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Come Join us for our annual DAJ American Homestyle Thanksgiving. Sadly we are not dining at Fujimamas this year, but we've gotten a great deal set up for everyone at SUJI'S and they are excited to have us.

Our menu for the evening will be

ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFETT
Mixed Salad
Roast Herb Turkey
Mom’s Amazing Stuffing
Gravy
Roasted Seasonal Vegetables
Mashed Potatoes
Corn on the Cob
Cranberry Sauce
Pumpkin Pie
Hot Spiced Cider & Coffee or Tea

2 alcohol or non-alcohol drink

Pricing: 6,000 Yen/person all inclusive

DAJ-Y's Welcome:

Greeting from Yokohama. Democrats Abroad Japan-Yokohama, a chapter in formation, would like to announce its next Movie Night. We will meet at 7pm on Tuesday, October 27th at The HUB pub in Hiyoshi. The HUB is a 2 minute walk from Hiyoshi station on the Tokyu Toyoko Line.

http://pub-hub.com/shop/hiyoshi/index.html

From the eki ticket gates, turn right and cross the street. Head toward the building to the right of the main campus road and go down the escalator, thru 2 doors and you are there.

500 yen donation to DAJ/ Food and Drinks Ala Carte- One drink/food purchase requested per person. (Non-Americans are free or may make a donation to their favorite charity.)

The Movie will be Taxi to the Dark Side, a documentary about the torture inflicted upon prisoners in the Bush Administration's secret and not-so-secret prisons.

Join us for good food, the movie and discussion afterward.

There will be information about the new DAJ-Y chapter also discussed after the movie.

We have 2 rooms reserved at The HUB; but they will be showing this movie (with audio) on multiple screens in those rooms.

This synopsis of the movie is from the official website..... http://www.taxitothedarkside.com/taxi/

Taxi to the Dark Side is a 2007 documentary film directed by American filmmaker Alex Gibney, and produced by Eva Orner and Susannah Shipman, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. It focuses on the murder of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar, beaten to death by American soldiers while being held in extrajudicial detention at the Bagram Air Base.

Taxi to the Dark Side examines America's policy on torture and interrogation in general, specifically the CIA's use of torture and their research into sensory deprivation. There is description of the opposition to the use of torture from its political and military opponents, as well as the defense of such methods; the attempts by Congress to uphold the standards of the Geneva Convention forbidding torture; and the popularization of the use of torture techniques in shows such as 24.

It is part of the Why Democracy? series, which consists of ten documentary films from around the world questioning and examining contemporary democracy. As part of the series, Taxi to the Dark Side was broadcast in over 30 different countries around the world from October 8-18, 2007. The BBC cut the film to 79 minutes for broadcast.

The film is said to be the first film to contain images taken within Bagram Air Base.

Taxi to the Dark Side appeared on some critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Premiere magazine named it the fifth best film of 2008, and Bill White of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer named it the seventh best film of 2008. The film is also scored 100% for critic approval, out of 80 reviews, on Rotten Tomatoes, and is the third highest-rated film in the website's history.

It was named by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as one of 15 films on its documentary feature Oscar shortlist in November 2007. On February 24, 2008, in his acceptance speech for the "Best Documentary Feature" Academy Award, Gibney said:

“ This is dedicated to two people who are no longer with us, Dilawar, the young Afghan taxi driver, and my father, a navy interrogator who urged me to make this film because of his fury about what was being done to the rule of law. Let’s hope we can turn this country around, move away from the dark side and back to the light.

Extracted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_to_the_Dark_Side on 10/16/09

NY TimesReview by AO Scott from 18 Jan 2008....is still relevant......
URL - http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/movies/18taxi.html

A year from now, the presidency of George W. Bush will end, but the consequences of Mr. Bush’s policies and the arguments about them are likely to be with us for a long time. As next Jan. 20 draws near, there is an evident temptation, among many journalists as well as politicians seeking to replace Mr. Bush, to close the book and move ahead, an impulse that makes the existence of documentaries like Alex Gibney’s “Taxi to the Dark Side” all the more vital. If recent American history is ever going to be discussed with the necessary clarity and ethical rigor, this film will be essential.

Mr. Gibney directed “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” and was an executive producer of Charles Ferguson’s “No End in Sight,” films that show the same combination of investigative thoroughness and moral indignation that animates “Taxi.” The germ of this documentary’s story is the case of Dilawar, a taxi driver who was detained in Afghanistan in 2002 and who died in American custody at the prison in Bagram a few months later. Though Dilawar was never charged with any crime — and was never shown to have any connection with Al Qaeda or the Taliban — he was subjected to horrifically harsh treatment: deprived of sleep; suspended from a grated ceiling by his wrists; kicked and kneed in the legs until he could no longer stand.

