SOCIALIST TV

IF (1968)

2012-01-31T23:52:00.004Z

If.... is a 1968 British drama film produced and directed by Lindsay Anderson satirising English public school life. Famous for its depiction of a savage insurrection at a public school, the film is associated with the 1960s counterculture movement because it was filmed by a long-standing counter-culture director at the time of the student uprisings in Paris in May 1968. It includes controversial statements, such as: "There's no such thing as a wrong war. Violence and revolution are the only pure acts". It features surrealist sequences throughout the film. Upon release in the UK, it received an X certificate.

The film stars Malcolm McDowell in his first screen role and his first appearance as Anderson's "everyman" character Mick Travis. Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan, David Wood, and Robert Swann also star, and Rupert Webster is featured as the young boy Bobby Phillips.

if.... won the Palme d'Or at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.In 2004, the magazine Total Film named it the sixteenth greatest British film of all time. The Criterion Collection released the DVD on 19 June 2007.

Plot (courtesy of Wikipedia):

The film is set in a British independent school for boys in the late 1960s (most of the scenes were filmed at Cheltenham College in Gloucestershire, with the remainder at Aldenham School in Hertfordshire). Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) is one of three non-conformist boys among the returning class. They are watched and persecuted by the "Whips", senior boys given authority as prefects over juniors. The prefects are entitled to the services of "Scum", who are first-year boys assigned to run errands, make tea and generally act as unpaid servants. This refers to the old tradition of "fagging" which still persisted in many British independent boys' schools.

The early part of the film shows scenes in the school as the pupils return at the start of a new term. Mick Travis, the protagonist, arrives with a suitcase on his shoulder, wearing a black hat, with a black scarf across his face to hide his moustache. Stephans comments, "God, it's Guy Fawkes back again", hinting at the conclusion of the film. Rowntree (Robert Swann) is the Head Whip, and he revels in his power, ordering the junior boys to "Run! Run in the corridor!"

After the first evening meal, the Whips conduct some of the more mundane business of the school, signing up boys for "Confirmation class" and "VD clinic". Each boy has to lower his pants so the school nurse can inspect his genitals.

These early scenes show the school's customs and traditions. The Headmaster (Peter Jeffrey) is somewhat remote from the boys and the House Masters. Arthur Lowe, as Mick's House Master Mr. Kemp, is told "I'll have to get back to you on that" when he brings things to the Headmaster's attention. Kemp himself is easily manipulated by the Whips into giving them a free hand in enforcing discipline.

Mick steals a motorbike from a showroom and has an affair with a local waitress; and Wallace finds adolescent romance with Bobby Philips, a junior boy, whom he takes to bed. They indulge in self-inflicted ordeals, such as seeing how long they can hold a plastic bag over their faces.

As the film progresses it concentrates on Mick's group and their clashes with the school authorities. Mick and his friends are subject to punishments, and eventually they are sentenced to corporal punishment in the form of a severe "beating" (i.e. a caning) by the Whips. The caning is administered by Rowntree in the gym with a long run-up (this scene is said to be based on traditional practice at Tonbridge School, where scriptwriter David Sherwin was a student in the 1950s). The three boys are left with bleeding buttocks. Mick's punishment is especially brutal (10 strokes), yet tradition demands that he shake hands with Rowntree when it is over and say, "Thank you, Rowntree".

Scenes are shot through with surreal elements, such as some scenes being shot in black and white. This was not for dramatic emphasis, as people presumed, but simply because the huge windows at the college gave off obstructing light that affected the camera lenses. Another explanation given later by Lindsay Anderson is simply that the production was running out of money.

At the end, in a surreal sequence, they discover a cache of automatic weapons, and revolt against the establishment. On Founders' Day, when parents are visiting the school, they start a fire under the hall, smoke out the parents, staff and boys, and open fire on them from a rooftop. Led by the visiting General who was giving the speech, the staff and boys break open the Combined Cadet Force armoury and fire back.

The Headmaster tries to stop the firefight and calls for peace. Mick's girl, who is on the roof with them, produces a revolver from her belt and shoots the Headmaster through the forehead. The battle continues, and the camera closes in on Mick's face as he keeps firing, ending the film with a blackout and an echo of gunfire with the film's title "if...." emblazoned in red on the screen.

Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class

2012-01-19T22:39:00.004Z

Narrated by Ed Asner

Based on the book by Pepi Leistyna, Class Dismissed navigates the steady stream of narrow working class representations from American television's beginnings to today's sitcoms, reality shows, police dramas, and daytime talk shows.

Featuring interviews with media analysts and cultural historians, this documentary examines the patterns inherent in TV's disturbing depictions of working class people as either clowns or social deviants -- stereotypical portrayals that reinforce the myth of meritocracy.

Class Dismissed breaks important new ground in exploring the ways in which race, gender, and sexuality intersect with class, offering a more complex reading of television's often one-dimensional representations. The video also links television portrayals to negative cultural attitudes and public policies that directly affect the lives of working class people.

Featuring interviews with Stanley Aronowitz, (City University of New York); Nickel and Dimed author, Barbara Ehrenreich; Herman Gray (University of California-Santa Cruz); Robin Kelley (Columbia University); Pepi Leistyna (University of Massachusetts-Boston) and Michael Zweig (State University of New York-Stony Brook). Also with Arlene Davila, Susan Douglas, Bambi Haggins, Lisa Henderson, and Andrea Press.

Sections: Class Matters | The American Dream Machine | From the Margins to the Middle | Women Have Class | Class Clowns | No Class | Class Action

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

2012-01-17T20:17:00.001Z

This animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award.

How the Media Manipulates the World into War

2012-01-13T12:18:00.002Z

As the US and Iranian governments escalate tensions in the already volatile Straits of Hormuz, and China and Russia begin openly questioning Washington's interference in their internal politics, the world remains on a knife-edge of military tension.

Far from being a dispassionate observer of these developments, however, the media has in fact been central to increasing those tensions and preparing the public to expect a military confrontation. But as the online media rises to displace the traditional forms by which the public forms its understanding of the world, many are now beginning to see first hand how the media lies the public into war.

BOMB IT (2007)

2012-01-12T21:53:00.002Z

Bomb It is an international graffiti and street art documentary directed by award-winning director Jon Reiss and premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. Filmed on 5 continents and featuring cities such as Cape Town, London, Paris, Amsterdam and Sao Paulo, the documentary explores the interplay between worldwide graffiti movements, the global proliferation of "Quality of Life" laws, and the fight for control over public space.

George Kelling, co-author of Broken Windows, a seminal Atlantic Monthly article that formed the intellectual basis for Rudy Giuliani's widely imitated gentrification campaign, was interviewed for this film.

Graffiti artists across the globe joined forces with Jon to create the film which features original footage from many controversial graffiti writers beginning with the first graffiti writer Cornbread, to those who saw the take off of the art, TAKI 183 to more contemporary writers Shepard Fairey and Os Gemeos.

In addition to TAKI 183, the film features Tracy 168, Terrible T-Kid 170 (TKid), Cope2, Stay High 149, KRS-One, Revs, 2esae, Zephyr, Cornbread Daim, Blek le Rat, Ash, Skuf, Revok, Ron English, Chaz Bojorquez, Lady Pink, Mear One, Urban Theorists Stefano Bloch (UCLA Dept. of Urban Planning and University of Minnesota Dept. of Geography) and Susan Phillips (Pitzer College), Pez, Sixe, Falko, Faith 47, Zezao, Ise, Kenor & Kode, Scage, Mickey, Chino, and Ket.

Taking Liberties

2011-10-09T22:08:00.002+01:00

The shocking truth about the erosion of our fundamental civil liberties by Tony Blair's government is exposed in TAKING LIBERTIES, released on DVD in the UK cinemas by Revolver Entertainment October 15th 2007. Right to Protest, Right to Freedom of Speech. Right to Privacy. Right not to be detained without charge, Innocent Until Proven Guilty. Prohibition from Torture. TAKING LIBERTIES will reveal how these six central pillars of liberty have been systematically destroyed by New Labour, and the freedoms of the British people stolen from under their noses amidst a climate of fear created by the media and government itself. TAKING LIBERTIES uncovers the stories the government don't want you to hear -- so ridiculous you will laugh, so ultimately terrifying you will want to take action. Teenage sisters detained for 36 hours for a peaceful protest; an RAF war veteran arrested for wearing an anti-Bush and Blair T-shirt; an innocent man shot in a police raid; and a man held under house arrest for two years, after being found innocent in court. Ordinary law-abiding citizens being punished for exercising their 'rights' -- rights that have been fought for over centuries, and which seem to have been extinguished in a decade.

What Really Motivates US?

2011-08-29T15:25:00.002+01:00

This lively RSAnimate, adapted from Dan Pink's talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.

Revisiting 9/11 - 10 years on

2011-08-29T14:28:00.005+01:00

Delving here into an area that I don't think Socialist TV has covered - the 9/11 palaver. Conspiracy theories aside, it's as relevant as hell considering the myriad inconsistencies in the official version and which has provided the West with an excuse for a 10 year war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and all in the name of oil and full spectrum dominance.

This shocking film brings together an account of the 9/11 tragedy that is far more logical than the one we've been asked to believe. Gathering stories from the mainstream press, reports from other countries, the work of other researchers, and the contradictory words of US government officials, David Ray Griffin presents a case that leaves very little doubt that the attacks of 9/11 need to be further investigated.

