“Taxi To the Dark Side”
By dcmediagirl on March 11, 2008 at 10:34 AM in Afghanistan, Current Affairs, GWOT, Guantanamo, John McCain, Pakistan, Sidney Blumenthal, Taxi to the Dark Side
So my significant other and I finally saw Oscar-winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side last night, and what an experience it was.
First off, many hearty congratulations to Sidney Blumenthal on being part of an Oscar-winning team. Mazel tov from your admirers and well-wishers.
With those sunny words out of the way, on to the meat of the matter.
What a powerful, sickening, maddening, and thoroughly disturbing experience this film is. As a journalist, I’m amazed at the access Alex Gibney and his people were given to interview subjects — how the hell did he convince those soldiers to talk?? — and to the footage from the groteque gulags otherwise known as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
Most of all, however, this is a film that induces not only anger and disgust but profound shame - shame that we live in a country whose leaders could condone such activity, shame that so few were willing to stand up and say “no more”; shame that “American justice” is now synonymous with suspension of habeas corpus, torture, homicide by interrogation; shame that the press has been so slow to shine a light on who these prisoners, labeled “the worst of the worst” so often that the public swallows this propaganda like mother’s milk, actually are…the list goes on and on.
But perhaps one of the most bitterly ironic images in the film is that of a young John McCain, his body so broken and ravaged by torture that he was barely able to speak. Fast forward 30 years and look at where we are as a country, using techniques that were perfected during the Spanish Inquisition on men who were, for the most part, in the wrong place at the wrong time, sold into captivity by warlords and corrupt soldiers and other crooks to the Americans for money.
Which means America has become a party to one of the grimmest human trafficking rings on the planet.
Watch this film. Get angry. And then do something. Anything.
i know sidney blumenthal. good man.
wrote a book about how the rethugs went on the warpath in the late 60’s and onwards to seize the commanding heights and inflict their vision on america. think tanks….academia was too damn unreliable….create their own media…train the youngster gopbots, etc, etc. part of the reason they hated him (s.b.) when he was working in the white house; he had their # cold.
wrt to the f*cktard john mccain. while i give him partial credit for not being totally in the bag wrt to torture, unlike his dickhead gop brethern, he and his sidekick lindsey graham and john warner did their little kabuki theater around this issue. there is still torture being practiced by us gvt agents around the world. allow the lamestream media has given their boy johnny another hummer and convinced the sheeple that he’s a stalwart on this issue.
furthermore his mca (mil. cmsns act) could disappear larry and susan. and any other pesky varmint activists who won’t as ari fleischer was kind enooug to say “sit down, shut up and watch what they say,” and as the f*cktard crawford cowboy would say, it’s legal. bushie’s lawyers are more flexible than yoga masters, and cirque d’soleil performers. and don’t think it couldn’t happen.
this issue pisses me off because it has been in my life since i was a youngster. circa 1970 the world learned that our guys in n. vietnam were being tortured to include john sidney,and i and hundreds of thousands of americans wore pow/mia bracelets. color: pewter/silver.
and a major hat tip to jeremiah denton who blinked out in morse code t-o-r-t-u-r-e. one of the bravest and most ingenious things a u.s. mil. man has EVER done. (i hear his health is deteriorating. and. jim stockdale unfortunately has alzheimers i’ve heard. j.s. was on duty that night over the gulf of tonkin. reported that there was nothing going on. gets shot down later………..ain’t that the ultimate mind f*ck. you and your mates are being tortured and you know that lyndon baines johnson, another dickhead prez-nit from tex-ass is a lying sack of shit.)
somebody should go downblog to larry’s recent 13 second audio clip and transcribe his words on why torture is a dumb ass thing for americans to do. very wise words.
i plan on seeing the documentary. thanks for the review.
i know sidney blumenthal. good man.
wrote a book about how the rethugs went on the warpath in the late 60’s and onwards to seize the commanding heights and inflict their vision on america. think tanks….academia was too damn unreliable….create their own media…train the youngster gopbots, etc, etc. part of the reason they hated him (s.b.) when he was working in the white house; he had their # cold.
