Headlined Guests
Headlined Guests that have appeared on BBS Radio TV
CRAIG and CINDY CORRIE - the parents of American activist Rachel Corrie, speak about the Israeli Supreme Court dismissal of appeal in the wrongful death case of their daughter Rachel.
ABOUT RACHEL CORRIE
Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old American peace activist from Olympia, Washington, who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer on 16 March 2003, while undertaking nonviolent direct action to protect the home of a Palestinian family from demolition.
Since her killing, an enormous amount of solidarity activities have been carried out in her name around the world.
Rachel’s journals and emails from her time in Palestine are available in a variety of forms. They have been published in books, turned into plays and dramatic readings, and used around the internet.
ABOUT THE RACHEL CORRIE FOUNDATION
The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace & Justice is a grassroots, 501(c)3 non-profit organization that conducts and supports programs that foster connections between people, that build understanding, respect, and appreciation for differences, and that promote cooperation within and between local and global communities. The foundation encourages and supports grassroots efforts in pursuit of human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice, which we view as pre-requisites for world peace. Continuing the work begun and envisioned by our daughter, Rachel Corrie, our initial emphasis has been on Israel/Palestine.
We conduct and support projects that educate for peace and justice, that foster connections and understanding between peoples on global and local levels, that promote the use of art and the written word in fostering justice and peace, and that encourage individual grassroots participation in bringing to fruition a positive world vision.
We hope people will take from our work the same, simple understanding that Rachel expressed as a young child: that we are interconnected. The future of us all depends on our ability to truly want for other children those basic things that we want for our own – shelter, health, education, safety, opportunity, and joy – and to work for that. Our leaders seem very parochial now, emphasizing the differences between people and pointing to “the other” with fear and disrespect. Through our projects, we hope to illustrate how much we have in common with one another and that our differences should be points of celebration rather than fear.
The creation of the foundation was one response to Rachel’s killing. Shortly after her death, we had the opportunity to meet Linda Biehl whose daughter Amy was brutally killed as she registered voters for the first election in which all South Africans could participate. We learned how the Biehl family, guided by their daughter’s spirit and values, had established a foundation in South Africa. At the same time in the spring of 2003, people were asking us what they could do to remember Rachel. The conjunction of those two things encouraged us to believe that through a foundation inspired by Rachel’s values and spirit, we might make some difference. We slowly took the steps to organize the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace & Justice. The structure and work evolve as we continue to learn and to think about sustainability. We have drawn on the expertise of those in the Olympia community and elsewhere who have been eager to help us.
It requires tremendous effort and resources to establish the infrastructure for such an organization, and sometimes there is frustration at not being able to accomplish actual projects as quickly as we would like. We are primarily an all volunteer organization at this point. Certainly one of our frustrations is the struggle to keep up with communications that we have with wonderful people and supporters from throughout the U.S. and the world.
With the devastation and loss of life in Palestine, Lebanon, and Israel, Iraq and elsewhere it is challenging to hang on to hope. Still, it is always there for us, prompted by the many extraordinary people we meet throughout this country and in the world who work for justice on this issue and on many others. We are personally blessed each day with seeing the very best in humanity. A moment that stands out was at the West Bank village of Bi’lin in December where we joined Israelis, internationals, and an entire village of Palestinians who for over a year have been nonviolently protesting the Israeli military confiscation of sixty percent of their West Bank farmland. An apartheid wall and illegal settlements now stand where olive groves did before. Whenever we experience this convergence of Israelis, Palestinians, and many others – all recognizing the injustice, opposing it, and supporting human rights and international law – it is very heartening; and it happens for us frequently.
It can happen for others as well. The first thing Americans can do is to reject the idea, the myth really, that the Israeli/Palestinian situation cannot be solved. That kind of thinking makes it far too easy to avoid responsibility and action. Then, citizens can become better informed by seeking information from a variety of sources, including alternative media and from those with direct experience in the Middle East. They can join or lend support to one or more of the growing number of secular and religious groups that oppose the Israeli occupation and seek a just peace in the Middle East. They can educate their communities by monitoring local media coverage of this issue and writing informed letters to the editor. They can educate their representatives in Congress, challenge them to act and vote responsibly on this issue, and insist that U.S. laws regarding weapons exports are adhered to. The U.S. Government maintains a very biased stance in support of Israel that is not in the long-term interest of either Americans or Israelis, let-alone Palestinians. We must insist on more balanced policy that assures justice, freedom, security, and economic viability for both Israelis and Palestinians. Then there may be a chance for peace. Avoidance of this issue only makes the situation increasingly perilous for all involved, including the U.S.
