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NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Wednesday 11 July 2012
“In spite of strong evidence identifying Dick Cheney as the mastermind behind this torture regime–the subject remains taboo, both in the ‘news’ business and in Hollywood–that is until Hollywood executives watched trailers for the anti-war documentary.”
‘The Last War Crime’ Debuts at Cannes--but Censored in US.
During this summer of Occupy and subsequent police brutality, the subject of torture is hotly denounced by protesters and conveniently ignored by candidates. Like that ostrich diving head first into the sand of political expediency–Americans want to focus on the alleged debt crisis or gay marriage–anything that absolves us from the messy subject of tortures committed in our names by the Bush/Cheney administration and which continue under Obama to the present day. The entire Bradley Manning debacle speaks volumes to this accusation.
In spite of strong evidence identifying Dick Cheney as the mastermind behind this torture regime–the subject remains taboo, both in the ‘news’ business and in Hollywood–that is until Hollywood executives watched trailers for the anti-war documentary–The Last War Crime.
Written, produced and directed by a new talent known only as ‘The Pen,’ this film documents the torture protocol ordained by the Bush-Cheney administration. Since it first circulated a trailer on the web; it has been heavily censored and cyber attacked. You Tube has removed it at intermittent intervals and MTV (which is owned by Viacom) has refused to sell air time for a commercial.
Apparently, there are some things that Viacom won’t accept money for—namely any film or story which exposes the regular torture ordered by Vice-President Cheney. Curious about this documentary and the blatant censorship–(I couldn’t download it)–I contacted the artist aka The Pen. Here is the interview.
JM : What are you hoping this film will accomplish in terms of genuine political change?
The Pen:” The Last War Crime Movie is about indicting Cheney for torture. And isn’t that something billions of people want to see? They say sometimes life can imitate art. But first we felt it was important that we retrace our country’s steps as to how torture was used to get the false intelligence to sell us on a war with Iraq. The real story of how this happened has been buried under an avalanche of pseudo history. They want people to forget the Downing Street minutes and the foreknowledge that the British had that Cheney and Bush were determined to invade Iraq, even if they had to “fix the facts around the policy” to do so. They want to obliterate the memory of the flimsy legal arguments in the torture memos. So we dig out all the true facts, and put them on the big screen, together with an entertaining narrative story about what it would have been like if justice had already prevailed.
The people who committed these war crimes believe they can escape accountability by changing the way people think, by selling the American people on the idea that torture was a great thing that got us wonderful intelligence to protect us. But the only people making these arguments are the torturers themselves and their propaganda advocates. All other percipient witnesses confirm the opposite, which we knew already, that torture does not even work, and that any actionable intelligence they got was obtained before they started torturing people. So part of the mission of this movie is to counter their ongoing lies initiative, to change the way people think back to the truth, and then we can have good policy change, which is political change.
JM : Do you expect more interference, and if so–in what form?
The Pen: Based on what we have run into already, the attempted YouTube censorship (which we forced them to reverse after more than 7,000 direct protests), the rejection of the ad submitted to MTV (Viacom Inc.), it is clear that we are encountering serious censorship interference from the very beginning. Obviously we are telling a story that certain people don’t want heard. The American people believe that we have free speech. It was on that justification that the Supreme Court said in the Citizens United decision that the gloves were off, and that corporations with unlimited war chests should be permitted to flood our political process with money favoring their point of view. But now we see that the other side of that bargain was a fraud, that these same corporations believe they can discriminate against points of view they disagree with. So for the actual people, we find that even if we have the money, we cannot even BUY “free” speech.
This is not a tolerable situation. Must we generate thousands of protests every time we want to run an ad when it is rejected for political reasons?
Already Viacom has received over 12,000 protest messages in response to our call to action there, and in that situation apparently they think “we the people” can just be ignored. We are seriously considering a federal lawsuit, the argument has to be made, that if they accept political advertising of any kind, at least in that case, it must be some kind of 14th Amendment equal protection violation to practice what we would call “speech discrimination”. Only by bringing such a case can we determine if we actually have free speech or not.
JM: Has there been any direct retaliation or threats connected with the release of this film aimed at you? Any suspected retaliation?
The Pen : Gandhi is reputed to have said, “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win”. At this point we are still mostly at the attempted “ignore you” stage.
JM: What has Hollywood’s reaction been to this film’s coming debut? Are you encountering the same kind of cowardice that Michael Moore experienced after his Oscar night comments about the war?
The Pen: We are just starting to get the word out about this film. The censorship attempts are doomed to fail, but we still don’t have enough visibility to where the rest of the Hollywood film community would be called on to react. It would not surprise me if some of the censorship we’ve been talking about was based in part on cowardice. Of course we all remember when Michael Moore called out the fiction of the basis for the war in Iraq at the Oscars. But in that case another reasonable possible explanation is that those who booed him then would object to any attempt to politicize the Academy Awards ceremony. The problem is that when you say you don’t want to hear about this political issue here, and you don’t want to hear about it there, you may end up with the dynamic we are confronting now with The Last War Crime movie, that the corporations that dominate our media really don’t want these issues talked about anywhere.
JM: Anything else you would want to add?
