Thanks for sharing this piece. I disagree with Wolf that The Hurt Locker was a beautiful, brave film. Yes, it depicted war-time stress, but it also projected intensely racist stereotypes and made militarism seem heroic and exciting. Recall the ending, in which the main character marches back into a war zone, blaring metal music driving away any tragic sympathy we might be feeling for him (or the wife and baby he leaves behind). Could the Department of Defense have scripted a better advertisement for reenlistment? I think it fits very comfortably alongside the corny advertisements the DoD pays for itself.<div>
<div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 3:33 PM, "E. Wayne Johnson 朱稳森" <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ewj@pigsqq.org" target="_blank">ewj@pigsqq.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<u></u>
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
Naomi Wolf originally was a supporter of the Obot way back in early '08
before she <br>
somehow got "woke up" and "chose the red pill".<br>
<br>
She clearly pointed out in her speech at the R[3OVJ]UTION march at the
steps <br>
of the Capitol Bldg. and in her documentary and book End of America
exactly<br>
what steps the Obama Administration would take in continuing and
intensifying <br>
the authoritarian anti-we-the-people pro-war pro-fascist policies of
the Bush Admin.<br>
<br>
She has also pointed out how ridiculous are the charges against Assange.<br>
<br>
Naomi is not exactly a Cassandra figure. Some people are listening but
so far<br>
those listening are not enough for the PTB to put the Tim Johnson-esque
<br>
Assange-like quietus on her. The freedom of the press (the freedom of
the <br>
US Government to press down hard on those who expose it effectively)
would be expected to<br>
eventually pressure her somehow. <br>
<br>
Perhaps they will investigate her tax returns. Who knows what else
they will do<br>
if she becomes a really credible threat. Another option is for them to
pervert<br>
and redirect or misappropriate her message or kill it with kindness
somehow, <br>
which has been a fairly effective way <br>
to nullify some trouble makers where outright assassination is just too
messy.<div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
<br>
On 01/07/13 1:13, David Johnson wrote:
</div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div class="h5">
<div> </div>
<div style="font-family:arial;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;font-size:10pt;line-height:normal;font-size-adjust:none;font-stretch:normal">-----
Original Message -----
<div style="background:rgb(228,228,228) none repeat scroll 0% 0%"><b>From:</b>
<a title="dlj725@hughes.net" href="mailto:dlj725@hughes.net" target="_blank">David Johnson</a> </div>
<div><b>Sent:</b> Sunday, January 06, 2013 11:01 AM</div>
<div><b>Subject:</b> Kathryn Bigelow film producer - Leni
Riefenstahl-like propagandist of torture</div>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><font face="Arial">
<h3>Zero Dark Thirty:
A Pentagon Tale </h3>
<div>
</div>
<div><font size="4">I was going to write a short piece on this new film by
Kathryn Bigelow about the assassination of Bin Laden, although like
Spike Lee with Django, I am not going to watch it. However, Naomi
Wolf seems to have a done a good job on it and we reprint it here.
Reprinted from: </font><a href="http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/15403-zero-dark-thirtys-torture-lie" target="_blank"><font size="4">Reader Supported News</font></a><br>
<font size="4">If readers haven't seen them yet make sure you see The
Tillman Story and The Road to Guantanamo.<br>
And don't forget how they tried to fool us with the Jessica Lynch
adventure Hollywood style and even more importantly, tell your children
about the Gulf of Tonkin.<br>
<br>
</font>
<h1><font size="4">Zero Dark Thirty's Torture Lie</font></h1>
<div><font size="4">By Naomi Wolf, Guardian UK</font></div>
<div><font size="4">05 January 13</font></div>
<font size="4"> <br>
</font>
<blockquote><i><font size="4">By peddling the lie that CIA detentions
led to Bin Laden's killing, you have become a Leni Riefenstahl-like
propagandist of torture</font></i></blockquote>
<br>
<font size="4"><img src="cid:part1.08060706.03000204@pigsqq.org" border="0">he Hurt Locker was a beautiful, brave film; many young
women in film were inspired as they watched you become the first woman
ever to win an Oscar for directing. But with Zero Dark Thirty, you have
attained a different kind of distinction.<br>
<br>
Your film Zero Dark Thirty is a huge hit here. But in falsely
justifying, in scene after scene, the torture of detainees in "the
global war on terror", Zero Dark Thirty is a gorgeously-shot, two-hour
ad for keeping intelligence agents who committed crimes against
Guantánamo prisoners out of jail. It makes heroes and heroines out of
people who committed violent crimes against other people based on their
race - something that has historical precedent.<br>
<br>
Your film claims, in many scenes, that CIA torture was redeemed by the
"information" it "secured", information that, according to your script,
led to Bin Laden's capture. This narrative is a form of manufacture of
innocence to mask a great crime: what your script blithely calls "the
detainee program".<br>
<br>
What led to this amoral compromising of your film-making?<br>
<br>
Could some of the seduction be financing? It is very hard to get a film
without a pro-military message, such as The Hurt Locker, funded and
financed. But according to sources in the film industry, the more
pro-military your message is, the more kinds of help you currently can
get: from personnel, to sets, to technology - a point I made in my
argument about the recent militarized Katy Perry video. <br>
</font>
<div><font size="4">It seems implausible that scenes
such as those involving two top-secret, futuristic helicopters could be
made without Pentagon help, for example. If the film received that kind
of undisclosed, in-kind support from the defense department, then that
would free up million of dollars for the gigantic ad campaign that a
film like this needs to compete to win audience.</font></div>
<br>
<font size="4">This also sets a dangerous precedent: we can be sure,
with the "propaganda amendment" of the 2013 NDAA, just signed into law
by the president, that the future will hold much more overt corruption
of Hollywood and the rest of US pop culture. This amendment legalizes
something that has been illegal for decades: the direct funding of
pro-government or pro-military messaging in media, without disclosure,
aimed at American citizens.<br>
<br>
Then, there is the James Frey factor. You claim that your film is
"based on real events", and in interviews, you insist that it is a
mixture of fact and fiction, "part documentary". "Real", "true", and
even "documentary", are big and important words. By claiming such
terms, you generate media and sales traction - on a mendacious basis.
