Aretha Franklin pairs up Condoleezza Rice for a concert in Philly

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/52133


THE QUEEN OF NO SOUL by Sebastian Doggart
Submitted by coleen rowley on Tue, 2010-05-11 17:45

Two events, both of which feature a public figure named 2005’s most powerful woman in the world, may go down as the most bizarre of the year. The first took place last Saturday, in San Diego, where Condoleezza Rice was the Distinguished Speaker at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Convention. That’s a very long way from the world-changing press conferences she was commanding at the State Department 18 months ago. The second occasion is one of the weirdest concerts ever conceived, and may spark a firestorm of controversy. Its organizers, the Mann Center of Philadelphia, are marketing $95 seats with this enticement:

"The Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin pairs up with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for an evening of classics and R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Ms. Rice will enchant us with selections from Mozart and more, and will feature Aretha on vocals... This extraordinary effort is sure to be a crowd pleaser. Don’t miss this amazing duo for one night only!"

I’ve been investigating Condoleezza Rice for the last five years, and have completed two films about her, with a third due out in July. Of all the stranger-than-fiction discoveries I have made about Rice, this spectacle, scheduled to take place on July 27 in Fairmount Park, http://www.manncenter.org/events/Aretha_Franklin_and_Condoleezza_Rice_-_... is certainly the most surreal.

The Philadelphia Weekly agrees, describing it as "the most unusual musical pairing since Ben Folds & William Shatner … or maybe even Burt Bacharach & Dr. Dre.”

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There is a time for telling stories, and there is time for action born of civic duty -- or, in Ms. Franklin’s words to “Do right, woman”. As a documentarian, I have done my best to tell Rice’s story objectively. But the failure of the media, Congress, and the judiciary to pursue the evidence now publicly available on these crimes is intolerable. I am now working with a growing group of activists to try, as a first step to bringing Rice to justice, to have her banned from the Fairmount park stage on July 27th, and to prevent this real-life equivalent of Springtime for Hitler proceeding. Allies here include Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent-turned-whistleblower, who, along with two other women, won Time’s Person of the Year in 2002; and the Stanford based Action Condi group. Earlier this week, Steven Jewell MD, one of its leading advocates, a retired emergency physician, wrote this letter to Rossen Milanov, the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra:

By appearing on stage with Ms. Rice, you associate yourself and the Philadelphia Orchestra with crimes against humanity. Under Article 8 of the Rome Conventions, torture is defined as a crime against humanity, along with genocide, slavery, systematic rape, and disappearances of political opponents.
It would be a grave mistake to tarnish your own reputation and that of the orchestra with this event, and I urge you to do the right thing for the orchestra and your own reputation. Those who condone torture are complicit in the continuation of a horrible crime. I remind you of the holocaust poem that addresses the torment of the "Good German" during the Nazi period:

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

I implore you to do the right thing.”

Maestro Milanov has yet to respond.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.” Those words were recently cited by Rwandan President Kagame as an inspiration to him in his efforts to heal the wounds left by the1994 genocide that left 800,000 dead, and to secure truth, justice and reconciliation, in his country. The successes his community tribunals have achieved, (although recent reports of re-education camps have shown this program has been far from perfect), give hope that, given the right political will, a similar process of holding the criminals accountable, and then moving on, could happen in the U.S. Measures could be implemented to prevent torture from recurring. But President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder have made it clear that justice for the torturers is not a priority for them.
The only way that will happen is through a concerted grass-roots movement. Every citizen can participate in this endeavor. Here are some suggestions on how you can make a difference:

1. Urge the Philadelphia Orchestra to refuse to play with Condoleezza Rice. You can email the conductor Rossen Milanov at ym19701307@gmail.com and the orchestra leadership at avulgamore@philorch.org, cHeininger@philorch.org , kblodgett@philorch.org, chamilton@philorch.org , amadonia@philorch.org, mmestichelli@philorch.org, smillen@philorch.org, and jrothman@philorch.org

