Global
“In America, if you say ‘Brian Wilson,’ people think the Beach Boys, but in Nicaragua if you say ‘Brian Willson,’ people think of the peace activist,” said Frank Dorrel, Associate Producer of Paying The Price For Peace: The Story of S. Brian Willson & Voices From The Peace Movement. Dorrel made his comments at a Q&A following a screening of the 97 minute documentary, which was screened at the LA Live Regal Cinema 14 as part of the 8th annual Awareness Film Festival, which took place Oct. 5-15.
As Bo Boudart’s award-winning nonfiction film recounts, what made the other Brian Willson so prominent is the Vietnam vet’s commitment to the cause of peace, culminating in an enormous sacrifice, which this plot spoiler adverse critic won’t ruin for you. (Let’s just say he was railroaded…) Yes, as the title indicates, Willson paid an unimaginable price for peace, but this documentary is also about the antiwar movement. Although Boudart’s sprawling film focuses on Willson, it is also a compendium of the struggle for peace from the Vietnam War to the bloody U.S. intervention in Central America up to the ongoing armed conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond.
One month ago, I initiated here at Unz.com a discussion of the role of American Jews in the crafting of United States foreign policy. I observed that a politically powerful and well-funded cabal consisting of both Jewish individuals and organizations has been effective at engaging the U.S. in a series of wars in the Middle East and North Africa that benefit only Israel and are, in fact, damaging to actual American interests. This misdirection of policy has not taken place because of some misguided belief that Israeli and U.S. national security interests are identical, which is a canard that is frequently floated in the mainstream media. It is instead a deliberate program that studiously misrepresents facts-on-the ground relating to Israel and its neighbors and creates casus belli involving the United States even when no threat to American vital interests exists. It punishes critics by damaging both their careers and reputations while its cynical manipulation of the media and gross corruption of the national political process has already produced the disastrous war against Iraq, the destruction of Libya and the ongoing chaos in Syria.
President Donald Trump’s move to decertify the Iranian nuclear Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), entered into a little over two years ago, was applauded by Israel, Saudi Arabia and a couple of Persian Gulf States, but by no one else. Quite the contrary, as the European and Asian co-signatories on the agreement, having failed to dissuade Trump, have clearly indicated that they will continue to abide by it. Also, the decision to kick the can down the road by giving Congress 60 days to increase pressure on Tehran in an attempt to include other issues beyond nuclear development like its ballistic missile program and labeling the country’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group are likely to create confusion as Washington is unable to communicate directly with Iran. That uncertainty could possibly lead to a fraught-with-danger Iranian decision to withdraw completely from the agreement.
For many years, I have held two shares in America’s only publicly owned major sports team, the Green Bay Packers. There are no dividends, no special seats, no stadium perks. I cannot sell the shares. I can only pass them on to immediate family. But owning these shares does in fact make me a part-owner. And as such, I am registering my first demand: The Pack must hire Colin Kaepernick.
Kaepernick’s pathbreaking “take a knee” before the national anthem guarantees him an historic place in the civil rights hall of fame. Begun last year, it is a carefully considered,well-timed, and very public call to pay attention to ongoing police brutality toward black people in this country.
“Dear NFL: We will not support millionaire ingrates who hate America and disrespect our Armed Forces and Veterans. Who wins a football game has ZERO impact on our lives. Who fights for and defends our nation has every impact on our lives. We stand with the Heroes, not a bunch of rich, entitled, arrogant, ungrateful, anti-American, degenerates. Signed, We the people.”
In The Secure and the Dispossessed, Nick Buxton and Ben Hayes have collected an unflinching survey of a species gone mad. The book’s subtitle is “How the Military and Corporations Are Shaping a Climate-Changed World.” In short, the Authoritarian Exceptionalist Military Corporate Complex is flamboyantly recognizing the hole it is in, and exponentially increasing the rate of digging, while hiring PR firms to redefine “digging” as “robust engagement in advanced resilient green initiatives that save us all by further enriching the rich, militarizing the world, and rendering the earth uninhabitable.”
After reading and hearing wildly contradictory accounts of Ken Burns & Lynn Novick’s Vietnam War documentary on PBS, I decided I had to watch the thing. I agree with some of the criticism and some of the praise.