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This Week in People’s History, August 1 – 7

Portside
Monument for murder victims Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffit Pinochet's men accused of Letelier murder in 1978. Dick Cheney's hypocrisy in 2000. Reagan's racist dog-whistle in 1980. Dixiecrats defend the poll tax in 1948. Chicago Freedom Movement in 1966. Birth of a hero in 1848. Toxic-waste emergency in 1978.

film

Why Hollywood Sucks: They Don’t Make More Movies Like ‘Vice’

Andrew Stewart Washington Babylon
Vice is a picture that distills entire semesters worth of history, geopolitics, psychology, media theory, film studies, and military analysis into a historical comedy-drama that has netted far less attention and box office receipts than it deserved.

Friday Nite Videos | October 5, 2018

Portside
A Conversation on Consent. Willie Nelson - Vote 'Em Out (Texas Rally for Beto). Trump Takes a Stand for the Real Victims: Men. Movie: Vice. GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski Explains 'No' Vote on Kavanaugh.

Movie: Vice

VICE explores the epic story about how a bureaucratic Washington insider quietly became the most powerful man in the world as Vice-President to George W. Bush, reshaping the country and the globe in ways that we still feel today.

The Jon Stewart Mysteries Presents

According to Dick Cheney, President Obama is practically an Iranian agent. But can some classic sleuthing uncover an even greater threat to America than Barack Obama?
 

New York Times Editorial: Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses

The Editorial Board, New York Times New York Times
The New York Times editorial - in the paper of record - demanded that those responsible for the vicious torture policies be brought to trial. Any credible investigation should include former Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington; the former CIA director George Tenet; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, the Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who drafted what became known as the torture memos. There are many more names that could be considered.

American Torture - Past, Present, and Future? - Beyond the Senate Torture Report

Rebecca Gordon TomDispatch
It came from the top and that's never been a secret. The president authorized the building of those CIA "black sites" and the use of what came to be known as "enhanced interrogation techniques" and has spoken of this with a certain pride. The president's top officials essentially put in an order at the Department of Justice for "legal" justifications that would, miraculously, transform those "techniques" into something other than torture. - Tom Engelhardt

What Does it Take to Have an Open and Honest Conversation About Torture?

Shayna Plaut, Contributing Editor, Human Rights Praxis Center - Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership
One thing that I wanted to learn in talking to a torturer - I guess every person is different - but I wanted to see: did this destroy him? Did this destroy his soul? Is he like a broken man wracked with guilt? And he wasn't.
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