Global

I don’t know if most people in the United States ever knew what Fallujah meant. It’s hard to believe the U.S. military would still exist if they did. But certainly it has been largely forgotten — a problem that could be remedied if everyone picks up a copy of The Sacking of Fallujah: A People’s History, by Ross Caputi (a U.S. veteran of one of the sieges of Fallujah), Richard Hill, and Donna Mulhearn.

Most film festivals are categorically determined - by the type of production (Toronto’s Hot Docs only showcases nonfiction films); genre (TCM Classic Film Festival screens vintage pictures); time

(LA Shorts International Film Festival won’t show feature-length movies); and perhaps most importantly, by subject matter (the Pan African Film Festival highlights Black-themed works). The South East European Film Festival mainly focuses on those countries that were formerly part of the so-called “Iron Curtain,” as well as former Yugoslavia.

Go right now and get yourself and the nearest house with a flag in front of it a copy of Roberto Sirvent’s and Danny Haiphong’s American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News — From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror.

If this book had existed when I published Curing Exceptionalism, I would have said that reading it was part of the cure. The authors provide a rich survey and analysis of how people in the United States manage to believe themselves not only exceptionally qualified to break rules and commit crimes but also exceptionally innocent of all such behavior.

Thursday, May 2nd, 2019

The day before he died, Martin Luther King said these words at a packed church in Memphis:

“Men for years now have been talking about war and peace. Now no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world, it is nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.”

That’s where we are today . . . half a century later!

Here in the U.S., we have a military budget pushing a trillion dollars annually, which is a hell of an investment in nonexistence. But we also have a growing peace consciousness that cannot and must not stop until it changes the world.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently recounted to an audience at Texas A&M University that when he was head of the Central Intelligence Agency he was responsible for “lying, cheating and stealing” to benefit the United States. “Like we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”

The Secretary made the comment with a grin, noting that when he was a cadet at West Point he subscribed to the Academy honor code, which stated that “You will not lie, cheat, or steal or tolerate those who do.” The largely student audience clearly appreciated and irony and laughed and applauded, though it is not clear what they made of the “glory of the American experiment.” The normally humorless Pompeo was suggesting ironically that yesterday’s Pompeo would be required to turn today’s Pompeo into the appropriate authorities for lying and also conniving at high crimes and misdemeanors while at the Agency.

We are in the battle for the soul of this nation…. But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are, and I cannot stand by and watch that happen.
 

BANGKOK, Thailand -- King "Maha" Vajiralongkorn crowns himself monarch
on Saturday (May 4) during a three-day multimillion-dollar coronation
steeped in ancient Hindu and Buddhist rituals confirming he is Rama X,
10th in the Chakri dynasty after his father died in 2016.

In a surprise on Wednesday (May 1), Vajiralongkorn married his consort
Suthida Tidjai, a general who commanded his bodyguards, and announced
she was now Queen Suthida Vajiralongkorn na Ayudhya in Thailand's
constitutional monarchy.

The coup-installed military-led government expects dissidents and
politicians to show respect during the coronation's May 4-6 ceremonies
and silence their confrontations over the disputed results of last
month's elections.

Thousands of people are expected to line Bangkok's sweltering streets
on Sunday (May 5) when Vajiralongkorn is carried on a palanquin
followed by officials and a band during a four-mile, post-coronation
procession from the Grand Palace past Buddhist temples.

The king meets foreign diplomats and government officials on Monday

Poor Pharma. Until 15 years ago, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was a right of passage for older U.S. women and Pharma raked in billions. While HRT did prevent osteoporosis, it was also found to increase the risk of breast cancer, stroke, blood clots, hearing loss, gall bladder disease, urinary incontinence, asthma, the need for joint replacement, melanoma, ovarian, endometrial and lung cancers, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and even dementia according to medical findings. In the first year that millions of women quit HRT in 2003, U.S. breast cancer fell seven percent and 15 percent in women with estrogen fed tumors.

May Day seems like an auspicious time to release director/co-writer/ co-producer/co-cinematographer Rachel Lears’ Sundance award-winning documentary Knock Down the House, which focuses on the primary challenges of four left-leaning women taking on establishment politicians in 2018’s Democratic primaries. Lears selected so-called “insurgents” who were backed by the liberal groups Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress, Political Action Committees that supported candidates who refused corporate and lobbyist funding.