JP SOTTILE is a freelance journalist, published historian, radio co-host and documentary filmmaker. His credits include a stint on the NewsHour news desk, C-SPAN, and as a newsmagazine producer for ABC affiliate WJLA in Washington. Joseph “JP” Sottile is a two-time Washington Regional Emmy Award Winner. Documentary film credits include: writer, director, producer of The Warning and various production and photography credits on other public interest films. His weekly show, Inside the Headlines w/ The Newsvandal, co-hosted by James Moore, airs every Friday on KRUU-FM in Fairfield, Iowa. He is the Newsvandal.
I have had many QHHT sessions myself. Each one brings with it a new and deeper understanding of who I am and what is my purpose.
At my level 2 class I was lucky enough to facilitate a healing on another practitioner. The photo's are on my testimonial page. This and my own sessions made me realise that I had could do this work and help people find their purpose and where possible heal themselves.
I love learning new things especially in the field of Metaphysics and I find that the clients that find me are so inspirational that I learn as much as they do.
Sessions with me have helped people with physical, emotional and spiritual issues as well as with bereavement. I have had some beautiful sessions concerning bereavement and have also been helped myself in this area.
I am Dorset and London based, however I love to travel so if you aren't in my area and would like a session we can see if I could come to you.
As a Valentine's Day follow-up, I’ll be interviewing Jamie Turndorf, Ph.D., known to millions as 'Dr. Love' through her immensely popular website, AskDrLove.com, the web's first relationship-advice site, online since 1995.
Watch the 4 minute YouTube book trailer regarding Jamie's recent book, 'LOVE NEVER DIES - How to Reconnect and Make Peace with the Deceased'.
Discovering for herself that relationships don't end in death, Dr. Turndorf has created a groundbreaking new grief therapy method that combines her acclaimed conflict-resolution techniques with after-death communication. The result: an unprecedented method that enables the bereaved to reconnect, heal unfinished business, and make peace with the deceased.
This is for guys too, those who are serious about core dynamics that can improve any relationship in this dimension... and others.
Jamie's conflict-resolution techniques have been featured on major networks including CNN, NBC, CBS, Fox and on WebMD, Discovery.com, and iVillage. She has also appeared in popular national magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Men's Health and Glamour.
In addition, Dr. Love writes a column called 'We Can Work It Out' for Psychology Today online.
The Ask Dr. Love radio show can be heard in Seattle on KKNW and on WebTalkRadio.net, which is heard in 80 countries worldwide as is BBS Radio.
Welcome Dr. Love to Cosmic LOVE for an amazing story of the power of love that has blessed so many lives with the wisdom of the heart for healing fragmented, compartmentalized "stinking thinking" (paradigm paralysis). Good life lessons for balanced full-spectrum conscience.
GUEST: DENNIS P. CALVERT
Dennis P. Calvert is President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of BioLargo. He also serves in the same positions for BioLargo Life Technologies, Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of BioLargo, Inc., and chairman of the board of directors of each of Odor-No-More, Inc. and Clyra Medical Technologies, both BioLargo subsidiaries. Mr. Calvert was appointed a director in June 2002, and has served as President and Chief Executive Officer since June 2002, Corporate Secretary from September 2002 until March 2003, and Chief Financial Officer from March 2003 through January 2008.
Mr. Calvert holds a B.A. degree in Economics from Wake Forest University, where he was a varsity basketball player. Mr. Calvert also studied at Columbia University and Harding University. He also serves on the Board of Directors at The Maximum Impact Foundation, a 501 (c)(3), committed to bridging the cap for lifesaving work around the globe for the good of man and in the name of Christ. He serves as a member of the Advisory Council for Wake Forest University’s Center for Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship.
He is also an Eagle Scout. He is married to his wife of 27 years and has two children. He is also an active coach in youth sports organizations and ministry activity in his home community. Mr. Calvert has an extensive entrepreneurial background as an operator, investor and consultant. Prior to his work with BioLargo, had participated in more than 300 consulting projects and more than 50 acquisitions as well as various financing transactions and companies that ranged from industrial chemicals, healthcare management, finance, telecommunications and consumer products.
