rejected Geller’s purchasing of ad space, but were forced in court to let her have her way on the basis of freedom of speech protections.

Eltahawy tweeted on Tuesday that she had purchased a can of pink spray paint and followed up by writing, “Fuck Pam Geller and her band of haters.”

“I believe in the right to offend & the right to protest that offense peacefully. And I will call you a racist & bigoted shit as I protest,” she added.

Eltahawy tweeted Tuesday afternoon that it was “pink spray paint time,” then disappeared off Twitter for several hours, only for a post to be published later in the evening acknowledging that she had been charged with a misdemeanor.

Video (YouTube) has since surfaced of the incident, which begins with Eltahawy attempting to cover up Geller’s poster with spray paint until she is quickly approached by a woman holding a camera

“Mona, you think you have a right to do this?” a woman identified as Pamela Hall asks Eltahawy.

“I do actually. I think this is freedom of expression, just as this is freedom of expression,” Eltahawy responds, all the while continuing her attempts to cover-up the poster.

The two women continue to argue, with their altercation pinnacling with Hall hugging the poster with her body, a maneuver that Eltahawy countered by discharging her spray paint can still.

“Defend racism,” Eltahawy tells her. “Put your body between me and racism.”

The incident goes on for several minutes until a NYPD officer approaches Eltahawy and arrests her. Despite asking repeatedly for the cop to explain what crimes she is being charged with, Eltahawy is handcuffed and hauled off without ever being told.

“This is non-violent protest,” Eltahawy says in the clip. “You see this America? This is non-violent protest. This is what happens to non-violent protesters in America in 2012.”

The cops explain that Eltahawy could have injured the woman if the spray-paint ended up in her eye.

Robin Morgan, an Award-winning writer, activist and journalist, tweeted early Tuesday that the NYPD was “very sympathetic” and acknowledges that the city attempted to prevent the posters from being hung, so much so that the case ended up in court.

On a blog maintained by Geller, a post made on Tuesday identified Eltahawy as an “Islamic supremacist journalist” and says her arrest was a result of “assaulting a defender of freedom.”

“This again proves the Islamic supremacists and the Leftist thugs are dedicated to shutting down free speech,” the post reads. “Anti-Israel ads ran all over the country without a murmur of protest; but this pro-Israel ad was hardly up an hour before fascist thugs like Eltahawy went to work to deface it.”

A well known Egyptian-American journalist, Eltahawy has previously reported for both Reuters and the Guardian, and also appeared frequently as a guest on RT. Much of her work has been dedicated to defending minorities’ rights. Now she will have to defend herself in a New York court.

Update: Mona Eltahawy confirmed over Twitter just before 4 p.m. local time in New York that she was released from law enforcement custody.

“I am proud that I spray painted that racist piece of shit poster. It’s protected speech and what I did us also protected speech,” she tweeted.

Source

Political Cartoon: Nothing to worry about, it’s just the Mohammed cartoons

26 Sep

Source

Political Cartoons: Cartoon Suggestions for Charlie Hebdo – West’s double standard on mocking Muslims, Jews

26 Sep

Source, Source

Political Cartoon: Anti-Islam film: Playing with (sacred) FIRE!

20 Sep

Source

Video: US embassies in Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen attacked by angry mobs

14 Sep

Political Cartoon: “Innocence of Muslims”: The film that KILLS!

13 Sep

Source

Political Cartoon: And the Oscar goes to…Islamophobia

13 Sep

Source

Israeli Court Whitewashes Military Role in Murder of American Activist

4 Sep

Rachel Aliene Corrie

No Justice for Martyred Internationalist

On 28 August 2012, an Israeli court in Haifa rejected charges that the Israeli Defense Forces or Israel’s Ministry of Defense were in any way responsible for the killing of American internationalist and solidarity activist Rachel Corrie in 2003.

