ANTIWAR

PATRICE GREANVILLE—Joaquin Phoenix’s seemingly impromptu and brave Oscar speech was way above and beyond the pampered audience’s comfort zone and comprehension, clearly outside the usual insufferably egocentric drivel delivered by most award recipients, and yet they eventually rose to their feet, perhaps dimly aware of the depth and scope of the message, something that the media custodians of the status quo  studiously failed to do. Their almost uniform response has ranged from outright scorn—as typified by the venom spat by the repulsive Murdoch rag, The New York Post—to hollowing out exactly all the major and substantive points in Phoenix’s clear expression of personal beliefs.

ROGER EBERT—If the singing of “La Marseillaise” in a bar in “Casablanca” was a call to patriotism, this scene is an argument against it. It creates a moment of quiet and tenderness in the daily horror these soldiers occupy — a world in which generals casually estimated that 55 percent of these very men might be killed in a stupid attack and found that acceptable.

As expected, the corporate media and many politicians are spreading lies to justify the murders and further aggression towards Iran. It is important for us to understand the facts so we can respond to this misinformation and avoid being lied into yet another war.

BONNIE CARACCIOLO—I do not believe in war. Saying that I do not believe in war is not the same as saying “I don’t support the troops”. That is a ploy to make those who are against war seem like unpatriotic ingrates. What it means is- I don’t believe in subsidizing young people to go halfway across the planet to kill other young people and unarmed civilians who are, today, 80% of casualties in ‘modern warfare’.

ED CURTIN—Hedges omits mentioning the Clinton administration’s dismantling wars against Yugoslavia, including 78 days of non-stop bombing of Serbia in 1999 that killed thousands of innocent people in the name of “humanitarian intervention,” wars he covered for the New York Times, the paper he has come to castigate and the paper that has a long history of doing the CIA’s bidding.