I never get tired of watching this. Anyone here think we're done now?
Remember that at least 18 Republicans (including John McCain) are up for reelection in 2010 and if any of them participate in filibusters in the next two years, we in the blogosphere will be doing more than shouting from our windows.
Open thread below....
Dirty tricks, wedge politics, class warfare. Push polling and playing to racist instincts of voters. All's fair in political battles. If reading those things makes you think of Karl Rove, then you have forgotten the godfather of those tactics: Lee Atwater. Atwater was the originator of the winner-takes-it-all tactics, something that still reverberates today within the Republican Party. Wikipedia:
Harvey Leroy "Lee" Atwater (February 27, 1951 – March 29, 1991) was an American political consultant and strategist to the Republican party. He was an advisor of U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He was also a political mentor and close friend of Republican strategist Karl Rove. Atwater invented or improved upon many of the techniques of modern electoral politics, including promulgating unflattering rumors and attempting to drive up opponents' "negative" poll numbers with the aggressive use of opposition research. He has been characterized as the "happy hatchet man" and "Darth Vader" of the Republican Party. In spite of criticisms of Atwater's tactics as unethical and dirty tricks, he was widely regarded as a near-brilliant political operative who helped candidates to win.[..]
Atwater rose during the 1970s and the 1980 election in the South Carolina Republican party, working on the campaigns of Governor Carroll Campbell and segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond. During his years in South Carolina, Atwater became well known for running hard edged campaigns based on emotional "wedge issues".
Atwater's aggressive tactics were first demonstrated during the 1980 congressional campaigns. He was a campaign consultant to Republican incumbent Floyd Spence in his campaign for Congress against Democratic nominee Tom Turnipseed. Atwater's tactics in that campaign included push polling in the form of fake surveys by "independent pollsters" to "inform" white suburbanites that Turnipseed was allegedly a member of the NAACP.[4] Atwater also highlighted that Turnipseed had been "hooked up to jumper cables" as a teen undergoing electroshock therapy for depression.
In 1990, Atwater was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. On his deathbed, Atwater had a famous epiphany where he renounced and apologized for his toxic contribution to politics:
My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The '80s were about acquiring — acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul
.
The Emmy-nominated filmmaker Stefan Forbes is here to discuss his new documentary, Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, still playing in limited release around the country and available on DVD.
Please join me in welcoming Stefan and learn how the ghost of Atwater still haunts the Republican Party.
From Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939). Open Thread below...
Site Announcement:
John Amato: Please take the time to quickly register on C&L so you will be able to leave comments here. We will be making this permanent by the end of next week. In an effort to get rid of all the spam and trolls we are switching to registered comments only. It will take a minute to do so. You will see the "Login/Register" option on the top right of the homepage.
Thanks...
It's stories like this that really are incredible. I know it's been around for a while, but I never saw it before. A couple raised a lion cub in the UK and eventually he got too big to handle so they brought Christian back to Africa. A year later they visited him even though there was a great chance that he would have---forgotten them---and not been very kind since he lived in the wild and all, but surprisingly he remembered them. The affection he showed was pretty remarkable. Here's more on the story. "Christian, the lion who lived in my London living room"
"Christian stared at us in a very intense way," says Rendall. "I knew his expressions and I could see he was interested. We called him and he stood up and started to walk towards us very slowly.
"Then, as if he had become convinced it was us, he ran towards us, threw himself on to us, knocked us over, knocked George over and hugged us, like he used to, with his paws on our shoulders."Everyone was crying. We were crying, George was crying, even the lion was nearly crying."...read on
I loved this movie. It's all about steroids, steroids, steroids. As it began I thought---you know---I'm really not that interested in this topic, but as the movie unfolded, I have to say I was completely sucked in by the twenty minute mark. It's funny, sad, fascinating and informative. Arnold, Bush and Orrin Hatch all have prominent roles to play. Did you know that 25% of all " vitamin supplements" are made in Utah? And guess how that happened?
I think the above picture says it all. Sgt. Brent Sammann took this from his overseas Army base, location not divulged, where he wrote in to congratulate Cusack and Co. about the movie. NOTICE THE KBR FLAG, just under the American flag. You gotta be kidding me. On an ARMY BASE? And a very humble thank you for your service, Brent. It took a lot of courage to do this, but hey, you're a soldier. A very excited John Cusack emailed C&L from London yesterday to thank us bloggers and readers, for supporting War, Inc. in NY and LA. The ticket giveaway really helped. Apparently the movie is, so far, a phenomenal success that is shocking both the film's distributor and the industry. The film had no real advertising, just bloggers and it ran all viral baby–and yet the per screen numbers of War, Inc. have consistently been close behind the two big budget blockbuster movies of the summer. The producers emailed me this info:
From what I'm hearing the screenings of "War Inc." are doing very well so far this weekend. If you're in the area, check it out.
This clever new movie takes the next logical step in the evolution of the Bush Doctrine. Instead of sending the US Armed Forces to conquer oil rich Middle Eastern countries, we now have the Tamerlane Corporation leading the charge to fulfill a Dick Cheney-like CEO's wet dream. John Cusack plays a hit man hired by the corporation to make sure their bottom line is met at all costs. His conscience has had about enough of the carnage left in his wake in this sobering, yet funny look at war profiteers. Blackwater's got nothing on Tamerlane Corporation.
Here's John Cusack with Bill Maher talking about his new picture.
Download | play 
Download | play
And John on Democracy Now talking to Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill.
