The other day, I saw Robert Greenwald's movie "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers" at Cinemapolis. Ithacans have two more days to see this consciousness-raising movie for a fundraising cause: Cinemapolis is allowing the Tompkins County Worker's Center to show the film as a fundraiser. That's tonight and tomorrow (Wednesday and Thursday), at 7:15 pm. $8.00 and they take 100% Ithaca HOURS.

I almost didn't go see it. I had been editing the newsletter all day, and was feeling depressed about the state of the world. I didn't want to see another email telling me about the importance of this year's elections. I didn't want to read another article about 665,000 dead Iraqis, or about violence in Ithaca's homes and streets, or about climate change. Likewise, I didn't want to look at the paper and see articles about fashion or what's on TV or anything else trivial that Americans tend to put so much importance on.

No, I almost didn't go. I was just feeling…blah.

And you know what? Going to the movie really did make me feel worse. Hopeless, to be more precise, and anxious, too.

Greenwald just lays it all out for us and backs it up with facts and experiences of people who were there. We see who some of the war profiteers are, hear from former employees, see how much the executives are making, learn how they lobby to get the government contracts, what they're actually doing in Iraq, how they're sometimes endangering their workers as well as the troops, and on and on.

Our tax money—tens of billions of dollars worth—is going toward the war not through the military so much as private companies. Halliburton, Blackwater, CACI and Titan are the companies featured in the film. These companies provide services and "support" to our troops that in all past wars have been the purview of the military. The difference? We pay private companies so much more than the military that there's no incentive to re-enlist.

We're talking some very high salaries for CEOs and CFOs of Halliburton, et al, and much higher salaries for the employees carrying out the jobs than an Army man would make at the same job. You've probably heard this before, but watching it unravel in the theatre—you have to just sit there and really confront it. War profiteers.

Oh, and the added bonus? Because they are private companies they seem to have no accountability to the Geneva Conventions. Interrogators from Blackwater were also implicated in the Abu Graib torture scandal. Not one has been apprehended, arrested or held accountable. In fact, even after being implicated in the Abu Graib scandal, the Blackwater Company got more government contracts for their work in Iraq. Shameful!

Perhaps the most egregious crime though isn't the CEOs salaries, it's the purported "supporting of the troops" that these companies provide. Executives are lavishly spending our tax dollars while the troops—the real patriots who signed up to defend our country—are sleeping on back-breaking cots and living in damp and moldy tents.

It just goes on and on until you leave the theatre feeling hopeless and sick—at least, that was my reaction. The troops sometimes have to follow idiotic rules set forth by the companies feeding them instead of military strategy, which puts them in danger. And the private companies sent in Iraqi "translators" who hadn't been rigorously screened to ensure their neutrality.

Still, even though it makes you feel terrible and could cause anxiety over the future of this country and of the world, I recommend seeing it. Bring a friend, and stay for the discussion after. Then send me an email, and share some ideas about how to stop this war.

You can read about it here: http://iraqforsale.org/