'The Look of Silence' Breaks New Ground in Filmmaking

Director Joshua Oppenheimer looks into the heart of darkness.

Imagine what it's like to confront the men who murdered your brother.

Now imagine that the murderers are some of the most powerful and celebrated members of society, free to boast about their crimes with impunity.

That's the premise of Joshua Oppenheimer's new documentary, The Look of Silence. A companion piece to his previous film The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence confronts the perpetrators of the Indonesian genocide of 1965 from the perspective of its victims today, who are determined to learn the unspeakable truth of their past.

Reason TV spoke with the film's director, Joshua Oppenheimer about the psychology of genocide and how his camera is changing the course of a nation.

"Every perpetrator is human," Joshua Oppenheimer says about the killers in his new documentary, The Look of Silence. "And if we want to understand how human beings do this to each other, and how they live with what they've done, we have to try to understand them as human beings."

The Look of Silence opened nationally on July 31st and is currently in theaters in selected cities. 

Edited and hosted by Todd Krainin. Cameras by Zach Weissmueller and Paul Detrick.

Runs about 27 minutes.

This video was first published on Aug 1, 2015.

Comments

[Adans smith]

It's dead here today.Need to mow and pick tomatoes,peppers and basil.Think I'll go get some Sam Adams. Have a good day people.

[commodious spittoon]

Mmm, pesto.

[Suthenboy]

Well I am stuck here. I already mowed, picked my tomatoes and peppers, gave my wife orgasms and washed the car.

I don't have anything else to do. Dammit.

[Ted S.]

Yeah, there's no Richman post to go off on.

[Swiss Servator, ...ouch.]

I'll take that.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

You'll take your Oxy...and like it!

[Swiss Servator, ...ouch.]

Well...yeah.

[DEG]

Are they helping?

[Swiss Servator, ...ouch.]

Yes. This morning I woke up and felt like I had been in 1000 lost scrums....now, not too terrible.

[DEG]

Good! I hope your recovery continues going well.

[Swiss Servator, ...ouch.]

Thanks.

[Ken Shultz]

"And if we want to understand how human beings do this to each other, and how they live with what they've done, we have to try to understand them as human beings."

The instinctive urge is to demonize the perpetrators of genocide, by which I mean to dehumanize them. It's the same sort of dehumanization the perpetrators do to their victims.

I read somewhere that a large number of tribal groups' names, from various parts of the world, translate to "The People" in their own language. As if the other groups in the area aren't really people.

It seems like the same kind of thing we do in any war. Dehumanizing the enemy makes it easier for soldiers to rationalize killing the enemy and it makes it easier for the general public to accept the military killing otherwise innocent civilians.

Also, when people are in a frenzy against the enemy, they imagine that anyone who is trying to understand the enemy's motives, or suggest that the enemy might have legitimate grievances, is a traitor specifically for trying to humanize the enemy in that way. When the rest of society is trying to dehumanize a group of people, and you're trying to talk about them like they're people with motives, etc. I guess it does make you a traitor in a way--a traitor to the frenzy.

[Suthenboy]

"I read somewhere that a large number of tribal groups' names, from various parts of the world, translate to "The People" in their own language. As if the other groups in the area aren't really people."

You may have read that here. I have noted that a number of times and I think some other commenters have as well.

Heroic would be the one to consult on this.

[DEG]

I've read the same thing elsewhere, though I agree, Heroic is the expert here.

[Swiss Servator, ...ouch.]

Also on DAT ASS! Never forget that.

[DEG]

YES!

One of his DAT ASS tumblr posts led me to a new favorite tumblr: Gymbooty. It's probably not safe for work.

[*GILMORE*]

DAT ASS = the feeling you get when you put your $2000 machine on ebay knowing the best you'll get for it is $100 bucks

[commodious spittoon]

VHS is dead, man.

(I have no idea what that is.)

[*GILMORE*]

Digital Audio Tape

The preferred medium for mixing down analog recordings.

While some people might still use analog tape for tracking (instead of computers or HD recorders), DAT was still the most common format for final mixes, because its all going to end up digital at some point anyway, and no one uses 2track master tapes anymore.

