Rory Kennedy on Hardball

[H2O Man]

Chris Matthews is interviewing Rory Kennedy on Hardball about "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib." It is outstanding. If people didn't see her on the early (5 pm est) show, I strongly recommend watching her on the 7 pm show.

[fooj]

1. OMG. What a POWERFUL piece.

My husband and I watched it last night. He usually gets his info re: these treasonous rat bastards from me. Last night he watched first hand. He shares my disgust, shame and sorrow.

How will they EVER forgive us?:cry:

[malaise]

15. I missed it.

Will watch the rebroadcast. Damn.

[CatWoman]

31. I just got home, and missed it, too

however, I plan to watch when Countdown goes off.

Watch here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/

scroll down to • 'Ghosts of Abu Ghraib'

[H2O Man]

2. I think she

is outstanding. Her 2004 film "Indian Point: Imagining the Unimaginable" was powerful. I thought that it exposed the myth that the Bush administration is serious about making America safe.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

3. Rory Kennedy is an excellent documentary maker. She did a documentary called

Indian Point shown by HBO, which was about the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, which is about 20 minutes from me by car. This is about 40 miles north of NYC. Rory and her brother, Bobby Jr. showed how vulnerable the plant still was 4 years after 9/11 with only a couple of skiffs protecting the plant on the Hudson River Side. They were able to drive up to the front door and fly over it in a helicopter with no problem at all.

[H2O Man]

10. It is a great documentary.

I really enjoyed watching it on HBO. I believe that the new one started on HBO last night.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

17. She said it will be running all month. I have HBO on Demand and it will probably

be on demand by Monday. I am and of course not (brutal subject matter) looking forward to watching it.

[malaise]

4. I will be watching her documentary

Whose daughter is she? Bobby's or Ted's?

Add.

[H2O Man]

6. Robert's.

She was born in December of 1968, six months after her father's death.

[SusanaMontana41]

7. NIce to see

that the Kennedy trait for caring for others was passed down to Bobby's youngest. She did her family and her country proud.

[H2O Man]

11. I think that she

and her siblings are doing the type of things that Robert Sr. encouraged Americans to do.

[malaise]

14. Thanks -I thought so

but wasn't sure. A prominent family that still cares is oh so rare.

[myrna minx]

5. Thanks you for the notice.

I'll have to catch the rebroadcast.

[H2O Man]

8. Here is part of a review ....

"An estimated 30,000 prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib Prison by Saddam Hussein, their bodies buried in shallow mass graves, and in most cases, all record of their existence erased. Shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Saddam granted amnesty to all living persons incarcerated at Abu Ghraib. He then used the vacated prison cells to incinerate reams of documents recording the misdeeds that had taken place at the prison.

"In Rory Kennedy's documentary Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, both baby-faced grunts and seasoned intelligence professionals describe feeling "haunted" on the grounds of the prison. There were wild dogs digging up corpses, DayGlo portraits of Saddam still adorning the walls, and the pervasive funk of sweat and human feces exacerbated by the 130-degree heat. It was, in short, a climate that sapped soldiers of the ability to exercise rational morality. It's Kennedy's thesis that this climate turned soldiers into the perfect vessels for a defense policy that was willfully defiant of the Geneva Conventions, thus making the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal possible.

"Speaking at the Sundance Film Festival on the morning after Bush's State of the Union address, Kennedy (the daughter of RFK and niece of Senator Ted Kennedy) says she came to the project almost by accident. "I had originally planned to do a very different film, which was more about the nature of people who commit extraordinary acts of evil, and we were looking to genocides to exemplify that. And then I, like so many other people, was really horrified by the photographs that came out of Abu Ghraib. I saw them and found myself asking very similar questions: Who were these people, and what motivated them? Were they the kids next door or were they psychopaths?" When the director asked the soldiers themselves why they had participated in the abuse, they all gave her the same answer: "I did it because I was told to do it.'...."



http://blog.netscape.com/2007/01/24/rumsfeld-made-me-do-it-ghosts-of-abu-ghraib/

[Me.]

