< Archives: 2005 April

The United States of Amnesia and the Big Muddy

April 29th, 2005 - by: danny

The United States of Amnesia and the Big Muddy

THE NAM
MUZZLING MEDIA COVERAGE
NY MARCH DETAILS

I was in Brooklyn last night but my mind was in Vietnam and on Vietnam. It’s funny how formative experiences and passions never leave you and, as a special anniversary approaches, my memory was working overtime as I tried to explain to a table of younger people what the war meant for my generation and what it did to our country. I teared up at points flashing back to that era.

I tried to explain that many of us cheered the war’s end 30 years ago, an anniversary that the Vietnamese will commemorate tomorrow with celebrations all over their country. Meanwhile, the significance is likely to be lost on many Americans, who may have heard about the war but know so little about it because it is not taught in most of our schools or discussed in our media.

You can’t really be surprised that the cruel and bloody conflict which many Americans who lived through and didn’t really get, would be forgotten by successive generations. We are a country in denial, where amnesia fights memory. The Christian Science Monitor told us a story yesterday about the war’s “lingering effects:”

“Anybody younger than about 45 today had no direct connection to the Vietnam War — either as combatants, potential draftees, or protesters. Forty percent of Americans weren’t even born yet when the last helicopter lifted off the roof of the U.S. embassy in what was then Saigon.

“Still, many Americans in their 30s or 40s (or even younger) still feel the war’s effects as children of one of the more than 58,000 US soldiers killed in Vietnam or of the thousands more vets diagnosed with ailments related to the toxic defoliant Agent Orange or with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).”

http://search.csmonitor.com/search_content/0428/p01s04-ussc.html

REPORT FROM HO CHI MINH CITY

The filmmaker Tiana, born in Vietnam but an American citizen, writes:

“30 YEARS OF PEACE CELEBRATIONS. WOW. BIGGER AND BETTER THAN HOLLYWOOD HOOPLA AND HANOI GOVT IS OUTDOING CANNES FILM FEST HERE IN HCMC.THE VIETNAMESE LOVE A PARTY, THEY DO VALENTINE’S BETTER THAN NEW YEAR AND THIS TAKES THE CAKE!

“I AM AT EPIC CTR AT CARAVELLE HOTEL FOR NEXT 4 DAYS BY THE OPERA HOUSE AMID THOUSANDS OF MOPEDS. THE VIETNAMESE PEOPLE ARE AT AN ALL TIME HIGH. BEARDED AMERICANS, MOSTLY WAR VETERANS AND MEDIA WANDER AROUND LIKE IN A SURREAL DALI PAINTING WITH THEIR MOUTHS OPEN AT SCOPE OF OSCAR TYPE OUTDOOR SHOWS REHEARSING NIGHTLY AND OTHER CULTURE AND HEROIC RE-ENACTMENTS PLANNED ALL OVER VN FOR 4 DAYS.

THE PEOPLE JUST HAVE ONE QUESTION: WHY DO WE AMERICANS AS A NATION CONTINUE TO REFUSE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CONSEQUENCES OF AGENT ORANGE IN VIET NAM? THEIR CHILDREN BORN AFTER THE WAR IN THAT REGION TEST VERY HIGH IN TIOXIN…”

VIETNAM VETERAN

I am a Vietnam veteran, too, even though I didn’t fight in the war but against it. I did go there on a reporting assignment, and saw what were three Vietnams… the North; the “liberated areas” in the South; and Saigon, our “green zone” then, which was run by a corrupt government with a million soldiers, who provided a formidable force that believed it could hold on indefinitely. And so did its patrons in Washington.

You will see reports about the “fall of Saigon” this weekend, but that’s not the way the Vietnamese “insurgents” saw it. They saw it as the fall of Washington and its comprador neo-colonial project. They saw it as the only road to peace. They saw it as a triumph of resistance, or “people’s war” and “revolutionary power.” Their directives to their own troops included instruction not to pillage or loot — “not to lay hands on even a needle or a thread of the people.” They lost millions as they fought to reunify their country in the name of Ho Chi Minh, whose earlier appeal, for U.S. support at the end of World War II, been rebuffed. So many died. Too many Vietnamese. Too many Americans. It seemed to go on forever.

HISTORY

Back then, I published an article in a Boston paper and in a pamphlet. “There will be many post mortems to come on how and why the U.S. ‘lost’ Indochina. It might be more interesting to think about how the people won Indochina, and how the anti-war movement helped them do it.”

