[ Please welcome Joseph P. Sottile. As a reminder, please take off-topic discussions to a different thread. - Lisa]
The Warning is a smart, straight ahead, no-nonsense documentary featuring exclusive interviews with recently-published authors Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (Crimes Against Nature), Naomi Wolf (The End of America), Chris Hedges (American Fascists), Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine) and Joe Conason (It Can Happen Here).
Emmy Awarding winning producer Joseph Sottile did triple duty as writer/produce/director on this film which delves into the scary stuff about our fragile civil liberties many people just don’t want to the think about–but should.
Sottile and the authors explore the dark recesses in the Constitution, discovered by right wing federalist lawyer John Yoo and put in effect after 9/11 that can create absolute powers for a president under a national emergency, or pretty much whenever he pretty much feels like it.
Illegal imprisonment and wiretapping are just part of the chilling sweep of Executive powers "written in invisible ink" which came into play under the Bush Administration, thanks to a group of powerful men, including Supreme Court judges who seemingly hold the Constitution and citizens in contempt.
One startling tidbit: The North Korean origins and purpose of torture techniques, including water boarding used in Gitmo and elsewhere, were designed to cause victims to recant their views, rather than give up information.
Now our challenge is to insure that our new president does not abuse these sweeping Executive powers, that he lives up to his promise to close Gitmo and that as Americans our civil liberties are protected. And this film shows that we are pretty much on our own when it comes to that–as citizens we have to speak up, speak out and be bold, rather than sitting numbly on our couches or hiding in the basement wearing a tin foil hat.
Luckily Sottile strikes a tone that is inspiring and informative rather than simply fear-mongering, and this film despite its liberal cast is one that carries a message for all political bents. It’s important for all of us, Democrats, Republican or Other to know how dissent can be harshly treated and suppressed with a just a pen stroke.
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Lisa!
Just a quick note before we start: please take off topics to a different thread. Thanks!
That being said, it is so thrilling to have Joseph Sottile with us to discuss The Warning, chilling documentary about how our civil rights have been written away by legislation in the post 9/11 age.
This subject Joe almost made go line my hats with tin foil, but you present the information in such an even handed manner..which made it all the more scary.
Joe, Welcome to the Lake.
That was a challenge, I think…to let people know that they were not crazy thinking what they were thinking. That we have, indeed, been perilously close to authoritarianism.
Before we launch into how we basically got our civil rights written off, a little bit about you please Joe and how /why you went baout making this aweosme bold movie…
Time for a swim?
Digg it
Welcome, Joseph. Thanks for speaking up. And thanks for being here.
How is the film being distributed? Where can folks get it?
I spent nearly a decade in the mainstream media, tilting at windmills and wondering why I couldn’t do certain stories. I was, surprisingly, naive. So, with a newsmagazine that had won two consecutive Emmys…but was cancelled…I decided to take matters into my own hands and go with this direct distribution of documentaries.
Thanks, Jane.
“The revolution will not be televised, it will distributed directly”
People can go to http://www.truthtopower.tv and get it there.
Of course, I’d love to see it get a college/art house run…perchance to dream…
But the real cutting edge for info is now here…at “places” like FDL…the alt media.
I was shocked ot realize how we could be plunged into a totalitarian state–The warning showed me my nervousness when McCain announced he was suspendeing his campaign was not misplaced..many felt the financial crisis would be Buesh’s excuse to go nasty
How did we learn these techniques from North Korea?
I think we have seen Team Bush initiate a last drive for profit-making, funny how oil is now below 50 per barrel, to line the pockets of their cronies. Now I think they are content to go back to corp boards, to think tanks…and let the Dems take the blame for the mess they’ve left behind.
Welcome Joe. It’s an excellent piece of work.. What a line up of people you put together!
So many folks need to see it. I’m thrilled to see it will be easily accessible. Firedogs should, and I am sure they will, forward this far and wide.
No matter how much I hear Mr Kennedy’s voice.. I am almost tempted to ask….does he really talk like that? /s
Speaking of Civil Liberties when can we Lefty Bloggers find out if we were spied on by Bush?
Those techniques came from a manual we captured circa Korean War.
In fact…those techniques were the inspiration for a film by John Frankenheimer…The Manchurian Candidate
One of the best movies EVER!
Yeah. I did not ask why. No way. I mean…whoa…he is SO compelling to interview. So much gravitas. I didn’t have the nerve. Plus, his dad is one of my great heroes…so…
Ok must watch film and here I was not wanting to watch what I thought was fiction.
By the way how or where can we watch your film?
I would simple assume you have. Poindexter…of Iran-Contra fame…was in charage of the Total Information Awareness network…and they were data mining like mad
I think everyone in the film but Robert Kennedy Jr. has been either a guest or written posts here. A really great collection of thinkers.
