[act-ma] Thursday 9/19: "Hearts and Minds" - Free UPandOUT film screening

[pf soto]

*<http://rule19.org/download-film/film-130919-Hearts%20and%20Minds.pdf>Hearts 
and Minds*

Showing Thursday, September 19, in Cambridge [please download & 
distribute flyer 
<http://rule19.org/download-film/film-130919-Hearts%20and%20Minds.pdf>]

The term /hearts and minds/ was used by the US as a method to bring a 
subjugated population on your side.

Pieced together from various interviews with military brass, discharged 
soldiers and Vietnamese civilians, newsreel presidential addresses and 
on-the-ground camera work, */Hearts and Minds/* is THE documentary on 
the Vietnam War. Released in 1974, less than a year before the war would 
end, the film pulled all the disparate feelings towards the conflict 
that had been building up in the American consciousness for two decades 
and laid everything out in a vicious and visceral knockout punch aimed 
squarely at anyone who might still be on the fence. In fact, the movie 
was so controversial, that it's original release was impeded and 
litigated against until all it received was a one week run in Los 
Angeles. And the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Presenter Frank 
Sinatra denounced it.

While the film does use interviews with people on both sides of the 
famously divisive war's opinion gulf, it's impossible to ignore it's 
underlying message when you see a sobbing relative of a dead Vietnamese 
soldier throwing herself onto his coffin while then-Army Chief of Staff 
Gen. William Westmoreland intones, "The Oriental doesn't put the same 
high price on life as does the Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is 
cheap in the Orient." */Hearts and Minds/* is utterly unflinching in 
it's depiction of one of our worst military disasters.

The film gives voice to the Vietnamese people themselves - how the war 
has affected them, and their reasons why they fight the United States 
and other imperialist powers, while showing the basic humanity of the 
people that US propaganda tried to dismiss.

Making appearances, among many others:

*Col. George S Patton III*, at a memorial service in Vietnam for some 
fallen American soldiers: "/They're a bloody good bunch of killers/. 
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071604/>"
["/No Hollywood dramatization could do justice to Patton's cheerful 
viciousness/" ~Tom Bissell, NYT]

*Bobby Muller,* veteran who later founded the Vietnam Veterans of America

*Randy Floyd*, veteran: "/We've all tried very hard to escape what we 
have learned in Vietnam. I think Americans have worked extremely hard 
not to see the criminality that their officials and their policy makers 
exhibited/."

*George Coker*, vet: "/If it wasn't for the people, it [Viet Nam] 
//would be very pretty/"

*Daniel Ellsberg*: "/We weren't on the wrong side. We WERE the wrong side./"

*http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b9/Intheyearofthepig.jpg/220px-Intheyearofthepig.jpgNOTE: 
We will make available the film _/In the Year of the Pig/_**, another 
excellent documentary about the US war on Vietnam; it explains how the 
Vietnamese stopped the war and how important Ho Chi Minh was to his 
people, both north /and /south. Re his success, an interviewee explains 
that he encouraged all Vietnamese to be armed - surely not something a 
leader would do if he didn't have popular support and wasn't afraid of 
his own people. *

"/There are at least two reasons to watch "Hearts and Minds. ...How 
about this for starters? It''s one of the best documentaries ever made, 
a superb film about the thoughts and feelings of the era, the whole 
festering, spirited animus of it. And then there's the disquieting 
timeliness. ...Once again, there is war, a counterculture, hawks and 
doves, and even this: a questionable premise."
/~Desson Thomas, Washington Post

"/Not only the best documentary I have ever seen, it may be the best 
movie ever/"
~Michael Moore

"/One of the most heartbreaking and powerful movies ever to grace the 
screen. ... years on from when it was first shown, it has lost none of 
its power and seems as poignant today as it must have then./"
~ Andy McKeague, movie critic

"/I helped discover dioxin, arguably the most toxic chemical ever found. 
...It was part of the herbicide 2,4,5-T, or Agent Orange, then being 
used to defoliate forests in the Vietnam War./"
~ T.Colin Campbell, American biochemist

"/No, I'm not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn 
another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave 
masters of the darker people the world over./"
~ Muhammed Ali

*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 door prizes
****[donations are encouraged]
*feel free to bring your own snacks and soft drinks - no alcohol allowed
"/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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