August, 05 2009, 08:19am EDT
Dow, ExxonMobil Slam New Yes Men Film for 'Inaccuracies', 'Misrepresentation'; Concede Pic 'Entertaining'
UK theatrical premiere of 'The Yes Men Fix the World' August 7, opens in US theaters in October
INTERNATIONAL
ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical spokespersons have lashed out out at award-winning new documentary "The Yes Men Fix the World" in an interview with the Reuters press agency, shortly before the film's U.K. theatrical opening.
"We think it is a serious matter when people willingly misrepresent themselves," said a spokesperson for the world's largest oil company, responding to the film's airing on HBO last week. The film will be in theaters in the U.K. beginning this Friday, August 7, and in U.S. theaters in October.
Exxon stopped short of calling the Yes Men outright liars, despite a scene in the film where the Yes Men, impersonating Exxon at a big oil conference in Canada, present the company's supposed solution to climate change: a new biofuel called Vivoleum, made from the human victims of climate change.
"Exxon can't actually deny that their actions are threatening to kill off millions or billions," said Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men. "What else would they do with the victims?" (Also featured in "The Yes Men Fix the World" are interviews with members of free-market think tanks, until recently funded by Exxon, who promote inaction on climate change before Congress and through multi-million dollar advertising campaigns.)
The film is no kinder to Dow Chemical, the world's second-largest chemical
company. The film shows the Yes Men impersonating Dow live on the BBC before 300 million viewers, announcing that Dow will finally compensate survivors of the Bhopal catastrophe and clean up the tainted groundwater left in its wake. The film contrasts this stark reality with Dow's "Dow Hu" advertising campaign.
Dow has reacted in kind. "While some may find the Yes Men entertaining," said a Dow spokesperson, "it is important to realize that these pranksters continue to communicate inaccuracies."
"Dow lets people die from tainted water in Bhopal, yet communicates itself as a sort of corporate Mother Theresa," said Mike Bonanno of the Yes Men. "Nobody but a psychopath would find THAT entertaining."
For those who do want entertainment, The Yes Men Fix the World begins previews August 7 at the Odeon Panton Street in London, and launches officially on August 11 in 20 cinemas across the U.K., before moving on to a theatrical release in the U.S. beginning October 7. For full screening dates and times, and to buy advance tickets, please visit https://www.theyesmenfixtheworld.com/screenings.htm
COME SEE THE YES MEN GET SERVED?
If you happen to live in the U.K., the Yes Men will be attending the London
preview screenings August 7-10 and will appear live at the nationwide simulcast on August 11. These are great opportunities to serve the Yes Men legal papers should you or anyone you know wish to sue them. Please get tickets early to reserve a seat for these potentially lively events! Note as well that the Yes Men will give a free "Special Edition" New York Times to anyone who comes to any daytime screening, or to one of the Monday-Wednesday evening screenings at the Odeon Panton Street London between August 7-13.
DOWN UNDER? GO SEE "THE AGE OF STUPID"
On the evening of Wednesday August 19, A-list celebs will arrive at the Sydney Theatre and at a zero-waste tent in central Auckland, travelling by bicycle, rickshaw, foot, solar car, electric car, or horse. 40 cinemas throughout Australia and New Zealand will show the events as well as a Q&A with the Oscar-nominated star of the film, Pete Postlethwaite (In The Name of the Father, Brassed Off), and the director, Franny Armstrong (McLibel, Drowned Out). Visit
https://www.ageofstupid.net/news/oz_nz_premiere for tickets. This is a great movie with a great message!
ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD? TAKE THE YES MEN CHALLENGE
Lots of people have cool ideas for hot new Yes Men type actions. Sign up at
https://challenge.theyesmen.org/ and browse others' ideas, or make yours come true.
READY FOR REAL ACTION?
Non-violent civil disobedience has been a core tactic of movements for justice throughout history - from Indian Independence, to U.S. Civil Rights, to the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa. It has already played an important role in blocking or shutting down dirty energy facilities. One way to move beyond talk is to visit https://www.beyondtalk.net/ and sign up.
Ever since 1996, the Yes Men have used humor and trickery to highlight the corporate takeover of society, the neoliberal delusion that allows it, the corporate Democrats' responsibility for our current situation, and so on. And while we're all about "building awareness," we do realize that's not all there is, and that it's only ongoing campaigns that really make change.