Mada Eliza Dalian is a world-renowned luminary, spiritual teacher, and master of healing and personal transformation. She is the founder of the revolutionary Dalian Method™ (DM) featured in Healing the Body and Awakening Consciousness with the Dalian Method: An Advanced Self-Healing System for a New Humanity book and 2 CD set, and the award-winning best-selling author of In Search of the Miraculous: Healing into Consciousness. Mada began her quest for truth at the age of five when she witnessed her grandfather’s death. Becoming aware of her own mortality at such a tender age, she began to contemplate life’s existential questions: Who am I? Where have I come from? and Where will I go when I die? At the age of twenty-four, she left behind her training in education and architecture and devoted herself to the search for truth and spiritual enlightenment. After years of meditation and introspection, she was blessed with several profound experiences that ultimately led to a powerful awakening experience at the age of thirty-three. In 1997, combining her experience of Truth and extraordinary ability to accurately read the unconscious belief patterns imprinted in the body’s cellular memory, Mada pioneered a new healing system, which helps to quickly identify the causes of pain, illness, emotional and psychological problems and permanently transform what is unconscious into self-empowered consciousness. Mada shares her wisdom through Dalian Method seminars, workshops, online courses, retreats, private sessions, and coach and facilitator trainings.
Lauren is a trance medium and the author of: Be Honest with Yourself – 7 Secrets to Happiness and Success.
Lauren has over 25 years of experience in the metaphysical world.
“My return to this earth plane was a natural state of being. Through my journey of life my taught me, and gave me an understanding about my gifts.”
Today she is an Author, Teacher, Psychic/Medium, Clairvoyant, Empathic, Tarot reader. Lauren is very direct and to the point. It is all about you. All readings are channeled from her Angel.
MARK CRISPIN MILLER is a Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University. He is the author of several books, including Boxed In: The Culture of TV; The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder; Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney’s New World Order and Fooled Again: The Real Case for Electoral Reform. He is also the editor of Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008. His essays and articles have appeared in many journals, magazines and newspapers throughout the nation and the world, and he has given countless interviews worldwide.
Miller is the editor of Icons of America, a book series published by Yale University Press. Miller is now at work on The Marlboro Man: An American Success Story, to be published by Yale University Press in 2011. He is also editor of Discovering America, a new book series from the University of Texas Press.
Miller earned his bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University in 1971, and his doctorate in English from Johns Hopkins University in 1977. Although he specialized in Renaissance literature, Miller is best known as a media critic. Before joining New York University, Miller served as director of film studies at Johns Hopkins University.
ABOUT FORBIDDEN BOOKSHELF
(New York, NY—June 9, 2014)—Open Road Media announced today Forbidden Bookshelf, a series of books curated by Professor Mark Crispin Miller of New York University. Forbidden Bookshelf titles fill in the blanks of America’s repressed history by resurrecting books that focused on issues and events that are too often left in the dark, including abortion, organized crime, the CIA, and financial inequality.
The series launches on June 10 with five books: Blowback: America’s Recruitment of Nazis and Its Destructive Impact on Our Domestic and Foreign Policy by Christopher Simpson, The Phoenix Program: America’s Use of Terror in Vietnam by Douglas Valentine, The Search for an Abortionist: The Classic Study of How American Women Coped with Unwanted Pregnancy Before Roe v. Wade by Nancy Howell Lee, Interference: How Organized Crime Influences Professional Football by Dan E. Moldea, and The Lords of Creation: The History of America’s 1 Percent by Frederick Lewis Allen. Each of the first four titles includes a new introduction.
Additional books by I. F. Stone, Gerard Colby, Charlotte Dennett, Kati Marton, Robert Fitch, Bertram Gross, and John Dinges will be released later this summer.
Open Road Media CEO Jane Friedman said, “This list of books is much deserving of renewed attention. The issues they address are as significant today as they were when the books were first published. We believe that we will stimulate new conversation and debate through our intensive and extensive marketing platform.”
Mark Crispin Miller said, “Despite our First Amendment—or because of it—countless crucial books have been adroitly ‘disappeared’ through methods far less crude than outright censorship, from threats of litigation to press black-outs and/or charges of ‘conspiracy theory.’ Such tactics have repeatedly erased those books that we most need to read, because of their important truths about the powers that be; and so our purpose is to bring those books to life again.”
