PerfectClassic

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Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:34:43 -0700

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Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:34:37 -0700

Propaganda and Censorship: The Hollywood Industrial Complex

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:34:29 -0700

Propaganda and Censorship: The Hollywood Industrial Complex:

It’s an open secret in Hollywood that before the MPAA reviews many movies, the Pentagon does. David Robb documents the practice in his book Operation Hollywood. Whenever movie producers want to use Pentagon equipment: helicopters, bases, submarines, etc. they send a request to the Pentagon, along with five copies of the script. The Pentagon replies with proposed changes to the script, which the producer must either accept, or forgo the equipment (which disinclines studios to finance the film, since it entails extra costs). Then, while the movie is shot, a “minder” hangs along, to ensure the director sticks to the script. Final approval comes from Pentagon brass who pre-screen and censor the film. …

Movies that garnered approval include Pearl Harbor, Top Gun and GoldenEye. Movies that had to due without include Forrest Gump, Platoon, Independence Day and Thin Red Line. Among the taboo subjects for the Pentagon: anything that will decrease recruiting, alcohol or drug use, aliens overpowering the military or any military personnel depicted in a negative light. Forrest Gump failed to procure funds for implying that the Army was staffed by “soldiers of limited intelligence” and for the scene in which Hanks moons the President. In the original GoldenEye script a Navy Admiral sells state secrets, the final version, it’s now a Frenchman. …

The Pentagon claims it aims to “portray the military as it actually is,” but don’t planes sometimes have technical difficulties? Doesn’t torture sometimes lead to bad information? Don’t soldiers come home with post-traumatic stress because the enemies are human, not vague abstractions? Does the Pentagon truly want to “accurately portray” history? Let’s examine two cases studies. The first is the 2000 movie, Thirteen Days, in which the military brass urges President Kennedy to engage Cuba militarily. David Robb recalls that Pentagon pushed the producers to tone down the implications, but they refused and went without military assistance – a risky move since, “most studio heads tell their producers, ‘We’re not going to make this film unless we get military assistance, because it would be too expensive. So you’d better make sure the script conforms to what they want.’” One such case is Charlie Wilson’s War, the movie about Charlie Wilson’s attempts to aid the Mujahedeen during our proxy war with Russia in Afghanistan. In the original script, says Matthew Alford, in an interview with Al Jazeera [30:00] “there is a very clear link between the U.S. arming the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the 1980s and the causes of 9/11. Now, we know from a CIA advisor who was on set, he says ‘we deliberately made sure we excised that film.’” I asked Alford, author of Reel Time: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy, whether the Pentagon’s thumbs down had ever silenced a movie entirely. He cited Countermeasures, a 1994 movie that requested an aircraft carrier but was turned down because, “There’s no reason for us to denigrate the White House or remind the public of the Iran-Contra affair.” As to the “accurate portrayal” question, he replied, “Since when was it ‘realistic’ for the US military to go to war against Transformers?”

The CIA has recently gotten into the racket. The Los Angeles Times reports “The CIA has kept an entertainment liaison on staff only since 1996. At that point, the Cold War had ended, and the agency was fighting for its budget and its existence on Capitol Hill. The new mission was clear: to overcome the CIA’s image in popular entertainment as incompetent, evil or rife with rogue employees.” Bill Harlow, the CIA public affairs chief is quoted saying, “I made that a big priority, and we did a lot more with Hollywood than ever before.” Tricia Jenkins reports in her book The CIA in Hollywood that the CIA was “influenced” the production of Argo, which is why the movie is essentially an ad for the CIA. She reports that the underlying theme- that the public never finds about the CIA’s successes and only its failures- is one of the narratives that the CIA constantly encourages producers and directors to relate.

anarchei: War On Drugs

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:34:14 -0700

anarchei:

War On Drugs

Texas Jail Allegedly Ran Horrific 'Rape Camp'

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:34:02 -0700

Texas Jail Allegedly Ran Horrific 'Rape Camp':

antigovernmentextremist:

This makes my skin crawl:

A recently filed lawsuit alleges that a Texas sheriff’s office ran a “rape camp” at a county jail, where numerous male guards repeatedly raped and humiliated female inmates over an extended period of time. Two women who were inmates at the jail, which is attached to the county’s quaint courthouse building, are now suing Live Oak County and guards Vincent Aguilar, Jaime Smith and Israel Charles Jr. The lawsuit says the three guards forced the women to shave their vaginas in front of them, to perform oral sex on each other and on the guards and sometimes “to conceal [the guards’] ejaculate by way of ingestion,” the court documents state.

One of the girls subjected to this horrific treatment was in jail on a marijuana charge.

But don’t worry this is just an isolated incident. A few bad apples that, if history is at all accurate, will likely face little to no consequences.

prolifeapologist: A guide to what we believe, since a lot of...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:33:51 -0700

prolifeapologist:

A guide to what we believe, since a lot of people like to pretend we are just trying to oppress others

"[H]umans are always human – even when they sport gaudy titles and win their jobs by persuading a..."