The film includes remarkably frank interviews with American servicemen, some of whom faced courts-martial in connection with Dilawar’s death; with a fellow prisoner at Bagram; and with Carlotta Gall and Tim Golden, who reported on Dilawar’s story for The New York Times. “Taxi to the Dark Side,” however, does not simply recount a single, awful anecdote from the early days of the war on terror; rather, it traces the spread of a central, controversial tactic in that war. The burden of Mr. Gibney’s argument, laid out soberly and in daunting detail, is that what happened to Dilawar was not anomalous, but rather represented an early instance of what would soon be a widespread policy.

From Bagram in 2002, “Taxi to the Dark Side” charts a path to Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, all the while insisting that the brutal treatment of prisoners in those places was hardly the work of a few “bad apples,” as Pentagon officials said. Instead, the sexual humiliation, waterboarding and other well-documented practices were methods sanctioned at the very top of the chain of command. How those methods were intended to work — to break down psychological defenses, to induce not only physical discomfort but also a kind of madness — is laid out in interviews with behavioral scientists, and also with professional interrogators and their victims.

Though Mr. Gibney’s own views are evident throughout, he does allow those who defend the use of torture on legal and strategic grounds to have their say. By now, surely, the empty semantic debate about the appropriateness of the word torture has been settled, but it is still important to recall that in the months after the 9/11 attacks, the willingness to consider the necessity of extreme and previously taboo tactics was widespread. It was Vice President Dick Cheney who noted in a television interview that the fight against Islamic extremism would necessitate a trip to “the dark side,” as administration lawyers prepared (and later publicly defended) briefs and memos limiting habeas corpus and the applicability of the Geneva Conventions.

“Taxi to the Dark Side” includes an interview with the former Justice Department official John Yoo and clips of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales responding to their critics. And its essential fair-mindedness (which is not the same as neutrality) strengthens the film’s accounting of the consequences, both strategic and moral.

Jack Clooney, a longtime F.B.I. interrogator, argues that kindness can be a more effective way to manipulate a prisoner and gain information than cruelty, while young men who worked at Bagram and Abu Ghraib testify to the atmosphere of sadism in those places. Their matter-of-fact tone provides, in some ways, the most powerful support for Mr. Gibney’s view of the corrosive effects of torture on American traditions of decency and the rule of law.

His film is long, detailed and not always easy to watch. Plenty of moviegoers would happily pay not to think about the issues raised in “Taxi to the Dark Side.” But sooner or later we will need to understand what has happened in this country in the last seven years, and this documentary will be essential to that effort.

An informal, inclusive progressive social group. Raise your spirits while you raise your glass, and share ideas while you share a pitcher. Drinking Liberally gives like-minded, left-leaning individuals a place to talk politics. You don't need to be a policy expert and this isn't a book club - just come and learn from peers, trade jokes, vent frustration and hang out in an environment where it's not taboo to talk politics. Read more

Burma VJ is an award winning film being screened this month at the Refugee Film Festival and DAJ is thrilled to have the chance to host a special screening. Doors will open at 7, film will begin at 7:30

The director of the film may even stop by, stay tuned for updates on that!
1000 yen includes one drink and chips and salsa.

ABOUT THE FILM BURMA VJ

Going beyond the occasional news clip from Burma, the acclaimed filmmaker, Anders Østergaard, brings us close to the video journalists who deliver the footage. Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country. Armed with small handycams the Burma VJs stop at nothing to make their reportages from the streets of Rangoon. Their material is smuggled out of the country and broadcast back into Burma via satellite and offered as free usage for international media. The whole world has witnessed single event clips made by the VJs, but for the very first time, their individual images have been carefully put together and at once, they tell a much bigger story. The film offers a unique insight into high-risk journalism and dissidence in a police state, while at the same time providing a thorough documentation of the historical and dramatic days of September 2007, when the Buddhist monks started marching.

This month your movie donation will not need to go to cover the room charge but will instead be donated directly to the UNHCR Refugee film festival - Thank you for your support

for directions to the wine bar, please check the website on the access page at www.kimonowinebar.com

see you at the movies!

An informal, inclusive progressive social group. Raise your spirits while you raise your glass, and share ideas while you share a pitcher.

Drinking Liberally gives like-minded, left-leaning individuals a place to talk politics.

You don't need to be a policy expert and this isn't a book club - just come and learn from peers, trade jokes, vent frustration and hang out in an environment where it's not taboo to talk politics.

Directions: Hiyoshi is on the Tokyu Toyoko line about 25 minutes out of Shibuya. Besides from Shibuya, Hiyoshi can also be reached from/connected to from Ebisu (Hibiya line), Meguro (Meguro line – continuation of the Namboku and Mita subway lines terminates at Hiyoshi) and Oimachi (Oimachi line connecting at Oookurayama to the Meguro line). The Hub is a 2 minute walk from the Hiyoshi station.

When you get to Hiyoshi, come out the ticket wicket and turn right. Cross the street at the light. Keio University will be right in from of you. Bear to the right and do down the escalator, thru two door and look to the right. The Hub should be right in front of you. Come on in. Well be in the back two rooms.

We are trying to arrange the viewing of a documentary; if so, this listing will be updated ASAP........but if not....... come for the discussion.