With the advent of 24bit recoding/processing, everything stays on a hard-drive now until it gets to the mastering stage, more or less.

Does anyone anywhere still buy CDs? I don't think i've bought a single 'digital download' myself. Everything is just streamed or random MP3/FLAC stuff i pick up here and there.

[Ken Shultz]

I use a cassette player, and I run a Mr. Microphone through the AM/FM radio in my car.

Yes, it also picks up FM stations.

[DEG]

The instinctive urge is to demonize the perpetrators of genocide, by which I mean to dehumanize them. It's the same sort of dehumanization the perpetrators do to their victims.

The most disturbing thing about "Der Untergang" is that it portrayed Hitler and his inner circle not as caricatures or one dimensional monster, but as humans.

[Chipper Chipping Rodrigue]

I read somewhere that a large number of tribal groups' names, from various parts of the world, translate to "The People" in their own language. As if the other groups in the area aren't really people.

I'm not so sure that's an example of "othering" in every case. It could just be lack of creativity. Or what if it meant "our people", to distinguish from other people who aren't in the tribe but are still people, but got mistranslated as "the"people.

[Chipper Chipping Rodrigue]

Change othering to dehumanizing.

[PapayaSF]

Each tribal group already had its own name in the native language before the Europeans arrived. Usually the tribal name translated as "the People," "the Human Beings," or something similar. The Navajo refer to themselves as Dineh ("the People"), the Chippewa as Anishinawbe ("the Original People"), the Northern Paiute as Numu (Human Beings), the Ponca as Punka ("Head People"), and the Delaware as Lenni Lenape ("True Men") (Yerington Paiute Tribe 1985; Ponca Oral
History).

[lap83]

The instinctive urge is to demonize the perpetrators of genocide, by which I mean to dehumanize them. It's the same sort of dehumanization the perpetrators do to their victims.

That sounds like moral equivalence. Sure, mass murderers are people but the only purpose for acknowledging that is to recognize that people do evil things. But to equate those who would insult murderers with the murderers is to be like the people who blame cartoonists for getting slaughtered by Muslims.

When the rest of society is trying to dehumanize a group of people, and you're trying to talk about them like they're people with motives, etc. I guess it does make you a traitor in a way--a traitor to the frenzy.

I'm sure evil people have motives, but are their motives relevant? I disagree with the idea that understanding evil people is necessary to deciding whether they're evil. At worst, it can do harm if you start to confuse your sympathy with justice. Which has happened.

[Robert]

Are motives relevant??! Hell, I'd say they're of vital importance in determining whether the people are even evil.

[Ken Shultz]

"That sounds like moral equivalence."

Rain on the sidewalk sounds like bacon frying in a pan.

Dehumanizing people for purposes of war and dehumanizing people for purposes of genocide aren't exactly the same thing--because war and genocide are not the same thing. And I never said they were. In fact, what I actually wrote was:

"Genocide is like the same things we've done and thought before only taken one step further than we usually go."

And I didn't say anything about the moral equivalence of war and genocide. If anything, I was talking about the immoral equivalence of dehumanization. There isn't any war I'd support that I wouldn't support anyway--even if we didn't dehumanize our enemies. And if dehumanizing some group of people is a necessary precondition for genocide, then, yeah, I think denouncing dehumanization, especially in the run up to a war, is a morally excellent thing to do.

[Ken Shultz]

"I'm sure evil people have motives, but are their motives relevant?"

I can understand why some evil murderer or rapist did something--without condoning what they did.

Osama bin Laden's complaints about American troops being stationed in Saudi Arabia weren't only religious. He also claimed that our troops weren't just there to protect Saudi Arabia from Iran; American troops were also there to protect the House of Saud (a vicious dictatorship) from the Arabian people.

Osama bin Laden's complaints weren't relevant in regards to whether or not we should fight him. Our war against him and his terrorist organization was a war of self-defense. However, the question of whether and why so many people sympathized with Osama bin Laden was directly relevant to how and why we prosecuted the war and whether keeping American troops in Saudi Arabia was worth the animosity and resentment it bred in potential recruits for Al Qaeda.

