THE ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL

THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM

IRAQ’s WMDs: NOT TO BE FOUND

The first thing I noticed after returning from my weekend jaunt to Europe was the computer-linked candid cameras in each of the booths where they check your passports. I am not sure if I was photographed again or not, but it was a sign of the high-tech surveillance society we have become. On the way out, Newark airport (ironically, now Newark “LIBERTY” airport) was giving away copies of “Security Management” magazine, which had headlines such as “Make Security a Hot Product” and “What if Freddie Kreuger Wrote Code?” The lead article was a report on how well “security professionals” are doing here in the homeland. They are up 13% from last year. Let’s keep our priorities straight.

My priority at the Rotterdam International Film Festival was to assess interest in “WMD,” the new film I am making on the media coverage of the war, and check in on the Indy Media scene. (The film clip I showed was well received.) I was the keynote speaker at the Homefront USA series that features critical films that some call “anti-American” but that are really critical of mainstream politics and the Bush Administration. It is ironic that one has to go abroad to find a program with this spirit given prominence. It is an indication that many in Europe’s cultural sphere understand that the American government does not speak for all of its people.

SUNDANCE A “HO-HUMMER”

I missed Sundance this year, but from what I read, it was a ho-hummer. There was a movie about Che Guevara’s Motorcycle Diaries, written before he joined the Cuban Revolution, that was all the rage. It nailed down a $4 million dollar sale. A Cuban who had known Che had been invited to see the film at Sundance. His visa request was denied by the State Department — just another outrage in a long chain of similar, ideologically motivated “pay-backs” to Cuba even as a movie on Che Guevara is honored.

Che’s anti-materialist values and Hollywood’s are worlds apart. Notice how, in our culture, most of what we read about movies is how much they make, as in what is #1 at the box-office. Market values dominate. The constant talk of grosses is gross in the extreme. Also gross were all the stories about the celebs who deigned to appear, including those famous for being famous (and other things) such as Paris Hilton.

GOLDEN GLOBE YUK

Not to be outdone, NBC broadcast the Golden Globe arrivals. (CNN this AM oohed and aahed: “Who Won? What were they wearing?”) This is an award that deserves to be investigated, not celebrated. TRIO recently showed how publicists stage-manage these supposedly spontaneous “arrival” events, with A-List stars carefully maneuvered in and out of camera range for maximum effect. It is a sellathon, not a moviethon — a fashion runway, with designers and jewelers loaning products for free exposure.

In contrast, the far-more-diverse Rotterdam festival was expected to break its 350,000-attendance record of last year. It showcased films by the late Cuban filmmaker Santiago Alvarez and ran a documentary on him. Alvarez was responsible for producing the newsreels that catalogued and commented upon current events for cinemagoers. He used “film language” to confront reality, not gloss it over. For thirty years his films were the antithesis of our TV news, with its pretense to objectivity. Often denied access to footage from foreign sources, he used stills and magazine covers in his collages to make up-front, didactic presentations. “Give me two magazine covers and a Moviola, and I will give you a movie,” he once said.

79 SPRINGS

Two of his shorts were shown. “LBJ” used the former President’s daughter’s wedding as a send-up and metaphor for his Vietnam war policy. “The 79 Springs of Ho Chi Minh” celebrated the Vietnamese leader’s life and showed the effects of US bombing. It included footage that Alvarez and a collaborator shot of Ho’s funeral and of the bombings of Hanoi. Ironically, Alvarez died after “79 Springs” was completed. I can testify to the solidarity of the Cubans with Vietnam. I was in Havana when Ho died. Flags were quickly flown at half-mast, and the town was drowned in tears.

Another filmmaker-hero of mine, Ademir Kenovic, was at the festival. His work, in the Alvarez tradition, focused on the war on Sarajevo. When his city was under siege, he worked with a group called SaGA (Sarajevo Group of Authors) to document the atrocious assault on that city. Their view challenged the conventional wisdom that portrayed the war on Bosnia as a religious conflict. Ademir and his colleagues showed how it was driven by right-wing nationalism. His latest production is a postwar story, “Summer in the Golden Valley.” It was leading the audience rankings. In his program notes, Ademir writes about why “peace” can be as destructive as war. I hope this film gets distribution in the US.