The Pen: “The soul of America is on trial right now. We have thrown not just international law overboard, we have repudiated our own long established law. We have always considered waterboarding to be torture. We have always prosecuted waterboarding in the past as torture. So what’s the difference now, that the war criminals have a big “R” after their names? We are called by history, the real history, to stand up and speak out about this, to bring America back to its highest calling. So if your readers are interested in participating in the Viacom action they can go to , where you can also see the ad that MTV
rejected. And there is a Facebook page where we are posting video clips, still shots from the movie, including behind the scenes shots, and more on a daily basis, so you can follow our progress and help get this movie out in real theaters where it belongs and deserves to be.”
It should be noted that as of May 22nd, 2012, The Last War Crime was presented at the Cannes Film Festival. There was no refusal to air the film, no censorship–corporate or otherwise. Apparently the independent artistic community in Cannes and similar venues knows something that evades the vapid corporate offices of Hollywood.
Top Stories
By Green Shadow Cabinet
15 comments on "‘The Last War Crime’ Debuts at Cannes--but Censored in US."
July 12, 2012 7:15pm
Geez political donations are freedom of speech (and tax deductible) because corporations are people now and their tax deductible ads (lies) on TV "news" networks are designed to convince you that everything is wonderful and they love and care about you (BP oil spill anyone?) while you watch reality shows and entertainment that is passed off as "news" ... zzzzzzzzz
And how about the censorship of that other ongoing disaster that threatens the entire world - Fukishima ? MSM news about Fukishima has barely been a blip on the radar. Then over a year later several newsworthy events get little or no press:
1) Japanese Ambassador Murata writes to UN Secretary General: ‘It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on Reactor #4.
2) The 641-page report on the six month investigation of Fukishima was released earlier this month that confirmed that the Fukushima nuclear disaster was a “man-made” accident caused by a utility and government regulators who put self-interest before the interest of the public! Now who is surprised at that??? But like every report of wrongdoing, collusion and lies by the parade of CEOs of big banks, pharmaceutical, GMO, oil, agribusinesses and food processing companies (when they get caught) not much is reported about it again. No follow-up to see if those elected to protect us have done or changed things so it won't be allowed to happen again.
3) May - TEPCO finally admitted that right after the accident the amounts of radioactive Cesium 137 and Iodine 131 released into the air/atmosphere (that the wind currents carried to Alaska, Canada and the west coast of the US) were over FOUR TIMES higher than released at Chernobyl!
4) That did NOT include the radiation released into the water that fish caught in the waters on the west coast of Canada and the US are now showing levels of radiation, indicating that it has entered the food chain and is being dispersed throughout the Pacific.
5) The same Polar bears, seals and walruses whose populations are declining because the polar ice is melting, are now showing signs of radiation sickness because they eat fish - duh! But our own government scientists are downplaying it and saying it's something else. Why?
So yesterday I see this report about William M, an American who lives in Japan, who candidly talks about why he and his Japanese wife are leaving, and read one about outbreaks of tuberculosis and rubella in Japan connected to radiation and various other strange illnesses.
http://enenews.com/commentator-me-and-my-wifes-decision-to-leave-japan-w...
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/06/13/aljazeera-fukushima-resident...
It has been documented that many US military exposed to the Bikini Island nuclear bomb tests incl those who went into bombed Japanese cities with no protection came down with TB and other radiation related illnesses and cancers. And remember that we still have over 40,000 US military personnel in Japan. But less than a month after a Presidential order was given to evacuate ALL dependents immediately the US ambassador said hey - nothing to see here folks, everything's wonderful, they can come back now???? Yeah that's supporting the troops and their families all right.
BTW the same William M made another video that gives a really good primer on radiation, how it is tested and why testing of food using geiger counters is not accurate. Right around the same time of the Fukishima radiation release, our EPA actually raised what was considered safe levels of radiation. Huh? Doesn't that make you wonder about the timing and why?
The only real, uncensored news is on the internet but they're doing everything they can to censor it as well.
July 11, 2012 10:19pm
Aah, "perceptions". I just read a document written by a man who facilitates wind energy developments. In it he said wind energy is sited for political reasons; science is irrelevant. Wildlife reports for wind energy developers are meant to create "perceptions" - they are not necessarily based in reality. If you tell a BIG LIE often enough, people will believe it. We tortured innocent people in order to continue a perception about terrorists that would allow the US to continue it's self-destructive path toward empire. What's next? "Utopia". Aaah, perceptions. Damnable things - reality has a way of rearing it's ugly head and when people wake up and realize they've been fooled, people like Cheney always lose.
July 11, 2012 6:21pm
Censorship started the day Bush stole the first election in 2000. If you all think you have a clue what really happened in Southeast Louisiana/ Mississippi/ Alabama post Katrina, guess again! We then had five more cat 4 and 5 hurricanes tears South Louisiana to shreds, did you hear about that? No? Never on the news.
In fact your nightly news is censored every day. None of us really knows what's up in the Middle East in that war; I suggest BBC news for some truth. It's better. Probably still cleaned up, but better than our news. My stuff is off topic but a good lesson in our USA today.