Disturbing facts emerge that put into serious question the official story and reveal an enormous deception. Packed with bonus features, expert analysis, in-depth commentary and unforgettable conclusions about this tragic event in American history

The Empathic Civilisation - RSA Animate

2011-08-27T15:21:00.000+01:00

Bestselling author, political adviser and social and ethical prophet Jeremy Rifkin investigates the evolution of empathy and the profound ways that it has shaped our development and our society.

The Moral Landscape - Sam Harris

2011-08-25T14:17:00.003+01:00

Best selling author and neuroscientist Sam Harris introduces his new book The Moral Landscape.

A lively, provocative, and timely new look at one of the deepest problems in the world of ideas. Harris makes a powerful case for a morality that is based on human flourishing and thoroughly enmeshed with science and rationality. It is a tremendously appealing vision, and one that no thinking person can afford to ignore.

— Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, author ofHow the Mind Works and The Blank Slate.

I was one of those who had unthinkingly bought into the hectoring myth that science can say nothing about morals. The Moral Landscape has changed all that for me. Moral philosophers, too, will find their world exhilaratingly turned upside down, as they discover a need to learn some neuroscience. As for religion, and the preposterous idea that we need God to be good, nobody wields a sharper bayonet than Sam Harris.

— Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion, andThe Greatest Show On Earth

Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

2010-07-04T22:47:00.001+01:00

Journalist Chris Hedges discusses his recent book Empire of Illusion: the End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. In it, he charts the dramatic rise of a post-literate society that craves fantasy, ecstasy, and illusion. Hedges argues we now live in two societies: one, the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world and can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth; the other, a growing majority, is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic where serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins.

Chris Hedges, author of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University. He writes for many publications, including Foreign Affairs, Harpers, The New York Review of Books, Granta, and Mother Jones. He is also a columnist for Truthdig.com.

Co-sponsored by the Writing Program, Department of Media Studies and Film, and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics.

Location: Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, Arnhold Hall.
12/08/2009 7:00 p.m.

THE STORY OF CAP AND TRADE

2010-04-28T23:08:00.002+01:00

Released in December 2009, the Story of Cap & Trade is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate solution discussed at Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill. Host Annie Leonard introduces the energy traders and Wall Street financiers at the heart of this scheme and reveals the "devils in the details" in current cap and trade proposals: free permits to big polluters, fake offsets and distraction from whats really required to tackle the climate crisis. If you've heard about Cap & Trade, but arent sure how it works (or who benefits), this is the film is for you.

Tyranny & Politics of Fear, Loyalty to Israel vs - Interview with Colonel Larry Wilkerson

2010-04-28T22:40:00.004+01:00

Boiling Frogs Post presents an exclusive interview with Colonel Larry Wilkerson on a tyrannical US presidency and politics of fear, Israel’s interests versus US interests and the question of loyalties, and more:

As a 'card carrying' member of the Likud Party, whose interest did Douglas Feith really serve?

Is the current situation in the US due to incompetent leadership or venal leadership exploiting politics of fear?

Noam Chomsky "THE ROLE OF THE RADICAL INTELLECTUAL: SOME PERSONAL REFLECTIONS". Thursday, April 8, 2010-

2010-04-14T00:36:00.001+01:00

The Story of Bottled Water

2010-04-13T10:46:00.001+01:00

The Story of Bottled Water, released on March 22, 2010 (World Water Day) employs the Story of Stuff style to tell the story of manufactured demand—how you get Americans to buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week when it already flows from the tap. Over five minutes, the film explores the bottled water industrys attacks on tap water and its use of seductive, environmental-themed advertising to cover up the mountains of plastic waste it produces. The film concludes with a call to take back the tap, not only by making a personal commitment to avoid bottled water, but by supporting investments in clean, available tap water for all.

See also The Story of Stuff

War Veteran comes clean

2010-04-13T10:44:00.001+01:00

Our real enemies are not those living in a distant land whose names or policies we don't understand; The real enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable, the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it's profitable, the Insurance Companies who deny us Health care when it's profitable, the banks who take away our homes when it's profitable. Our enemies are not several hundred thousands away. They are right here in front of us
- Mike Prysner

Collateral Murder

2010-04-06T00:13:00.005+01:00

5th April 2010 -- WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

If the cold blooded murder of a dozen innocents is not enough for these blood-crazed psychopaths, they then open their 30mm helicopter canon on people who come to tend to a survivor. And make no mistake - this is no isolated incident.

Real food, real simple....but under capitalism?

2010-03-18T17:50:00.005Z

It's so simple. Don't eat anything that comes from a factory - and that includes meat.

The food industry is bigger than the oil industry and every bit as corrupt and manipulative. If they had their way, all food would come in a box, filled with low-cost garbage ingredients, and marked up to the moon.

Thanks to their bribery and bullying that already describes the federal school lunch program. They stand ready to legally attack anyone who speaks the truth, even deep pockets celebrities like Oprah Winfrey who declared on her show she would never eat another hamburger and was sued by the cattle ranching industry for defamation.

It's remarkably easy to avoid the personal health catastrophe that factory foods lead to: don't eat them! It's that simple.

Click video to play

The Art of Corporate Mind Control

2010-03-18T09:10:00.005Z

Courtesy of Information Clearing House:

Television is the most powerful weapon of psychological warfare in history and yet it is a member of the family in most households. The programming that we are constantly assaulted with conditions us to a particular worldview. This fake reality changes our behavior making us less active and more compliant with society's shortcomings.

Since television is controlled by a small handful of powerful corporations, viewers will never witness informing, truthful news and entertainment. As political and corporate power unite at an ever increasing rate, being informed is more important than ever.

People need to seek out independent and alternative unbiased sources on the internet for their information or we will continue to be manipulated by the corporate controlled media.

Transcript

Most of humanity is in an absolute hypnotic trance that they're put in from cradle to grave by constant repetition of a fake reality and when we wake up from this we will not be subservient.

Jordan Maxwell: The bottom line is that the government is getting what they ordered. They do not want your children to be educated. They do not want you to think too much. That is why our country and our world has become so proliferated with entertainments, mass media, television shows, amusement parks, drugs, alcohol, and every kind of entertainment to keep the human mind entertained so that you don't get in the way of important people by doing too much thinking. You better wake up and understand that there are people who are guiding your life and you don't even know it.

Steven Jacobson: Television is the most powerful weapon of psychological warfare in history. The programming that we are constantly assaulted by throughout our lives conditions us. It programs us to a particular worldview. Now, we may consider it normal because we were born into this system of lies and deception. And because we were born into this situation and our parents were born into it and have suffered from it, we don't know any better.

Aldous Huxley: What I may call the messages of Brave New World, but it is possible to make people contented with their servitude. I think this can be done. I think it has been done in the past. I think it could be done even more effectively now because you can provide them with bread and circuses and you can provide them with endless amounts of distractions and propaganda.

George Carlin: But there's a reason, there's a reason. There's a reason for this. There's a reason education sucks and its the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. Its never gonna get any better, don't look for it. Be happy with what you got, because the owners of this country don't want that. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that.

Howard Beale: We know things are bad, worse than bad. They're crazy. Its like everything everywhere is going crazy so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house and slowly the world were living in is getting smaller and all we say is please at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel belted radios and I wont say anything, just leave us alone. Well I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it and stick your head out and yell, I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore! You've got to say, Im a human being God damn it, my life has value!

VIDEO: Will US-NATO Start World War III by Attacking Iran?

2010-03-17T15:14:00.002Z

A UN nuclear watchdog report suggests Iran could be developing a nuclear bomb, apparently confirming long-held suspicions in the West. But Tehran denies the claims, again insisting that its atomic intentions are peaceful. Michel Chossudovsky, who's from an independent Canadian policy research group, believes that what Iran says hardly matters, because the U.S. is planning for war.

THE OIL FACTOR: Behind the War on Terror (2004)

2010-03-17T11:16:00.003Z

After assessing today's dwindling oil reserves and skyrocketing use of oil for fuels, plastics and chemicals, "The Oil Factor" questions the motives for the U.S. wars in the Middle-East and Central Asia where 3/4 of the world's oil and natural gas is located.

With exclusive footage shot on location in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the film documents the spiraling violence now engulfing both Iraq and Afghanistan, a country conspicuously absent from the commercial media's news segments.

Interviews gathered throughout the Middle-East, Europe and the United States, including a Bechtel executive in Baghdad, also expose who is cashing in on the tens of billions of dollars requested from congress by the current administration of G. W. Bush.

With detailed maps and graphics, The Oil Factor features many experts and personalities such as former Defense Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, M.I.T. professor Noam Chomsky, the Project for the New American Century Executive Director Gary Schmitt, Coalition Provisional Authority Chairman Paul Bremer, former Pentagon analyst Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, current Iraqi government official Abdel Aziz Al-Hakim and authors Ahmed Rashid and Michael C. Ruppert.

Contributing organizations include the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Greenpeace, the Pentagon, Washington's Institute for Policy Studies, New York's World Policy Institute, London's Jane's Intelligence and Petroleum Economist, Paris' Agence France Press and Center for Energy Strategy Studies (C.E.P.S.E.) or the Organization for Economic and Cooperative Development (O.E.C.D.)

THE OIL FACTOR: Behind the War on Terror is a 2004 Free-Will Production.

9/11, Globalization, and Total War

2010-03-16T23:03:00.004Z

Though a bit dated, this video is worth watching. Michel Chossudovsky, (who has some good articles on the Global Research site) a professor at the University of Ottawa, demonstrates how the US attack on Yugoslavia in the 1990s were the prelude to and part of a larger plan to destabilize and invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to the plan, Iran is next.