For more on the festival: www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com

One of the films shown at Rotterdam and here in the US is “Fog of War,” a documentary that seems on its way to becoming this year’s Oscars fave. It features interviews with Vietnam-era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. “Mac the Knife,” as he was known by some, could not bring himself to take full responsibility for his role in the war crime that was that war.

McNAMARA ON IRAQ

Interesting (and still unreported in the US) is his take on Iraq. A column in Toronto’s Globe and Mail by Doug Saunders reports that McNamara is more outspoken about that war than about his own.

He decided to break his silence on Iraq when I called him up the other day at his Washington office. I told him that his carefully enumerated lists of historic lessons from Vietnam were in danger of being ignored. He agreed, and told me that he was deeply frustrated to see history repeating itself.

“We’re misusing our influence,” he said in a staccato voice that had lost none of its rapid-fire engagement. “It’s just wrong what we’re doing. It’s morally wrong, it’s politically wrong, it’s economically wrong.”

“While he did not want to talk on the record about specific military decisions made Mr. Rumsfeld, he said the United States is fighting a war that he believes is totally unnecessary and has managed to destroy important relationships with potential allies. “There have been times in the last year when I was just utterly disgusted by our position, the United States’ position vis-a-vis the other nations of the world.”

KERRY NOW THE MEDIA FAVE

John Kerry was also linking his experience in Vietnam to the war in Iraq Sunday night on “60 Minutes.” John has become THE media fave ever since his surprise showing in Iowa. It’s all about “perceived electability” now, and it is, of course, media exposure that shapes our perceptions, isn’t it?

John had an emotional flashback to Vietnam during that interview, but his tone was modulated and subdued. That seems to be a requirement in our politics ever since the Dean-scream incident that sparked a feeding frenzy of condemnation. (The Dean camp has a video up on idiomstudio.com. It was shot from the back of room and shows the bedlam in the place and WHY, they say, Dean felt he had to yell to be heard.)

“AN OREO COOKIE WITHOUT THE FILLING”

In response to all of the criticism he has received, Dean has cooled his persona. Maureen Dowd of the Times, who has been merciless in her attacks on Dean, seemed to be having second thoughts on Sunday:

?[H]e looked a bit sheepish and hangdog at his drop from larger-than-life to smaller-than-life. He seemed lost without his manic Jack Nicholson eyebrow-arching anger and devilish smile, an Oreo cookie without the filling, not sure how to proceed in a race where suddenly everyone was acting so nice, so measured, so blah.

Asked by reporters about his morph to subdued policy wonk from fire-breathing, red-meat guy, the man known on his campaign bus as “Dr. Dean and Mr. Howard” protested: “I can’t talk very loud but I think the passion is still evident.”

I felt a little sorry to see the declawed, de-clenched, de-Deaned Dean. Where’s the delight in watching the Defiant One, who never needed anybody’s advice, suddenly afraid of his own shadow, practically holding down his hands so he wouldn’t seem too emotional?

THE MISSING POLITICAL SUBTEXT

Remember that there is a political subtext here, even though it’s being presented as if it were just about personalities. Dean’s anti-war stance was unfashionable with most of the media outlets that supported the war while nominally reporting on it. Few outlets have looked back at where the candidates stood on the WMD issue, an issue that Dennis Kucinich has raised, as it becomes clearer and clearer that the WMDs don’t exist in Iraq.

Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Edwards, Dr. Dean, and General Clark, all claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and, therefore, contributed to the political climate which falsely justified a war.

In September of 2002, before five of my fellow candidates joined the President in claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, I repeatedly and insistently made the point that no proof of that claim existed and as such that there was no basis to go to war. Six months later, even Dr. Dean was still claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

WMDs, ANYONE?

So now the Chief US inspector, the man who was with the CIA and various private companies even as he was constantly being projected as “the expert,” says that the intelligence was flawed and that there were no WMDs in Iraq. David Kay spoke to NPR and the Telegraph yesterday and totally contradicted everything he had been saying so authoritatively ad finitum on every media outlet.

You would think that he would be forever discredited, lacking in all credibility, but — oh, no — FOX this morning seized on one tidbit in his latest. He now blames the intelligence agencies for being wrong, as if he were not part of them. He now says, oh, the WMDs must have been moved to Syria, and this unsubstantiated intel is being accepted.