Miller is a professor of media studies at NYU and an accomplished author of several books, from Boxed In: The Culture of TV (1988) and Seeing Through Movies (1990) to his more recent works on politics, including The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder and Fooled Again: The Real Case for Electoral Reform. He has also written many articles for newspapers and journals, including four op-eds in the New York Times, as well as many pieces in the Nation, the New Republic,and the New York Review of Books, and articles for Harper’s,the Atlantic, Mother Jones, Esquire, and the Wall Street Journal. Through his blog, News from Underground, he is also an influential presence on the web.
About Open Road Integrated Media
Open Road Integrated Media is a global digital publishing company that creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media. Open Road has published fiction and nonfiction ebooks from authors including William Styron, Pat Conroy, Alice Walker, James Jones, Pearl S. Buck, David Halberstam, Victor S. Navasky, Gloria Steinem, Martin Duberman, and Richard Ben Cramer.
I discovered the astrologer Alison Reeves through my good friend Mahala Gayle's guest contribution on Planet Alert. Alison wrote a fascinating piece on mushrooms! You can find it here:
Though Alison doesn't have a website, she says this about herself:
Things I used to do which are interesting:
I was born in Johannesburg and left when I was 18 years old to get away from Apartheid. Im 44 now.
Project Manager of Anam Cara crisis house modelled on Soteria House in California for 7 years.
Creative therapist in a Hospice for 3 years.
Now......
Astrologer and poet
Chiron astrology workshops with horse whisperer Amanda Oates.
Sacred Isles tours, celestial events around the world at sacred sites
Im a Queer astrologer but I work with everyone who wants a queer perspective in life!
Alison
I’m starting a new group in Lancashire, UK with neuroscientist Dr. Jen Altman called
Ipek Ozulu Goldberg has been a classical violinist since the age of 6. She was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey and started her musical education at University of Istanbul, State Conservatory in 1989. At the age of 9, Ipek moved to Washington D.C. with her parents, Ilhan and Deniz. Initially a culture shock, she quickly learned the language and excelled in school and music. She joined the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestras and played with them for 8 years gradually joining AYP under the direction of Luis Haza and traveling the country competing in youth symphony competitions. Upon graduating high school with honors, she attended Virginia Tech on a music scholarship where she was the concertmaster of the New River Symphony. She later transferred to George Mason University where she graduated top of her class with a B.S. in Marketing and double minor in music performance and IT. After college, she moved to New York City where she met her husband Craig in 2008 and the couple fell in love.
They moved to San Diego in 2010 where they currently reside. In 2014, they celebrated their love with 4 wedding ceremonies in 4 locations in the U.S. and Mexico. Both with a background in sales, marketing and event planning, Ipek and Craig are founders and leaders of a camp called “Desiderata” at Burning Man, a week-long cultural event celebrating music and art with 70,000 participants from around the world. Ipek’s passion for music continues with performances along side her father Ilhan and her recent acceptance into the Greater San Diego Chamber Orchestra.
To Learn More About Our Guest, Ipek Ozulu Goldberg’s Participation in The Greater San Diego Chamber Orchestra
ILHAN SAMI OZULU
İlhan Sami Özulu is currently celebrating his 49th year anniversary in music. He was born and raised in İstanbul, Turkey and started his music education in 1966 at İstanbul Municipal Conservatory of Music when he was at middle school. After his graduation from Kültür Koleji, in 1972, he enrolled at the University of İstanbul’s School of Economics. At the same time, he started to play guitar at various hotels, nightclubs and casinos in İstanbul and participated in several tours in Europe and all around Turkey.
İlhan formed his first band, “Evrim Folk Dörtlüsü”, with his brother İhsan in 1970, and recorded the first single record in 1971. In 1973 they changed their band’s name to “Evrim 5”, and recorded their second single with lyrics by Ümit Yaşar Oğuzcan, and Esmeray featured on lead vocal. With the success of this single, “Evrim 5” hit the charts on HEY Music Magazine’s Top 50 list for 16 consecutive weeks. İlhan İrem later joined the group as a lead singer. Among his many other accomplishments, İlhan received the TRT Best Composer Music Award in 1979, competing with 415 other composers.