Well worth seeing and supporting.
http://www.truthtopower.tv
Got to http://www.truthtopower.tv and you can buy a copy. We don’t have much else in the way of distribution…yet.
LinkTV aired it twice beofre the election. We hope the run it again. Soon. There is a link to LinkTV on the website.
Great flick!!
Tell us a bit about John yoo…
I bet he is.. He seems to be the real deal and from all I can tell he works very hard. Maybe he could /should run for Teddy’s senate seat when the time comes.
Oh it would do wonderful there, I think.
Did you ever get the participants all together for at least one wowful meal?
Thank you, Jane. I really wanted to pull them together and give them a chance to speak collectively. They were writing what they did at a time when Bush was still very much in control. Not a lame duck. And Naomi Wolf was put on the now million-strong terror watch list. And she still kept at it!
Holy cow! KO just said exactly what I typed 10 seconds after I submitted that comment. Senator RFK Jr.
Poindexter…of Iran-Contra fame…was in charage of the Total Information
Funny that gamboling on Death online idea to predict the future is a lot like what we do here. We discuss worse case scenarios allot we just don’t bet on them.
But what aside from political control what could be gained in the war on terror to spy on us?
If Bush had won his wars quick like he said he would I am sorry to say that there would not be so much anger here.
Bush’s failure’s made us grow.
John Yoo, teaches at UC Berkeley (I Know!!! Can You Believe it?).
Architect of the Unitary Executive idea for the Bush Admin.
He designed the legal briefs that srgued for the unliited power of the president in “time of war.” He could do anyting he deemed nec as C-in-C of the military if “national security” was at risk.
Joe, thanks for putting this out there.
I have read some of these authors of course and, I must say, hearing their thoughts in this film (with the editing and the music etc.) shocks me more, Hits me more viscerally. Angers me and makes me want to act.
A sort of “last supper” before the Dept of Homeland Security busted in and rendered us?!?!
Can we get him out? Who wants a war criminal teaching their kids?
Agreed. I think, though, that winning quickly was never the true agenda. Really, it was about being bogged down and staking permanent claims. About breaking the military and forcing the use of privatization…about creating a shadow Pentagon among contractors.
That’s the hope. That we don’t get caught up in the hope and forget what has happened…and what is at stake as we go into the next four years. As Conason said in the film, we need to “cleanse the constitution” and hold people accountable. Or they will be back.
Write Christopher Edley…the Dean of Boalt Hall. I have friends in academia who have don that.
Write Obama. Write Sens and Reps. Obama has said that prosecutions are basically off the table.
THIS IS THE PROBLEM!!
Like Clinton refusing to pursure iraq-gate in 1993…the same players keep on keeping on…
Our own Enabling Act
Thank God Bush didn’t have the talent or work ethic of Adolf Hitler, because we managed to give him the same kind of opportunity that Hitler got from the Enabling Act after the Reichstag Fire. They say that history replays every tragedy as a farce later on, but it hasn’t been merely farcical for way too many, and the rest of us still have two months of potential havoc to sweat out.
Can we actually revoke the power through a public voice?
In the film, Naomi Wolf points out that the Enabling Act and the patriot act are very similar…VERY…as in “idea for idea,” and even “word for word.”
It seems that much will end up bygones and swept under the rug. Do you hold out any hope for justice? Mindful of super-duper bipartisanship, Joe Liebermanism, FISA fold with telco immunity, healing the country and focussing on the future, where do you see the most prominent cracks that have a snowball’s chance in hell of being opened?
It is going to take Executive and legislative action.
I think the first step is education. The FDL audience is far better informed in these issues that most. Somehow, we have to find a way to get to people who know something strange has happened, but can quite get past all the bad headlines. That was part of the goal of this film…to connect the dots.
There was a time when the more worried among us thought there was a real possibility this regime would not leave, that they would invoke national security to suspend even more of the Constitution. Now it seems Bush can’t wait to leave, as soon as all the midnight regs are in place and his Bushies are burrowed in. Did you get any sense of that fear in interviewing your “stars”?
Honestly?
No. Not much hope. I do hope that people do not relax, though, and forget.
We all need to be on guard and not let these radical changes to the Constitution become ensconced into precedent and history.
Note how they are leaving the cupboards totally bare before they go. The mafia would have at least left a few crumbs for the orphans.
Yes. We’d had two stolen elections. We had fear on a loop.
Did you ever wonder WHY they kept announcing the increasing number of Americans on the Watch List? I mean…national security, right? Should be a secret, right?
Nope.
So people would look over their shoulders. Wonder if they, too, were on the list.