Some of Chossudovsky's observations:

* The CIA and US military worked closely with al Queda as recently as 2001 to destabilize the Balkans. Their last overt co-venture was in the Yugoslavian province of Macedonia. Al Queda was created by and remains under the control of the CIA as is the Taliban and Pakistan's ISI.

* The US and UK are engaged in a global competition against France, Germany and other euro countries for oil, African resources, the global weapons trade and financial dominance (US dollar vs. Euro)

* In 2002, the US adopted a policy of pre-emptive nuclear attack listing Russia and China as countries subject to attack. "Nuclear war is now part of the military assumption."

* It's not just Bush and the Neo-cons. Yes, Bush is a puppet. Thoroughly corrupt, callous, venal, but essentially a moron. The country is actually being run by what in effect is a military dictatorship and will continue to be one regardless of who is in the Whit House.

* The so-called "War on Terror" is a complete fabrication designed to justify the US drive for world economic dominance and a "Homeland Security State" at home.

And on it goes...

Is Catastrophe Ahead for US-China Relations?

2010-03-15T15:20:00.001Z

United States-China relations are on the rocks recently, China says that they have been seriously disrupted. Essentially, China feels that it is being threatened by the United States - not least because of its relations with Iran - and this has been mounting since 1999. The threats are coming in the form of diplomacy, however Michel Chossudovsky says that the United States also has missiles pointed at Chinese cities.

Aldous Huxley - The Ultimate Revolution

2010-02-19T20:07:00.011Z

Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, here (audio file only) discusses influence, controlling the public mind and government.

“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.” Aldous Huxley

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Transcript – The Ultimate Revolution

March 20, 1962 Berkeley Language Center – Speech Archive SA 0269

Moderator:

{garbled}Aldous Huxley, a renowned Essayist and Novelist who during the spring semester is residing at the university in his capacity of a Ford research professor. Mr Huxley has recently returned from a conference at the Institute for the study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara where the discussion focused on the development of new techniques by which to control and direct human behavior. Traditionally it has been possible to suppress individual freedom through the application of physical coercion through the appeal of ideologies through the manipulation of man’s physical and social environment and more recently through the techniques, the cruder techniques of psychological conditioning. The Ultimate Revolution, about which Mr. Huxley will speak today, concerns itself with the development of new behavioral controls, which operate directly on the psycho-physiological organisms of man. That is the capacity to replace external constraint by internal compulsions. As those of us who are familiar with Mr. Huxley’s works will know, this is a subject of which he has been concerned for quite a period of time. Mr. Huxley will make a presentation of approximately half an hour followed by some brief discussions and questions by the two panelists sitting to my left, Mrs. Lillian {garbled} and Mr. John Post. Now Mr. Huxley

Huxley:

Thank You.

{Applause}

Uh, First of all, the, I’d like to say, that the conference at Santa Barbara was not directly concerned with the control of the mind. That was a conference, there have been two of them now, at the University of California Medical center in San Francisco, one this year which I didn’t attend, and one two years ago where there was a considerable discussion on this subject. At Santa Barbara we were talking about technology in general and the effects it’s likely to have on society and the problems related to technological transplanting of technology into underdeveloped countries.

Well now in regard to this problem of the ultimate revolution, this has been very well summed up by the moderator. In the past we can say that all revolutions have essentially aimed at changing the environment in order to change the individual. I mean there’s been the political revolution, the economic revolution, in the time of the reformation, the religious revolution. All these aimed, not directly at the human being, but at his surroundings. So that by modifying the surroundings you did achieve, did one remove the effect of the human being.

Today we are faced, I think, with the approach of what may be called the ultimate revolution, the final revolution, where man can act directly on the mind-body of his fellows. Well needless to say some kind of direct action on human mind-bodies has been going on since the beginning of time. But this has generally been of a violent nature. The Techniques of terrorism have been known from time immemorial and people have employed them with more or less ingenuity sometimes with the utmost cruelty, sometimes with a good deal of skill acquired by a process of trial and error finding out what the best ways of using torture, imprisonment, constraints of various kinds.

But, as, I think it was (sounds like Mettenicht) said many years ago, you can do everything with {garbled} except sit on them. If you are going to control any population for any length of time, you must have some measure of consent, it’s exceedingly difficult to see how pure terrorism can function indefinitely. It can function for a fairly long time, but I think sooner or later you have to bring in an element of persuasion an element of getting people to consent to what is happening to them.

It seems to me that the nature of the ultimate revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: That we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably will always exist to get people to love their servitude. This is the, it seems to me, the ultimate in malevolent revolutions shall we say, and this is a problem which has interested me many years and about which I wrote thirty years ago, a fable, Brave New World, which is an account of society making use of all the devices available and some of the devices which I imagined to be possible making use of them in order to, first of all, to standardize the population, to iron out inconvenient human differences, to create, to say, mass produced models of human beings arranged in some sort of scientific caste system. Since then, I have continued to be extremely interested in this problem and I have noticed with increasing dismay a number of the predictions which were purely fantastic when I made them thirty years ago have come true or seem in process of coming true.

A number of techniques about which I talked seem to be here already. And there seems to be a general movement in the direction of this kind of ultimate revolution, a method of control by which a people can be made to enjoy a state of affairs by which any decent standard they ought not to enjoy. This, the enjoyment of servitude, Well this process is, as I say, has gone on for over the years, and I have become more and more interested in what is happening.

And here I would like briefly to compare the parable of Brave New World with another parable which was put forth more recently in George Orwell’s book, Nineteen Eighty- Four. Orwell wrote his book between, I think between 45 and 48 at the time when the Stalinist terror regime was still in Full swing and just after the collapse of the Hitlerian terror regime. And his book which I admire greatly, it’s a book of very great talent and extraordinary ingenuity, shows, so to say, a projection into the future of the immediate past, of what for him was the immediate past, and the immediate present, it was a projection into the future of a society where control was exercised wholly by terrorism and violent attacks upon the mind-body of individuals.

Whereas my own book which was written in 1932 when there was only a mild dictatorship in the form of Mussolini in existence, was not overshadowed by the idea of terrorism, and I was therefore free in a way in which Orwell was not free, to think about these other methods of control, these non-violent methods and my, I’m inclined to think that the scientific dictatorships of the future, and I think there are going to be scientific dictatorships in many parts of the world, will be probably a good deal nearer to the brave new world pattern than to the 1984 pattern, they will a good deal nearer not because of any humanitarian qualms of the scientific dictators but simply because the BNW pattern is probably a good deal more efficient than the other.

That if you can get people to consent to the state of affairs in which they’re living. The state of servitude the state of being, having their differences ironed out, and being made amenable to mass production methods on the social level, if you can do this, then you have, you are likely, to have a much more stable and lasting society. Much more easily controllable society than you would if you were relying wholly on clubs and firing squads and concentration camps. So that my own feeling is that the 1984 picture was tinged of course by the immediate past and present in which Orwell was living, but the past and present of those years does not reflect, I feel, the likely trend of what is going to happen, needless to say we shall never get rid of terrorism, it will always find its way to the surface.

But I think that insofar as dictators become more and more scientific, more and more concerned with the technically perfect, perfectly running society, they will be more and more interested in the kind of techniques which I imagined and described from existing realities in BNW. So that, it seems to me then, that this ultimate revolution is not really very far away, that we, already a number of techniques for bringing about this kind of control are here, and it remains to be seen when and where and by whom they will first be applied in any large scale.

And first let me talk about the, a little bit about the, improvement in the techniques of terrorism. I think there have been improvements. Pavlov after all made some extremely profound observations both on animals and on human beings. And he found among other things that conditioning techniques applied to animals or humans in a state either of psychological or physical stress sank in so to say, very deeply into the mind-body of the creature, and were extremely difficult to get rid of. That they seemed to be embedded more deeply than other forms of conditioning.

And this of course, this fact was discovered empirically in the past. People did make use of many of these techniques, but the difference between the old empirical intuitive methods and our own methods is the difference between the, a sort of, hit and miss craftsman’s point of view and the genuinely scientific point of view. I think there is a real difference between ourselves and say the inquisitors of the 16th century. We know much more precisely what we are doing, than they knew and we can extend because of our theoretical knowledge, we can extend what we are doing over a wider area with a greater assurance of being producing something that really works.

In this context I would like to mention the extremely interesting chapters in Dr. William (sounds like Seargent’s) Battle for the Mind where he points out how intuitively some of the great religious teachers/leaders of the past hit on the Pavlovian method, he speaks specifically of Wesley’s method of producing conversions which were essentially based on the technique of heightening psychological stress to the limit by talking about hellfire and so making people extremely vulnerable to suggestion and then suddenly releasing this stress by offering hopes of heaven and this is a very interesting chapter of showing how completely on purely intuitive and empirical grounds a skilled natural psychologist, as Wesley was, could discover these Pavlovian methods.

Well, as I say, we now know the reason why these techniques worked and there’s no doubt at all that we can if we wanted to, carry them much further than was possible in the past. And of course in the history of, recent history of brainwashing, both as applied to prisoners of war and to the lower personnel within the communist party in China, we see that the pavlovian methods have been applied systematically and with evidently with extraordinary efficacy. I think there can be no doubt that by the application of these methods a very large army of totally devoted people has been created. The conditioning has been driven in, so to say, by a kind of psychological iontophoresis into the very depths of the people’s being, and has got so deep that it’s very difficult to ever be rooted out, and these methods, I think, are a real refinement on the older methods of terror because they combine methods of terror with methods of acceptance that the person who is subjected to a form of terroristic stress but for the purpose of inducing a kind of voluntary quotes acceptance of the state the psychological state in which he has been driven and the state of affairs in which he finds himself.