16. In One Part Of The Conversation

I think CM didn't quite get what she was saying. He kept asking why the soldiers allowed themselves to be the fall guys and she told him they tried to speak out but the judge wouldn't listen. In my view they were sunk and going to pay the price from the minute the investigation started, between a rock and a hard place. They were obeying orders and were prosecuted for doing so while their "superiors" were allotted no responsibility. I haven't seen the documentary so I don't know if they enjoyed what they were doing as much as the pictures seemed to indicate, and that would be on them. Do people who torture become so debased by what they're doing that they come to relish it?

[H2O Man]

28. I wasn't sure ....

At first, I thought he was simply giving her an opportunity to make the case very clearly. But then it did seem like he was not fully familiar with a significant part of the scandal. That shows just how important her documentary is, when someone in his position isn't aware of the situation you mention.

[AzDar]

9. 'Ghosts'..on HBO last night made me so angry, I had to keep changing

the channel until I calmed down, then flip it back.
How, HOW are Bush/Cheney still in office???

[Dammit Ann]

12. It was outstanding.

Thank God for the REMAINING Kennedys. amen.

[H2O Man]

13. I missed it ....

but will certainly be watching it at the next opportunity.

[mzmolly]

18. I'll try to tune in. I'm not sure I can take knowing more.

*sigh* But, I'm grateful to Matthews for sharing this story.

[H2O Man]

29. It is a program

that I find myself wanting to watch, and dreading the thought of watching it.

[mzmolly]

30. My thoughts exactly. I'm going to pour a glass of red wine and take a deep breath.

:hi:

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

19. Here is the schedule posted at HBO

http://www.hbo.com/apps/schedule/ScheduleServlet?ACTION_DETAIL=DETAIL&FOCUS_ID=622254

[malaise]

20. Thanks n/t

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

23. Your welcome! nt

[H2O Man]

21. Great!

Thank you.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

22. Your welcome! nt

[blm]

25. Every American needs to see it. I wonder about getting copies of it for local libraries?

.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

32. I would think it would be distributed through HBO or the production company. nt

[Joey Liberal]

24. All Americans should watch that documentary

I am very proud of Rory Kennedy, and I think she's hot too:)..............

[Olney Blue]

26. I saw it on HBO. It was amazing.

[H2O Man]

27. Regarding the Kennedys in the media .....

I'm glad that HBO carries Rory Kennedy's documentaries. It is also good that Chris Matthews has her on. As I've noted before, the network and cable companies do not always want to allow her or her siblings to be able to speak openly. Here is a section from Robert's 2004 book "Crimes Against Nature":

"I regularly run afoul of corporate censors and bean counters who decide television content. In November 2003, when environmentalists around the country were engaged in fighting the Cheney energy bill, the NRDC was anxiously trying to get me airtime because no one was talking about the bill on TV. Fox TV host Bill O'Reilly agreed to schedule me, but only with the explicit proviso that I wouldn't say critical things about George W. Bush. I would first have to do a pre-interview to make sure I was capable of talking about the environment without bad-mouthing the president. Later, Fox decided that even this was too chancy; they would just tape the show, rather than risk me going off the reservation on live TV. The same week, Tom Brokaw, a committed enviromentalist and fly fisherman, scheduled me for a segment on NBC Nightly News -- but the producers bumped me for yet another Michael Jackson story.

"I was most disappointed by Aaron Brown of CNN. When Ted Turner owned the network, CNN was a bastion of environmental reporting in the wasteland of network news shows. Turner employed an environmental specialist, Barbara Pyle, as a full-time advocate for environmental programming. But CNN then became an AOL Time Warner property, and on the day I was scheduled to appear, one of Brown's producers called to cancel the interview. Brown, she said, was aware of my criticism of the president's environmental record and was canceling my appearance because he didn't want any 'Bush bashing' on his show. Brown, too, substituted the interview with me for a segment on Michael Jackson's sex scandal." (pages 184-185)

[malaise]

33. Thanks for this

That is a very important comment about Aaron Brown who I actually respected as a journalist. No 'Bush bashing'so show more stupid scandals.