So more than one of these authors expressed some doubts about the upcoming election.
But…why not turn over the mess? They’ve made over a trillion bucks of of dfense and homeland security. Massive profits for oil.
Time to sit back and let the tar stick to other people.
The right should be aware that any president could enact these, and we’d all be in the same boat…it may be liberal voices speaking out, ut currently the “dissent” could be perceived as those on the right..
Or some garlic bread.
(I am Italian…so…)
and goodness knows they are al het up over the diea of losing guns…
Joe, do you think the religoius right is being used by the neo cons and conservatives, and if so how can they be made aware that they are simply useful tools?
Did anyone notice that Bob Barr…yes…Mr. Let’s get Clinton Barr…became a huge critic of the Admin? Ron Paul was a huge hit, despite his marginalization by the MSM.
In fact…Paul got more campaign $ during the primaries…from active duty military, than ALL other candidates combined.
Left and Right…can’t get stuck in that paradigm. Everyone can agree that we need the Bill of Rights, separation of powers…
lol!
a dinner party I’s like to attend, if only as fly on wall.
David Kuo was running the FaithBased Inititave for Bush…and he left in disgust. The Neo-Cons and Rove referred to the Evangelicals as “crazies” amongst themselves. And he heard that.
This all goes back to the godfather of the NeoCons…leo Strauss…who believed that the “masses” should not be trusted to govenr themselves, and the elites shouls use reilgion and “noble lies” to manipulate them.
Sign up for DHS or CIA and they might make you a fly on the wall for such a dinner party.
on RFK, jr’s voice
wiki
Might be interesting to interview the same people in six/nine months to see how much they think things have changed . . . or not. Any plans on a follow up?
How can we find out if we are on the watch list?
Many Americans could give a rat’s ass about civil liberties. At least 45% of the population that votes Republican would be quite content wearing white sheets with pointed hoods on their heads or arm bands emblazoned with a stampeding elephant. Scratch the surface of a conservative Republican and you’ll find a fascist waiting to be set free.
I think the Evangelicals have a strong belief in the faith…obviously…and if we could just let them know that they are in bed with…people who regards them as…Chris hedges said it in the film…”useful idiots.” That the NeoCons are not religous. That they believe they are elites, and that religion is a noble lie that helps the elites control the masses…
…maybe we could drive a wedge into that alliance.
In fact…that is the topic of a future film i have planned.
wiki is the way.
thx.
I have a desire to revisit them for other projects. On the NeoCons.
On a dude named Smedley Darlington Butler (wiki him…he was a hero!)
But a follow up like you suggest is a great idea.
End of the first hundred days…how much have the machinery of a police state been dismantled?
sounds intriguing . . .
If you have quadruple “S” on your boarding pass? You are on it.
If your mail is opened (this does happen!). You are on it.
I believe you can, particularly if you have air travel hassles, challenge it.
But most don’t even know they are “one in a million”
Smedley Darlington Butler — great topic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
Maybe not that high…but I did shiver when I saw the percentage for McCain in Idaho!
Whoa!
Quickly…we mention the attempt of a fascist-style coup vs FDR in 1933.
Led by…Prescott Bush…industrialists approached Butler, still the most-decorated marine in us hist, and asked him to lead a march on DC and depose FDR. Butler informed on them and stopped the coup.
Bsuh went on to become senator from Conn. Also look up UNION BANKING CORP.
Yikes!!
Hi Joe,
Do you think the damage can be undone?
LisaM
The books by the two Naomis were my absolute favorites of last year. They are so smart and so persuasive with facts (so un-Bush!).
I’m encouraged that political documentaries are becoming so popular. I encourage people to ask their local venues to show them, it can be more successful than you’d think…
We still have 50+ days to go…let’s not get complacent! Anything can still happen…..Be vigilant :)
Lisa, just to get back to your q.
It is all about info. Sharing it. Creating media.
If we wait for the MSM…it will never happen.
We need to take matters into our own hands. And be engaged. Engage with the evangelicals. That was one of Howard Dean’s smartest moves…to try to peel off evangelicals. Maybe not effective electorially…but it open a dialogue. I think there are many things that evangelicals can be approache on…hunger, poverty, wages…they feel abandoned, and globalization is a huge part of that abandonment.
that last post was not meant to be a reply, sorry!
joseph – can’t wait to see your movie…. also wanted to say that i heard your recent interview at antiwar.com with the other scott horton. you were great. thanks.
On September 10, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld announced that the Pentagon was missing 2.3 trillion dollars. He also said that the adversary was closer to home..the Pentagon..and that it was a matter of life and death.