In fact, when we decided to withdraw our troops from Saudi Arabia, that was a very good strategic decision--calculated on the basis that terrorist recruits are human and may have some legitimate grievances.

[Jerryskids]

People who call Hitler a monster ought to be smacked upside the head. Look at a history book and you'll see lots of examples of people who were (or tried hard to be) just as bad as Hitler. A little thinking might lead you to conclude that, far from acting inhuman, Hitler was acting exactly the way human beings tend to act. Giving that much power to even the most benevolent-sounding of dictators is a Really Bad Idea, because truly benevolent people rarely want to be dictators and the people who want to be dictators are rarely benevolent. (In fact, there might be whole political movements based around the idea that nobody should have the power to tell everybody else what to do - even "for their own good" - because nobody is smarter than everybody and nobody can be trusted with the power to compel others to act as if somebody is indeed smarter than everybody.)

[Ken Shultz]

To take that dehumanization all the way to genocide, your people need to be convinced that they're a victims of the targeted group, and you probably need to keep your people reasonably scared of that group, too. They need to believe the danger from that group is imminent.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com.....iraq_x.htm

Genocide is like killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians because unrelated terrorists based in Afghanistan brought down the World Trade Center--only genocide is taken to a greater extreme.

I.e., Genocide is like the same things we've done and thought before only taken one step further than we usually go. Every time I see someone talking about Muslims as if they eat their young and they're coming to take over America, I realize that's somebody that's just itching to call me out as a traitor--and will if and when the frenzy comes.

They won't want to hear about the Constitution either. I was called a traitor for opposing torturing terrorists. I was called a collaborator for opposing warrantless wiretapping. The frenzy passes, and suddenly I'm not a traitor for that anymore. But my arguments are the same as they always were. It's just that people aren't as scared anymore, and fear is the mind-killer.

[Suthenboy]

"...someone talking about Muslims as if they eat their young..."

Kuru has popped up in Syria. There are numerous videos of human slaughterhouses being operated in Syria and Libya.

Still, you are not completely wrong. You are no traitor Ken. Those willing to toss the constitution every time someone says 'Boo!' are.

[Robert]

That's the way I would fight a civil war too, or any war. I would exactly conduct a campaign of terror, as being safer & more effective than military action.

[Mike M.]

Two modest questions for a relaxing Sunday morning:

1) Was Hillary Clinton's home server used to store and/or transmit classified information without authorization?

2) If the answer to question one is known to be "Yes", then why hasn't she been indicted yet, like General David Petraeus was for whispering classified information to his mistress in the bedroom?

[Suthenboy]

What the hell are you doing here? You should take that act on the road Mike.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Was Hillary Clinton's home server used to store and/or transmit classified information

Doubtful.

Such a server wouldn't have access to classified servers without obtaining encryption devices through official sources. The only way classified could have gotten on such a network is if it was transferred from one network to another manually (either typed in or with a memory stick) which would, of course, be illegal.

It's not like she had access to classified from her house.

[*GILMORE*]

I don't think your answer is what the question asked

It requires no special technology to attach classified documents to emails and mail them

Petraeus did it with Yahoo. (or some similar internet-mail thing)

It also doesn't even require that she did this herself, but rather that said documents were simply circulated between her and others, between government email accounts and her own.

also = Frankie, you never quite explained why i'm a "borderline" TEAM RED mouthbreather, or have somehow failed to properly apply for my libertarian decoder-ring/monocle-permit. Was there some specific position on something that disqualified me?

[Swiss Servator, ...ouch.]

Wait...we need monocle permits?!

*stuffs monocle under silk pillow*

[Francisco d'Anconia]

It requires no special technology to attach classified documents to emails and mail them

The only way classified could have gotten on such a network is if it was transferred from one network to another manually (either typed in or with a memory stick) which would, of course, be illegal.

A secret network cannot communicate with an unclassified network. It would need to be transferred via disk from the secret network and placed on the unclassified network, which is VERY illegal.

you never quite explained why i'm a "borderline"

I thought you did a very good job of pointing it out yourself in your response to me.

