An interactive
web documentary (mostly in Italian with French subtitles) takes a look into Predappio - the city where Mussolini was born and where neofascists assemble yearly to commemorate the anniversary of the March on Rome and to
pray over the Duce's tomb. Ironically, the town has been left wing ever since the end of the war and the current mayor, Giorgio Frassinetti, is exasperated :"We have to work on the image of the town, on the prejudices against it... but these marching imbeciles are not helping!". Frassinetti participated in the Difficult Heritage conference, part of
Contemporary History Days in Braunau am Inn, Hitler's birthplace, and reflected on how easier it is to attempt to recover a town's honor when there is no
dead body to be worshipped but his performance and town strategy is still being criticized.
posted by Marauding Ennui
on Oct 31, 2012 -
1 comment
February 25, 2011: Vogue calls her "a rose in the desert": "
Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic—the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies."
(Wikipedia about her
husband: "He has been criticized for his disregard for human rights, economic lapses, sponsorship of terrorism, and corruption.")
[more inside]
posted by iviken
on Feb 27, 2011 -
25 comments
Shin Sang-ok (1926 - 2006) was a Korean movie writer, director and producer, who studied film in Japan and returned to South Korea, where he gained fame and became the
uncontested leader of the film industry in the 1960s, in a time when regulations on the industry limited other studios. In the 1970s under the
Fourth Republic of South Korea, the film industry was even further limited, which lead to Shin's studio being closed. Things went from bad to worse, when
"the Orson Welles of South Korea" was kidnapped by request of Kim Jong Il, the son of North Korea's dictator, Kim Il Sung. The reason? Kim Jong Il wanted the nation's film industry to promote the virtues of the Korea Workers' Party to a world-wide audience. After being imprisoned for four years, Shin was reunited with his ex-wife (who was also a captive of North Korea) and the given relative freedom, producing seven films in North Korea. While setting up a distribution deal to share Kim Jong Il's vision with a broader audience for a Godzilla-like monster movie, Shin and his wife escaped and sought political asylum in the United States. Their freedom was possible because of that last film for Kim, entitled
Pulgasari. But Shin's life in movies was not over yet.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Aug 5, 2010 -
14 comments
Dear Friend,
I am a Swiss Banker currently in possession of over $ 1 Billion in funds stashed away by the late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko of the Congo. Our Swiss Confederation President Micheline Calmy-Rey said her government is holding just $6.6m frozen in accounts.
"We discussed the question of Mobutu's funds and my government is prepared to restore the money to the DR Congo as soon as possible," Ms Rey
told reporters in the DR Congo capital, Kinshasa, after talks with Mr Kabila.
But we can help you get the rest of the 92.4 million dollars if you will just send us your bank account number and call to confirm your ID and pin number.
posted by infini
on Jul 17, 2007 -
65 comments
Muammar Qadhafi's Official website (in Arabic, English and French) is a collection of
rantsthoughts by the Libyan Numero Uno about politics, including
terrorism (Talibans: guilty of "tergiversation libertinism"),
Turkey's EU membership (Turk Islamists "believe in polygamy, maids and what the right hand possessed, i.e. European Christian women") and
AIDS (
a CIA creation). A
companion website gives you Qadhafi the Humanitarian, Qadhafi the World Thinker and Qadhafi the
Inventor of the Safest Vehicle On Earth ("the leader spent so many hours of his valuable time thinking of an effective solution").
Of course, there are
many reasons for
not being amused
at all by Qadhafi, but
these folks know why he's such a despicable character: "
This man is actually a Jew". And to teach him a lesson they stole the Qadhafi thumbnails of his official site.
(Slighly related news:
Mustapha Akkad, producer of the Halloween horror movie franchise, but also the director of the Qadhafi-sponsored propaganda/epic
The Lion of the Desert, was
killed (with his daughter) in yesterday's hotel bombings in Amman.)
posted by elgilito
on Nov 11, 2005 -
49 comments
The Dictators Contest "Back by popular demand is the
Original Dictators Contest. 16 of the last century's most fearsome autocrats have been selected and pitted randomly against one another to compete for the title
Dictator of Dictators". If you don't see your favorite Dictator, try
The Second Dictators Contest. Agree with their results? Did they forget anyone?
posted by Mack Twain
on Apr 11, 2003 -
5 comments
This war plan forces me to stand by the dictator who tortured me. Iraqi writer, an exiled dissident and victim of Hussein's regime speaks against war and sanctions: "
You are "either with us or against us", they say. As an Iraqi that means choosing between war and the dictator. To be on the side of the oppressed does not mean we are unaware of the complexity of the situation. To campaign for the lifting of sanctions, for an end to the paralysing bombardment and daily threat of war is to stand by the Iraqi people; it is that policy which will help them to change the oppressive regime. Any change should be initiated from within Iraq, not imposed by Bush or Blair."
posted by talos
on Sep 18, 2002 -
11 comments
Reuters confirms that our friend Dubya did in fact authorize the attack on Iraqi radar stations. We're killing people and giving a dictator fuel for the propaganda mill he needs to prop up his regime. But that's okay, because the people who are dying don't share our race and religion and so, in fact, they're not really "people" at all. They're ciphers and objects and statistics. Apparently it's only when white Protesetants die that death really matters. Incidentally, remember this bombing isn't a matter of protecting the Kuwaiti ethnic minority (read: our oil interests), this is over perceived violation of arbitrarily imposed NATO sanctions. Scum. Scum scum scum!
posted by hanseugene
on Feb 16, 2001 -
40 comments
Oh my lord. The
Guess the Dictator/Sit-com character site works by asking a series of questions about a person you have to think of. I selected an obscure sit-com character, Chris Elliot from Fox's ill-fated "
Get a Life" series. If you would have asked me to bet money on it before proceeding, I would have gladly put $20 on the site not figuring it out. After about 15 questions, it guessed right. This is scary stuff. [via
rebeccablood]
posted by mathowie
on Feb 26, 2000 -
15 comments