The historian Howard Zinn described this, and just what happened 30 years ago this week, in his must-read (if you haven’t) book, “Peoples’ History of the United States:”

“The United States withdrew its forces, continuing to give aid to the Saigon government, but when the North Vietnamese launched at tacks in early 1975 against the major cities in South Vietnam, the government collapsed. In late April 1975, North Vietnamese troops entered Saigon. The American embassy staff fled, along with many Vietnamese who feared Communist rule, and the long war in Vietnam was over. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City, and both parts of Vietnam were unified as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

“Traditional history portrays the ends of wars as coming from the initiatives of leaders –negotiations in Paris or Brussels or Geneva or Versailles — just as it often finds the coming of war a response to the demand of ‘the people.’ The Vietnam war gave clear evidence that at least for that war (making one wonder about the others) the political leaders were the last to take steps to end the war — ‘the people’ were far ahead. The President was always far behind. The Supreme Court silently turned away from cases challenging the Constitutionality of the war. Congress was years behind public opinion.”

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Vietnam_PeoplesHx.html

MEDIA ON THE MIND

I recall that media was on my mind then, too, as I wrote: “The American press was never much help in our efforts to find out more about those remarkable Vietnamese people who have now managed to out-organize, out-fight and defeat a succession of U.S.-backed regimes, they did so with disdain, distortion and denigration.”

I won’t apologize for what I felt and wrote then. I was naïve about what would happen next, or how the U.S. would remain so hostile to Vietnam for so long. I didn’t like how some of the Vietnamese leaders imposed their will at war’s end, or the way many people on the wrong side were “punished” (brutalized) in “re-education camps” and forced to flee as boat people. Human rights were violated but, after all the crimes and killing, we were not in any position to lecture the Vietnamese leaders. Look at out own history: how the Tories who backed the British had their lands confiscated and were driven out of the country at the end of our Revolution. The feared “blood bath”in Vietnam was not on the scale that was predicted, and it was the Vietnamese who later ended the far more despotic Khmer Rouge rule next door in Cambodia.

THE POST-WAR WAR

I certainly also was also sensitive to what Vietnam veterans went through and are still going through. Just visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial — The Wall — in Washington. We saw how the emotions of the war can still be manipulated all these years later when John Kerry ran for office. The Vietnam war is still with us in the post-war psychosis that affects our culture and infects many who are living with its ghosts.

But let’s not forget the soldiers and activists who fought against the war and often went to jail for their resistance. Zinn remembers Ron Kovic:

“One of those who stayed, fought, but then turned against the war was Ron Kovic. His father worked in a supermarket on Long Island. In 1963, at the age of seventeen, he enlisted in the marines. Two years later, in Vietnam, at the age of nineteen, his spine was shattered by shellfire. Paralyzed from the waist down, he was put in a wheelchair. Back in the States, he observed the brutal treatment of wounded veterans in the veterans’ hospitals, thought more and more about the war, and joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He tells a story of being arrested in ‘Born on the Fourth of July’:

“‘They help me back into the chair and take me to another part of the prison building to be booked. “What’s your name?” the officer behind the desk says.

“‘”Ron Kovic,” I say. “Occupation, Vietnam veteran against the war.”

“‘”What?” he says sarcastically, looking down at me.

“‘”I’m a Vietnam veteran against the war,” I almost shout back.

“‘”You should have died over there,” he says. He turns to his assistant. “I’d like to take this guy and throw him off the roof.”

“‘They fingerprint me and take my picture and put me in a cell. I have begun to wet my pants like a little baby. The tube has slipped out during my examination by the doctor. I try to fall asleep but even though I am exhausted, the anger is alive in me like a huge hot stone in my chest. I lean my head up against the wall and listen to the toilets flush again and again.’

“Kovic and the other veterans drove to Miami to the Republican National Convention in 1972, went into the Convention Hall, wheeled themselves down the aisles, and as Nixon began his acceptance speech shouted, ‘Stop the bombing! Stop the war!” Delegates cursed them: ‘Traitor!’ and Secret Service men hustled them out of the hall.”

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Vietnam_PeoplesHx.html

VIETNAM/IRAQ

We can’t forget Vietnam. We can’t let the same thing happen again.