[in_cog_ni_to]

34. There's 2 days/times scheduled in the evening. All other times are horrid AM times. Here's a listing

Mark your calender!


Rated TVMA: ADULT CONTENT, ADULT LANGUAGE, NUDITY

Running Time: 77 minutes

Genre: Documentary

Acclaimed filmmaker Rory Kennedy takes a disturbing look at the abuses that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Using the personal narratives of perpetrators, witnesses and victims, the film probes the effects of the abuses at the facility that earned infamy in the fall of 2003 when the shocking photos--including detainees posed in simulated sex acts--were leaked to the press. The result is a sobering look at how extreme factors can give rise to abusive behavior, as well as how the chain of command and even U.S. policy may have contributed to these events. (TVMA) (AC,AL,N)

Actors:

Director(s): RORY KENNEDY

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ALL SHOWINGS, HBO/MAX East
DATE/TIME CHANNEL
Tue 2/27 12:15 AM HBO - EAST
Tue 2/27 12:15 AM HBO High Definition - EAST
Tue 2/27 12:15 AM HBO LATINO - EAST
Tue 2/27 03:15 AM HBO High Definition - WEST
Tue 2/27 03:15 AM HBO - WEST
Tue 2/27 03:15 AM HBO LATINO - WEST
Wed 2/28 10:15 PM HBO2 - EAST
Thu 3/1 01:15 AM HBO2 - WEST
Sun 3/4 01:00 AM HBO2 - EAST
Sun 3/4 04:00 AM HBO2 - WEST
Tue 3/6 10:00 PM HBO - EAST
Tue 3/6 10:00 PM HBO LATINO - EAST
Wed 3/7 01:00 AM HBO - WEST
Wed 3/7 01:00 AM HBO LATINO - WEST
Tue 3/13 12:05 AM HBO - EAST
Tue 3/13 12:05 AM HBO LATINO - EAST
Tue 3/13 03:05 AM HBO - WEST
Tue 3/13 03:05 AM HBO LATINO - WEST
Fri 3/16 02:40 AM HBO2 - EAST
Fri 3/16 05:40 AM HBO2 - WEST
Sun 3/18 12:00 AM HBO LATINO - EAST
Sun 3/18 03:00 AM HBO LATINO - WEST
Tue 3/20 01:45 AM HBO ZONE - EAST
Tue 3/20 04:45 AM HBO ZONE - WEST
Thu 3/22 04:35 AM HBO - EAST
Thu 3/22 04:35 AM HBO LATINO - EAST
Thu 3/22 07:35 AM HBO - WEST
Thu 3/22 07:35 AM HBO LATINO - WEST
Wed 3/28 12:55 AM HBO SIGNATURE - EAST
Wed 3/28 03:55 AM HBO SIGNATURE - WEST



HBO Specials:
Feb. 26, 2007 - Mar. 25, 2007

[H2O Man]

35. Thanks for that list.

It does seem odd that it isn't on in the evenings more often.

[La_Fourmi_Rouge]

36. The ghosts of Abu Ghraib haunt the Entire World...

In the early summer of 2004, I took a small tour of Greece, and one of the stops on the itinerary was a trip to the Acropolis. After drinking in the grandeur of that lofty place, I made my way down the hill to the Agora - the ancient meeting place of the Greek elite. I took a circuitous path, on the border between the ruins and a middle-class neighborhood clinging to the steep slope.

As I and my companion made our way down the steep stairways, a remarkable piece of graffiti caought my eye - a very artfully rendered stencil marked on a whitewashed wall. It was in black - the unmistakable depiction of that infamous snapshot of the hooded man standing on a stool, wires attached to his fingers. Under the figure were the words: "Fat Stupid Americans".

I felt nauseous, and we both fell silent for a few minutes. My companion broke the silence after awhile, commenting "I never thought your country could do something like that." I said nothing, and we never spoke of it again.