In 1978, İlhan was the leader of the professional well-known band “Grup Evrim.” Grup Evrim performed various locations in Turkey until İlhan moved to the USA in 1992.
Between 1978 and 1981, he played viola at “Kültür Bakanlığı Devlet Klasik Türk Muziği Korosu” until he had to serve for the Turkish Armed Forces at General Staff Headquarters in Ankara as a Second Lieutenant. After completion of his military service, he rejoined his band “Grup Evrim.” At the same time, İlhan was also the Music Director of the Turkic World Research Foundation Music Ensemble, toured Europe and Turkey several times.
With his undergraduate degree in music, İlhan started working at İstanbul Municipal Conservatory of Music, later known as University of İstanbul State Conservatory, as both an instructor and a performer on the viola and guitar, and later the jazz orchestra conductor and arranger, between 1983 and 1992. He received a Master’s degree in 1991, and following with a Ph.D. in Radio/TV Broadcasting from the University of İstanbul, in 1995. İlhan received his second master’s degree, M.S. in Electronic Commerce from George Mason University in 2007, in addition to 5 associated degrees in Information Technology from Northern Virginia Community College. He is still continuing his Project Management education at University of Irvine.
İlhan, his wife Deniz and daughter İpek, moved to Washington, D.C. on July 20, 1992 and started working for the Voice of America as an International Radio Broadcaster. After working a short period of time at the Turkish Embassy, İlhan changed his career to Information Technology. Currently, he is working as a Senior Software Release Manager in Orange County, California.
He established and directed Turkish Music Choir in 2001, and supported Turkish Folklore Troupe of Washington, DC. Even though he changed his daytime career, Dr. Özulu still plays all kinds of Turkish and international music in both East and West Coast. He moved to the Greater Los Angeles Area on March 29, 2012, and established his own Internet Radio station ‘Radio OZULU’ on 12.12.12 and still broadcasting live from Southern California. Dr. İlhan Özulu is also the past president of Galatasaray DC and Galatasaray California.
Bio – Dane Wigington Dane has a background in solar energy. He is a former employee of Bechtel Power Corp. and was a licensed contractor in California and Arizona. He has been engaged in constant climate/geoengineering research for over a decade. His personal residence was feature in a cover article on the world’s largest renewable energy magazine, Home Power. He owns a 1,600-acre “wildlife preserve” next to Lake Shasta in northern California. Dane put all his focus, efforts and energy on the geoengineering issue when he began to lose very significant amounts of solar uptake due to the ever-increasing “solar obscuration” caused from jet aircraft spraying in the skies above his forest home. He also noted significant decline in forest health was occurring and appeared to be accelerating. Extensive testing and research into the geoengineering issue was commenced and has continued since 2002. He is the lead researcher and has investigated all levels of geoengineering from stratospheric aerosol geoengineering (SAG) to HAARP. He has appeared numerous films, and radio interviews to educate the public on the extremely dire environmental and health dangers we face on a global level from geoengineering. Dane lives in Shasta County, California.
Janine Elias is changing the face of business. She is a successful author, speaker, business coach and entreprenuer. Janine helps others take their business to the next level and is author of the new book, "Kill Robinhood, The Surprising Truth About What it Really Takes to Get Rich!" Janine helps others through her mentoring program, speaking engagements, certification programs and online classes.
Amaya Victoria founder of the "Amaya Center" has been coaching, teaching, speaking in workshops, classes, and individual sessions for the past thirty years. Amaya's vision is always on the magnificence of the individual or group. Amaya helps others to heal by seeing their magnificence and encouraging this magnificence to radiate outward, which facilitates the healing of old wounds. Amaya has been priveleged to have experienced and been deeply influenced by indigenous and other cultural systems, coupled with her therapeutic and intuitive abilities which she uses to help individuals and groups re-establish their joyful magnificence.
My guest on the Holistic Health Show, Zoe from Sweden, has a MSc in Neurochemistry from the University of Stockholm and the Medical University Karolinska Insitute.
She has a career in the research field of Alzheimers disease and DNA vaccines, and she has always had a Holistic approach to restore perfect health with her clients.
Zoe is an Internationally certified Kundalini yoga teacher and healer, and works as a psychic medium.
She has also had a career in the music business, as a singer and a songwriter and competed in the Eurovision song contest. We will hear her sing one of the songs she wrote at the end of the interview.
