Seventeen seconds.
Guillermo el Gato
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/02/ivanity-fairis-christophe_n_110444.html
"Just in case the news that American torturers have been revealed to
have taken their cues from that model of moral clarity that was the
Chinese Communist regime hasn't fully convinced you that the practice
is unquestionably, incontrovertibly evil, Christopher Hitchens' column
in the August 2008 Vanity Fair, "Believe Me, It's Torture," ought to
drive it home. That is, if the accompanying video, available online at
Vanity Fair's website, doesn't do it first.
"In the video, Christopher Hitchens is brought, hooded and bound, into
an austere looking storage room, and placed on a board, slightly
elevated at it's foot. He is instructed by the similarly masked
interrogators on how to call a halt to the procedure, either through a
safe word - "red" - or by releasing the "dead man's handle" - a metal
object placed in each hand. A towel is placed over his face and one of
the interrogators begins pouring water on Hitchens' face from an
ordinary-looking milk carton. The interrogators demonstrate no more
aggression that one might when watering a houseplant. In fact, the
process looks so unremarkable that you begin to wonder if they aren't
simply "warming Hitchens up" for something worse.
"Seventeen seconds pass, and then Hitchens drops the dead man's
handle. When the hood is removed, it is jarring to see how
panic-stricken Hitchens looks."
Somebody reply to this so Ravin' John gets to read it.
Ravin' John, are you man enough to do what Christopher Hitchens did?
danny burstein
>"It takes only seventeen seconds to ruin the life of an innocent man."
>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/02/ivanity-fairis-christophe_n_110444.html
>"In the video, Christopher Hitchens is brought, hooded and bound, into
>an austere looking storage room, and placed on a board, slightly
>elevated at it's foot.
Please don't tell me that Arianna's hand maidens placed
that apostrophe there.
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Opus the Penguin
> "It takes only seventeen seconds to ruin the life of an innocent
> man."
>
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/02/ivanity-fairis-christophe_
> n_110444.html
Gad, the English are an ugly bunch!
What's the music playing in the background of the video?
--
Opus the Penguin
It is hard to be proactively retrospective, so I'll just have to wait.
- Xho
M C Hamster
<opusthepen...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Guillermo el Gato (dev...@example.com) wrote:
>
>> "It takes only seventeen seconds to ruin the life of an innocent
>> man."
>>
>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/02/ivanity-fairis-christophe_
>> n_110444.html
>
>Gad, the English are an ugly bunch!
>
>What's the music playing in the background of the video?
It's from Enigma's "Screen Behind the Mirror" album. (The selection
itself is called "Gravity of Love".) It of course incorporates the
theme of "O Fortuna" from Orff's Carmina Burana.
--
M C Hamster "Big Wheel Keep on Turning" -- Creedence Clearwater Revival
Heather
Here it is in its entirety. If I am not in Raven's killfile he can see
it.
--
Heather
Guillermo el Gato
wrote:
Thanks.
Not everyone on the left is really thrilled with Hitchens on this:
http://www.alternet.org/rights/90292/?page=entire
"Hitchens' video is totally fake -- there's even soft-rock background
music playing on the video, better music than you usually get at the
dentist's office, and his "interrogators" treat him more like a client
getting a mud pack at a spa than a real suspect in Iraq. That makes it
even more disgusting that Hitch caved in after only 11 seconds of
having water poured over a towel on his face. Eleven seconds! Think
about the timeline here: For five long years he supported this stuff
when it was happening to other people. Once it happened to him, he
needed exactly 11 seconds to see the light."
and
"So why does Hitchens make such a big show of just realizing it now,
after five years of supporting it? To me, the answer's easy: He's
withdrawing from Iraq, making a big Jesus-on-the-cross demonstration,
like a public punishment, for supporting the war all this time. By
getting himself tortured in this half-assed way, he gives himself a
reason to see the light, desert from the Neocon forces before it's too
late."
and
"That's all it takes to change anybody's mind about torture, getting
one little 11-second whiff of it, even if it's nowhere close to the
real thing. The interesting thing is not that Hitchens changed his
mind; it's the strategic thinking that made him decide to do it now.
The timing of this little martyr is the key here, and what it tells
you is that Hitchens is declaring martyrdom and getting out. He just
unilaterally withdrew from Iraq, and in only 11 seconds."
art...@yahoo.com
> "It takes only seventeen seconds to ruin the life of an innocent man."
>
>
> "Just in case the news that American torturers have been revealed to
> have taken their cues from that model of moral clarity that was the
> Chinese Communist regime hasn't fully convinced you that the practice
> is unquestionably, incontrovertibly evil, Christopher Hitchens' column
> in the August 2008 Vanity Fair, "Believe Me, It's Torture," ought to
> drive it home. That is, if the accompanying video, available online at
> Vanity Fair's website, doesn't do it first.
>
> "In the video, Christopher Hitchens is brought, hooded and bound, into
> an austere looking storage room, and placed on a board, slightly
> elevated at it's foot. He is instructed by the similarly masked
> interrogators on how to call a halt to the procedure, either through a
> safe word - "red" - or by releasing the "dead man's handle" - a metal
> object placed in each hand. A towel is placed over his face and one of
> the interrogators begins pouring water on Hitchens' face from an
> ordinary-looking milk carton. The interrogators demonstrate no more
> aggression that one might when watering a houseplant. In fact, the
> process looks so unremarkable that you begin to wonder if they aren't
> simply "warming Hitchens up" for something worse.
>
I reminded of a scene in the movie "O' Lucky Man" in which Malcolm
McDowell's character is being interrogated (via electrical shock) and
a woman comes into bringing coffee and tea and asking the officers in
charge what they would like and then asking "Will he (McDowll) be
having anything"?
If you are a fan of fucked up movies, I would strongly recommend "O'
Lucky Man". It has recently been released on DVD.
Richard R. Hershberger
> On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:55:23 +1000, Heather <redboro...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:43:16 +0200, Guillermo el Gato
> ><devn...@example.com> wrote:
>
> >>"It takes only seventeen seconds to ruin the life of an innocent man."
>
This critique seems pretty on point to me, but my first conscious
awareness of Hitchens was in the context of his being a blowhard. I
noticed the same byline on several pieces that included spectacular
stupidities, and started paying attention if only for ease of future
avoidance.
Richard R. Hershberger
Peter Ward
Good, nay excellent, soundtrack as well. Written and performed by
Alan Price, once of the Animals and since a great musician and
performer in his own right, who also appears in the film.
--
Peter
I'm an alien
email: groups at asylum dot nildram dot co dot uk
It's so hard having a big vocabulary.
- Dana Carpender
Raven-Poe
> Here it is in its entirety. If I am not in Raven's killfile he can see
> it.
Please, don't feed the trolls. If you think that something someone said
is a worthy question feel free to paraphrase it and ask it yourself.
John
--
Here, have 10 Opus Points (TM)
Remove the dead poet to e-mail.
Ask me about joining the NRA.