So there is, as I say, there has been a definite improvement in the, even in the techniques of terrorism. But then we come to the consideration of other techniques, non-terroristic techniques, for inducing consent and inducing people to love their servitude. Here, I don’t think I can possibly go into all of them, because I don’t know all of them, but I mean I can mention the more obvious methods, which can now be used and are based on recent scientific findings. First of all there are the methods connected with straight suggestion and hypnosis.

I think we know much more about this subject than was known in the past. People of course, always have known about suggestion, and although they didn’t know the word ‘hypnosis’ they certainly practiced it in various ways. But we have, I think, a much greater knowledge of the subject than in the past, and we can make use of our knowledge in ways, which I think the past was never able to make use of it. For example, one of the things we now know for certain, that there is of course an enormous, I mean this has always been known a very great difference between individuals in regard to their suggestibility. But we now know pretty clearly the sort of statistical structure of a population in regard to its suggestibility. Its very interesting when you look at the findings of different fields, I mean the field of hypnosis, the field of administering placebos, for example, in the field of general suggestion in states of drowsiness or light sleep you will find the same sorts of orders of magnitude continually cropping up.

You’ll find for example that the experienced hypnotist will tell one that the number of people, the percentage of people who can be hypnotized with the utmost facility (snaps), just like that. is about 20%, and about a corresponding number at the other end of the scale are very, very difficult or almost impossible to hypnotize. But in between lies a large mass of people who can with more or less difficulty be hypnotized, that they can gradually be if you work hard enough at it be got into the hypnotic state, and in the same way the same sort of figures crop up again, for example in relation to the administration of placebos.

A big experiment was carried out three of four years ago in the general hospital in Boston on post-operative cases where several hundred men and woman suffering comparable kinds of pain after serious operations were allowed to, were given injections whenever they asked for them whenever the pain got bad, and the injections were 50% of the time were of morphine, and 50% of water. And about twenty percent of those who went through the experiment, about 20% of them got just as much relief from the distilled waters as from the morphea. About 20% got no relief from the distilled water, and in- between were those who got some relief or got relief occasionally.

So yet again, we see the same sort of distribution, and similarly in regard to what in BNW I called Hypnopedia, the sleep teaching, I was talking not long ago to a man who manufactures records which people can listen to in the, during the light part of sleep, I mean these are records for getting rich, for sexual satisfaction (crowd laughs), for confidence in salesmanship and so on, and he said that its very interesting that these are records sold on a money-back basis, and he says there is regularly between 15% and 20% of people who write indignantly saying the records don’t work at all, and he sends the money back at once. There are on the other hand, there are over 20% who write enthusiastically saying they are much richer, their sexual life is much better (laughter) etc, etc. And these of course are the dream clients and they buy more of these records. And in between there are those who don’t get much results and they have to have letters written to them saying “Go persist my dear, go on” (laughter) and you will get there, and they generally do get results in the long run.

Well, as I say, on the basis of this, I think we see quite clearly that the human populations can be categorized according to their suggestibility fairly clearly,. I suspect very strongly that this twenty percent is the same in all these cases, and I suspect also that it would not be at all difficult to recognize and {garbled} out who are those who are extremely suggestible and who are those extremely unsuggestible and who are those who occupy the intermediate space. Quite clearly, if everybody were extremely unsuggestible organized society would be quite impossible, and if everybody were extremely suggestible then a dictatorship would be absolutely inevitable. I mean it’s very fortunate that we have people who are moderately suggestible in the majority and who therefore preserve us from dictatorship but do permit organized society to be formed. But, once given the fact that there are these 20% of highly suggestible people, it becomes quite clear that this is a matter of enormous political importance, for example, any demagogue who is able to get hold of a large number of these 20% of suggestible people and to organize them is really in a position to overthrow any government in any country.

And I mean, I think this after all, we had the most incredible example in recent years by what can be done by efficient methods of suggestion and persuasion in the form of Hitler. Anyone who has read, for example, (Sounds like Bulloch’s) Life of Hitler, comes forth with this horrified admiration for this infernal genius, who really understood human weaknesses I think almost better than anybody and who exploited them with all the resources then available. I mean he knew everything, for example, he knew intuitively this pavlovian truth that condition installed in a state of stress or fatigue goes much deeper than conditioning installed at other times. This of course is why all his big speeches were organized at night. He speaks quite frankly, of course, in Mein Kampf, this is done solely because people are tired at night and therefore much less capable of resisting persuasion than they would be during the day. And in all his techniques he was using, he had discovered intuitively and by trial and error a great many of the weaknesses, which we now know about on a sort of scientific way I think much more clearly than he did.

But the fact remains that this differential of suggestibility this susceptibility to hypnosis I do think is something which has to be considered very carefully in relation to any kind of thought about democratic government . If there are 20% of the people who really can be suggested into believing almost anything, then we have to take extremely careful steps into prevent the rise of demagogues who will drive them on into extreme positions then organize them into very, very dangerous armies, private armies which may overthrow the government.

This is, I say, in this field of pure persuasion, I think we do know much more than we did in the past, and obviously we now have mechanisms for multiplying the demagogues voice and image in a quite hallucinatory way, I mean, the TV and radio, Hitler was making enormous use of the radio, he could speak to millions of people simultaneously. This alone creates an enormous gulf between the modern and the ancient demagogue. The ancient demagogue could only appeal to as many people as his voice could reach by yelling at his utmost, but the modern demagogue could touch literally millions at a time, and of course by the multiplication of his image he can produce this kind of hallucinatory effect which is of enormous hypnotic and suggestive importance.

But then there are the various other methods one can think of which, thank heaven, as yet have not be used, but which obviously could be used. There is for example, the pharmacological method, this is one of the things I talked about in BNW. I invented a hypothetical drug called SOMA, which of course could not exist as it stood there because it was simultaneously a stimulant, a narcotic, and a hallucinogen, which seems unlikely in one substance. But the point is, if you applied several different substances you could get almost all these results even now, and the really interesting things about the new chemical substances, the new mind-changing drugs is this, if you looking back into history its clear that man has always had a hankering after mind changing chemicals, he has always desired to take holidays from himself, but the, and, this is the most extraordinary effect of all that every natural occurring narcotic stimulant, sedative, or hallucinogen, was discovered before the dawn of history, I don’t think there is one single one of these naturally occurring ones which modern science has discovered.

Modern science has of course better ways of extracting the active principals of these drugs and of course has discovered numerous ways of synthesizing new substances of extreme power, but the actual discovery of these naturally occurring things was made by primitive man goodness knows how many centuries ago. There is for example, in the underneath the, lake dwellings of the early Neolithic that have been dug up in Switzerland we have found poppy-heads, which looks as though people were already using this most ancient and powerful and dangerous of narcotics, even before the days of the rise of agriculture. So that man was apparently a dope-bag addict before he was a farmer, which is a very curious comment on human nature.

But, the difference, as I say, between the ancient mind-changers, the traditional mind- changers, and the new substances is that they were extremely harmful and the new ones are not. I mean even the permissible mind-changer alcohol is not entirely harmless, as people may have noticed, and I mean the other ones, the non-permissible ones, such as opium and cocaine, opium and its derivatives, are very harmful indeed. They rapidly produce addiction, and in some cases lead at an extraordinary rate to physical degeneration and death.

Whereas these new substances, this is really very extraordinary, that a number of these new mind-changing substances can produce enormous revolutions within the mental side of our being, and yet do almost nothing to the physiological side. You can have an enormous revolution, for example, with LSD-25 or with the newly synthesized drug psilocybin, which is the active principal of the Mexican sacred mushroom. You can have this enormous mental revolution with no more physiological revolution than you would get from drinking two cocktails. And this is a really most extraordinary effect.

And it is of course true that pharmacologists are producing a great many new wonder drugs where the cure is almost worse than the disease. Every year the new edition of medical textbooks contains a longer and longer chapter of what are Iatrogenic diseases, that is to say diseases caused by doctors (laughter} And this is quite true, many of the wonder drugs are extremely dangerous. I mean they can produce extraordinary effects, and in critical conditions they should certainly be used, but they should be used with the utmost caution. But there is evidently a whole class of drugs effecting the CNS which can produce enormous changes in sedation in euphoria in energizing the whole mental process without doing any perceptible harm to the human body, and this presents to me the most extraordinary revolution. In the hands of a dictator these substances in one kind or the other could be used with, first of all, complete harmlessness, and the result would be, you can imagine a euphoric that would make people thoroughly happy even in the most abominable circumstances.

I mean these things are possible. This is the extraordinary thing, I mean after all this is even true with the crude old drugs. I mean, a housemate years ago remarked after reading Milton’s Paradise Lost, He Says “And beer does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man” (laughter). And beer is of course, an extremely crude drug compared to these ones. And you can certainly say that some of the psychic energizers and the new hallucinants could do incomparably more than Milton and all the Theologicians combined could possibly do to make the terrifying mystery of our existence seem more tolerable than it does. And here I think one has an enormous area in which the ultimate revolution could function very well indeed, an area in which a great deal of control could be used by not through terror, but by making life seem much more enjoyable than it normally does. Enjoyable to the point, where as I said before, Human beings come to love a state of things by which any reasonable and decent human standard they ought not to love and this I think is perfectly possible.