[*GILMORE*]

""I thought you did a very good job of pointing it out yourself in your response to me.""

My response to you was that I have entirely toed the lions on weed, mexicans, ass-sex, and even non-crucial areas like Pro-choice on Abortions, and other sundry litmus tests for non-Redness...

...and that the only thing that ever causes the occasional accusation of heresy was that i think "non-interventionism" isn't a real word describing any policy theory that anyone in the foreign policy world recognizes. Same with "interventionism", which when defined describes almost every single form of relations in the entire foreign policy universe, and is consequently a mush-word used mainly by morons, like a Vegan accusing everyone else of being "Meatists".

You think this means I'm "team red"? Why?

I didn't think this would be so hard for you to talk about.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

So, you think the US should not impose its will around the world through force and threats of force and all agreements between nations should be mutually voluntary without coercion? And you believe that military force should only be used in self defence?

If so...I apologise.

[*GILMORE*]

"The US should not impose its will around the world through force and threats of force and all agreements between nations should be mutually voluntary without coercion?"

All relations between nations involve forms of coercion. (e.g. "Diplomacy is War by Other Means")

This fundamental misunderstanding is exactly why i think "non-interventionism" (and the people who throw it around like its 'a thing') isn't even worth treating seriously.

by the way, conversations happen when you reply to the things people actually say, and not by asking people to approve/disapprove statements you make on their behalf, which is actually a form of coersion common in bi-lateral diplomacy - refuse to allow one party any input into the wording of agreements.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

All relations between nations involve forms of coercion.

Horseshit.

The only beneficial relations between nations is trade, which is nothing more than the voluntary exchange of value for value. Every single other interaction sets the stage for immediate or future conflict. What other nations do is none of our concern until it directly impacts us, in which case you act in self defense, or violates the rights of other people/nations at which point it becomes a cost benefit analysis of whether to intercede.

Proactive interference only gives you unforseen consequences which are usually as bad or worse than what you were attempting to prevent. And alliances with third parties simply increase your odds of going to war.

Which libertarian principle supports unilaterally involving yourself with the affairs of others?

Trade with everyone, speak softly and carry a big fucking stick for when you are preemptively attacked.

I didn't say you were a prime offender. I said you are borderline. I'll stand by that.

[Number.6]

Sure, the only beneficial relations between nations is trade (and I'd argue, there might even be a place for genuine charity under some circumstances).

I'm not sure that proactive interference *only* gives you unforseen consequences; and really the only time that you can determine whether those unforseen consequences were worth suffering is in an honest post-facto analysis. Sadly, in a practical sense, you can probably find plenty of historical interventions which were of a substantial net benefit to the initiators. That's not to say they were *right* to initiate their aggression of course, but in their own hagiographies, they could easily demonstrate, by a number of criteria, that their intervention was beneficial - to them.

Lastly, I'd propose that walking soft an carrying a big stick is a threat in and of itself. By some feat of intellectual ju jitsu, you might be able to wave it off as not being 'coercion' per se, but it's certainly coercive - which I'm totally fine with.

Coercion is simply the ability to influence the policies and decisions of counterparties by any means possible. Even the threat of withdrawing your intent to indulge in mutual trade is coercion, despite the fact that embargoes punish both parties involved.

[Number.6]

Lost a paragraph there.

Thought experiment - did establishment of the British Empire in India benefit the British at all? Despite all the unforeseen consequences, of which there were many?

Would Britain of benefitted more by pure trading?

You can argue that the most moral way to manage international affairs is by trading and following the NAP. Indeed, I do precisely that. But to claim that it's the most effective way to achieve the desired results, is foolish.

[*GILMORE*]

"did establishment of the British Empire in India benefit the British at all?...
Would Britain of benefitted more by pure trading?"

hugely complex -

does raise the relevant question how non-interventionism ever got posited as a 'good idea' by anyone... .*until* a nation-state has reached a point of relative strength and prosperity to where it can then choose to maintain a lofty and noble independence from the messy engagements of other competing nations.

i.e. from the point of view of the colonial empires... intervention was simply what healthy Empires *did*. One nation could certainly unilaterally choose 'not to' even when they could, but it wouldn't have been necessarily described as in their best interests by anyone.

re: the issue of whether Britain could simply have 'purely traded'...