In a widely televised and reported event, Ms. Corrie, a member of the International Solidarity Movement, an organization which calls for non-violent protest against the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, was crushed to death by an Israeli Defense Force bulldozer that was demolishing Palestinian homes in retaliation for the acts of “terrorists.” As photographs taken by eyewitnesses demonstrate, Ms. Corrie, who was wearing a fluorescent jacket and speaking into a megaphone at the time, was deliberately run over by the bulldozer’s driver.

Ms. Corrie’s murder sparked worldwide outrage against the Israeli regime and demands that those responsible be held accountable for their acts. The Haifa court’s decision makes it extremely unlikely that any justice will be had.

In the years since her killing, Rachel Corrie has been the subject of numerous posthumous tributes and memorials, including a successful play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, directed by British actor Alan Rickman. Let Me Stand Alone, a collection of Ms. Corrie’s writings was published by W. W. Norton and Company in 2008.

Review of “Animal Farm” (1954 & 1999 Films)

26 Jul


Introduction

Hailed by capitalist literary critics, Trotskyites and anarchists as a masterpiece, the mediocre book Animal Farm has served a very important role in distorting the history of socialism in the Soviet Union. Modern editions of the book hail author George Orwell’s selfless journalistic integrity in producing the work, which is said to be a totally accurate portrayal of life under socialism.

But a close examination tells differently. Especially important in understanding the true reason Animal Farm is still crammed down the throats of the public are the two film versions of Animal Farm.

“The CIA obtained the film rights to “Animal Farm” from Orwell’s widow, Sonia, after his death and covertly funded the production as anti-Communist propaganda. Some sources assert that the ending of the story was altered by the CIA (in the book, the pigs and humans join forces) to press home their message[.]” [1].

The CIA agent Howard Hunt, who bought the film rights, also helped set up production of the 1984 movie, which also changed the ending of the original book to be more anti-communist.

“The head of the CIA operation to obtain the film rights was none other than E. Howard Hunt, later famous as Nixon’s Watergate burglar. As part of the deal, Sonia Orwell requested that she get to meet her idol, Clark Gable; this was arranged. A large portion of the budget ($300,000 out of a cost of over $500,000) was supplied by the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Policy Coordination, through one of its shell corporations, Touchstone Inc” [2].

Animal Farm has become a classic of capitalist propaganda. First published during World War II, it conveniently packages decades’ worth of lies about socialism in the U.S.S.R., and more specifically the leadership of Joseph Stalin, into an easy-to-understand book small enough to fit in your pocket. Animal Farm is supposed to be a classic satire and critique of socialism; however, George Orwell never went to the U.S.S.R., and received all the information he knew from anti-communists. The book is not journalism at all, and should not be considered the be-all end-all of learning about Soviet socialism.

Plot Summery

The original book and the two films have roughly the same basic plot. Subtitled “a political fable,” Animal Farm tells the tale of the poor and ill-run Manor Farm, managed by the drunken farmer Jones, who abuses the animals. The neglected creatures are called to a meeting by a wise old pig named Old Major, who tells them that if they will rise up together, they can overthrow Jones and create a new world where all animals will be free and equal. Led by a clever pig named Snowball, the beasts run Jones off the farm and take all his property for themselves, proudly renaming the plot Animal Farm.

Conditions improve at first, but the pigs (smartest of the animals) begin to keep certain luxuries, like apples, for themselves. The greedy and mediocre pig Napoleon uses a gang of trained dogs he has brainwashed to run Snowball off the farm and institute a new, terrifying society not at all like the one envisaged by Old Major. Life for the pigs gets better and better, but the other animals are murdered and starved and battered into an oppression worse and more horrifying than existed when Jones ran the farm.

Orwell made no attempt at subtlety – even children can see without much difficulty that Animal Farm is a crude metaphor for the Soviet Union – Napoleon is Stalin, and Snowball is Stalin’s rival Leon Trotsky, who was justly exiled from the U.S.S.R. in the mid 1920s.

Review of Both Films

The first of the two films based on the book, released in 1954 and made possible by funding from the notorious American Central Intelligence Agency, is a dark and gloomy cartoon that, true to the book, paints a disgusting picture of Animal Farm and the struggle between the white pig Snowball and the black and conniving Napoleon.

