‘The Last War Crime’ Debuts at Cannes--but Censored in US

[BanzaiBonnie]

Do we have freedom of speech? I'd like to ask DU members if we have freedom of speech. Have we only ever had the illusion of free speech?

During this summer of Occupy and subsequent police brutality, the subject of torture is hotly denounced by protesters and conveniently ignored by candidates. Like that ostrich diving head first into the sand of political expediency–Americans want to focus on the alleged debt crisis or gay marriage–anything that absolves us from the messy subject of tortures committed in our names by the Bush/Cheney administration and which continue under Obama to the present day. The entire Bradley Manning debacle speaks volumes to this accusation.

In spite of strong evidence identifying Dick Cheney as the mastermind behind this torture regime–the subject remains taboo, both in the ‘news’ business and in Hollywood–that is until Hollywood executives watched trailers for the anti-war documentary–The Last War Crime.

Written, produced and directed by a new talent known only as ‘The Pen,’ this film documents the torture protocol ordained by the Bush-Cheney administration. Since it first circulated a trailer on the web; it has been heavily censored and cyber attacked. You Tube has removed it at intermittent intervals and MTV (which is owned by Viacom) has refused to sell air time for a commercial.

Apparently, there are some things that Viacom won’t accept money for—namely any film or story which exposes the regular torture ordered by Vice-President Cheney. Curious about this documentary and the blatant censorship–(I couldn’t download it)–I contacted the artist aka The Pen. Here is the interview.

http://www.nationofchange.org/last-war-crime-debuts-cannes-censored-us-1342021227

[Mnemosyne]

1. K&R for free speech... And donated a couple bucks, sounds like a great film. nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

2. K&R for another victory in the WOT. n/t

[Selatius]

3. "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." -- A. J. Liebling.

This is the problem in a nutshell. We don't have an equivalent publicly owned news outlet such as the BBC in Great Britain. The result is censorship of the corporatist variety instead of the statist variety, like that seen in Nazi Germany or Pinochet's Chile.

Many of the news outlets likely did not want to critically examine the evidence about weapons of mass destruction, simply because a major war drives ratings like nothing else, and high ratings equals greater profits from being able to charge higher ad fees for those that buy time. Why would they then go after Bush-Cheney over torture if Bush-Cheney made them money off of the war to begin with? They won't.

Also, what's to stop people who own stock in media companies and control them from also owning defense stocks and controlling those companies as well? The answer is nothing. With enough money, you can buy companies in both markets or at least gain a significant amount of control in both.