[act-ma] Thursday 4/18: "Mann vs Ford" - Free UPandOUT film screening [ an estimated 74 million Americans live in dangerous proximity to Superfund sites]

Tue Apr 16 09:52:38 PDT 2013

".../it can happen anywhere. It can happen in my community. It can 
happen in yours/"
[and 2 days ago we have this, from Helen Caldicott:
Obama Approves Raising Permissible Levels of Nuclear Radiation in 
Drinking Water. Civilian Cancer Deaths Expected to Skyrocket 
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-approves-raising-permissible-levels-of-nuclear-radiation-in-drinking-water-civilian-cancer-deaths-expected-to-skyrocket/5331224>]

  <http://rule19.org/download-film/film-130418-Mann%20vs%20Ford.pdf>/*Mann
  vs Ford
  */

    after years of toxic dumping, one small community fights for its life

Showing Thursday, April 18, in Cambridge [please download & distribute 
flyer <http://rule19.org/download-film/film-130418-Mann%20vs%20Ford.pdf>]

In 1955, Ford built America's largest auto plant in Mahwah, New Jersey, 
just up the river from New York City. Between 1967 and 1971, Ford dumped 
hundreds of tons of toxic waste into mineshafts in northern New Jersey, 
right in the backyards of communities.

The sludge of lead, arsenic, Freon, paint chemicals and dioxins poisoned 
the members of the Ramapough Native American community, causing a spate 
of severe health problems. Mothers started having miscarriages; people 
started coming down with cancer.

One member of the Ramapough, Wayne Mann, led the charge against Ford in 
2005 with a lawsuit stating that they had deliberately poisoned the land 
and the people living on it. The class action suit finally carried 
through in 2008 [spoiler alert: it does not have a happy ending].

Less than 5 percent of the community have lived past 60, indicating what 
one doctor in the film matter-of-factly refers to as '/a massive 
die-off' rate/.'

Posted in 2011 at *writeonnewjersey.com:*

    I have a personal saying, "There is no justice in this world, but
    there is the law." But after seeing the staggering denouement of
    the Mann vs. Ford case, I am no longer confident in the law.

    The plight of the Ramapoughs, and the blind eye that they have
    received from a mega-corporation and our own government is not
    simply 'their problem.' If it can happen in the once unspoiled
    Ramapough Mountains of New Jersey, it can happen anywhere. It can
    happen in my community. It can happen in yours.

    When I was asked last week to craft an article to help launch the
    upcoming HBO documentary, Mann vs. Ford, I had no idea how hard my
    heart was about to be wrenched, or how far my head was about to be
    blown.

    I strongly urge you to view [the documentary], absorb it, and
    understand how it impacts us all, not just a group of Native
    Americans who have been living under these untenable conditions for
    more than 40 years.

    Fly over the Ramapo Mountains and you will see, lying incongruously
    and stealthily among the green trees and shrubs, dried lakes of
    bright blue, red, and tan. These are the waste products of paint
    whose colors, decades later, are as vibrant as the day they were
    applied to the cars churned off the assembly line.

    What you won't see, unless you look and tread very carefully, is how
    the paint, discarded metals, and other waste infiltrated and tainted
    so very many other areas: how the toxins are now literally part of
    the landscape, how they have seeped into a reservoir whose water is
    consumed by than 2 million people, and how they impacted every level
    of the food chain.

"/The Record called this time period a "toxic wild west," ... The 
investigation found that Ford repeatedly dumped waste in poor 
communities, and knowingly dumped sludge into a stream that feeds into 
the Wanaque Reservoir. This was reportedly done through organized crime 
and government manipulation, coupled with relaxed environmental 
regulations and clean-up efforts./" ~ Jessica Mazzola, patch.com

"/If I poisoned 10 children, I'd go to jail for life; if a corporation 
poisons hundreds of people, it will get away with it./" ~Wayne Mann

*When/where*
doors open 6:40; film starts promptly 7pm
243 Broadway, Cambridge - corner of Broadway and Windsor,
entrance on Windsor
rule19.org/videos <http://rule19.org/videos>

Please join us for a stimulating night out; bring your friends!
*free film, free refreshments, & free door prizes.**
**[donations are encouraged]*

"/You can't legislate good will - that comes through education/." ~ 
Malcolm X

*UPandOUT film series* - see rule19.org/videos <http://rule19.org/videos>

Why should YOU care? It's YOUR money that pays for US/Israeli wars - on 
Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Palestine, Libya. Syria, Iran, So America, etc 
etc - for billionaire bailouts, for ever more ubiquitous US prisons, for 
the loss of liberty and civil rights...

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