...the historical issue is often = with *whom*? 'India' was an agglomeration of principalities. there was no single India. The reason most colonies came into being was to solve this problem and create a state-among-states with which the local parties could choose to deal with (or not).

Which also raises the point of how trade is itself never entirely "neutral", as some libertarians want to believe. Trade is always a matter of picking winners. Nations offer good terms to the partners they would prefer to prosper, and shitty terms to the ones they don't.

[*GILMORE*]

#6
"Sure, the only beneficial relations between nations is trade"

is the idea the Europe would have been far better off had they retained an "Every man for himself"! security arrangement in the wake of WWII?

or that the SALT treaties were a waste of time?

[Number.6]

GILMORE:
No substantial disagreement with the thrust of your argument - but as far as I'm concerned, the SALT agreements were a corrective process. The world was already in a place where coercion was rife, which of course is further reason that simply adopting a "pure trade and NAP" policy isn't a *practical* foreign policy for a libertarian society at the moment.

In order to benefit (even asymmetrically) from such a policy requires that both parties recognize - and agree - that the policy is optimal; which is as unlikely as establishing Marxist Universal International Communism. It ain't gonna happen. Humans aren't rational robots just as they can never become perfected humans who are perfect cogs in the Machine of The State.

We can't get to a libertarian society without coercion, which is of course why the old line "Libertarians want to take over the world so we can all leave each other alone" is both funny and true. And it's why the only way to get there is via incrementalism.

The currency of political power is coercion - so a philosophy that rejects coercion of any sort has ceded the political field to everyone else that has not rejected it.

[*GILMORE*]

"The currency of political power is coercion - so a philosophy that rejects coercion of any sort has ceded the political field to everyone else that has not rejected it"

good summary.

I'd modify it to limit it to foreign relations.... because within a nation state you have a different relationship between the governed and the government than you do between nation-states. With a constitution, we've got a set of 'rules' that in theory keeps coercive power within bounds.

Between nation-states there exists no "higher authority" to adjudicate things. the self-limiting proposal of 'non-interventionism' is meaningless absent everyone-else agreeing to play along - and then, its still open to all sorts of subjective interpretation = one person's bi-lateral trade agreement is another person's "aggressive meddling".

(*how a non-interventionist uses the term 'sphere of influence' without imploding, i don't know, but Richman managed it without anyone saying boo)

we seem to agree on the basics.

" it's why the only way to get there is via incrementalism."

Another case I've made here which some people have used as evidence of my libertarian-heresy.

[*GILMORE*]

"The only beneficial relations between nations is trade, which is nothing more than the voluntary exchange of value for value"

And of course, no nations that trade with one another have ever engaged in trade agreements that unfairly advantaged one relative to the other, were engaged in under implicit threat, or where one party used its influence to bar the other from access to third-party markets in effort to secure benefits for itself...etc, etc.

And you are basically agreeing that every single other "non-trade" related agreement is somehow forbidden under the Approved-Libertarian vision of foreign relations.

("'And alliances with third parties simply increase your odds of going to war."")

So does/can trade, fwiw (war of 1812). Or as Sheldon once said = our speedy inclusion of former soviet satellite states in trade agreements was, in his purist non-interventionist view, "improper aggressive meddling" into the Russian 'sphere of influence'. The ability to arbitrarily draw the "thats an Intervention!"-line wherever one feels is exactly why its useless as a foreign-policy term.

I appreciate that some libertarians want to reduce foreign relations to simplistic cartoons... largely for the purpose of their own moral-self-esteem, from what i can tell. I dont see why my lack of interest in that framework is supposed to be "TEAM RED", either. (is team blue particularly better?)