(h/t Heather)
I've been posting about John Cusack's new film (War Inc.) including a very cool live chat over the last few weeks because I loved it and think it deserves a much wider audience. It's the story of a disillusioned hit-man that works for a Blackwater-type corporation on steroids that attacks a country, sets up a profit-based green zone and gives away complimentary gift bags to every journalist they meet.
C&L--along with New Crime Productions--is offering a free ticket giveaway for an advance screenings in NY and LA on Monday---May 19, at 7:30 PM. It's important that we have those theaters filled to the max so the film will get distributed to a much wider audience.
<correction> The Opening of the film is May 23rd
NY Screening: *** Air America's Rachel Maddow will be doing a Q&A with writers Mark Leyner and Jeremy Pikser. after the film so stick around.
7:30pm
New York Film Academy
100 E. 17th Street
New York, NY 10003
LA Screening: 7:30pm
Laemmle Music Hall 3
9036 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211
Please email your name to: newcrime@aol.com and we'll randomly select the winners for this night of fun.
After being wowed by John Cusack's incredible new film, War, Inc, John Amato and I persuaded John Cusack to come over to C&L for a live chat a little closer to the official release date. And today's the day. This week the film will start rolling out in the Toronto area and then in New York City. So at 3pm (PT) John is bringing two of his co-writers with him, Mark Leyner and Jeremy Pikser, and they'll be talking about the movie and answering questions for an hour or so. I spoke with John about it and he gave me some insights into why he made the movie. He also recited this inspiring piece by Arundhati Roy to me:
Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness-- and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they're selling-- their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
Please join John Amato and myself with our special guests in the comment section.
As with other live chats, we ask that you limit your comments to the topic and stay respectful to our guests.
If anyone is in the LA area and wants to see John Cusack's excellent new film called "War Inc."about a corporation literally going to war with a country. (There's a nifty little green zone and everything.) I have about 15 free passes for the show.
It's showing:
Mon, April 14th at 7pm
Wadsworth Theater
11301 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90073
email your name to xxxxx and they will set it up.
I saw it the film and loved it.
Update: All the tickets have been given away. I hope everyone has a really good time tonight.
C&L's November Film of the Month Review:"20 To Life: The Life and Times of John Sinclair"
Documentary reviewed by Mark Groubert
“Apathy isn’t it. And we can do something. So flower power didn’t work. So what! We start again.”
John Lennon
John Sinclair Freedom Rally, Crisler Arena, Michigan - December 10, 1971.
If it was up to Richard Nixon, 20 To Life: The Life and Times of John Sinclair, a documentary by Steve Gebhardt, would never have seen the light of day. Hired as the private experimental filmmaker for John Lennon and Yoko Ono back in 1971, Gebhardt was working on a full-length music video to help promote Lennon’s upcoming album, Imagine when he and Lennon heard about the benefit concert to help free political activist John Sinclair from prison.
Sinclair, head of the White Panther Party, manager of the seminal rock band the MC5 and one of the leading radical elements of the Midwest had been targeted by Detroit undercover cops who arrested him for passing two joints. Facing 20 years to life and actually sentenced to 9 1/2 years for the crime, Sinclair became the focus of a huge benefit concert at the Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor, Michigan featuring John Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seeger, Phil Ochs, MC-5, Allen Ginsberg, Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels and others.
Over 20,000 people attended the show.
Having already spent nearly three years behind bars, John Sinclair was freed from prison just three days after the event.
Talk about All Power To The People.
Here's an exclusive video clip from the new Brian DePalma movie called "Redacted."
It's opening Nov. 16th...
We've written extensively on the documentary called "No End In Sight" on C&L because we loved it and so did our readers. If you want to understand what happened in Iraq after Bush made his infamous " Mission Accomplished," speech---this is the film to see.
Download | play QT only (big file-29mgs-11:30 minutes)
The DVD has now been released with a few extras including a much longer interview with Richard Armitage. (We've got a new ad running now about the release.) He discusses what he believes are some of the major screwups, i.e., the "de-Ba'athification by Paul Bremer" that the administration implemented, which helped cause the horrible situation in Iraq.
NEIS is a must see! You can grab a copy here...
Terror’s Advocate: "A documentary directed by Barbet Schroeder French w/ English subtitles
140 minutes."
When I saw The Last King of Scotland, Forest Whitaker seemed almost cartoonish to me. Not that it was a bad performance. It wasn’t. There were problems with the film for sure, but there was a different reason. Thirty years prior I had seen another film, General Idi Amin Dada, the groundbreaking documentary from French director Barbet Schroeder. It successfully captured the personification of evil on celluloid. For years I was haunted by its stark brutal revelations.
Barbet Schroeder can do that to the viewer. Born in Teheran, Iran in 1946 to a Swiss geologist father, he spent time in Central Africa and Columbia as a child but was raised in France where he has done the bulk of his work. American viewers probably know him for his feature films, Barfly (1987), Reversal of Fortune (1990), and Single White Female (1992), but these are just three small windows to his overall worldview.
Schroeder’s feature films have always had a documentary feel to them while his documentaries more often feel like fictional cinema. This is not accidental. His feature films often have their roots in non-fiction events while his documentaries are so fantastical in their narrative that they feel like works of dramatic fiction.
Terror’s Advocate, Schroeder’s latest adventure, has themes similar to those found in his Oscar nominated, Reversal of Fortune. In the latter, Claus von Bulow, a lawyer of European descent who comes from a family which had close ties to the Nazis finds himself embroiled in a sensational court case. The lawyer featured in Terror’s Advocate is of European descent, has close ties to a Nazi and finds himself embroiled in numerous sensational court cases.