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:33:46 -0700

“[H]umans are always human – even when they sport gaudy titles and win their jobs by persuading a majority of some group of voters to cast votes for them rather than for a different cast of hubris-lathered, self-important ruler-wannabes.”

- Don Boudreaux (via laliberty)

antigovernmentextremist: That’s a good one!

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:33:39 -0700

antigovernmentextremist:

That’s a good one!

"Free market capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to the rise of capitalism, the way..."

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:33:35 -0700

“Free market capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to the rise of capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving one’s fellow man.”

- Walter E. Williams (via donttreadonvirginia)

Dolce and Gabbana sentenced to jail for tax dodge

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:33:28 -0700

Dolce and Gabbana sentenced to jail for tax dodge:

antigovernmentextremist:

An Italian court Wednesday sentenced fashion house duo Dolce and Gabbana to one year and eight months in prison for tax evasion of around one billion euros ($1.33 billion), according to media reports.

Lawyers for Dolce and Gabbana, whose celebrity clients include Beyonce and Madonna, immediately said they will be appealing, and under Italian law the sentence will be suspended in the meantime.

The State is a gang of thieves writ large. What if you kidnapped and imprisoned someone for not paying you against their will?

25% of young Americans say they don't need insurance; 35% say it's not worth the cost.

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:33:22 -0700

25% of young Americans say they don't need insurance; 35% say it's not worth the cost.:

hipsterlibertarian:

…buuuuut they’ll still have to buy it or face a fine come January.

Personally, I fall into both of those categories. I don’t have health insurance, and right now, I don’t want it. In the future I probably will, but currently insurance is not for me.

Now, I know there’s a risk involved in not being insured — and I might opt for a basic catastrophic policy soon to cover any big, expensive surprises — but hey, there’s a risk involved in life. The best insurance policy in the world won’t remove all the risk from your health and financial situations…but it will cost you a heck of a lot of money each month.

In the meantime, I eat well, exercise, and save money instead of throwing thousands of dollars a year away on medical expenses I simply don’t have.

And I should be allowed to make that choice for myself —

As a U.S. citizen.

As an adult.

And as a human.

This is a situation where everyone, left and right, should be able to agree that the much-abused “My body, my choice” slogan clearly applies. But for 25% of Americans 18 to 30, no such luck.

antigovernmentextremist: perpetualjourney: when the people say...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:33:14 -0700

antigovernmentextremist:

perpetualjourney:

when the people say the police are for our protection…

Actually the police have only one job: enforce the law. The handgun on their hip is not for your protection, it’s for their protection.

Every police officer sees you as either a threat to be feared or a resource to be exploited.

quidditchcapricious: fer1972: Salto de Fe by Omar Ortiz

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:33:04 -0700

quidditchcapricious:

fer1972:

Salto de Fe by Omar Ortiz

President Obama Has Outspent And Out-Arrested George W. Bush On Marijuana, Reports Say

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:05:37 -0700

President Obama Has Outspent And Out-Arrested George W. Bush On Marijuana, Reports Say:

antigovernmentextremist:

The War on Drugs is wrong on so many levels and yet it keeps expanding.

Classic.

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:05:29 -0700

Classic.

nfloffseason: eltigrechico: nationalpost: ‘I can kill someone...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:34:39 -0700

nfloffseason:

eltigrechico:

nationalpost:

‘I can kill someone with this ring’: Vladimir Putin denies he stole an NFL Super Bowl ring from team owner Robert Kraft
Russian President Vladimir Putin is denying insinuations that he stole New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s Super Bowl ring that’s now on display in the Kremlin, but says he’s ready to buy him another ring as a gift.

Putin was reacting Sunday through a spokesman to a New York Post story quoting remarks made by Kraft at an awards gala at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel last Thursday.

“I took out the ring and showed it to (Putin). And he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,”’ Kraft said, as quoted by the Post. “I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.”

The diamond-encrusted Super Bowl ring worth about $25,000 changed hands while Kraft was visiting St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2005 with an American business delegation that met Putin. At the time, Kraft had said he gave the ring to Putin as a gift. (Photo: Larry Busacca// Anthony Devlin/AFP/Getty Images)

Putin, are you kidding me?

An amazing story about Robert Kraft, Vladimir Putin and a stolen Super Bowl ring.

stfucorporatists:

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:34:33 -0700

stfucorporatists:

Photo

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 04:26:25 -0700

satans-advocate: c4ss: How to Make Money Selling Drugs -...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 02:50:49 -0700

satans-advocate:

c4ss:

How to Make Money Selling Drugs - Official Trailer (HD) Documentary

to say im stoked for this would be an understatement.

did-you-kno: Source

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 02:49:02 -0700

did-you-kno:

Source