The Christian Science Monitor again:

“While the war in Iraq has not seen nearly the level of protests that Vietnam did, public support remains tenuous. Asked if ‘it was worth going to war in Iraq,’ the latest Gallup poll finds 45 percent saying ‘yes’ and 53 percent answering ‘no.’ Put another way, 46 percent of those polled say sending U.S. troops to Iraq was ‘a mistake.’

“What does this bode for President Bush? He’s now running at his lowest approval rate (45 percent) yet, according to Gallup. But that’s still higher than the low points of most postwar presidents, and significantly higher than Harry Truman’s low point during the Korean War (23 percent) or Lyndon Johnson’s low point during Vietnam (35 percent).

“On April 30, 1975, U.S. involvement in what Vietnamese called ‘the American War’ ended symbolically when that last helicopter departed what now is called Ho Chi Minh City, panicked Vietnamese dangling from the skids. In an historical coincidence, it was exactly 30 years before that (April 30, 1945), that Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bunker, ending World War II in Europe.

“Such linking of wars and generations can be highly personal for many Americans.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0428/p01s04-ussc.html

“HIGHLY PERSONAL,” YOU BET.

I won’t be surprised if the same “payback” will not stalk Iraq or our troops there when they come home, or “back to the world,” as they eventually will. We who don’t learn from the past are condemned to relive it, or so the saying goes,

As I have been reporting, I am speaking at special commemorative program on these issues on Saturday at 5 PM in Tribeca’s Vietcafé and Gallery Viet Nam, which is running a “remember the past and envision the future” event: “A tribute to turn an era of grief into a powerful action for peace.” There will be films shown, including WMD, and a photo exhibit and more. (The event starts tonight at 6 PM; 345 Greenwich Street, Tribeca. Films screen Saturday at 3 PM and 5 PM.

HEARTS AND MINDS

The last line in that article I wrote so many years ago was about an influential film called “Hearts and Minds” that won an Oscar and inspired many, including myself, into the passion. “In a recent interview,” I wrote, “the producer of ‘Hearts and Minds’ said he made the film because he was concerned about the liberation of America.”

Ironically, I heard from that producer, actually the director, Peter Davis, last night. He sent along a piece which is up on TheNation.com website. He was thinking about Vietnam, too. And about an American he met there and is still in touch with:

“Mike Sulsona, a former Marine, called the other day, just back from Vietnam for the first time since the war. He was excited because he surprised himself by liking it there this time and because he was pleased with the research he did for a play he wants to write about an Army tank driver. The tank driver, whom Mike Sulsona did not know, was caught in an ambush between Kontum and Dak To just before the Tet offensive of 1968.

“Mike himself was in a Tet battle three years later, but it was the 1968 Tet that interested him now. Tet proved the Viet Cong could attack anytime anywhere. Tet gave the Viet Cong control of the U. S. Embassy in Saigon for a few precious hours. Tet, like a flash of lightning, illuminated the American peace movement and brought on demonstrations in city streets and on many college campuses. Tet drove Lyndon Johnson from the White House. Tet, paradoxically, was also a Viet Cong failure because their fighters were soon routed and because the attack did not spur the spontaneous uprising against the South Vietnamese government and the Americans that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong had hoped for. It took them seven more years to win the war.

“Whether it is viewed as a country, an era, or a war, Vietnam does not engage Mike Sulsona politically, only personally. Was it a war for independence, a civil war, a Communist aggression, an insurrection against French colonialism in the first part and American imperialism in the second? Sulsona, originally a boy from Brooklyn and now a burly family man living on Staten Island, still isn’t sure which it was and doesn’t much care. What he does know is that, as the thirtieth anniversary of the war’s end is marked – celebrated in Vietnam, briefly noted here in the losing country – the Vietnamese people embraced him. Like most of the more than 200,000 American visitors each year, he found the Vietnamese genuinely friendly and determined to emulate the United States economically if not politically.”

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050509&s=davis

I also heard from a colleague of Walter Cronkite, the news anchor who went to Vietnam and reported that the war could not be won. When that happened, aides told President Lyndon Johnson that if he had lost Cronkite, he had lost the country. What is Cronkite doing now? He will be moderating a panel on nuclear proliferation at the UN next week. He is still worried about the dangers of war and trying to do something about it. (See note below.)