[Jerryskids]

It requires no special technology to attach classified documents to emails and mail them
.
I've mentioned here before that Hillary denied that she had ever e-mailed any classified information and that there were no classsified documents on her server, which tells me that 1) she thinks we're all idiots who somehow believe you can put a document on the server by sending an e-mail rather than by receiving an e-mail and 2) since she failed to answer the question of whether or not she had received any such e-mails then the answer was almost certainly "yes" and 3) we all know you wiped the server so of course there are currently no classified documents on your server, but what about the backups? And don't tell me the server wasn't backed-up on a regular basis, that's not even a plausible lie for a halfwit.

[Mike M.]

Not sure what in the world you're talking about. Classified information can be carried around in a person's brain.

It's not the storage medium that makes something classified, it's the nature of the information itself.

And sometimes, pieces of information that are unclassified on their own become classified if they're combined together.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

You're not getting it. There are classified networks and unclassified networks. Anyone...anytime...CAN place classified on an unclassified network. They MAY not as such an action is illegal.

The reason hillary is in hot water for having her own server is because there are government regulations against using a personal server to conduct government business. The reason being is that government networks do a shit-ton more to protect their networks from cyber attack AND because, by law, all government correspondence is required to be archived as permanent records so congress/government can go back and hang people for wrongdoing at a later date. Having her own server bypasses that requirement. It has nothing to do with "classified".

[Not an Economist]

Um FdA, you are a little behind the times. Government investigators have looked at some of the emails she sent or received, from her own server, and said they contained classified information at the time she sent tor received the emails. So that is in addition to having her own server, which she and several of her friends/coworkers used, she apparently has done the same thing as Gen Petraeus. Details here (in a well know right wing rag)

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Government investigators have looked at some of the emails she sent or received, from her own server, and said they contained classified information at the time she sent tor received the emails.

If that's the case, she needs to fry.

[*GILMORE*]

There's also the magic technology of the xerox machine, which can translate highly classified pieces of paper into easily transmissible electronic documents with the push of a button.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

There's also the magic technology of the xerox machine, which can translate highly classified pieces of paper into easily transmissible electronic documents with the push of a button.

Anybody with a security clearance has the ability to do exactly that anytime they choose. As far as I know, no one has accused Hillary of doing so. She is in trouble for violating government regulation concerning the operation of unclassified networks.

[Paul.]

Anybody with a security clearance has the ability to do exactly that anytime they choose.

Not exactly. I used to work in a top-secret facility. If the particular xerox machine was located in an unsecure area and was not 'certified' for photocopying classified documents, you'd see a sign with big-assed red letters taped to the front which read: "No classified documents are to be copied on this machine".

[*GILMORE*]

" a sign with big-assed red letters taped to the front"

Best. Security. Protocol. Ever.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Yes and no. It will also image every document copied, and they catch idiots that way.

[DEG]

Such a server wouldn't have access to classified servers without obtaining encryption devices through official sources.

True. At a previous job at a defence contractor, a project I was briefly involved with had to build a classified network between different sites. It was, as I understood it, not an easy thing to do and not just because the folks building it could only use hardware from particular, approved vendors.

The only way classified could have gotten on such a network is if it was transferred from one network to another manually (either typed in or with a memory stick) which would, of course, be illegal.

Which would be no impediment to Hillary Clinton.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Which would be no impediment to Hillary Clinton.

It wouldn't be an impediment to anyone with a security clearance.

[Jerryskids]

Note to self: Fd'A goes on the list with John. People who frequently say something interesting but sometimes just shoot stuff straight out of their ass.
.
Let me try to put this as politely as I can: How the fucking fuck do you think the fucking classified information gets on the fucking classified server in the first fucking place? At some point, at least some of that classsified information has to exist in some form outside of the classified server - the classified server doesn't just self-generate all the classified information it contains - and therefore no, no, no, you're an idiot if you think the only way classified information can get on Hillary's server is through a connection to a classified server.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

you're an idiot if you think the only way classified information can get on Hillary's server is through a connection to a classified server.

I never said that.

You need to go back and read what I fucking said. There are two types of government servers (actually there are several more, but for the purposes of simplicity) classified and unclassified.