LATEST NEWS
As Senate Prepares for NDAA Vote, Progressive Caucus Says It Is 'Past Time' to Slash Pentagon Budget
"This legislation on balance moves our country and our national priorities in the wrong direction," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
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As Senate Democrats prepared to move forward with a procedural vote on the annual defense budget package that passed in the House earlier this week, the Congressional Progressive Caucus outlined its objections to the legislation and called for the Pentagon budget to be cut, with military funding freed up to "reinvest in critical human needs."
CPC Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said following the passage of the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2025 (H.R. 5009) that "it should alarm every American taxpayer that we are nearing a trillion-dollar annual budget for an agency rampant with waste, fraud, and abuse."
Jayapal, who was one of 140 lawmakers to oppose the package, emphasized that the Pentagon has failed seven consecutive annual audits.
Despite being the only federal agency to never have passed a federal audit, said Jayapal, the Department of Defense "continues to receive huge boosts to funding every year. Our constituents deserve better."
As Common Dreams reported last month, more than half of the department's annual budget now goes to military contractors that consistently overcharge the government, contributing to the Pentagon's inability to fully account for trillions of taxpayer dollars.
The $883.7 billion legislation that was advanced by the House on Wednesday would pour more money into the Pentagon's coffers. The package includes more than $500 million in Israeli military aid and two $357 million nuclear-powered attack submarine despite the Pentagon requesting only one, and would cut more than $621 million from President Joe Biden's budget request for climate action initiatives.
Jayapal noted that the legislation—which was passed with the support of 81 Democrats and 200 Republicans—also includes anti-transgender provisions, barring the children of military service members from receiving gender-affirming healthcare in "the first federal statute targeting LGBTQ people since the 1990s when Congress adopted 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' and the Defense of Marriage Act."
"This dangerous bigotry cannot be tolerated, let alone codified into federal law," said Jayapal.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that the legislation "has some very good things we Democrats wanted in it, it has some bad things we wouldn't have put in there, and some things that were left out," and indicated that he had filed cloture for the first procedural vote on the NDAA.
The vote is expected to take place early next week, and 60 votes are needed to begin debate on the package.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a longtime critic of exorbitant U.S. military spending, said in a floor speech on Wednesday that he plans to vote no on the budget.
"While middle-class and working-class families are struggling to survive, we supposedly just don't have the financial resources to help them," he said. "We just cannot afford to build more housing, we just cannot afford to provide quality childcare to our kids or to support public education, or to provide healthcare to all."
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Jayapal noted that the funding package includes substantive pay raises for service members and new investments in housing, healthcare, childcare, and other support for their families.
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By cutting military spending, she said, the federal government could invest in the needs of all Americans, not just members of the military, "without sacrificing our national security or service member wages."
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Two Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden Thursday, urging him to place more checks on potential nuclear weapons use by mandating that a president must obtain authorization from Congress before initiating a nuclear first strike.
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The two write that time is of the essence: "As Donald Trump prepares to return to the Oval Office, it is more important than ever to take the power to start a nuclear war out of the hands of a single individual and ensure that Congress's constitutional role is respected and fulfilled."
The Constitution vests Congress, not the president, with the power to declare war (though presidents have used military force without getting the OK from Congress on multiple occasions in modern history, according to the National Constitution Center).
During the Cold War, when nuclear weapons policy was produced, speed was seen as essential to deterrence, according to Jon Wolfsthal, the director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists, who wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post last year that makes a similar argument to Markey and Lieu.
"There is no reason today to rely on speedy decision-making during situations in which the United States might launch first. Even as relations with Moscow are at historic lows, we are worlds removed from the Cold War's dominant knife's-edge logic," he wrote.
While nuclear tensions today may not be quite as high as they were during the apex of the Cold War, fears of nuclear confrontation have been heightened due to poor relations between the United States and Russia over the ongoing war in Ukraine, among other issues. Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree lowering the threshold for potential nuclear weapons use not long after the U.S. greenlit Ukraine's use of U.S.-supplied long range weapons in its fight against Russia.
This is not the first time Markey and Lieu have pushed for greater guardrails on nuclear first-use. The two are the authors of the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act, a proposed bill first introduced in 2017 that would bar a U.S. president from launching a nuclear first strike without the consent of Congress.
