Robert Kane Pappas’ “Orwell Rolls in His Grave” is probably the premier video overview of what is wrong with the media today and how American democracy has suffered as a result of the faults of this essential part of a self-governing society. Featuring Robert McChesney, Mark Crispin Miller, Bernie Sanders and others, “Orwell” covers a wide range of topics from the depoliticizing of the American public at the hands of the infotainment-oriented “news” agencies to the widespread media consolidation following the sweeping deregulations of the Reagan era. [END] Permalink: Orwell Rolls in His Grave
Arms for hostages. Covert operations. Executive sessions. You may have heard these terms before, or others, like “invisible government,” “secret government,” or “Secret Team.” The U. S. Congressional investigations into the Iran-Contra affair, as it was known, brought the secret dealings of the CIA and private mercenary firms abroad to light as never before, along with hidden right-wing plans for the suspension of the U. S. Constitution in the event of an uprising by American dissidents. And of course, one of the major players now has his own show on Fox News. As the above video, “Coverup: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair,” argues, the Iran hostage crisis was a major topic of national discussion going into the 1980 U. S. Presidential election. Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter’s efforts to bring home American hostages in Iran had failed, which may have been a major factor in his losing of the election to the Reagan-Bush Republican team. After Reagan’s inauguration, however, it was revealed that secret Republican agreements had been made with the hostage holders not to release the hostages until after the election was over. In return, Reagan and Bush’s people (Bush, of course, being a former CIA chief) had promised to supply arms to the Iranians. The teams responsible for the deal, however, put a huge markup on the weapons and apparently used the profits to create right-wing paramilitary death squads in Central American countries which were to be used to suppress violently left-wing peasants’ and indigenous peoples’ rebellions. Guns, drug trafficking and enormous sums of money figure prominently in this sordid tale of espionage and many of the major players, who had previously made huge fortunes from their off-the-books military adventures in Southeast Asia during the U. S. military battles in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, would later rise to prominence once more during the Bush II years, some as targets of the 9/11 skeptics’ movement as possible “inside job” suspects. Below is more footage from the hearings on 8 July 1987 and 14 July 1987, respectively.
This German documentary presents a European perspective on the United States’ history of lying to the world in order to advance war agendas with a particular focus on the 9/11 attacks and the so-called “War on Terror.” This video serves as an excellent aid to understanding why the official version of 9/11 is an obvious lie, from the legends of the hijackers to the physical effects observed in the plane crashes and destruction of the buildings, and continues on into an extended analysis of the role of the media in promoting these lies, the agenda of social transformation which has been put into place in their wake and other topics. [END] Permalink: 9/11 False Flag
John Pilger’s“Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror” questions the fundamental motives for the so-called “War on Terror” of the United States. In this video, Pilger explores the U. S.’ extensive recent history of military interventions both overt and covert in dozens of nations worldwide which, in the 21st century, have been expanded into a quest for what the Bush administration termed “full spectrum dominance” on a global scale. [END] Permalink: Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror
This German documentary gives an intimate view into the lives of U. S. soldiers in Iraq. Firefights, sniper attacks, all manners of violence are presented here in true documentary fashion. The first Gulf War began in 1991, a decade of sanctions which killed more people than the bombing of Hiroshima followed, and now a bigger war continues to drag on and on, year after year. What will be the end of the United States’ war in Iraq? [END] Permalink: Iraq: The Continuous War
The “whole truth” about anything may or may not be knowable, let alone expressible. Nevertheless, Robert Greenwald’s “Uncovered”, promoted heavily by the MoveOn PAC, interviews a number of U. S. government officials and ex-officials who have something to say about the Iraq war being a fraud. The lies which paved the way for the U. S. invasion of Iraq here are discussed at length by insiders from the CIA, armed forces and other institutions. [END] Permalink: Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War
