Monday, May 24, 2004

Of Bonesmen & Sailboat Fuel FEATURED ARTICLES - 'Fahrenheit 9/11' wins top honor at Cannes, AP - Fahrenheit 9/11, Hollywood Reporter Review - Moore scoops Palme d'Or with attack on US president, The Guardian (UK) - Rhino Needs Help - Did Richard Clark Authorize Post 9/11 Saudi Flights? - Justice Memos Explained How to Skip Prisoner Rights, NY Times - Trucks made to drive without cargo in dangerous areas of Iraq, Knight Ridder - When Bonesmen Fight, By Tom Hayden, Yale Politic QUOTE OF THE DAY "What have you done? I'm completely overwhelmed by this. My gratitude to the jury, to the festival...  It's been a rough few weeks cause we lost our American distributor. I'm happy to announce that we have a distributor in Albania, so now every country in the world can see this fil, except one. And I have a sneaking suspicion thanks to what you have done, and the response from everyone at this festival, you will insure that the American people will see this movie. I can't thank you enough for that. You've put a huge light on this. Many people want the truth to be put away in the closet, and you've taken it out of the closet by this act. There was a great Republican President in America who once said, 'If you just give the people the truth, the Republic will be safe.'  That was Abraham Lincoln. A different kind of Republican." - - Michael Moore (from his acceptance speech Saturday upon winning The Palme d'Or at Cannes) KNOW YOUR HISTORY - MAY 24th 1961 -- Civil Rights Freedom Riders are arrested minutes after arriving in Jackson, Mississippi.  Meanwhile President John Kennedy appeals for contributions to buy tractors to exchange for the Bay of Pigs prisoners being held in Cuba. 1984 -- El Salvador: A Salvadoran court convicts five enlisted men of 1980 murder of four US nuns. Like so many of the other perpetrators of murders in El Salvador and other Latin American countries, these murderers were confirmed to be graduates of the U.S. Government funded & run School of The Americas. RHINO HERE: In spite of the fact that major scandals implicating the shrub gang are surfacing faster than a Rhino can cover them in 4 bloggings a week, a major story worldwide this past weekend was Michael Moore's documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11" winning The Cannes Film Festival's most prestigious award, The Palme d'Or, the first doc to do so since Jacques Cousteau's "The Silent World" in 1956. In spite of Disney's refusal to distribute the film, Rhino has faith that as per Michael's plan, it will open in theatres in the U.S. on July 4th weekend. Here's 2 reviews done at Cannes & coverage of the awards. 'Fahrenheit 9/11' wins top honor at Cannes Associated Press, May 22, 2004 American filmmaker Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," a scathing indictment of White House actions after the Sept. 11 attacks, won the top prize Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival... MORE: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5039229 Fahrenheit 9/11 - Hollywood Reporter Review By Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter, May 18, 2004 In "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore drops any pretense that he is a documentarian to pull together from many sources an angry polemic against the president, the Bush family and the administration's foreign policy. MORE: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/search/search_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000512305 Moore scoops Palme d'Or with attack on US president Patrick Barkham, The Guardian, May 24, 2004 The French appeared to have delivered another blow to George Bush's war on terror by awarding the Palme d'Or to Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore's documentary about the US president's foreign policy and war in Iraq. But it was a jury with just one French member and four Americans which gave the top prize at the Cannes... MORE: http://film.guardian.co.uk/cannes2004/story/0,14498,1223156,00.html Rhino Needs Help - Did Richard Clark Authorize The Infamous Post 9/11 Saudi Flights? The Rhino is seeking evidence proving that former White House Anti-Terrorist Advisor Richard Clark did not authorize the infamous post 9/11 jet flights carrying Saudi Royal Family members during the time all other aircraft were grounded.  If you have evidence or leads to such, please email info &/or links to The Rhino at: rhino@kifaru.com So what are all these "major scandals implicating the shrub gang" Rhino speaks of?   