Zoe has developed her own "concepts" BAAM, NLH and DNA activations and they all assist people in becoming totally healthy and self empowered.
I found the following information about her music on the Internet.
Zoë’s clear and soulful voice will take you to dimensions you might not have been in touch with before. Her lyrics will dress your life in an astonishing ballroom gown and her melodies are the steps of her dance in life. The basic messages in her songs are of course love, in all different forms and variations, and all the beauty and fun in life.
Zoë was born in Stockholm some 30 years ago, and started her musical career at the age of 10 at the renowned Adolf Fredrik School of Music. During her early teens she started to combine the classical training with her growing love for jazz, pop and soul music at Kulturama. At 16 she participated in the Swedish championship of Rock (Rock-SM), with the ABBA-song "Thank You For the Music". At 21 she performed in the TV-show "Sikta mot stjärnorna" as Mariah Carey, with the song “Anytime You Need a Friend”. Wearing the largest wig ever seen! To broaden her musical views she went to the States and Berklee College of Music - a school with strong roots in jazz and soul. Filled with inspiration she went back home to Sweden and started the band SoulSurfers, playing original funky music, written by herself and the other band members. Zoë has worked with different producers along the years, both as an artist and a songwriter, e.g. Johan Åberg (Christina Aguilera) among others. During several years she worked with the producer and bass player Stefan Olsson, who produced Zoë’s songs, and 2002 she participated in the TV-show “Melodifestivalen”, which is the Swedish part of the Eurovision Song contest, with her song "Hollywood-Do". Both “Hollywood-Do” and the following single "Stumble" were frequently played on the radio in Scandinavia.
RANIA KHALEK is an independent journalist covering the plight of the underclass and marginalized. Her work has appeared at The Nation, Al Jazeera America, Truthout, Salon, AlterNet, Extra, Citizen Radio, Electronic Intifada, and more.
She lives just outside the rotting establishment cesspool that is Washington, DC. and thinks the establishment media, with a few very minor exceptions, totally sucks. Her website https://raniakhalek.com/ is her way of combatting that.
Recently, Rania wrote a review of American Sniper that garnered quite a bit of attention she will speak about this as well as her many other subjects she writes about.
“American Sniper” spawns death threats against Arabs and Muslims by Rania Khalek
Following the release of the film American Sniper in theaters across the US, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has warned of a “significant rise in violent hate rhetoric targeting the Arab and Muslim-American communities.”
The ADC believes the threats “are directly linked to the negative media coverage and hateful propaganda launched against the Arab and Muslim communities following the attacks on the Charlie Hedbo offices in France” earlier this month. But the civil rights organization notes that racist threats have intensified in the wake of American Sniper, with moviegoers taking to social media to express their desire to murder Arabs and Muslims after leaving the theater.
Having both watched the movie and read the book on which it is based, I am not the least bit surprised by the incitement it has spawned. American Sniper is brilliant propaganda that valorizes American military aggression while delivering Hollywood’s most racist depiction of Arabs in recent memory, effectively legitimizing America’s ongoing bombing campaigns across the Middle East.
Unrepentant mass killer
American Sniper, directed by Clint Eastwood, is based on the autobiography of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, reputedly the deadliest sniper in American history.
Replete with hatred, bigotry and unrepentant bloodlust, Kyle’s book boasts of killing 160 Iraqi “savages” during his four deployments in Iraq following the illegal US invasion and occupation in 2003.
“Savage, despicable evil. That’s what we were fighting in Iraq,” Kyle writes in his book.
“I only wish I had killed more,” he writes, adding, “I loved what I did … It was fun. I had the time of my life.”
“They hated us because we weren’t Muslim. They wanted to kill us, even though we just booted out their dictator, because we practiced a different religion than they did,” adds Kyle, who goes on to confess, “I don’t shoot people with Korans – I’d like to, but I don’t.” In Kyle’s mind, all Iraqis who resisted the invading US soldiers were irrationally violent religious fanatics.
In stark contrast, Hollywood sanitizes Kyle, humanizing him as a complex, likable and anguished hero.
Hateful
Following the movie’s debut in select theaters on Christmas Day, author and journalist Max Blumenthal and I were deluged with death and rape threats for tweeting our disgust with Hollywood’s glorification of a mass killer and exposing the racism and lies espoused by Kyle. Although Kyle’s most ardent supporters claim to hate ISIS and al-Qaeda, they often call on these terrorist groups to behead critics of US military aggression.