But then, very briefly, let me speak about one of the more recent developments in the sphere of neurology, about the implantation of electrodes in the brain. This of course has been done in the large scale in animals and in a few cases its been done in the cases of the hopelessly insane. And anybody who has watched the behavior of rats with electrodes placed in different centers must come away from this experience with the most extraordinary doubts about what on Earth is in store for us if this is got a hold of by a dictator. I saw not long ago some rats in the {garbled} laboratory at UCLA there were two sets of them, one with electrodes planted in the pleasure center, and the technique was they had a bar which they pressed which turned on a very small current for a short space of time which we had a wire connected with that electrode and which stimulated the pleasure center and was evidently absolutely ecstatic was these rats were pressing the bar 18,000 times a day (laughter). Apparently if you kept them from pressing the bar for a day, they’d press it 36,000 times on the following day and would until they fell down in complete exhaustion (laughter) And they would neither eat, nor be interested in the opposite sex but would just go on pressing this bar {pounds on podium}

Then the most extraordinary rats were those were the electrode was planted halfway between the pleasure and the pain center. The result was a kind of mixture of the most wonderful ecstasy and like being on the rack at the same time. And you would see the rats sort of looking at is bar and sort of saying “To be or not to be that is the question”. (Laughter) Finally it would approach {Pounds on podium} and go back with this awful I mean, the (sounds like franken huminizer anthropomorphizer), and he would wait some time before pressing the bar again, yet he would always press it again. This was the extraordinary thing.

I noticed in the most recent issue of Scientific American there’s a very interesting article on electrodes in the brains of chickens, where the technique is very ingenious, where you sink into their brains a little socket with a screw on it and the electrode can then be screwed deeper and deeper into the brainstem and you can test at any moment according to the depth, which goes at fractions of the mm, what you’re stimulating and these creatures are not merely stimulated by wire, they’re fitted with a miniature radio receiver which weighs less than an ounce which is attached to them so that they can be communicated with at a distance, I mean they can run about in the barnyard and you could press a button and this particular area of the brain to which the electrode has been screwed down to would be stimulated. You would get this fantastic phenomena, where a sleeping chicken would jump up and run about, or an active chicken would suddenly sit down and go to sleep, or a hen would sit down and act like she’s hatching out an egg, or a fighting rooster would go into depression.

The whole picture of the absolute control of the drives is terrifying, and in the few cases in which this has been done with very sick human beings, The effects are evidently very remarkable too, I was talking last summer in England to Grey Walter, who is the most eminent exponent of the EEG technique in England, and he was telling me that he’s seen hopeless inmates at asylums with these things in their heads, and these people were suffering from uncontrollable depression, and they had these electrodes inserted into the pleasure center in their brain, however when they felt too bad, they just pressed a button on the battery in their pocket and he said the results were fantastic, the mouth pointing down would suddenly turn up and they’d feel very cheerful and happy. So there again one sees the most extraordinary revolutionary techniques, which are now available to us.

Now, I think what is obviously perfectly clear is that for the present these techniques are not being used except in an experimental way, but I think it is important for us to realize what is happening to make ourselves acquainted with what has already happened, and then use a certain amount of imagination to extrapolate into the future the sort of things that might happen. What might happen if these fantastically powerful techniques were used by unscrupulous people in authority, what on Earth would happen, what sort of society would we get?

And I think it is peculiarly important because as one sees when looking back over history we have allowed in the past all those advances in technology which has profoundly changed our social and individual life to take us by surprise, I mean it seems to me that it was during the late 18 century early 19th century when the new machines were making possible the factory situation. It was not beyond the wit of man to see what was happening and project into the future and maybe forestall the really dreadful consequences which plagued England and most of western Europe and this country for sixty or seventy years, and the horrible abuses of the factory system and if a certain amount of forethought had been devoted to the problem at that time and if people had first of all found out what was happening and then used their imagination to see what might happen, and then had gone on to work out the means by which the worst applications of the techniques would not take place, well then I think western humanity might have been spared about three generations of utter misery which had been imposed on the poor at that time.

And the same way with various technological advances now, I mean we need to think about the problems with automation and more profoundly the problems, which may arise with these new techniques, which may contribute to this ultimate revolution. Our business is to be aware of what is happening, and then to use our imagination to see what might happen, how this might be abused, and then if possible to see that the enormous powers which we now possess thanks to these scientific and technological advances to be used for the benefit of human beings and not for their degradation.

Thank You

New American Century

2010-02-09T23:34:00.002Z

This film goes in detail through the untold history of The Project for the New American Century with tons of archival footage and connects it right into the present. This film exposes how every major war in US history was based on a complete fraud with video of insiders themselves admitting it. This film shows how the first film theatres in the US were used over a hundred years ago to broadcast propaganda to rile the American people into the Spanish-American War. This film shows the white papers of the oil company Unocal which called for the creation of a pipeline through Afghanistan and how their exact needs were fulfilled through the US invasion of Afghanistan. This film shows how Halliburton under their "cost plus" exclusive contract with the US Government went on a mad dash spending spree akin to something out of the movie Brewster's Millions, yet instead of blowing $30 million they blew through BILLIONS by literally burning millions of dollars worth of hundred thousand dollar cars and trucks if they had so much as a flat tire. "A stunning film. It should be seen as widely as possible, in cinemas, bars, clubs, at meetings and, of course, through the internet. I'm sure the film will continue to be a source of debate and political education for many years. Maybe until the war criminals have been brought to trial." - Ken Loach While Massimo Mazzucco’s first political documentary, GLOBAL DECEIT (2006), focused on the long list of inconsistencies in the official version of the 9/11 attacks, THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY explores the historical, philosophical and economic background that suggests a matrix for such events that is much closer to home than the so-called "Islamic terrorism". The film provides solid evidence for the true reasons behind the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, whose unfolding is described in chilling detail in a document called "Project for the New American Century", published in the year 2,000, that seems to have served as the actual blueprint for such dramatic events.

TerrorStorm: A History of Government-Sponsored Terrorism

2010-02-03T13:53:00.001Z

The terrorists aren’t who you think they are. Throughout history, criminal elements inside governments have carried out terror attacks against their own populations as a pretext to enslave them. TerrorStorm reveals how, in the last hundred years, Western leaders have repeatedly murdered their own citizens while posing as their saviors.

TerrorStorm asserts that that September 11th, the attacks of 7/7 in London, and many other terrorist events were self-inflicted wounds. You will witness British Special Forces troops caught in the act of staging terror attacks in Iraq and see official US government documents laying out plans to hijack passenger planes by remote control. You will learn how the Reichstag fire, the Gulf of Tonkin, and the US-backed Iranian coup of 1953 are all interconnected false-flag terror events. This powerful documentary explores the mindset of the average brainwashed Westerner. It delves deeply in to the systems of control which have been scientifically-crafted to imprison their minds and keep their eyes closed to the realities of the world around them. Special Features - Over an hour of the most powerful moments from the historic 9/11 & The Neo-Con Agenda Symposium in Los Angeles, California featuring speeches and commentary by world-renowned experts who expose 9/11 as an inside job including: * BYU Physics Professor Steven E. Jones * Actor and Activist Charlie Sheen * StarWars Program progenitor Lt. Col. Bob Bowman * Filmmaker Alex Jones * 9/11 Scholars for Truth Founder James Fetzer * Terrorism Expert and Historian Webster G. Tarpley - Trailers from other Alex Jones documentary films - Music by A Scanner Darkly's Graham Reynolds.

The Late Howard Zinn

2010-02-01T11:19:00.006Z

As reported on Russian TV

From the Guardian’s obituary of 29/1/10

Howard Zinn, who has died of a heart attack aged 87, was a much-loved and much-vituperated icon of the American left. He was an activist and historian, and later a dramatist, but always a courageous and articulate campaigner for his vision of a just and peaceful America.

As a white teacher at the black Spelman College for women in Atlanta, Georgia, he was a mentor to and later the historian of the Student Non-Violent Co-ordinating Committee (SNCC), the radical student wing of the civil rights movement. In 1963 he was dismissed from Spelman for advocating a less "ladylike" concept of women's education, and moved to Boston University, where he taught political science for 24 years.

In 1980 he published A People's History of the United States, an account that stressed injustices and oppression and resurrected forgotten voices, which has sold more than 1m copies.

Zinn always said he was not a pacifist, because he thought it was too absolute a position. But he was a passionate and highly articulate critic of the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. As a bombardier during the second world war, he was involved in the first use of napalm as a weapon, and could never quite forgive himself for what he regarded as a crime against German soldiers, as well as French civilians.

Zinn's parents were Jewish immigrants to the US, with very limited education, who settled in Brooklyn, New York, and worked in factories. His father came from Austria-Hungary and his mother from Irkutsk in Siberia. There were no books in the house when he was growing up, until his father bought him a 25-cent edition of the works of Dickens, an offer from an evening newspaper.

Zinn worked in a shipyard after high school and was involved in demonstrations against fascism in the 1930s. He joined the US Army Air Force and during the war, flew from bases in England over France, Germany and his father's native Hungary. The napalm incident, involving petroleum jelly that causes terrible burns, was over Royan in western France.

After the war, he went back to interview victims of the bombing, and later wrote about it in two books. His own experience and his subsequent interviews led him to conclude that the bombing had been ordered more to enhance the careers of senior officers than for any military imperative, and he later wrote about the ethics of bombing in the context of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Tokyo and Dresden, as well as Iraq.

Under the GI Bill, Zinn studied history at New York University. He then went to Columbia, where he earned an MA in 1952 with a thesis about a famous coalminers' strike in Colorado, then obtained his PhD with a dissertation about the career in Congress of Fiorello LaGuardia, the reforming mayor of New York. He studied at Columbia under Henry Steele Commager and Richard Hofstadter. From Hofstadter he learned, as he said later, that American liberals were not as liberal as the word implied, and that the two threads that ran through all American history were nationalism and capitalism.

Zinn went to Spelman in 1956. Among his students were Maria Wright Edelman, the campaigner for children's rights, and the future novelist Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple.