That’s a lot of tar, already sticking to the people. Do you ever hear mention of this speech by Rumsfeld, or has it gone down the memory hole?
Yes. And no.
Yes…it is only seven year old. It is totally unconstitutional…torture, unitary executive, habeaus corpus suspended…but it is going to take one man…Obama…to stand up and issues executive orders. Congress needs to re-open the patriot act.
So…
No. I jsut don’t see the will. Not yet. Not with Clinton, part Deux in the White House.
Obama needs to first declare the War on Terror over! Stop the permanent warfare state.
Does anyone think that will happen?
what I love about this is that the mainstream media doesn’t even call out the absurdity that there are 1 million people who are potential terrorists! if we’re all terrorists then terrorist means nothing. of course, we knew that already. it’s the emmanuel goldstein of our times…
And let’s apply pressure during the first hundred days that follow that 50.
Scott was great to talk to. Thanks!
Libertarians and civil libertarians…unite!
It’s actually in a number of recent books, including Naomi’s The Shock Doctrine and Andrew Bacevich’s new book, The Limits of Power (excellent read, linguistically beautiful) so there’s still hope. It can’t be whitewashed by Bush’s Orwellian history revisionists.
That speech in in Naomi Klein’s book…the Shock Doctrine.
It is THE most important speech Rumsfeld ever gave…and it opened the door to the privitazation of EVERYTHING the pentagon did, except the recruitment and training of soldiers.
So glad you mentioned it.
I plan on included that in “The No Exit Strategy,” about the Neo Con agenda.
Future plans…
where does your promotional tour take you?
People shoudl check out “the American Empire Project,”
bacevich is so on target.
http://www.americanempireproject.com/
I forgot to leave a link to the video for those who haven’t watched the video.
http://benfrank.net/patriots/n….._trillions
Story and picture
This too is correct it was in a Ninth Circuit ruling in August.
I did a blog here
Not much of a tour. yet.
have an appearance in DC at Busboys and Poets, in Jan.
A college campus screening next week at SJSU, in Son Jose, CA.
Right now we are just trying to build awareness of the film and get funds to do a tour, to hold more screening on college campuses and get some arthouse screengs in various cities.
Rock on, John!
WGBH in Boston aired it once, Oct 30. I missed it but I wrote them and asked them to broadcast it a second time and make it available via Comcast on demand. You might be interested to learn that the “broadcast” via the movie’s website starts and stops but doesn’t start again.
Joe, do you have a good feeling about Obama, that he might move ot undo thee creepy powers, or just keep them there “in case”?
via moa, this conference sounds like it’s right up your alley:
I had a rapturous feelign watching an African-American accept the nomination.
Tears flowed. Amazing.
I am not confident that the creepy powers will be stopped and “uncreeped.”
Not confident seeing him surround himself with Clintonistas. Frankly, Bill set the table for W in so many ways…Telecom Act of 1996, the Revolution in Military Affiars, the Effective Death Penality Act, daily bombing of iraq for nearly a decade…an on and on.
I realyl wish Obama could go “maverick” and really buck the establishment!
another kind of offbeat question, but who designed your log, and the opening credits?
Really appreciate/love the use of the upside down flag as the basis.
Oh yeah…I would make a TON of friends at that shindig!!
Thanks, though, I am going to investigate that little confab.
Zbig is one of my least favorite Democratic Neo-Cons. Neo-Con Lite, all the same great taste of empire, but half of the we-just-dominate-the-world no-matter-what calories.
That was a talented designer named Leah King. She is on myspace…look her up! And at http://www.lolliandpop.com.
We talked about it…and the upsidedown flag is what ships at sea and military untis use to signal danger, crisis, emergency.
Seemed appropriate.
Wow, this has been AWESOME, tough we are nearing wind down tim–Joe I hope you come back frequently to FDL, we have a great blog spot http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/, and it’ be wonderful to read what you ar up to there!
Thank you for visiitng us and for making The Warning, which will certainly be the stickings of some of my friends for their holiday gift. And FDL-ers THANK YOU ALL fo rmaking this a great discussion!
uh..stockings
Thank you Lisa and the FDL community!!
thank you for making time in your busy schedule to talk to us
most certainly does not “taste great.” reading zbig’s “the grand chessboard” was an eye-opener for me. he’s done a good job on occasion critiquing bushco. but imo it’s important we don’t let that fool us. thanks.
absolutely! thanks for the link to the artist
Wishing you well in this endeavor — and your future projects.
Thanks for coming to the Lake to visit with us.
He’s one to watch for. The control of central asia…encircling Russia. All in the Grand Chessboard.
Thank you!!
thank you for your time here today – and i’d like to echo lisa’s invitation to visit via the oxdown diaries.