The movie has since broken box office records, grossing $105 million during its nationwide opening and garnered accolades from across the political spectrum (Vice President Joe Biden said he wept at the Washington, DC premier). In addition, the movie scored six Academy Award nominations.
Frustrated by the glorification and whitewash of a racist mass killer, I posted passages from Kyle’s book on Twitter, highlighting his hateful and homicidal statements and drew attention to the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim threats the movie was inspiring, all of which I compiled into a Storify that went viral.
threats.jpg
Image by Rania Khalek
The reaction to the movie has since snowballed into a partisan bickering match, with celebrities chiming in.
Actor Seth Rogen compared American Sniper to Stolz der Nation (Nation’s Pride), a fictitious Nazi propaganda film about a glorified Nazi sniper that appears at the end of the Quentin Tarantino movie Inglorious Basterds (the Nazi sniper is shown mowing down American and British soldiers with great efficiency and apparent moral superiority). Documentary maker Michael Moore also stirred controversy when he tweeted that snipers “aren’t heroes,” though he later clarified he was not referring to American Sniper, which he liked. Nevertheless, a who’s who of rightwing celebrities, pundits, politicians and worshippers of US military aggression have whipped up an ultra-nationalist frenzy, firing back against the movie’s critics.
Meanwhile, growing criticism of American Sniper appears to be damaging its chances of winning at the Oscars, with Academy members expressing concern that the film glorifies a “sociopath.”
Racist atrocity porn
While the canonization of Kyle on the big screen is appalling, the movie’s whitewash of the US destruction of Iraq and its racist portrayal of Arabs has proven to be far more dangerous.
The US destruction of Iraq left an estimated one million Iraqis dead, 4.5 million displaced, five million orphaned, some two million widowed and birth defects and cancer rates significantly worse than those seen in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Japan at the end of the Second World War. The US war on Iraq also fueled the rise of ISIS. This immeasurable suffering is completely erased from the narrative presented in American Sniper.
In the opening scene of the film a conflicted Chris Kyle (played by Bradley Cooper) is perched on a rooftop with an Iraqi mother and child in the crosshairs of his sniper scope. He watches the mother give the child a grenade to throw at a US marine convoy. He reluctantly seeks permission to shoot.
Suddenly the screen cuts to Kyle as a child hunting with his father in Texas. Another scene shows him at church. Next he’s at the dinner table.
“There are three types of people in this world: sheep, wolves and sheepdogs,” says Kyle’s father. “Now, some people prefer to believe that evil doesn’t exist in the world … those are the sheep. And then you got predators who use violence to prey on the weak. They’re the wolves. And then there are those who have been blessed with the gift of aggression, and the overpowering need to protect the flock. These men are the rare breed that live to confront the wolf. They are the sheepdog.”
For the rest of the movie Kyle is the sheepdog, the protector, the hero. And Iraqis are the evil wolves he must put down to protect the lives of his fellow “sheepdogs.”
Next we see Kyle as an adult. We watch him fall in love, get married and join the SEALs. Then the Twin Towers fall and he is deployed to Iraq, a narrative that leaves the poorly informed with the impression that Iraq was involved in the 11 September 2001 attacks, the very lie that the Iraq war was predicated on. This false narrative is reaffirmed when al-Qaeda appears in Iraq on Kyle’s first tour in 2003, a revisionist history that conflates indigenous armed resistance to a foreign occupier with a terrorist group that attacked the United States. In a country where 43 percent of Americans still believe that Iraq was connected to the 11 September 2001 attacks, perpetuating this falsehood, even if unintentional, is reckless.
Eventually, we return to the scene in the movie’s opening. Kyle shoots the child to save the Marine convoy. The mother runs towards the felled child, collects the grenade and prepares to launch it in the direction of the soldiers. Kyle shoots the woman dead at mid-launch. The grenade explodes before it reaches the soldiers.
“There was a kid who barely had any hair on his balls, his mother gives him a grenade and sends him out there to kill Marines,” says an agonized Kyle. “That was evil like I’d never seen before.”