He soon became involved with the SNCC and Martin Luther King's civil rights campaign. In 1964 he published SNCC: The New Abolitionists. The book ends with a statement of his creed. What made SNCC a threat to the establishment, he wrote, was "its rejection of authority; its fearlessness in the face of overwhelming power; its indifference to respectability". Its radicalism, he went on, "is not an ideology but a mood. Moods are harder to define. They are also harder to imprison."

Zinn became involved in a conflict with the authorities at Spelman over his insistence that its students should not be trained to be ladies, but should be actively involved in politics. Although he theoretically had tenure, he was fired. At Boston University his course on civil liberties was immensely popular.

He was soon involved in the campaign against the Vietnam war. When Daniel Ellsberg, a previously gung-ho John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson administration official, came out against the war, he gave one copy of the Pentagon Papers (officially titled United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, the government's secret history of the war) to Zinn and his wife, Roslyn. Zinn and Noam Chomsky edited what became known as the Mike Gravel edition, published in Boston in 1971-72 by the Beacon Press.

While the war was still raging, Zinn travelled to Hanoi with the Rev Daniel Berrigan – one of the two Berrigan brothers, priests jailed for their anti-war activities – and successfully negotiated the release of three captured US airmen.

For decades, he poured out articles attacking war and government secrecy. His energy and generosity extended to writing introductions to more than 30 books by other writers.

When President Ronald Reagan bombed Tripoli in 1986, Zinn wrote: "There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose which is unattainable." He denounced the invasion of Iraq and also criticised President Barack Obama's intensification of the war in Afghanistan. He was sharply attacked in Israel and by many of his fellow American Jews for saying that war was morally the equivalent of terrorism.

Not surprisingly, he drew fierce criticism from conservatives. And although his People's History was hugely popular among students, as well as the general public, even liberal historians were critical of its relentless castigation of the darker side of American history. In the New York Times, for example, Eric Foner called it "a deeply pessimistic vision of the American experience" and pointed out that "blacks, Indians, women and labourers appear either as rebels or as victims. Less dramatic but more typical lives – people struggling to survive with dignity in difficult circumstances – receive little attention." Michael Kammen, himself a historian of American radicalism, said the book was not a success.

What few could deny was the tenacity of Zinn's commitment to his core belief – that people should stand up for their rights and their vision of the good society. "Where progress has been made," he wrote near the end of his life, "wherever any kind of injustice has been overturned, it's been because people acted as citizens, and not as politicians. They didn't just moan. They worked, they acted, they organised, they rioted if necessary to bring their situation to the attention of people in power. And that's what we have to do today."

Roslyn died in 2008. Zinn is survived by a daughter and a son.

George Binette writes: By the time I reached Boston University in September 1978 as an undergraduate, Howard Zinn had already lectured there for 14 years and become a local legend. The mere mention of his name polarised opinion among students and staff alike.

At first I found his lectures disorganised, bordering on the chaotic. But I soon came to appreciate that through subtly weaving considerable erudition with personal reminiscence, he was challenging the received and often cherished assumptions about US history among young people.

In person Zinn frequently projected a Zen-like calm. He seemed to possess exceptional patience, both for naive admirers and stridently reactionary critics, though he never concealed a zealous passion against injustice. And in contrast to many left-leaning academics, he combined his classroom stance with practical action.

As an officer of the Boston lecturers' union, Zinn was one of the leaders of a spring 1979 strike against the college administration. After the lecturers had suspended their action, low-paid administrative and clerical workers mounted their own strike. Along with four other lecturers, Zinn refused to cross their picket lines, thus risking suspension. But he continued to teach, inviting students to join him on a college lawn. He struggled to be heard over the traffic din on Commonwealth Avenue, but ultimately delivered an inspiring talk that placed the administrative workers' fight in the context of the American labour movement's often bloody history.

• Howard Zinn, historian and activist, born 24 August 1922; died 27 January 2010

Santa's Workshop

2010-01-29T00:19:00.002Z

SANTA'S WORKSHOP takes you to the real world of China's toy factories. Workers tell us about long working hours, low wages, and dangerous work places. Those who protest or try to organize trade unions risk imprisonment. Low labour costs attract more and more companies to China. Today more than 75% of our toys are made in China. But this industry takes its toll on the workers and on the environment. The European (and American) buyers blame bad conditions on the Chinese suppliers. But they say that increasingly hard competition gives them no option. Who should we believe? And what can you do to bring about a fairer and more humane toy trade? [PLEASE WATCH THIS INCREDIBLY INFORMATIVE DOCUMENTARY REGARDING SLAVERY OVERSEAS]

ONLY A SHORT SEGMENT IN THE BEGINNING HAS ENGLISH SUBTITLES, THE REST IS SPOKEN ENGLISH*

The Road to Guantanamo

2010-01-27T01:05:00.005Z

Winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross? "The Road to Guantanamo" is the terrifying first-hand account of three British citizens who were held for two years without charges in the U.S: military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Known as the ?Tipton Three,? in reference to their home town in Britain, the three were eventually returned to Britain and released, still no formal charges were made against them at any time during their ordeal.

The film has already engendered significant controversy due to its critical stance towards the American and British governments. Part documentary, part dramatization, the film chronicles the sequence of events that led from the trio setting out from Tipton in the British Midlands for a wedding in Pakistan, to their crossing the Afghanistan border just as the U.S. began its bombing campaign, to their eventual capture by the Northern Alliance and their imprisonment in Camp X-Ray and later at Camp Delta in Guantanamo.

Starring: Farhad Harun, Arfan Usman, Rizwan Ahmed, Waqar Siddiqi, Shahid Iqbal Directed by: Michael Winterbottom, Mat Whitecross 95 minutes, UK (2006), In this compelling docudrama by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross, the 'Tipton Three' narrate their own experiences in America's controversial offshore detention camp The Road To Guantánamo opens with archive footage of George W Bush, flanked by a stern-faced Tony Blair, declaring his certain knowledge that all the detainees held in Guantánamo are "bad people". Everything that follows is designed to turn these words inside out, as three young British Muslims tell the story of how they came to be in US custody at Guantánamo for over two years, and discuss the Kafkaesque horrors that awaited them there, until finally they were released without charge or apology. The title may evoke the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope 'Road' movies of the 1940s, travel-themed musical comedies with a vaguely racist depiction of non-Americans, but the exotic journey embarked upon by the so-called 'Tipton Three' was to take them into areas that were politically incorrect in an altogether different way.

It would be easy to criticise The Road to Guantánamo for being one-sided (it is), and for failing to contextualise the conduct of the US (there is not even a passing mention of 9/11), but such objections miss the point. Many times Bush, Blair and other politicians have used their considerable public platforms to present a similarly partisan, at times even subsequently discredited justification for different aspects of their 'War on Terror', including the unlimited detention without trial of men like the Tipton Three. The trio, and the more than 800 prisoners who remain at America's Cuban base, were not able to communicate their version of events to a lawyer or judge, let alone to the outside world. The Road To Guantánamo gives them their day in court, and the story these "bad people" tell is one that well deserves a hearing.

History of Oil - Robert Newman

2010-01-25T22:25:00.002Z

As shown on Ch4 and repeated several times on More4, available at IndyBay on the web and many other places, now on google video (not great video quality) Robert's stand-up act examines the history of the last 100 years or so but putting oil center-stage.

AMAZING SPEECH BY WAR VETERAN

2010-01-21T20:42:00.003Z

A modern day version of the famous War is a Racket speech by Major General Smedley D Butle r.

From the Youtube slot that hosted this video: "Our real enemies are not those living in a distant land whose names or policies we don't understand; The real enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable, the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it's profitable, the Insurance Companies who deny us Health care when it's profitable, the Banks who take away our homes when it's profitable. Our enemies are not several hundred thousands away. They are right here in front of us."

THE BLIND WATCHMAKER

2010-01-18T17:56:00.002Z

Simple Mind Control

2010-01-11T10:58:00.006Z

Have you ever wondered why otherwise intelligent people can't see what's right in front of their own faces?

Fascists and other liars know that if they can just make enough noise, they can start a stampede of public opinion which will become very hard for the average person to question.

For further info on this experiment, click here

Orwell Rolls in his Grave

2010-01-11T00:19:00.003Z

Orwell Rolls in His Grave "Could a media system, controlled by a few global corporations with the ability to overwhelm all competing voices, be able to turn lies into truth?..." This chilling documentary film examines the relationship between the media, corporate America, and government. In a country where the "top 1% control 90% of the wealth", the film argues that the media system is nothing but a "subsidiary of corporate America." Director: Robert Kane Pappas - Run Time 1 Hour 46 Minutes

War is a Racket: The real speech re-created by an actor

2010-01-05T21:41:00.002Z

If you know your history, you know that in 1934 there was an attempted coup in the United States that was thwarted largely due to the efforts of U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler (ret.). Look it up.

Among other things, Butler was only one of 19 people ever awarded the Medal of Honor twice and the only person to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor for two different actions. After it dawned on him how his heroism and the heroism of the troops under his command had been misused, he wrote a book called "War is a Racket" which is certainly not to be found on the curriculum in US schools.

The patriotic overtones aside, this is a worth watching video.

John Pilger: Obama and Empire

2010-01-05T20:57:00.003Z

Author, journalist, film maker John Pilger speaks at Socialism 2009. (Nothing at all do do with the World Socialist Movement).Filmed by Paul Hubbard at the Womens Building in San Francisco 7-4-09.

