: this is austin's blog :

Holy shit, Blood Diamond was earth shattering. As a movie, it was incredibly well done. DiCaprio's accent was iffy (I know rhodesians), but the message was jaw dropping. I had no clue about blood diamonds or conflict diamonds. I know that our consumer practices here in "first world land" directly affect (in very violent ways) the lives of millions in "developing nations" but I've never had it shown with such honest brutality and humanity.

But do you know what the sickest thing was??? Oh it wasn't the villager's arms being chopped off (after having their families slaughtered) in the name of forcing support of the R.U.F., it wasn't the child soldiers or the slave miners or even the innocent people running from the R.U.F. in the city streets only to be shot at by the government militia because they were simply in the way of a direct line of fire to the Rebels...

No, it was the commentary from the loud mouthed girl beside us, providing us with such insightful observations like, "She totally likes him!" at an incredibly obvious plot point in the film or even better: "I would never want to live in Africa, who would ever want to live in Africa?" during the overview of the massive refugee camps.

These are the kind of people whom this type of movie really needs and hopes to reach, but they have eyes that can't see and ears that can't hear.

I'm sorry Africa and America, if we keep producing people like this, we're all fucked.