Like I said, they're too many to keep up with. I'll give you a couple examples here. If you want more, a good source is: Democrats.Com:  http://www.democrats.com SEND THESE TO A REPUBLICAN FRIEND OR RELATIVE Justice Memos Explained How to Skip Prisoner Rights By NEIL A. LEWIS, NY Times, May 21, 2004 A series of Justice Department memorandums written in late 2001 and the first few months of 2002 were crucial in building a legal framework for United States officials to avoid complying with international laws and treaties on handling prisoners, lawyers and former officials say.  The confidential memorandums, several of which were written or co-written by John C. Yoo, a University of California law professor who was serving in the department, provided arguments to keep United States officials from being charged with war crimes for the way prisoners were detained and interrogated. They were endorsed by top lawyers in the White House, the Pentagon and the vice president's office but drew dissents from the State Department... MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/21/politics/21MEMO.html Trucks made to drive without cargo in dangerous areas of Iraq BY SETH BORENSTEIN, Knight Ridder Newspapers, May 21, 2004 Empty flatbed trucks crisscrossed Iraq more than 100 times as their drivers and the soldiers who guarded them dodged bullets, bricks and homemade bombs. Twelve current and former truckers who regularly made the 300-mile re-supply run from Camp Cedar in southern Iraq to Camp Anaconda near Baghdad told Knight Ridder that they risked their lives driving empty trucks while their employer, a subsidiary of Halliburton Inc., billed the government for hauling what they derisively called "sailboat fuel." Defense Department records show that Kellogg Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, has been paid $327 million for "theater transportation"of war materiel and supplies for U.S. forces in Iraq and is earmarked to be paid $230 million more.... MORE: http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/8726376.htm Today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is by Tom Hayden, former leader of the student, civil rights, peace & environmental movements of the 1960s. He served 18 years in the California legislature, where he chaired labor, higher education & natural resources committees. He's author of 10 books, including "Street Wars" (New Press, 2004). A professor at Occidental College, in L.A., & formally visiting fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics. 8:16:11 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - When Bonesmen Fight When Bonesmen Fight By Tom Hayden, Yale Politic, May 18, 2004 (Rhino's excerpts) I hope some journalist has the guts to ask John Kerry (Skull and Bones, 1965) and George Bush (Skull and Bones, 1967) whether they have any qualms about belonging to a secret, oath-bound network since their college days. Did they discuss Skull and Bones in code when President Bush called Senator Kerry to congratulate him on his primary victories? Will they agree not to leave the room if the reporter blurts out "322", coded references to Demosthene's birthday and Skull and Bones' founding.  Am I scratching the blackboard yet, dear reader? Or are you smugly dismissing these questions as paranoid and unsophisticated?  I don't consider myself a conspiracy nut, but is it really all right that four decades after the egalitarian Sixties, and some 225 years since the Declaration of Independence, the American voters' choices in 2004 are two Bonesmen?  The lesson is that aristocracy still survives democracy... ... Though both the Cowboy and the Brahmin may be quarreling members of the same old club, their differences are existential for the rest of us. Ralph Nader doesn't see this. Instead, he argues that the two parties are a duopoly within the same plutocracy. Maybe Nader is nursing resentment over not being tapped himself, but his is a dangerous blindness. The differences between Bush and Kerry over Supreme Court appointments, religious fundamentalism, civil rights, the environment, John Ashcroft and the future of Iraq are fundamental, dividing the two parties at the constituency level. Bush genuflects to the Christian Right while Kerry sings Kumbaya. The Bush people are scary and destabilizing, which is why the CIA types seem to prefer Kerry (covertly, of course). For the record, this November I am voting with the CIA. They represent the lesser evil in the choices before us.  But like Ralph Nader, I want democracy to mean more than a choice between two candidates chosen by dueling Bonesmen and their major donors.  I still stand for participatory democracy, the original 1962 vision of the SDS, which grew from our generation's experience in organizing among the excluded... IT'S ALL AT: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18726 "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:34:04 AM    comment

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