I saw the film, 'Constant Gardener', and came away very disturbed that John Le Carre could write about a fictitious pharmaceutical company experimenting on an African community. There already is this feeling that pharmaceutical companies have no right to make a profit, after spending vast amounts of time and money on research, getting lucky, then being approved by the F.D.A.. Many believe that they should just give away product to Africans whose men refuse to wear condoms or be monogamous in their relationships, and whose leaders even deny the problem exists. This targeting of one aspect of a problem, not even the real contributor to the problem, is prevalent in today's protests. It's not AIDs which is killing off Africans as much as it's water related diseases which kill 6,000 African children every single day. But dirty water isn't very glamorous and glamour is what Hollywood seeks, after all. As for these poor nations whom we all feel we must help and whose masses we allow to enter our countries so we can exploit them as cheap labour; our governments are contributing to the subjugation of poor countries by subsidising our farmers and subsidising our exports to such an extent that Julio in Ecuador or Kunta Kinte from Senegal can't compete with the imports into their countries as these imports are cheaper than their own domestic equivalent. This isn't just 'dumping'; it's Europe's way of keeping African and South American nations impoverished.
The EU accounted for about 90 percent of spending on export subsidies by all WTO countries from 1995 to 1998. U.S. export subsidies are now well below WTO commitment levels. For example, in 1998, U.S. subsidies for dairy product and poultry export dwindled to $147 million from a high of more than $1 billion in 1994.
The chief users of export subsidies from 1995 to 1998, as reported to the WTO, were the EU, followed by Switzerland, the United States, and Norway. The United States accounted for 2 percent or less of global export subsidies in 1995 through 1998.
A film about dirty water and export subsidies? The first is too boring and the other too incomprehensible to 'General Audiences'.
----------------------------
Anyone with an inquiring mind can 'Google' Fahrenheit 9/11 on the internet and find that Mr Moore, again, has left many truths on the cutting room floor. In his film, 'Bowling for Columbine', today's Leni Riefenstahl has Charlton Heston wearing two suits while making the same speech. Hmm. Anyway, Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 won the Palme d'Or ('Golden Palm'), the name of the highest prize given to a film at the Cannes Film Festival. Does anyone honestly think this film should be in the same class with works like:
... or, is it possible the film industy is abusing its access to the public for his own political agenda?
----------------------------
Steven Spielberg is Jewish and he directed a great film about Jews in concentration camps. He dedicated the film to the 6 million Jews who died in them. He neglected to mention:
adding another 14 million to the 6 million Jews exterminated which we only hear about.
Is it possible Spielberg is abusing his access to the public for his own political agenda?
----------------------------
Ken Loach's new film on the 1920 struggle for independence from Britain in rural Ireland teaches lessons on conflicts like today's war in Iraq, the director said as he showed the film in Cannes last month.
'I don't need to tell anyone where the British now unfortunately and illegally have an army occupation. And the damage and the casualties and the brutalities that are emerging from that,' the British director said in reference to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
'My view is that this was an illegal war ... It's an appalling scar on our government's record and clearly on the American's.'
Here, Mr Loach is comparing the 'struggle for independence' from Great Britain by the Irish to a coalition effort of 60 nations, who removed a brutal dictator who murdered hundreds of thousands of people, and who are now engaged in restoring order so they may leave the country to be ruled by its democratically elected leaders.
Is it possible Ken Loach is abusing his access to the public for his own political agenda?
----------------------------
When I saw the first Rocky film, there was this guy in the cinema who actually stood up and shouted 'Rocky, hit him!', during a fight scene. I know some others in the audience were of a mind that Stallone was in fact a boxer and deserved to win because he was the underdog. By the same token, many will believe pharmaceuticals are evil, that Bush should have dropped the book and gone running and screaming out of the classroom on 9/11, that only Jews were murdered by the Nazis, and that the U.S. led coalition is bent upon making Iraq the 51st state of the Union.
I'm not suggesting films be censored; but, I am suggesting it is the responsibility of every cognizant, responsible parent to teach children to be discerning about the media which inundates and influences our daily lives.