Jane Corbin, who has been reporting on the issue for years, spoke with David Kay in more depth. Recall that just last week President Bush cited his “Kay Report” in the State of the Union Speech as proof that there were “WMD-RELATED” projects. No one has revisited that. It is another example of media amnesia.

Corbin writes on the PBS website about an interview she had with Kay:

I asked him whether, if there was nothing at the end of the day, no WMD, would he be prepared to admit it. And he said, “Well, so be it, if that is the case.” But his view is that the hunt will have been so thorough — and that has been true, as I watched them, they have been incredibly thorough — there won’t be room for anyone to say, “Well, you didn’t do it properly, you didn’t look properly.” They will have been so thorough that if they come to the conclusion there was something, then they will be believed, because they will have done the ground work.

And if they come to the conclusion there was nothing, then it will also be believed because they will have done the work necessary to prove it. But at the moment he is not prepared to say that they have reached that point. He is only prepared to say that if they reach that point, he will admit it.

[PBS] Editor’s Note, Jan. 23, 2004: It was announced today that David Kay is being replaced by Charles Duelfer a top Iraq weapons inspector for UNSCOM form 1992-2000. Earlier this month, Duelfer told NBC News that he doubted biological and chemical weapons would be found in Iraq.

( www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/wmd/etc/corbin.html )

THEY ARE BOMBING BAGHDAD AGAIN

As for coverage of the war, 52 bombing raids on Baghdad were buried in the NY Times. The 5 US soldiers who died rated a headline. This morning another helicopter is down in the Tigris. Meanwhile, Dan Cassidy sends in this item explaining it all (away) from The Wave, Rockaway Beach’s (NY) Irish-American Newspaper:

Spike in Iraqi Helicopter Crashes
“Murphy’s Law of War” says retired General

Rockaway native and longtime resident, General James Patrick McNulty, Ret., said today that the dramatic increase in US helicopter “crashes” in Iraq were due to “Murphy’s Law of war.”

“Helicopters - like cars and bicycles — can crash at the drop of a hat,” said General McNulty.

“…Look at that poor woman electrocuted by Con Ed while walking her mutt in Flatbush,” the affable 87 year old Queens-born general quipped… “I chalk it up to Murphy’s Law….”

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM REPORT

There was extensive coverage of the World Economic Forum in Davos but virtually nothing from the World Social Forum in Dubai, India. Martha Walner has circulated this report:

Over 80,000 people attended the Forum from all over the world, from Bharain to Burundi, Bhutan to Berkeley, with groups from throughout India particularly well represented. Trade unionists marched next to communists (and Communists), and Tibetan monks and nuns. As I headed towards workshops I was often diverted by street theater performances (particularly by youth) and welcomed into dance processions, often lead by indigenous organizations (referred to as “tribals” here.) Some issues had a higher profile than others. These included the privatization of water, the Dalit rights movement, campaigns against Coke and Pepsi (on a number of grounds) and the call for a global day of action against war and occupation this coming March 20th. If you would like to learn more about the forum visit: www.ipsnews.net/focus/tv_mumbai/index.asp .

The most comprehensive site I’ve found is www.choike.org which includes several analyses of the rifts and debates on the Forum’s purpose and future, some of which culminated in the creation of a parallel event, Mumbai Resistance. Find Vijay Prashad’s insightful comments at: www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1563.html

Out of approximately 700 workshops there were 22 workshops on some aspect of media, according to Roberto Savio (active with Media Watch and the Inter Press Service.) While this represented a reduction from 55 in 2003’s WSF held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, I was pleased that one of the few WSF-organized plenary sessions was on Media, Language and Culture. Unfortunately this session was marred by translation, technical and acoustic problems, underscoring the challenges we face in communicating across cultures with meager resources.

DAVOS: WANING AND MUTING?

Speaking of Davos, I didn’t make it up the mountain this year, but the International Herald Tribune carried a report headlined: “AT FORUM IN DAVOS, ANTI-US FEELINGS WANE.” Oddly, Alan Cowell’s story reported that the feelings had NOT waned; rather, their expression was more “muted.”

Contrast this with the headline in Taipei: “US charm offensive falls flat at Davos.” The AFP dispatch said, “Top US officials went in to the world’s largest talkfest here trying to show a kinder, gentler face but still ran up against critics wary of the superpower’s tough pre-emptive policies” ( http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/01/26/2003092555 ).