IN TODAY’S NEWS

Putin Urges U.S. to Draw Up a Withdrawal Calendar

Broken Chain Of Command
by Perry Jefferies, TomPaine.com

An Iraq veteran explains how Abu Ghraib was symptomatic of the wide-ranging problems in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

http://www.tompaine.com/20050428/articles/broken_chain_of_command.php

Pentagon releases photos of flag-draped coffins

KRON in San Francisco reports:

“PENTAGON — Under pressure from advocates of open-government, the Pentagon is releasing hundreds of photos of flag-draped coffins of American soldiers. The military had resisted releasing such images, and has barred news coverage of the arrival of soldiers’ coffins from Iraq.

“It says it is enforcing a 1991 policy aimed at protecting the privacy of the soldiers’ families. Critics contend it’s trying to hide the human cost of the war.

“The photos were released without context, so it’s unclear where and when most were taken.

“They were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Ralph Begleiter (BEHG’-ly-tur), a former C-N-N correspondent who now teaches at the University of Delaware.”

http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=3275753&nav=5D7lZF28

Note that it is Ralph, now a journalism professor, who is suing as an individual, not his former employer.

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On the Media Front

April 29th, 2005 - by: danny

On the Media Front

The Center for American Progress carries this item:

“Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has launched the latest attack in the administration’s war on a free and independent media. The Pentagon is requiring reporters covering the court-martial of U.S. Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar at Fort Bragg, N.C., to ‘sign agreements that limit their ability to perform their jobs under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.’

“In order to gain access to the proceeding, reporters must ‘pledge to not interview soldiers at Fort Bragg about the case or ask legal advisors in the media room to speculate on the outcome.’ Reporters who don’t sign aren’t allowed to cover the case.

“These restrictions aren’t taken lightly. To ensure compliance, journalists are ‘escorted everywhere while on base and some were monitored as they went to the restroom.’ Eugene Fidel, a military law expert, ‘said he has never heard of restrictions against talking to soldiers,’ calling such limitations ‘crazy.

“Just because it’s the military doesn’t mean the First Amendment doesn’t apply. The judge can close (or partially close) a proceeding to outside observers, but ‘[t]his can be done only after finding no reasonable alternative will safeguard [a compelling] interest and after providing for a narrow closure based on specific findings that can be reviewed on appeal.’ In this case ‘[n]o public hearing was held, no showing was made and no judicial findings were rendered to justify press restrictions of any sort.’ Moreover, applying these restrictions only to journalists is an unconstitutional ‘content-based form of restriction of speech.’

“Military Reporters & Editors (MRE), the official association of military journalists, has written a letter to Secretary Rumsfeld demanding that ‘the Department of the Army rescind these constraints and assure that similar restrictions will not be imposed elsewhere.’”

THE LEFT AND THE MEDIA

Robert Parry on the left and the media:

In the mid-1970s, after the U.S. defeat in Vietnam and President Richard Nixon’s resignation over the Watergate scandal, American progressives held the upper-hand on media…

“Progressives apparently trusted that professional journalists would continue standing up to conservative pressure, even in the 1980s as well-funded right-wing groups targeted individual reporters and Reagan-Bush ‘public diplomacy’ teams went into news bureaus to lobby against troublesome journalists. [For details on this strategy, see Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.]…

“Through the 1990s, the conservatives poured billions of dollars into their media apparatus, which rose like a vertically integrated machine incorporating newspapers, magazines, book publishing, radio stations, TV networks and Internet sites.

“As the 1990s wore on, mainstream journalists adapted to the new media environment by trying not to offend the conservatives. Working journalists knew that the Right could damage or destroy their careers by attaching the ‘liberal’ label. There was no comparable danger from the Left.

“So, many Americans journalists – whether consciously or not – protected themselves by being harder on Democrats in the Clinton administration than they were on Republicans during the Reagan-Bush years…

“Many on the Left began acknowledging the danger caused by this media imbalance. But even as the Iraq War disaster worsened, the ‘progressive establishment’ continued spurning proposals for building a media counter-infrastructure that could challenge the ‘group think’ of Washington journalism.”

PROGRESSIVES TO FIGHT FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING

“WASHINGTON — Free Press, Consumers Union, Common Cause and the Consumer Federation of America today announced a plan to ‘take public broadcasting to the people,’ proposing a series of local hearings across the country where the public will talk directly to broadcasters and policymakers about the future of public broadcasting.

“In a report released today, ‘A New Standard: Building a Public Broadcasting System that
Deserves Public Support,’ the four organizations called for ‘a public ascertainment process’ before lawmakers and bureaucrats attempt to set politically motivated standards for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and other public broadcasters. The report recommends town meetings in each community that include a broad array of constituencies, elected officials, and decision makers from local PBS and others.”