wrt to the f*cktard john mccain. while i give him partial credit for not being totally in the bag wrt to torture, unlike his dickhead gop brethern, he and his sidekick lindsey graham and john warner did their little kabuki theater around this issue. there is still torture being practiced by us gvt agents around the world. allow the lamestream media has given their boy johnny another hummer and convinced the sheeple that he’s a stalwart on this issue.
furthermore his mca (mil. cmsns act) could disappear larry and susan. and any other pesky varmint activists who won’t as ari fleischer was kind enooug to say “sit down, shut up and watch what they say,” and as the f*cktard crawford cowboy would say, it’s legal. bushie’s lawyers are more flexible than yoga masters, and cirque d’soleil performers. and don’t think it couldn’t happen.
this issue pisses me off because it has been in my life since i was a youngster. circa 1970 the world learned that our guys in n. vietnam were being tortured to include john sidney,and i and hundreds of thousands of americans wore pow/mia bracelets. color: pewter/silver.
and a major hat tip to jeremiah denton who blinked out in morse code t-o-r-t-u-r-e. one of the bravest and most ingenious things a u.s. mil. man has EVER done. (i hear his health is deteriorating. and. jim stockdale unfortunately has alzheimers i’ve heard. j.s. was on duty that night over the gulf of tonkin. reported that there was nothing going on. gets shot down later………..ain’t that the ultimate mind f*ck??? you and your mates are being tortured and you know that lyndon baines johnson, another dickhead prez-nit from tex-ass is a lying sack of shit. gwb is 43, ghwb is 41….don’t look now but that adds up to 84 as in 1984…and 36 = lbj. as 41 said to sarah mclaughan sp? ap reporter in dc and texan and publisher of a kick ass newsletter…..”if the american people knew what we’d done, they’d chase us down the streets and lynch us?” actual quote from 41. use the brain cells god gave ya and connect those dots.)
somebody should go downblog to larry’s recent 13 second audio clip and transcribe his words on why torture is a dumb ass thing for americans to do. very wise words.
i plan on seeing the documentary. thanks for the review.
went to amazon.com.
blumenthal’s got a new book out.
http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Death-Republican-America-Chronicles/dp/1402757891/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205256592&sr=1-1
here’s an updated verion-methinks-of the origional book i mentioned above.
http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Counter-Establishment-Conservative-Ascent-Political/dp/1402759118/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205256592&sr=1-2
here’s the origional book.
http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Counter-Establishment-Conservative-Political/dp/0060971401/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205256592&sr=1-4
if s.b. wrote it….it’s damn good.
~~~
s.b. if you see this. if/when your girl hillary wins the nomination i will give you an operations order for the general that will help y’all/us “kick ass and take names.”
rangers lead the way!
I’m doing something that I know will put an end to it. I support Hillary Clinton.
Hey credit where credit is due. The producer Eva Oner is a 38yr old Australian filmaker who has won humanitarian film awards both in Aust & internationally.
Her non american statehood allowed her to call the US govt a ‘bunch of war criminals”.
I leave it to readers to make use of the fact that she is Jewish from a city that hosted large numbers -post war emigrants including proportionaly high jewish refugees.
The average person won’t spend more than few seconds of their ADHD-engulfed stupor away from Britney Spears’ meltdown and the latest contestants on Amercian Idol to give a flip about the current atroctities that are occurring right under their noses which are usually committed by their very own government.
Why are good people like Keith Olbermann tearing down Clinton every night as if she is playing dirty politics and Obama really is the messiah. Keith actually quit a broadcasting job because of all the nonsense about Bill Clinton night after night. We have people that are in the White House representing our country and destroying our soldiers over lies and the media is worried about how unfair Clinton is treating Obama in the political arena? How long did it take for the media before they realized Viet nam was a mistake that never should have happened with 55,000 dead US soldiers and many mentally damaged from the savages of the war. We have almost 4000 dead and about 30,000 terribled injured and 1 in 4 men with mental stress trying to get help with the current war and we have a president dancing for the cameras and singing songs for the press dinner and the media just laughs it up. This is nuts.