CULTURE JAM - Hijacking Commercial Culture

2009-02-25T23:27:00.003Z

Culturejam: Hijacking Commercial Culture delivers a fascinating rap on the 20th Century movement called Culture Jamming. Pranksters and subversive artists are causing a bit of brand damage to corporate mindshare. Jammers, cultural commentators, a billboard advertiser and a constitutional lawyer take us on a wild roller coaster ride through the back streets of our mental environment. Stopping over in San Francisco, New York's Times Square, and Toronto, we catch the jamming in action with Batman-inspired Jack Napier of the Billboard Liberation Front, Disney arch-enemy Reverend Billy from the Church of Stop Shopping and Media Tigress Carly Stasko. Culturejam asks: Is Culture Jamming civil disobedience? Senseless vandalism? The only form of self defense left?

The Genius of Charles Darwin (Richard Dawkins)

2009-02-07T23:01:00.013Z

Initially broadcast on Channel 4 in autumn 2008

Part 1: Life, Darwin & Everything

In the first episode Richard Dawkins explains the basic mechanisms of natural selection, and tells the story of how Charles Darwin developed his theory.

He teaches a year 11 science class about evolution, which many of the students are reluctant to accept. He then takes them to the Jurassic Coast in Dorset to search for fossils, hoping that the students can see some of the evidence for themselves.

Dawkins visits Nairobi, where he interviews a prostitute who seems to have a genetic immunity to HIV, and talks to microbiologist Larry Gelmon. He goes on to predict that genetic immunity to HIV is a trait that will become more prevalent in the community over time.

Part 2: The Fifth Ape

In the second episode Richard Dawkins deals with some of the philosophical and social ramifications of the theory of evolution.

Dawkins starts out in Kenya, speaking with palaeontologist Richard Leakey. He then visits Christ is the Answer Ministries, Kenya's largest Pentecostal church, to interview Bishop Bonifes Adoyo. Adoyo has led the movement to press Kenya's national museum to sideline its collection of hominid bones pointing to man's evolution from ape to human. The collection includes the Turkana Boy discovered by Kamoya Kimeu, a member of a team led by Richard Leakey in 1984.

Dawkins discusses social darwinism and eugenics, explaining how these are not versions of natural selection, and that "Darwin has been wrongly tainted".

He then meets with evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker to discuss how morals can be compatible with natural selection. He goes on to explaining sexual selection, with peafowls as an example. To find out whether sexual selection plays a role for altruism and kindness among humans, he visits women who are looking for sperm donors, as well as a sperm bank manager. Dawkins also explains kin selection and selfish genes.

Part 3: God Strikes Back

In the third and final episode, Dawkins explains why Darwin's theory is one of history's most controversial ideas.

Saving Africa's Witch Children - Channel 4 - Dispatches

2009-02-07T18:57:00.007Z

In some of the poorest parts of Nigeria, where evangelical religious fervour is combined with a belief in sorcery and black magic, many thousands of children are being blamed for catastrophes, death and famine - and branded witches by powerful pastors. These children are then abandoned, tortured, starved and murdered - all in the name of Jesus Christ.

This Dispatches Special follows the work of one Englishman, 29-year-old Gary Foxcroft, who has devoted his life to helping these desperate and vulnerable children. Gary's charity, Stepping Stones Nigeria, raises funds to help Sam Itauma, who five years ago, rescued four children accused of witchcraft. He now struggles to care for over 150 in a makeshift shelter and school in the Niger Delta region called CRARN (Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network).

Gary and Sam introduce Dispatches to some of the rescued children who have been through unimaginable horrors, such as Ekemeni, aged 13, who was tied up with chicken wire and starved and beaten for two weeks, and Mary, aged 14, who was burnt with acid before her mother attempted to bury her alive. Other children display the hallmarks of witch-branding - acid burns and machete scars. Uma Eke, aged 17, has been left brain-damaged after having a three-inch nail driven into her skull.

Hospitals refuse to treat children associated with sorcery, so Sam's centre does its best to provide medical aid. As well as the physical scars, the children arrive at the shelter badly traumatised by their experiences, with many of them brain-washed into accepting they are possessed by the devil.

The parents or siblings of children torture them in an attempt to kill them or force confessions from them to admit that they are witches. As Gary remarks, the children at CRARN are the lucky ones - they're still alive.

Influential preachers from the more extreme churches brand the children witches or wizards and exploit their desperate parents by charging them exorbitant amounts of money in return for exorcising the spirits. The film features extraordinary access to some of the preachers who openly discuss their work. One preacher who calls himself 'The Bishop,' says he has made a fortune by carrying out 'deliverances' on children. He admits having killed 110 people in the past. Dispatches films him as he administers a mixture of pure alcohol, a substance known as 'African mercury' and his own blood to one child accused of witchcraft.

Exorcism is big business. Preachers can charge as much as a year's salary for an average Nigerian to treat children. They often hold the child captive until the parents can pay up. The Niger Delta area is oil rich - but very few have access to oil wealth; the average life expectancy is around 47.

Since this film was screened, the self-proclaimed Bishop at the centre of the Dispatches programme which revealed the extent of the abuse and torture of children branded as witches in Nigeria has been arrested and charged with murder. The film which has had widespread public support showed how people in some of the poorest parts of the country were killing children they claimed had caused death and famine.

Unseen Gaza - Channel 4 - Dispatches

2009-02-07T17:30:00.001Z

Is what has been presented on our screens and in our papers a true reflection of events on the ground in Gaza? And how do these reports differ to those aired in other countries?

With reporters unable to enter Gaza, attempted media manipulation from both sides and strict regulations governing what images that can be shown on British TV, Jon Snow asks a range of journalists from at home and abroad about the challenges of getting the full story.

Featuring images that haven't before been aired on mainstream television, Jon also examines the difference between the coverage at home and that in the

, Europe and the Middle East. He compares the coverage available on terrestrial channels with satellite TV and the internet and investigates the extent to which some British Muslims are by-passing the mainstream British media and looking elsewhere for their information.

To what extent does the choice of news outlet affect opinion of the conflict?

The Fourth World War

2009-02-06T22:12:00.003Z

From the front-lines of conflicts in Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, Palestine, Korea, and the North; from Seattle to Genova, and the War on Terror in New York, Afghanistan, and Iraq, The Fourth World War is the story of men and women around the world who resist being annihilated in this war.

While our airwaves are crowded with talk of a new world war, narrated by generals and filmed from the noses of bombs, the human story of this global conflict remains untold. The Fourth World War brings together the images and voices of the war on the ground. It is a story of a war without end and of those who resist.

The product of over two years of filming on the inside of movements on five continents, The Fourth World War is a film that would have been unimaginable at any other moment in history. Directed by the makers of This Is What Democracy Looks Like and Zapatista, produced through a global network of independent media and activist groups, it is a truly global film from our global movement.

(Apologies – no subtitles)

Poles Apart? - Capitalism or socialism ... as the planet heats up

2009-01-20T09:36:00.002Z

A filmed talk featuring Glenn Morris of 'Arctic Voice' and Brian Gardner, The Socialist Party, (plus audience questions). Recorded at Conway Hall, London, April 5th 2008.

See also: Arctic Voice website and Socialist Party website

CLASH OF WORLDS

2009-01-18T01:22:00.006Z

Clash of Worlds was a series of three documentaries broadcast between 2007 and 2008, which explored how past conflicts between a Christian West and Islam can help explain more recent violence.

Mutiny tells of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, in which both sides committed atrocities in the name of their faiths.

Palestine looks largely at British involvement in the the Middle east between 1916 and 1948. and how decisions made by the British rulers of Palestine ninety years ago have wreaked damage that continues today.

Sudan tells the story of the Mahdi uprising of the 1880s and which challenged the might of the British empire and its Christian hero, General Charles Gordon. The British went to great lengths to destroy him and his followers, but his story continues to inspire modern day militants.

Mutiny

Sudan

Palestine

Slingshot Hip Hop

2009-01-16T16:31:00.003Z

Slingshot Hip Hop braids together the stories of young Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza and inside Israel as they discover Hip Hop and employ it as a tool to surmount divisions imposed by occupation and poverty. From internal checkpoints and Separation Walls to gender norms and generational differences, this is the story of young people crossing the borders that separate them. Featuring: DAM from Lyd, PR (Palestinian Rapperz) from Gaza, ABEER from Lyd, Arapeyat from Akka, Mahmoud Shalabi from Akka. Support the artists in the film and the filmmakers by purchasing the film or a soundtrack, featuring music by DAM, PR, Abeer, and others

Official site

Check out also: Palestinian Rhythms of Resistance

Death in Gaza

2009-01-16T10:53:00.001Z

In spring 2003, award-winning filmmaker James Miller and reporter Saira Shah, set out to take a first-hand look at the culture of hate that permeates the Middle East. They captured the lives of three Palestinian children growing up in the bullet-riddled streets of Gaza. Although James and Saira had planned to film the lives of Israeli children as well, in the midst of production, Miller was shot to death by an Israeli tank, falling victim to the very conflict he covered.

ATHEISM: JONATHAN MILLER'S BRIEF HISTORY OF DISBELIEF (2005)

2009-01-13T20:36:00.005Z

1. Shadows of Doubt. Jonathan Miller visits the absent Twin Towers to consider the religious implications of 9/11 and meets Arthur Miller and the philosopher Colin McGinn. He searches for evidence of the first 'unbelievers' in Ancient Greece and examines some of the modern theories around why people have always tended to believe in mythology and magic.

2. Noughts and Crosses. With the domination of Christianity from 500 AD, Jonathan Miller wonders how disbelief began to re-emerge in the 15th and 16th centuries. He discovers that division within the Church played a more powerful role than the scientific discoveries of the period. He also visits Paris, the home of the 18th century atheist, Baron D'Holbach, and shows how politically dangerous it was to undermine the religious faith of the masses.