There are filmmakers who work very hard to produce films that are
actually "based on real events": they are called documentarians. Alex
Gibney, in </font><a href="http://youtu.be/WX0MPcN08Zc" target="_blank"><font size="4">Taxi to the Dark Side</font></a><font size="4">, and Rory Kennedy, in </font><a href="http://youtu.be/P31RzaYp-Kg" target="_blank"><font size="4">Ghosts of Abu Ghraib</font></a><font size="4">, have both produced true and sourceable documentary films
about what your script blithely calls "the detainee program" - that is,
the regime of torture to generate false confessions at Guantánamo and
Abu Ghraib - which your script claims led straight to Bin Laden.<br>
<br>
Fine, fellow reporter: produce your sources. Provide your evidence that
torture produced lifesaving - or any - worthwhile intelligence.<br>
<br>
But you can't present evidence for this claim. Because it does not
exist. <br>
</font>
<div><font size="4">Five decades of research, cited in
the </font><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1294790/" target="_blank"><font size="4">2008
documentary The End of America</font></a><font size="4">, confirm that
torture does not work. </font><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-torture-does-not-work-as-history-shows-777213.html" target="_blank"><font size="4">Robert Fisk provides another summary</font></a><font size="4">
of that categorical conclusion. And </font><a href="http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/2011/05/03/five-reasons-why-torture-did-not-help-us-forces-find-bin-laden/" target="_blank"><font size="4">this 2011 account from Human Rights First</font></a><font size="4"> rebuts the very premise of Zero Dark Thirty.</font></div>
<br>
<font size="4">Your actors complain about detainees' representation
by lawyers - suggesting that these do-gooders in suits endanger the
rest of us. I have been to see your "detainee program" firsthand. The
prisoners, whom your film describes as being "lawyered up", meet with
those lawyers in rooms that are wired for sound; yet, those lawyers
can't tell the world what happened to their clients - because the
descriptions of the very torture these men endured are classified.<br>
<br>
I have seen the room where the military tribunal takes the "testimony"
from people swept up in a program that gave $5,000 bounties to
desperately poor Afghanis to incentivize their turning-in innocent
neighbors. The chairs have shackles to the floor, and are placed in
twos, so that one prisoner can be threatened to make him falsely
condemn the second.<br>
<br>
I have seen the expensive video system in the courtroom where - though
Guantánamo spokesmen have told the world's press since its opening that
witnesses' accounts are brought in "whenever reasonable" - the </font><a href="http://archive.truthout.org/073109C" target="_blank"><font size="4">monitor on the system has never been turned on once</font></a><font size="4">: a monitor that could actually let someone in Pakistan
testify to say, "hey, that is the wrong guy". (By the way, you left out
the scene where the </font><a href="http://news.antiwar.com/2012/12/13/human-rights-court-cia-tortured-sodomized-german-citizen/" target="_blank"><font size="4">CIA dude sodomizes the wrong guy</font></a><font size="4">:
Khaled el-Masri, "the German citizen unfortunate enough to have a
similar name to a militant named Khaled al-Masri.")<br>
<br>
In a time of darkness in America, you are being feted by Hollywood, and
hailed by major media. But to me, the path your career has now taken
reminds of no one so much as that other female film pioneer who became,
eventually, an apologist for evil: Leni Riefenstahl. Riefenstahl's 1935
Triumph of the Will, which glorified Nazi military power, was a massive
hit in Germany. Riefenstahl was the first female film director to be
hailed worldwide.<br>
<br>
It may seem extreme to make comparison with this other great, but
profoundly compromised film-maker, but there are real echoes. When
Riefenstahl began to glamorize the National Socialists, in the early
1930s, the Nazis' worst atrocities had not yet begun; yet abusive
detention camps had already been opened to house political dissidents
beyond the rule of law - the equivalent of today's Guantánamo, Bagram
base, and other unnameable CIA "black sites". And Riefenstahl was
lionised by the German elites and acclaimed for her propaganda on
behalf of Hitler's regime.<br>
<br>
But the world changed. The ugliness of what she did could not, over
time, be hidden. Americans, too, will wake up and see through Zero Dark
Thirty's apologia for the regime's standard lies that this brutality is
somehow necessary. When that happens, the same community that now
applauds you will recoil.<br>
<br>
Like Riefenstahl, you are a great artist. But now you will be
remembered forever as torture's handmaiden. </font></div>
</font></div>
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