I'm New Orleanian. I knew what went on even when outside the city during the Katrina evac because we know the sheriffs in the parish (county elsewhere) where out farms are. They were rotating in to the city. And I checked up on weird rumors for a year after- the weirder the truer! Teams of Federal Marshall SWAT specialists in firefights with drug people who were looting pharmacies? Yes. I've seen the buildings full of bullet holes. And on and on! The body count in NOLA alone was in the tens of thousands. Plus deaths shortly after evac. Most of those bodies went to a warehouse with an incinerator in a remote corner of the city. I have the tale, and location, from a Federal employee who would never admit to it. (Would you?) I went out and looked at it though, just as described. There's more nightmare in the following storms over four years, but it so supports global warming it had to be hushed up.
All censored. So I believe that other stuff is. Google announced publicly that it had requests to censor the footage of police violence and brutality during Occupy Wall St. from You Tube, and to its credit they refused - publicly - although the really scary stuff has since disappeared. And Google has started to bow to such orders more often, apparently.
This may seem off topic, but it makes a point. Yes, the news is censored, so sweeping one movie under the rug is just par for the course. It's not even the current administration. Corporate entities do the censoring. A whole lot is out of the hands of government now. And they'll cover for Bush-Cheney in a heartbeat! Too many people made a lot of money off that administration and those wars.
Easter egg. Brian Williams was so angry that he wasn't allowed to actually tell what he saw in New Orleans he went on the fake news on Comedy Central to get a teeny bit of the New Orleans story out. Why couldn't he tell the nation on the NBC News? It's censored! Very heavily.
The BP oil spill? Also heavily edited to censored. It's a horrific eco disaster. The really bad effects are starting to show now. You won't hear about it though.
I'd love to see Pens work. Will we be able to buy it on DVD from overseas? They can do them region encoding free now, so a DVD will play on all equipment.
July 12, 2012 6:47pm
Lark, your inquiry regarding the purchasing of DVDs is good. Local activist could buy a copy and show the film at local libraries, or any other place. The corporate censorship is massive. Getting around that problem is the biggest problem for anyone interested in change. We can only hope to educated a few people at a time--we do not have free speech when it comes to any access to the corporate media.
July 11, 2012 10:14pm
Censorship began WAY before Bush.
July 11, 2012 5:40pm
This kind of torture may have happened but it also may be covering the ral techniques of midoern enhance interrogation and I think all the cold war of behaviorist research has only come uo with this. What they have may be much more mentally damaging for the living even thouygh the other may have caused some death and be illegal in international law which is bad enough but they may be happy to make it sem like that is all they do..
July 11, 2012 2:52pm
This is what conservatives don't understand. They pass laws that allow corporations to involve themselves in censorship because corporations are sympathetic to conservative agendas. However, things do change.
When things flip-flop, and they will as history shows us, the same censorship can be applied to conservative views. And when that happens, watch conservatives cry baby cry! Which , then, makes them not only short sighted, but also hypocrites.
July 24, 2012 6:13pm
duh....
July 11, 2012 2:47pm
Article I of the United States of America's Constitution provides the right of Freedom of Speech. The Great Supreme Court has ruled that Corporations are people and have the RIGHT to spend money to support Political Parties, Political Candidates, and whatever Issues that they may want. Is not the PEN incorporated? Are not Movies covered? [I remember the movie Hilary was covered]
I guess it all depends on which Political Party you belong to.
July 11, 2012 1:36pm
Doesn't seem funny to anyone that Bush can not go to Switzerland for fear of being arrested on war crimes? I'm sure the Swiss feel the same about the others involved in the crimes of the Bush administration. And if no one thinks we have an over abundance of propaganda here in America, just tune into Faux News. Maybe The Pen could educate those that are brain washed by the Faux network into believing their countrymen are their enemy. That the unemployed and homeless in America are their enemy. The Brits have concluded that Murdoch is unfit to run a business yet he has free rein here in America. What is wrong with this picture?
July 11, 2012 10:21pm
Are you so naive that you think the Democrats are any different? That CNN doesn't run a rigged game? Puleeze! Wakey wakey. Rupert Murdoch works both sides of the aisle, you just choose not to look there because it would cause you to question all of those things that make you feel "safe" and empowered.
July 11, 2012 1:11pm
We knew when the supreme court decided Citizens United that we would be subjected to massive corporate propaganda while the powers that be snipped out the realities and inconvenient truths.
This is Fascist America. How do you like it?
July 11, 2012 12:39pm
Thanks Jeanine for writing this article and bringing to light the very real efforts to censor The Pen.
July 11, 2012 10:49am
Missing Link!
"So if your readers are interested in participating in the Viacom action they can go to , where you can also see the ad that MTV
rejected."
I assume this is just a mistake, not more censorship ..
July 11, 2012 10:12am
We need more people like THE PEN to make well documented movies about the 911 event, the subsequent wars and their connection to dotcom bust when the collusion between banksters, corporate CEOs, analysts enabled the scammers to sell brick at gold prices and after the facts were known, they directed the anger from the criminals to foreign boogeymen, pinning an extremely complex operation that only a state could sponsor on a bunch of cave dewellers.