EJC: ANCHORS MAY NOT BE ONLY CHANGE IN U.S. TV NEWS

“CBS is looking to shake up the broadcast and rightly so, to break the old paradigms of news, whether it’s taking off a tie or doing new graphics or new kinds of stories ó to experiment with different ways of relating to people. John Roberts, one of several candidates to take over the coveted anchor chair, anchoring the CBS Evening News on a recent Friday (22 April) ditched his tie for the last 23 seconds on the air. No big deal, really, but in network news, the rule is hard and fast: anchormen wear ties in the studio. Never mind that it was done on a 100 Euro bet with his producer and that it drew virtually no attention.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050427/1a_cover27.art.htm – USA Today

DANIEL PEARL LIVES ON

The work of Daniel Pearl, the slain Wall Street Journal writer, lives on through the foundation named after him. One of their events:

“Interfaith Dialogue
“The Daniel Pearl Dialogue for Muslim-Jewish Understanding , featuring Akbar Ahmed and Judea Pearl, was at Duke University in February and continues in Ottawa, Toronto and at UC Irvine in May. Professors Ahmed and Pearl also are discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict online via Naseeb Vibes a literary site for Muslims by Muslims. Naseeb members have added their voices through the TalkBack section. For more information, please visit our Dialogue page.”

www.danielpearl.org

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Letters and Sightings

April 29th, 2005 - by: danny

Letters and Sightings

Paul Kneevers writes to his local newspaper:

“Subject: area income growth numbers show true story is not reported

Wisconsin area income growth increase is $5,112,652 or 3.1%
Milwaukee area income growth increase is 545,670 or 1.9%
Waukesha area income growth increase is $427,961 or2.8%

“This clearly ranks the Milwaukee county income growth at a much worse ranking than your article states.

“The Milwaukee Journal/Sentinels’ use of Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, rather than Milwaukee county alone as a statistical basis for its’ article is deliberately meant to hide the real story here, that Milwaukee residents are losing purchasing power at a rate of 6-8% a year as their cost of living has gone up a whole lot more than 1.9% The Journals’ use of deliberately tainted statistics shows its’ continued desire to minimize the current catastrophic situation our economy is truly in.

“This is sad because in order to fix a problem it must be correctly identified. Failure to provide relevant reporting of data that shows honestly the affect these numbers have on Milwaukee area residents is basically LYING to Milwaukee county readers about the status of heir economy, as if the inclusion of Waukesha, with it’s much wealthier residents somehow helps to identify Milwaukee’s economic problems.

“I find this atypical of Journal/Sentinel reporting, as the Journal slants economic numbers to paint a rosier economic picture than actually exists in real life. The wealth of Waukesha county residents does not in practice help Milwaukee county statistical analysis in any way. In fact use of these numbers in this way is subterfuge and is TOTALLY UNETHICAL for a journalist

“I am disgusted.”

ECONOMY IN TROUBLE

Bob Walters, PhD, writes from Scottsdale, Arizona:

“Dave Hallock’s letter re: the U.S. “bully” is right on! Although I’m not a fan of the “arcane ‘science’” of economics, assuming as it does (among a number of logical fallacies), that people act rationally in making market choices, I’ve paid a bit more attention recently to the U.S. economic situation…declining dollar, budget & trade deficits and all that. Seems to me that wreaking economic havoc and ruin on the majority population of our nation is an implicit policy of the thugs now in control of our government, as a way of consolidating their power and crushing dissent, especially from those most harmed by their aims at world domination and control. How better enslave people than to deprive them of a decent living??

“Anyway, the point of Hallock’s observation is that new (and sometimes strange) alliances are forming around the world to counter the belligerent hegemon, and well may reach the point of telling the U.S. “No more!” Europe, China, Japan and Saudi Arabia/OPEC could put an immediate stop to BushCo imperial ambitions and naked aggression: all they have to do is 1) stop financing (buying) U.S. debt; and 2) stop using dollars as their reserve currencies. Within 3 months, we’d see onset of the worst economic crisis of this nation’s history; within 6 months, BushCo would be thrown out of office and many of their principals would be on their way to prison. Of course, we’d all be in a “world of hurt”, but that may be the only decent, non-armed revolutionary way to rein in this vast criminal fascist enterprise!

“Keep up your great work! Thanks for all that you do!”