Classified information NEVER touches unclassified servers (unless someon fucks up or breaks the law). Data collected from classified sources, airplanes, satellites, drones, submarines and yes, humans. Comes out of those sources and gets plugged into the classified network. The tapes from my mission are classified. They get pulled from the jet and get plugged into a classified computer, are read and stored for Intell review.

When a human source produces a briefing, and any part of that briefing is classified, they CREATE it on a classified computer, which is plugged into a classified network and ONLY a classified network. Every page of a briefing that is classified must be marked as such. You can't send a classified email from a classified computer to your home computer. The only way the two can interact is to take classified information and download it to a disk and plug it into an unclassified computer (which is illegal).

I've had a Top Secret clearance since I was 25 years old. Don't fucking tell me I don't know how this shit works. I'm trying to explain it to the laymen.

[Paul.]

1) Was Hillary Clinton's home server used to store and/or transmit classified information without authorization?

Yes.

2) If the answer to question one is known to be "Yes", then why hasn't she been indicted yet, like General David Petraeus was for whispering classified information to his mistress in the bedroom?

Because she's Hillary Fucking Clinton.

[Robert]

The above story is about the aftermath of wood chipping.

Notice that nowhere did the interviewee identify the victims as anything but "communists". "Genocide" is an odd word to use when the genus being cided is communists. I've got to conclude on the basis of this interview that the murderers were the good guys, and that they did a good thing in the smartest way. And that whatever "plunder" the interviewee refers to means either "getting rich by free enterprise w/o being interfered w" or to a certain degree of crony capitalism that came along w the free enterprise but which is minuscule compared to what the communists would've done.

[Robert]

Sheesh, seems like nobody much is interested in discussing the basics of the blog piece here. Does it not seem extremely topical with all the recent reference to the chipping of wood?

[Swiss Servator, ...ouch.]

It is an odd choice of subjects for the film...but I don't suppose the principles in the Rwandan and Bosnian killings were up for being on camera?

[*GILMORE*]

Oh, the video? Its long, its lunchtime, and i'm putting it off for later. I tend to avoid Crimes Against Humanity in the AM, especially while mildly hungover.

[PH2050]

From Wikipedia: "The Indonesian killings of 1965?1966 were an anti-communist purge following a failed coup of the 30 September Movement in Indonesia. The most widely accepted estimates are that more than 500,000 people were killed."

I'll admit it's hard to feel empathy for those who would likely put me up against a wall at the first opportunity.

Murdering half a million people related primarily by political ideology is a genocide? I'm pretty sure that's an improper use of the term.

[Christophe]

Wait, murdering statists is A-OK? People lose their rights if they have the wrong political opinions?

Get lost troll.

[Robert]

If those opinions are backed up by action, and if it is unreasonable to expect to have the power to restrain that action, yes.

[PapayaSF]

He's not trolling, you are. The definition of "genocide" is not "killing lots of people." No doubt it's being stretched to a new meaning for purposes of drama and advocacy, like the term "racism" has been.

[Robert]

How about, "Of course I murdered your brother. If I hadn't, he'd've murdered my brother. And sister. And the puppy dog they rode in on." Do unto others before they do unto you. Does anyone say that was not the case there?

See the movie The Conversation.

[Leigh]

Imagine what it's like to confront the men who murdered your brother.

Now imagine that the murderers are some of the most powerful and celebrated members of society, free to boast about their crimes with impunity.

At first, I thought this was another nut-punch about cops.

Sigh,

[Robert]

Sadly, that was what I'd thought too.

Instead, it turns out to be more interesting, because of the dynamic of how it's being presented in this case. It's not clear to me whether Todd Crain was sympathetic to the film maker's POV, but seemed to just play it flat. Is Reason TV trying to persuade people of something by this, or just getting us to think?

[Paul.]

If only the Indonesian people had some way of defending themselves against these types of atrocities.

[Robert]

You know Aleister Crowley's statement of the rights of man? It's great, but sometimes it's quoted w/o its last line: "Man has the right to kill those who would thwart these rights," because it's not as comfortable to confront. Hence the subject matter of this film & interview.

http://lib.oto-usa.org/libri/liber0077.html