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In their letter, Markey and Lieu also recount an episode from the first Trump presidency when, shortly after the January 6 insurrection, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley ordered his staff to come to him if they received a nuclear strike order from Trump.
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Amnesty International on Thursday called for a war crimes investigation into recent Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon that killed dozens of civilians, as well as a suspension of arms transfers to Israel as it attacks Gaza, the West Bank, and Syria.
In a briefing paper titled The Sky Rained Missiles, Amnesty "documented four illustrative cases in which unlawful Israeli strikes killed at least 49 civilians" in Lebanon in September and October amid an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) campaign of invasion and bombardment that Lebanese officials say has killed or wounded more than 20,000 people.
"Amnesty International found that Israeli forces unlawfully struck residential buildings in the village of al-Ain in northern Bekaa on September 29, the village of Aitou in northern Lebanon on October 14, and in Baalbeck city on October 21," the rights group said. "Israeli forces also unlawfully attacked the municipal headquarters in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon on October 16."
Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty's senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, said in a statement that "these four attacks are emblematic of Israel's shocking disregard for civilian lives in Lebanon and their willingness to flout international law."
The September 29 attack "destroyed the house of the Syrian al-Shaar family, killing all nine members of the family who were sleeping inside," the report states.
"This is a civilian house, there is no military target in it whatsoever," village mukhtar, or leader, Youssef Jaafar told Amnesty. "It is full of kids. This family is well-known in town."
On October 16, Israel bombed the Nabatieh municipal complex, killing Mayor Ahmad Khalil and 10 other people.
"The airstrike took place without warning, just as the municipality's crisis unit was meeting to coordinate deliveries of aid, including food, water, and medicine, to residents and internally displaced people who had fled bombardment in other parts of southern Lebanon," Amnesty said, adding that there was no apparent military target in the immediate area.
In the deadliest single strike detailed in the Amnesty report, IDF bombardment believed to be targeting a suspected Hezbollah member killed 23 civilians forcibly displaced from southern Lebanon in Aitou on October 14.
"The youngest casualty was Aline, a 5-month-old baby who was flung from the house into a pickup truck nearby and was found by rescue workers the day after the strike," Amnesty said.
Survivor Jinane Hijazi told Amnesty: "I've lost everything; my entire family, my parents, my siblings, my daughter. I wish I had died that day too."
As the report notes:
A fragment of the munition found at the site of the attack was analyzed by an Amnesty International weapons expert and based upon its size, shape, and the scalloped edges of the heavy metal casing, identified as most likely a MK-80 series aerial bomb, which would mean it was at least a 500-pound bomb. The United States is the primary supplier of these types of munitions to Israel.
"The means and method of this attack on a house full of civilians likely would make this an indiscriminate attack and it also may have been disproportionate given the presence of a large number of civilians at the time of the strike," Amnesty stressed. "It should be investigated as a war crime."
The October 21 strike destroyed a building housing 13 members of the Othman family, killing two women and four children and wounding seven others.
"My son woke me up; he was thirsty and wanted to drink. I gave him water and he went back to sleep, hugging his brother," survivor Fatima Drai—who lost her two sons Hassan, 5, and Hussein, 3, in the attack—told Amnesty.
"When he hugged his brother, I smiled and thought, I'll tell his father how our son is when he comes back," she added. "I went to pray, and then everything around me exploded. A gas canister exploded, burning my feet, and within seconds, it consumed my kids' room."
Guevara Rosas said: "These attacks must be investigated as war crimes. The Lebanese government must urgently call for a special session at the U.N. Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigative mechanism into the alleged violations and crimes committed by all parties in this conflict. It must also grant the International Criminal Court jurisdiction over Rome Statute crimes committed on Lebanese territory."
"Israel has an appalling track record of carrying out unlawful airstrikes in Gaza and past wars in Lebanon taking a devastating toll on civilians."
Last month, the court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with Israel's 433-day Gaza onslaught, which has left more than 162,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing in the embattled enclave.
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Meanwhile, the International Court of Justice is weighing a genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel. Last week, Amnesty published a report accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
The United States—which provides Israel with tens of billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover—has also been accused of complicity in Israeli war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon.
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