The second film, released in 1999 and produced by Hallmark, is a live action film boasting a cast of stars including Patrick Stewart, Seinfeld’s Julia-Louis Dreyfus and Fraiser’s Kelsey Grammer. Both of these films have been made easily available to anyone with a computer, with the first film streaming for free on Hulu and the second on services like Netflix and YouTube.

What makes these films important is the way they deviate from Orwell’s book, especially when it comes to the endings. In his original work, Orwell closes the novel with a scene in which the animals realize that they are no longer able to tell their bloated pig leaders from the human farmers who oppressed them. It is a closing of cynical misery, driving home Orwell’s anti-revolutionary idea that any attempt by the workers to create a better world for themselves would only end in the same kind of tyranny they overthrew.

But both of the films go a step further. The 1954 animated ends quite differently than the book. The mistreated animals from many farms join together and, instead of attacking their human owners, march defiantly to Animal Farm and kill Napoleon. We must bear in mind who it was that funded this change – the CIA. The message is simple, and directed at the Soviet peoples – “Not only is your new government atrocious, you can and must overthrow it now!” The CIA, of course, was ever working for this to happen, but failed miserably during the Soviet Union’s time as a socialist country.

The 1999 live action version was made decades after the Stalin era, and does not bother leaving the plot and end open to interpretation. In the ending sequence, in a clumsy attempt to be poetic, a heavy rain “washes away” Napoleon’s government, the animals welcome a loving new human family to the farm to boss them about, command them, consume them and exploit them. The film closes with a shot of the sickeningly stereotypical family driving up to what was once Animal Farm, their smiles suggesting that the problem all along was just that Jones was a bad owner. All the animals really needed was to be owned and exploited by a family more like the Cleavers.

In these films, the biased and deceitful nature of Animal Farm is laid bare. Going a step further than the slanders of Orwell’s book, they openly call for violent counterrevolution in the Soviet Union.

Conclusion

The films themselves – taken as art – are as bad as their message. It is a real chore to sit through the creepy “Dr. Dolittle” talking animals of the 1999 Hallmark film or the poorly animated and clumsily sinister tone of the 1954 release. The dialogue is absolutely painful, and the voice performances, even Patrick Stewart as Napoleon, are phoned-in and uninspired.

The artistic elements are secondary, both for us and for the people who made them. What is important to understand about films like Animal Farm is why they are made – for propaganda. Both films, as well as the original book, have no appeal as art whatsoever other than their obvious metaphor for the Soviet Union. Without that, the films are hollow.

The pseudo-history of the U.S.S.R. presented in Animal Farm is junk, but we are pushed to accept it as fact. Many people do, since Animal Farm is a fictional work, there is no need for citations and it can be difficult for the defenders of socialism to argue against its more specific, ludicrous claims because they are hidden within a fairy tale. Worst yet, many people accept the attitude of Animal Farm, believing like the film’s donkey Benjamin that no matter what they do or how hard they fight, things will only end up worse than before.

The two Animal Farm films are worth seeing only as a way to get to know what you’re up against and as a great glimpse into how the capitalist media uses popular culture to promote its ideological objectives. But as films in their own right, they are contrived and soulless. Anyone looking for a good film to relax with for an hour or so should look elsewhere.

Sources

(1) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047834/trivia

(2) http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/031800-02.htm

Kim Dotcom judge rules Megaupload founder mansion raid was illegal

29 Jun

New Zealand police ‘exceeded authority’ when storming home of Megaupload founder, who US wants to extradite

by Toby Manhire

Attempts to extradite internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom to the US have suffered a further setback, with a ruling in the New Zealand high court that a raid on his Auckland mansion was illegal.

Justice Helen Winkelmann said the warrants used when more than 90 New Zealand officers stormed the Megaupload founder’s home and other properties in January were too broadly cast, “lacking adequate specificity as to the offence”.