CHINA/JAPAN CONFLICT

Anne Winn writes:

“I found the two letters regarding the recent demonstrations in China against the Japanese revisionist history book interesting. The perspectives were revealing. However, I would like to offer yet another suggestion concerning the meaning of these events. It was noted that the Chinese monitor closely communication on the internet. They can also subtly control that communication as well. I doubt seriously that since Tiananmen Square demonstrations actually even start let continue that do not serve some purpose for the government. It is quite easy to play upon old animosities toward the Japanese dating back not just to WWII but centuries. However, one should look a little more closely at the contested area of offshore oil and gas exploration going on right now in the waters that separate these two modern nations, both aggressively seeking new energy resources wherever they can be found and exploited. Now think again about the oh so subtle Chinese.”

GET HIM OFF THE TUBE

I.W.M. Rieger, Isabella Rieger and Tony Rieger write from Portland, Maine:

“I might regret exposing my fleshy underside to you and your readers but thought you might be amused with my family’s feelings tonight at 8 p.m.

“To: president@whitehouse.gov
“Subject: prime time

“Mr. President,

“Please get off prime time TV. We didn’t appreciate your Social Security pitch a year ago, and we certainly won’t now that you’ve interrupted one of the only TV shows that we watch every week. If you need better ratings, why don’t you air it on FOX only?

“Most irritated with you & your entire administration.”

Well, that’s one way of putting it. Here’s another: A first rap from my main man Polar’s (a/k/a Polarity l) most def young elementary-school musician son Nile Levine:

“It’s me, Nile the Administrator, I’m a traitor
And I beat up Ralph Nader
Big news Bush, see ya later
Time for ya to go home and moan
Ha ha, ya gotta pay that stupid bank loan
You’re in the sucky zone
And you’re all alone
Oh yeah, Cheney
Trip, skip, hic
You really are a dick
Look at all that stupidness
Yup, well I’ve gotta
tend to some bus-i-ness”

MAY DAY PEACE RALLY AND MARCH IN NEW YORK

What: March by the United Nations — 11:00 AM (assemble); Noon (march begins)

Details: In the lead contingent will be an international group of mayors including the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a delegation of 60 survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings, prominent figures of the anti-war and nuclear disarmament movements, military veterans and family members, youth and students, elected officials, and people of faith.

Assembly and route: Demonstrators assemble on First Ave. north of 50th St. beginning at 11 AM. The march will kick off at noon from 50th St. and Firs Ave., move south on First Ave., turn west onto 47th St. (at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza), then south on Second Ave. to 42nd St., west on 42nd St. to Sixth Ave., north on Sixth Ave. to 59th St. (Central Park South), then west and enter Central Park at 59th St. and 7th Ave for a rally. A detailed map of march route is available at:

http://unitedforpeace.org/img/original/May1-Large1.jpg.

What: Rally in Central Park 2:00pm-6:00pm

Where: Heckscher Ballfields (north of Columbus Circle, enter at Central Park West & 64th St.)

Rally Speakers include:

Mayor Akiba of Hiroshima and Mayor Itoh of Nagasaki
Survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Japan
Daniel Ellsberg, former Defense Department official and anti-nuclear activist

EVENTS

Yesterday, I dropped into a panel at the Tribeca Film Festival. Great discussion.
Highlights:

Filmmaker Fenton Baily, whose investigation of the movie “Deep Throat” is playing at the festival, coined the term “glow job” to talk about the need for ego fulfillment that many filmmakers have. He also told me of his problems in getting stronger content on the air. He has made a film about Abu Ghraib prison but no one will run it in the U.S., he says. Many in the audience resonated with my comments from the floor on censorship on TV.

Billy Campbell, the head of Discovery Networks, announced a new commitment to documentaries. He also revealed what I didn’t know — that Discovery had changed its motto from “Explore Your World” to “Entertain Your Brain.”

Last night, I heard political philosopher Ben Barber give an eloquent call for support for the arts in our market-driven world. This was at a fundraiser for Casey Mead’s multi-media, multi-arts organization, Projectile Arts, at a hot new restaurant/bar called Moon in Williamsburg. Schmoozed with the great John Barlow and ran into Jeremiah Hosea Landess, a most talented artist who gave me his CD by Earthdriver called “no one’s slave.”

Will listen this weekend as we remember Vietnam, march by the UN, and get ready for another week, which will end with a trip to Minneapolis to show “WMD.”

Whew. I am outta here.

Comments: dissector@mediachannel.org

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