2. Pressure the Mann Center to dump Rice from its program. Contact its chief executive, Catherine Cahill at 215.546.7900, or ccahill@manncenter.org If you don’t hear back from her, contact the Center’s corporate partners and sponsors -- including Boeing, Ernst & Young, Bank of America, Merck, and National Endowment for the Arts -- and ask them to make their continued support conditional on the removal of Rice from the concert bill. A full list of sponsors is at http://www.manncenter.org/support/SalutetoourPartners

3. Implore Aretha Franklin not to sing to Rice’s tune. Email her through her agent Dick Allen of William Morris Endeavor at da@wmeentertainment.com or tel: 310 285 9000. Post an appeal to other Aretha fans to back the campaign at http://www.facebook.com/arethafranklin and www.myspace.com/arethafranklin

4. Contact Rice’s representatives at William Morris Endeavor Agency, Jim Wiatt and Wayne Kabak, and ask them to stop what they have called the “reinvention and evolution” of her career, and consider the implications of WME aiding and abetting a torturer and war criminal. Tel: 310 285 9000. Do the same to her agents for speaking engagements, Washington Speakers Bureau, at 703.684.0555
5. Organize a peaceful public protest. Find out where Rice is appearing by becoming a friend of our film at http://www.facebook.com/pages/American-Faust-From-Condi-to-Neo-Condi/737... If we don’t succeed in having Rice removed from the bill, join us in public protest on July 27, prior to the concert in Fairmount Park.

6. Call Attorney General Eric Holder (202 514 2000) and tell him to uphold the Rule of Law, and order a full investigation of torture, including those who ordered it.

7. Write to President Obama and ask him not to compromise his principles of equal justice under the law for political expediency, to honor his promise to close Gitmo, and to cease illegal extraordinary renditions to black site countries http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

8. Arrange a citizen’s arrest of Rice, in keeping with the provisions of the Penal Code of the state where the arrest is to take place.

9. Raise awareness of Rice’s crimes by recommending American Faust to your friends, or arranging a screening in your community. Get the film at www.indiesdirect/americanfaust

10. Join the Alliance for Justice http://www.afj.org/ and support its campaign to arrest, try and imprison Rice and others implicated in authorizing torture.

11. Write to your Congressperson and Senator and ask them to investigate those responsible for breaking the laws on torture. You can find your Representative’s contact details at https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml and your Senator’s contact details at http://www.senate.gov/

12. Sign a petition at http://www.stanford.edu/group/antiwar/cgi-bin/crpetition.php stating that you “believe that high officials of the U.S. Government, including our former Provost, current Political Science Professor, and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, Condoleezza Rice, should be held accountable for any serious violations of the Law (including ratified treaties, statutes, and/or the U.S. Constitution) through investigation and, if the facts warrant, prosecution, by appropriate legal authorities.”

13. Support the movement to expel Rice from her post at Stanford University. Join the Action Condi group at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/action_condi and write to the Stanford Alumni Society and urge them to set up an escrow account for donations that will only be released once Rice has been expelled from the University http://www.stanfordalumni.org/home.html

14. Volunteer for, or donate to, groups fighting for human rights and the abolition of torture such as: War Criminals Watch http://warcriminalswatch.org/ , Amnesty International www.amnesty.org , Human Rights Watch www.hrw.org , the American Civil Liberties Union www.aclu.org and Reprieve www.reprieve.org


Do right, ladies and gents! Join the conspiracy of truth and justice!

Sebastian Doggart is film-maker, writer & human right activist. The film American Faust: From Condi to Neo-Condi is available at www.indiesdirect.com/americanfaust. (This piece was riginally posted at Consortium News: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/051010c.html)

Maybe we need to send Aretha the info about what torture is.. of the children and women who were torture, raped.. etc.

<img src="http://api.photoshop.com/home_57eb9bc61ed545608e4e5e77ac825d4c/adobe-px-assets/b26ee7de25604f3da022f0038eb57a41" width="448" height="252"/>

Condi has always been very ambitious and her political career is far from over. She's busy resurrecting her image without the torture history.