Here, the CBC walks us through some of the many flaws in the casus belli that led to the U. S. military and the private mercenary firms that they contracted to aid them, and to share in the loot, both foreign and domestic, entering Iraq with the intention of overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 2003. While some attention is given here to reporter Seymour Hirsch’s take on the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a “neoconservative” think-tank who have been credited as the authors of the plans for the war, as a group of utopian idealists, it ought to be considered that the PNAC plans revolve around the astoundingly violent concept of “full spectrum dominance” by the U. S. worldwide which includes even the will to deny other nations the use of outer space. Theirs is literally a proposal of world conquest. “Former” CIA operative Robert Baer also adds what should be the already obvious fact that there is “no evidence” that Saddam Hussein had any links to the 9/11 attacks, perhaps to imply the “Afghanistan-war-good, Iraq-war-bad” line of argument which has been taken up by many members of the Democratic Party. However, there is also questionable evidence at best that “Al Qaeda,” however that term may be defined, was linked in any way to the 9/11 attacks, itself, as FBI publicity chief Rex Tomb has told reporters that there is, quote, “no hard evidence” even that Osama bin Laden, when it gets right down to it, was responsible for 9/11. The current state of the Afghanistan war, ostensibly being fought against these same “Al Qaeda” terrorists, now nine years on with no end in sight and almost no “progress” of any kind by any definition having been made, except, perhaps, in the financial sense for those “in the club,” ought to speak to the intentions of those who originated these claims in the first place. [END] Permalink: Lies of the Iraq War
The above debate, filmed by the now-defunct Free Market News Network, features the 2004 Libertarian and Green Party candidates for United States President, Michael Badnarik and David Cobb. Both candidates raise some very interesting points about the two dominant American political parties and discuss their experiences in growing their organizations in a climate as hostile to political competition as contemporary America. Let us consider, for instance, the very name which is used for political parties other than the Democratic and Republican parties: “third party.” The most often-used meaning of this term is one who is outside or an observer to a transaction, i. e., a non-participant or marginal participant in a process. Certainly, though, these two candidates represent parties with coherent and comprehensive platforms which deserve America’s consideration. Former independent Presidential candidate John B. Anderson also makes an appearance here and extensive commentary is provided by the Libertarian commentators from FMNN, including former Libertarian U. S. Presidential candidate Harry Browne.
This second debate, filmed by C-SPAN, features 2008 U. S. Presidential candidates Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party, Bob Barr of the Libertarian Party, and independent candidate Ralph Nader.
Finally, this third debate is from the 2008 Green Party Presidential primaries out of which former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was nominated. In addition to these three relatively large national parties, there are also some smaller state-based political parties and other parties which are, today, relatively inactive. Politics 1 and The Green Papers have additional information and statistics. [END] Permalink: “Third Party” Politics in America
Hugo Chávez was a Venezuelan military officer who led a failed coup attempt against the Venezuelan government in 1992 and was imprisoned for it. Several years later, he ran for President and won. The above video, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Chavez – Inside the Coup),” documents the brief 2002 coup attempt against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez after he had been in power for several years. The coup succeeded for a day or two and then Chávez returned to power. A reply video titled “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised Lies” has been produced. However, most of its arguments deal with relatively superficial to nearly irrelevant details of the situation. One of its more serious claims is that the general strikes immediately preceding the coup attempt which had been intended to bring down the government were headed by both the business union (FEDECAMERAS) and the labor union leaders (CTV) but it does not mention that CTV, which had made major concessions to neoliberal interests in the prior decade, suffered debilitating losses of support as a result of this alliance. (See Ellner’s “The Venezuelan Labor Movement Under Chávez” for more on Venezuelan labor movement history.)
This second and much shorter video, “Venezuela – Uncle Sam’s Coup,” features the work of Eva Gollinger, a dual U. S.-Venezuelan citizen who has dug up U. S. government documents related to the coup attempt. As her efforts uncovered, a CIA brief contained detailed information about the coup weeks in advance of its occurrence. The money trail behind the plot led these investigators straight to Washington, where records showed hundreds of thousands of American dollars being funneled into Venezuelan opposition groups in the year prior to the coup attempt. [END] Permalink: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and Uncle Sam’s Coup
In this video, Joseph Calhoun, a researcher who has worked on projects including the Oscar-winning “The Panama Deception,” gives a lecture and displays rare television news footage concerning the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing. Many have seen documentary evidence about the impossibilities and peculiarities of the official 9/11 story but data on the WTC ’93 Bombing has been much harder to come by. [END] Permalink: J. A. Calhoun on the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing
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