“The search and seizure was therefore illegal,” she ruled, adding that it was “clear that the police, in executing the warrants, have exceeded what they could lawfully be authorised to do”.

In a strongly worded, 56-page judgment, which may call into question the admissibility of evidence in any future extradition hearings, Winkelmann said police had acted unlawfully by refusing to release material that was not relevant to the charges, and that their provision to the FBI of cloned hard drives seized in the raid was in breach of extradition legislation. Among the seized items that police have refused to release is video footage captured by Dotcom’s surveillance cameras of the raid on the mansion.

The German-born New Zealand resident and several of his associates are being sought on copyright and racketeering charges as part of what the FBI calls a “mega-conspiracy”. US prosecutors allege that Dotcom abetted the widespread exchange of copyright-protected material through the Megaupload site.

Winkelmann ordered both sides to appear in court on 4 July to consider “appropriate remedy or remedies”.

In a statement, Kim Dotcom and his fellow accused said: “We are very happy with today’s decision. We are digesting and analysing Justice Winkelmann’s judgment and considering our next steps.”

The police declined to comment.

On Friday, Dotcom’s lawyers will argue at the Virginia federal court that the US justice department’s case against Megaupload should be thrown out. “As a foreign corporation with no agents or offices in the United States,” they say, the company is beyond US jurisdiction. They will also ask the court to order that the Megaupload site, which was shut down in January, be restored so that users can retrieve material saved there.

In New Zealand, meanwhile, Dotcom has been on something of a charm offensive, making a series of appearances at public events and creating a minor media storm by hosting a trio of his Twitter followers at a pool party at his mansion on Sunday evening. Such was the success of #swimatkims that Dotcom has promised to stage a public pool party in Auckland to raise funds for charities and “swim for internet freedom”.

Source

These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America

24 Jun

by Ashley Lutz

his infographic created by Jason at Frugal Dad shows that almost all media comes from the same six sources.

That’s consolidated from 50 companies back in 1983.

NOTE: This infographic is from last year and is missing some key transactions. GE does not own NBC (or Comcast or any media) anymore. So that 6th company is now Comcast. And Time Warner doesn’t own AOL, so Huffington Post isn’t affiliated with them.

But the fact that a few companies own everything demonstrates “the illusion of choice,” Frugal Dad says. While some big sites, like Digg and Reddit aren’t owned by any of the corporations, Time Warner owns news sites read by millions of Americans every year.

Here’s the graphic:

Source

Documentary unveils rape in US military with testimonials

4 Jun

A new feature film documentary is winning festival awards and garnering national attention for its in-depth focus on the thousands of women raped every year within the U.S. military.

The makers of “The Invisible War” solicited personal stories from victims and interviewed about 70 for hours each.

At one point in the theatrical trailer, one woman, Kori Cioca, who says she was raped by her supervisor in the U.S. Coast Guard, brandished a hand knife with a blade longer than her fingers, explaining how she carries it on her at all times.

“You always have protection with Jesus but sometimes you need just a little bit more,” said Cioca, who was also holding a metal cross.

According to the Defense Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response report for 2011, of the 2,617 reported assaults, it is estimated that the figure represents only 14 percent of all actual offenses, making the total number of victims at 19,000 last year.

Of the 2011 sexual assaults, 191 military members were convicted as courts-martial, according to the film’s website.

Cioca’s attacker admitted to breaking her jaw and other physical abuse but not the rape, according to the film. She is now battling with Veterans Affairs to win approval for surgery.

In addition to numerous victims, the documentary interviews military and defense personnel, elected officials, mental health professionals and others.

Besides attempting to chronicle the crimes, the film aims to expose how the threat persists and how wide-spread the damage can be.

“The military is a very effective fighting force when it comes to dealing with the enemy without. It’s really now time for them to start dealing with this enemy within,” said one of the filmmakers Kirby Dick.

Among other awards, “The Invisible War” won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award and is set to open at select theaters June 22.

Source

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