Wisdom Quarterly: torture

Showing posts with label torture. Show all posts

Monday, October 24, 2011

"Hot Coffee" - How Corporations Rule (video)

(HBO, Susan Saladoff) Stories we're told by corporate media hide shocking truths.

Is Justice Being Served?

["Tort reform? What's tort reform? "Forced arbitration and 'frivolous' lawsuits," now that's G.W. Bush and Dick "Halliburton" Cheney will not stand for!] Seinfeld mocked it. Letterman ranked it in his Top 10 list. And more than 15 years later, its infamy continues.

Everyone knows the McDonald’s coffee case. It has been routinely cited as an example of how citizens have taken advantage of America’s corporations and legal system, but is that a fair rendition of the facts?

Hot Coffee reveals what really happened to Stella Liebeck, the 81-year-old Albuquerque woman who spilled scalding coffee on herself and sued McDonald’s, while exploring how and why the case garnered so much media attention, who funded the effort, and to what end.

How corporate America destroyed our rights in court

[Hint: Corporations fabricated AstroTurf organizations to undermine our legal standing against them in court whenever they are liable for anything from irresponsibility, to criminal negligence, to rape. Yes, rape. KBR/Halliburton got a case against them redirected to private arbitration in the case of the group rape of Jamie Leigh Jones.] See the film, and decide who really profited from spilling hot coffee.

Jamie Leigh Jones, featured in "Hot Coffee" was raped by corporate (Halliburton/KBR) forces in Iraq (Mother Jones/Twylah.com).

“Eye-opening indictment of the way big business spins the media.”
—Variety

“Stunning debut … Sends audiences out of the theater thinking in a brand new way.”
—Washington Post

“Entertaining, informative…vividly illuminating.”
—Hollywood Reporter

Why, Why, Why?
Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS)

Why was the coffee so hot (190 degrees or just 22 degrees below boiling) even after 700 complaints to McDonalds? Three reasons: it was corporate policy. But why? To mask with heat the flavor of the cheap coffee beans used by McDonald's and, moreover, to keep people from asking for a second free cup of coffee because by the time the first one cools, most customers have already left the fast food outlet.

Why was Pfc. Jamie Jones gang raped so badly by US soldiers ahd Halliburton/KBR contractors that she needed reconstructive surgery? Rape is a perk for our troops in Iraq -- homosexual sodomy of fellow US soldiers, sexual assault of nearly all female troops and support staff, rape and murder of Iraqi girls (maybe boys and prisoners, too). Don't ask, don't tell. It's torture, it puts people (prisoners as well as soldiers) in their place, keeps the hierarchy/patriarchy and our culture of violence alive. It's CIA policy.

"I'm lovin' it?" "You know you like it hot."

Friday, October 21, 2011

Veteran: "There is no honor in this" (Occupy)

A Marine at Occupy Wall Street tells NYPD "There is no honor in beating unarmed citizens."

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Our Mess in Iraq: But "we meant well"!

Wisdom Quarterly, Peter Van Buren, National Geographic

National Geographic's "Inside the [US War on] Iraq" about Operation Enduring Free[trade for the Oil Industry]

Empire is a funny thing. Of course, no one we colonize is laughing. Killing in the name of [fill in the blank].

But some of us (outside the gun and bomb wielding military) can at least say, as State Dept. employee Peter Van Buren does in the title of his new book, "We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People."

Bush lied to invade Iraq then claimed no link to 9/11.

Efforts in our name go from from to preposterous to sinister. Our efforts to make up for illegally targeting civilians and bombing an independent nation back into the Stone Age could not be remedied by bureaucrats. "Nation building" on the ground was contradicted by our illegal occupying force.

(WeMeantWell) We Meant Well author Peter Van Buren discusses life in Iraq as a State Department Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) leader and his time at FOB Hammer, stationed alongside Bradley Manning.

Our government was (is) there to systematically steal oil and exert undue influence on the geo-political Middle East. And other than crippling debt, what do we have show for it? Many American citizens actually believe the propaganda that we were there to "help" Iraqis suffering under an out of control dictator we installed, armed, and betrayed. No wonder everyone there and most people here say, It's time to get out! Enough damage has already been done!

Of course, we were always there for other reasons. And we will be staying for a long time, even if we "officially" withdraw. Our bases, clandestine agents, and newly installed dictators are not leaving anytime soon.

The only State Dept. employee who may be fired because of WikiLeaks
One morning earlier this month, a man named Peter Van Buren was seated inside a drab, windowless interrogation room at the State Department and grilled for an hour and a half by agents from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the department's internal enforcers. The agents told Van Buren [author of We Meant Well] that he was under investigation for exposing classified government data... "Name names!" the agents demanded.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Protesting Torture at Ringling Brothers' Circus

Wisdom Quarterly

(OfficialPETA) People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal's 2009 investigation of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus found that workers were beating, electro-shocking, whipping, tying, and hooking elephants and striking tigers. Shocking footage shows the torment behind animal circuses that exploit animals. (The same or worse holds true for rodeos). What can compassionate people do? It's easy. Avoid circuses. There is no need to demonstrate on the streets as activists are doing today July 20, 2011 in downtown Los Angeles as Ringling Brothers attempts to begin a stint of animal-exploitation shows. There is no need to write letters or boycott a company. Simply stay home if a visit to a circus was planned.

RinglingBeatsAnimals.com

LA Protesters Stand Up to Circus

(Repenney)

Last year nearly 300 anti-cruelty advocates and activists came together at the Staples Center to protest the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus.

This circus has frequently come under attack from activists and authorities alike for its pattern of abuse and cruelty towards captive animals forced to perform demeaning entertainments, suffer in cages, lacking sufficient exercise, nutrition, and care. The elephants are showing signs of arthritis as a result.

Ringling Bros. has been cited and fined numerous times for animal cruelty. In a moment of bitter irony the LA police attempted to arrest an LCA activist for displaying a "bullhook," a device frequently used to torment elephants by Ringling Bros.

"We don't want to shut down the circus," one activist was heard to say. "We just want them to eliminate the use of animals." Note: Cirque du Soleil, Bindlestiff Family Circus, and The Little Russian Circus are all animal-free.

Annual Protests Until Reform
In spite of being cited and fined by the USDA for animal cruelty, Ringling Bros continues to profit from its abuses. Members of groups participating in the protest included ISSAC, OCPA, IDA, LCA, PETA Los Angeles, Animal Defenders International, and ASPCA among many others. For much of the time, the protesters outnumbered the circus-goers waiting in line at the venue.

Trainers cruelly wrestle baby elephants using ropes, sharp
hooks, and electric shocks to force them to do tricks. More

Project Nim: Tormenting animals for "science"