YOUR LETTERS: THE DEAN SCREAM

Polar Levine shares his thoughts on Dean’s scream:

Finally the coup de gr⣥ was the famous post-Caucus speech. My take on the speech is very different from all the others I’ve heard, but my conclusion is pretty much the same. I saw no anger or malice of any kind. I don’t see Howard Dean as an “angry guy” but rather as a guy — like Kerry, Clarke and Gephardt — lacking a natural, lived-in sense of humor. The automatic interpretation of a loud voice — even TV wrestler loud — as “angry” is simplistic and willfully dumb. What I saw in the speech was the guy whose girlfriend just dumped him; he walks into a party and there she is all shiny and making the rounds. The guy bursts into the room manically joking, hi-fiving and coming on like Vesuvius as the happiest revved-up stud in the house. Except he sounds like he’s speaking on 50,000 mics of crystal meth. But in his heart he’s demoralized and depleted.

I once read an article about a group of hospitalized deaf people who were heard laughing hysterically in the lounge. They were watching then President Reagan deliver a very serious speech. Deaf people have an uncanny ability to read faces and body language. These lipreaders clearly saw the disconnect between what Reagan was saying verbally and what his body revealed — that the words were all lies. It must have been a real life Monty Python moment to see this dignified world statesman haplessly trying to bullshit his way past people who could see that his suit was not there.

( www.polarity1.com/bla12404.html )

MEDIA COMPANIES FUND BUSH

John Levin writes, “I wish to share with you ? a brief Wall Street Journal article dated January 22, 2004. … I am forty five years old, and I have never felt that our democracy is threatened in the way it is today.”

WASHINGTON — Media companies will be able to own television stations that reach 39% of the American viewing public under the big spending bill approved Thursday by Congress?

Viacom and News Corp. spent a combined $5.5 million on lobbying between Jan. 1, 2002, and June 30, 2003, and $2.3 million on campaign contributions for the 2002 and 2004 elections.

Mr. Bush has received more in campaign donations from the broadcast industry than any other federal candidate in the past year. He took in $158,450 — more than 10% of the industry’s $1.4 million in donations for the 2004 campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group.

IS THE US AN EMPIRE?

Dick Cheney was with the old Axis this morning — speaking to the Italian Empire (while Powell was in Moscow making nice to Putin). The Sunday New York Times quotes Dick Cheney as saying, “If we were a true empire, we would currently preside over a much greater piece of the earth’s surface than we do. That’s not the way we operate.”

This prompted a response from Chuck O’Neil in Savannah, GA:

Cheney did not address the fact that 130 countries (out of total of 191 recognized by the United Nations) have an American military presence. In fairness to Cheney’s remarks it could be argued that the economic arrangement within these nations is more of a “wealthy owner / impoverished worker” oppression; much like the share-cropping economies of the Feudal Age of Europe, and the Post-Civil War economics of the Southern United States. The contemporary situation, both at home and abroad, is not simply an agricultural model, but one that permeates across the full spectrum of the economy. Traditionally, Empires treat populations of occupied nations with less respect than they treat their own citizens. The government of the United States differs from this classic behavior of Empires, by also protecting the exploitation of much of its own population.

TOMORROW’S NEWS TODAY

Kofi Annan is expected to announce today whether the UN will send a mission to Iraq? Deadly Bird flu is spreading in Asia, with Indonesia the latest target? Britain is bracing for the Hutton report, though the Sunday Times and Observer believe it will exonerate Tony Blair. (The Observer had PAGES of background on the issues and testimony exploring the death of Dr. David Kelly and the role of the government and BBC.)? The IHT reports, “The BBC is quietly planning to overhaul its news guidelines amid self-criticism after the suicide of a British government weapons expert linked to a broadcast critical of the government’s case for war in Iraq” ( www.iht.com/articles/126475.html ).

PILGER’S FAITH

British-based but Australian-born journalist John Pilger was in Western Australia speaking at a university. His first words become my last (for today):

I am a reporter, who values bearing witness. That is to say, I place paramount importance in the evidence of what I see, and hear, and sense to be the truth, or as close to the truth as possible. By comparing this evidence with the statements, and actions of those with power, I believe it’s possible to assess fairly how our world is controlled and divided, and manipulated - and how language and debate are distorted and a false consciousness developed.

(via Information Clearing House, www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5568.htm )

Will the choir say Amen.

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Write to me at dissector@mediachannel.org.