In a couple of weeks Naomi Klien (author of The Shock Doctrine, and No Logo) is coming to the University of Lethbridge to discuss themes from The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. The book is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world—through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.
Around the world in Britain, the United States, Asia and the Middle East, there are people with power who are cashing in on chaos; exploiting bloodshed and catastrophe to brutally remake our world in their image. They are the shock doctors. Thrilling and revelatory, The Shock Doctrine cracks open the secret history of our era. Exposing these global profiteers, Naomi Klein discovered information and connections that shocked even her about how comprehensively the shock doctors’ beliefs now dominate our world—and how this domination has been achieved. Raking in billions out of the tsunami, plundering Russia, exploiting Iraq—this is the chilling tale of how a few are making a killing while more are getting killed.
The following is the Shock Doctrine short film, it neatly summarizes how the Shock Doctrine works.
Do you STILL love the Beatles? Then you will love this interview with John Lennon (that you haven’t heard before).
In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message.
On the fifth anniversary of the United States invasion into Iraq, PBS and Frontline present the full saga of the war in a two-part definitive series.
Watch part 1 and 2 of the full length documentary, Bush’s War at PBS.
I just finished watching it. No matter which side of the political fence you find yourself on, I highly recommend this captivating review of the lies, blunders, and pride that created the war in Iraq.
Make sure you have some time to kill. The online version is divided into 27 chapters, each about 10 minutes.
Control Room is a documentary on the perception of the United States’s war with Iraq, with an emphasis on Al Jazeera’s coverage. It makes it clear that the endeavor for unbiased reporting is a difficult, almost impossible task.
Control Room running time is 1 hours and 26 minutes.
Did the city of Berkeley, California, tell the US Marines that their recruiting office was not welcome there? Yes, they did.
BERKELEY, Calif. Local officials in this liberal city say it’s time for the U.S. Marines to move out.
The City Council has voted to tell the Marines their downtown recruiting station is not welcome and “if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome guests.”
Though I’ve found the turbulent history of the Middle East to be fascinating, I’ve never before found a resource so eloquent as the Maps of WarImperial History flash animation which enables one to see 5000 years of empire building and state history in about 90 seconds.
Though a lot of the empires shown here are familiar, I had no idea their respective magnitudes or durations.
I really liked this Google Video: Robert Newman History of oil. It hits on so many important themes and ideas in such a brilliant way that all I can say is that if you are remotely interested in world politics/economics and history, then this is required watching. It’s also quite funny.
From the description:
Robert Newman gets to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years—but rather than adhering to the history we were fed at school, [he] places oil centre stage as the cause of all commotion. This innovative history programme is based around Robert Newman’s stand-up act and supported by resourceful archive sequences and stills with satirical impersonations of historical figures from Mayan priests to Archduke Ferdinand. Quirky details such as a bicycle powered street lamp on the stage brings home the pertinent question of just how we are going to survive when the world’s oil supplies are finally exhausted.
Four witnesses recount their harrowing experiences in Hiroshima and Nagaski in 1945 when the US began dropping the atomic bomb.
Well, it was like a white magnesium flash. I lost consciousness right after or almost at the same time I saw the flash. When I regained consciousness, I found myself in the dark. I heard my friends, Ms. Asami, crying for her mother. Soon after, I found out that we actually had been attacked. Afraid of being caught by a fire, I told Ms. Asami to run out of the building. Ms. Asami, however, just told me to leave her and to try to escape by myself because she thought that she couldn’t make it anywhere. She said she couldn’t move. I said to her that I couldn’t leave her, but she said that she couldn’t even stand up. While we were talking, the sky started to grow lighter. Then, I heard water running in the lavatory. Apparently the water pipes had exploded. So I drew water with my helmet to pour over Ms. Asami’s head again and again. She finally regained consciousness fully and went out of the building with me. We first thought to escape to the parade grounds, but we couldn’t because there was a huge sheet of fire in front of us. So instead, we squatted down in the street next to a big water pool for fighting fires, which was about the size of this table. Since Hiroshima was completely enveloped in flames, we felt terribly hot and could not breathe well at all. After a while, a whirlpool of fire approached us from the south. It was like a big tornado of fire spreading over the full width of the street.”
I’ve been reading about the sabre rattling the US has been engaging in with Iran and frankly I’m in disbelief. Yesterday’s New Yorker article makes me sick. Snip:
The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack(… )
The lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of totally destroying the sites, little choice but to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. “Every other option, in the view of the nuclear weaponeers, would leave a gap,” the former senior intelligence official said. “ ‘Decisive’ is the key word of the Air Force’s planning. It’s a tough decision. But we made it in Japan.”
He went on, “Nuclear planners go through extensive training and learn the technical details of damage and fallout—we’re talking about mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years. This is not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a little bit. These politicians don’t have a clue, and whenever anybody tries to get it out”—remove the nuclear option—“they’re shouted down.”
Let me reiterate, a formal senior official just compared Iran with World War II era Japan!
After everything that’s happened in the last 5 years, I wish I was the one to have written the following quotation on the subject. From a comment posted at the site TPMCafe on January 14, 2006 (emphasis mine): “Speaking as a Canadian who is fond of judicious language, I feel that this situation deserves careful and measured thought. So let me just open with: Is your entire &#@%ing country on crack?”
John Stewart is right, when questioned if he believed that the war in Iraq and the rise in terrorism are signs of the apocalypse George W. Bush should have just said, “nope”.
I came across some amazing photos of the F-117 Stealth Fighter today. They were taken at the Royal International Air Tattoo in 2002 in England.
From the site:
The F-117 is a little bigger than the initial impression you get—it’s about the same size as an F-15 Eagle. It has a whole range of tricks to make it stealthy, starting with the dark, low contrast paint scheme which makes it so difficult to see at night (or photograph during the day), it’s covered in radar-absorbent materials and its very shape is intended to deflect radar away from the radar station. Its two jet engines are quiet and produce very little smoke, and the outlets from the engines, visible at the rear of the aircraft, mix cool air with the hot exhaust to reduce the type of heat signature that a heat-seeking missile could lock on to. The unusual “butterfly” tail is designed to shield the exhausts so missiles can’t see them.
Check out ‘what barry says’, a cool motion graphics video with an interesting perspective on the United States’ history of war. Propaganda yes, amazing images, and though it’s a bit heavy on the conspiracy theory side of things, it’s still pretty compelling.
“‘what barry says’ is a collaboration between simon and his friend barry mcnamara, simon has long been fascinated by barry’s views on u.s. foreign policy. simon decided to record barry delivering a monologue exploring u.s. imperialism and the project for the new american century. this speech became the focal point around which animation was constructed.”
bushwarcriminal.mov (68.6 mb mov) - After watching this last night I had horrible dreams that involved me getting tortured with chemical weapsons by the CIA. Seriously, it’s quite graphic, so viewer be warned.