This black and white, good versus evil theme continues throughout the movie’s entirety. US soldiers are humanized. They have names and families, fiancées and children. And they return home with deep physical and psychological wounds, whereas the local Arab population, including the women and children, are depicted as terrorists. The only time Arab women and children are innocent victims is when they are being brutalized by scary Arab men, but even they are nameless figures.
Marlow Stern at The Daily Beast provides a cogent summary of the movie’s depiction of Arab characters:
The “savages” consist of [Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi, who’s introduced via the infamous clip of him decapitating [American radio-tower repairman] Nick Berg; his No. 2, “The Butcher,” who brutally executes an informant’s young son by drilling his head with a power tool, and stores people’s heads on shelves; and Mustafa, a Syrian Olympic sharpshooter who videotapes his kills and hawks bootlegs of them on the street. Mustafa is, like all classic villains, dressed in black, doesn’t utter in a word, and is single-minded in his pursuit of Kyle – he has a poster of Kyle’s bounty, $180,000, on his wall, and spends his spare time spinning an armor-piercing bullet on a table.
In the end, it wasn’t Iraqi “savages” that killed Kyle. A fellow soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder shot Kyle dead at a Texas gun range in 2013, a fact the film glosses over before cutting to footage from Kyle’s real-life funeral. Some may have even left the theater with the impression that Kyle was killed in Iraq.
Where are the moderates?
As the threats against Arab and Muslim Americans and critics of American Sniper escalate in their ferocity, one is left wondering: where are the American moderates? Why haven’t the movie’s director, producers and actors condemned the violent extremism their film is inciting?
on Twitter
Lovely people, #AmericanSniper
— Roqayah Chamseddine (@roqchams) January 21, 2015
on Twitter
American patriots still tweeting about killing "ragheads" and "sandn----rs" #AmericanSniper
— Roqayah Chamseddine (@roqchams) January 21, 2015
(Jim DeFelice, one of the co-authors of the book American Sniper, condemned the threats of violence unleashed after I implored him to in a debate on Uprising Radio.)
Under the threatening circumstances, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee is encouraging Arab, Muslim, South Asian and Sikh-American communities to be on alert and report any hate crimes to the authorities.
“If you are placed in physical danger because of your ethnicity, religion or national origin: Call the police (dial 911 in most communities), and/or click here to contact your local FBI office. It is the FBI’s job to investigate hate-motivated crimes and specific threats of violence. You can also report a hate crime to the FBI online using this form,” says the ADC advisory.
“If you feel you have been a victim of a hate crime, of if any individual or place of worship needs any assistance with any of the above, including dealing with law enforcement, please contact the ADC Pro-Bono Legal Department at 202-244-2990 or legal AT adc DOT org.”
Abby Martin interviews independent journalist, Rania Khalek, about the new film ‘American Sniper’ and why it’s such a controversial choice to receive a Best Picture Oscar nomination.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLgAImPrKHU
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GUEST: ELISE BALLARD
Elise Ballard is the host and creator of the online community and website, Epiphany Channel, and the author of Epiphany: True Stories of Sudden Insight to Inspire, Encourage and Transform (Random House/Crown Publishing), a collection of over 50 interviews with amazing people from all walks of life recounting the stories of their greatest epiphanies. She started her career in entertainment working as an actress and moved into independent filmmaking and producing in Los Angeles as a partner in a production company who had films distributed by Lions Gate and Monarch Entertainment. Her directorial debut, Lord of the Wiens: A Dachumentary, a movie about the annual Wiener Dog Races in Buda, TX, became a cult hit.
She is a regular contributor to Psychology Today and the wildly popular website, Positively Positive, and she recently was invited to speak at a TED event where she delivered two talks – one for middle and high school kids and one for adults. Elise also had the privilege of being invited to attend and cover the 2011 Nobel Prizes, and she serves as one of the judges for the prestigious Humanitas Prize in Los Angeles, awarding writers for emphasizing and celebrating humanistic values in their work. She has created, directed and produced numerous projects including the YOU DVDs accompanying the YOU book series by world-renowned, bestselling authors, Drs. Mehmet Oz and Michael Roizen. She currently is in development on several projects, including more for the Epiphany Channel, film and television versions of the Epiphany project, and future books for the Epiphany series.
To CONTACT Elise about interviews, speaking engagements or workshops or anything else interesting and fun, please reach out to her at elise@epiphanychannel.com