3. The Final Hour. The history of disbelief continues with the ideas of self-taught philosopher Thomas Paine, the revolutionary studies of geology and the evolutionary theories of Darwin. Jonathan Miller looks at the Freudian view that religion is a 'thought disorder'. He also examines his motivation behind making the series touching on the issues of death and the religious fanaticism of the 21st Century.

Part 1. Shadows of Doubt

Part 2. Noughts and Crosses

Part 3. The Final Hour

George Carlin: You Are All Diseased - Live at the Beacon Theatre, New York City

2009-01-11T18:38:00.005Z

The late George Carlin at his best - this being the show where he famously spends 10 minutes at the end tearing into religion.

DISTORTED MORALITY - Noam Chomsky

2009-01-11T16:47:00.003Z

Noam Chomsky - Distorted Morality: America's War on Terror?Includes a speech at Harvard plus question and answer period. A riveting and devastating critique of the

's "War on Terror". Chomsky is amazing. Period. Don't miss this if you've never sat and listened to Chomsky. Don't miss this if you’ve seen or heard every other Chomsky talk. Don't miss this.

The wild rage that stormed through the brains of the people... turning them into temporary madmen, incapable of seeing, hearing, or thinking correctly, has spent itself. Figures are beginning to appear in their true relative proportions, and there is some likelihood that sane words will be sanely listened to.
Voltairine De Cleyre

Noam Chomsky is a renowned scholar, the founder of the modern science of linguistics, a philosopher, a political and social analyst, a media critic, an author of more than 70 books, a winner of numerous prizes and awards and ranks with Marx, Shakespeare and the Bible as one of the 10 most quoted sources in the humanities.

In this remarkable DVD, Noam Chomsky offers a riveting but devastating critique of America's current War on Terror - arguing, in fact, that it is a logical impossibility for such a war to be taking place.

Professor Chomsky presents his reasoning with astonishing and refreshing clarity, drawing from a wealth of historical knowledge and analysis. "Only those who are entirely ignorant of modern history will be surprised by the course of events, or by the justifications that are provided..."

Darwin's Nightmare

2009-01-10T23:03:00.006Z

Winner of an Oscar for Best Documentary, DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE is a tale about people, the North/South divide, globalization, and about fish.

Some time in the 1960s, in the heart of Africa, a new animal was introduced into Lake Victoria as a little scientific experiment. The Nile Perch, a voracious predator, extinguished almost the entire stock of the native fish species. However, this new gigantic fish multiplied incredibly fast, and its white fillets are today exported all around the world. Huge hulking ex-Soviet cargo planes come daily to collect the latest catch in exchange for their southbound cargo: Kalashnikovs and ammunitions for the uncounted wars in the dark center of the African continent.

This booming multinational industry of fish and weapons has created an ungodly globalized alliance on the shores of the world’s biggest tropical lake: an army of local fishermen, World Bank agents, homeless children, African ministers, EU-commissioners, Tanzanian prostitutes and Russian pilots. DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE brings us in close for an intimate and at times uncomfortable look at this world, and in doing so this film deftly unpacks the puzzle of globalization in a visually stunning and raw portrait of life on this planet.

ONE NATION, UNDER SIEGE

2009-01-09T19:26:00.005Z

One Nation Under Siege is a forceful unmasking of the U.S. government and those in powerful positions who are actively dismantling the United States Bill of Rights for their own gain and greed.

Through the research of over a dozen internationally distinguished authors, journalists, doctors, and military experts you will begin to understand the massive and ceaseless control projected onto an unsuspecting population by a government that may have finally crossed the line from a representative republic to a fascist state.

One Nation Under Siege features a cast of award winning journalists, writers, military experts and physicians all speaking out on issues that affect every American. Guests include: Derry Brownfield, Charlotte Iserbyt, Dr. Rima Laibow, Jim Marrs, Liz McIntyre, Dr. Stan Monteith, Niki Raapana, Joyce Riley RN, Major General Albert Stubblebine, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, Joan Veon, Dave vonKleist and others.

Quotes from the film:

A globalist is someone who believes in globalism and globalism, essentially, is the drive for one world government, one world military, one world economy, which on a broad philosophical basis may not be that bad after all we are one humanity living on one planet, and frankly I can see the day coming when somebody’s going to say ‘where do you come from?’ and you’ll say ‘I’m from Earth.’ But the problem is we are being pushed into globalism by secrecy and by deceit and nobody’s getting a chance to consider the ramifications, or consider the methodology that’s being used to push us into this globalization.

Media blackout is nothing more than media control. It is the determination of what the public will hear, what they will not hear. And how to make it sound in such a way that the public will accept it. And it is totally against everything this country stands for. But, the average person doesn’t even know that they’re experiencing it anytime they turn on the T.V.

I think it’s important to understand that most of the educational programs that are implemented in the United States stem from the National Education Association. And, the NEA was actually founded by John D. Rockefeller. And John D. Rockefeller, I think, voiced the beliefs of this ruling elite that wants to try to homogenize our education system when he was quoted as saying ‘I don’t want a nation of thinkers - I want a nation of workers’. So I think the education system is not only pushing people into a socialized version of government, but also dumbing the individual down to the point to where he’ll be a good worker in the factory or he’ll be a good worker in silicon valley - he may know a lot about computers, but he is not gonna’ have a classic education that would allow him to take all of the facets of the culture and society and put it together and really form an intelligent opinion as to to what’s going on and what might be in the best interest of the individual.

Ok. We say we’ve got freedom of the press in this country. And some folks have said you’ve got freedom of press as long as you own it. Well who owns the media? And, when I say that, I mean not literally, but as far as who controls the information that goes out in the media. Example: NBC is owned by General Electric. And General Electric is one of the top ten if not one of the top five defense contractors. Is NBC going to expose a news story that might in some way impede a contract negotiation which could mean a lot of money for General Electric? I don’t think so. So the point here is that we have elected officials, both republicrats and demopublicans, that cater to who?…certainly not the common people. We don’t have the huge amounts of money to contribute to their election campaigns. The people that contribute the most amount of money are the corporations. So that representative, or senator, is going to do what is going to be in the best interest of those corporations. So if the corporations are controlling and influencing our elected officials we must also take a look at the mainstream media. Who pays the bulk of the advertising dollars that keep the mainstream network news going..it’s the major corporations. So what we have now is we have corporate control of elected officials, corporate control of the media…and this is why now some people are calling it the corporate Borg because they have assimilated several different areas of our entire society. The corporations control agriculture, technology, manufacturing, industry, education, communication. They control our elected officials. This is not a government by and for the people. It is a government of, by, and for the corporation. And by definition when business controls government that is inescapably fascism.

You think the purpose of education is reading, writing, and arithmetic? The purpose of education is to change the thoughts, actions, and feelings of students. Hitler wanted to control the educational system in Germany… Stalin did in Russia, Mao Zedong in China. You have to get a hold of the minds of the young where you break the person’s values. You break their understanding of their individuality. You bring them to consensus with the group. They become a member of the collective. It’s Soviet education basically.

If they’re gonna’ have a global system of government, what type of government would that be? Of course, there are those now that are touting the UN is the only answer, because our system is all flawed and our leaders are all screwed up and there’s too much corruption here. Well they want to bring forward this world government through the UN Charter. Many people that support the UN Charter have never read it. And if they had read it and figured out where it came from, and compared the UN Charter to the United States Constitution they’ll find that they’re absolutely repugnant. You can’t have them coexisting. So common sense tells me that if the globalists want a one world government, they have to destroy the United States Constitution and our way of life. And, they’ve got to do so in such a way that we’ll actually embrace it.

The average American would be shocked to find out there is something called COINTELPRO. The FBI’s covert action programs against American citizens. That’s the name of their document - the government document, not my rendition of it. In fact it is report 94-755 called Supplementary Detailed staff reports of intelligence activities and the rights of Americans—–. This is a hearing that occurred in 1976. Now, some notable people that sat on this hearing: Philip Hart, Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, Howard Baker, Barry Goldwater, and Richard Schweiker. Now, this senate report tells what the FBI was doing against the American citizens, literally. Here is their statement. COINTELPRO began in 1956 in part because of the frustration with the supreme court rulings limiting the government’s power to precede overtly against dissident groups. It ended in 1971 with the threat of public exposure. But in the intervening fifteen years the bureau conducted, their terms, a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association. This is incredible. When you look at this and when I was able to get a copy of this document, which is over three thousand pages long, I was shocked.

One of the things we’re doing is developing all sorts of technology. Not to spy on the Russians, not to spy on the Chinese, not to spy on Osama Bin Laden, but to control the American people. We have satellites… are they monitoring what’s going on in Russia or China today? Or, are they watching what’s going on in the United States. We have a program known as Echelon where they listen to every telephone call, every email, record every fax here in the United States. And all of this is done by computers. All of these messages are kept indefinitely on computer disks. What the American people must understand is that the massive amounts of money we are spending on defense is not to protect America, but ultimately used to control the American population as we move from freedom to fascism.

OUTFOXED : Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism

2009-01-08T23:35:00.002Z

"Outfoxed" examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, have been running a "race to the bottom" in television news. This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public's right to know.

The film explores Murdoch's burgeoning kingdom and the impact on society when a broad swath of media is controlled by one person.

Media experts, including Jeff Cohen (FAIR) Bob McChesney (Free Press), Chellie Pingree (Common Cause), Jeff Chester (Center for Digital Democracy) and David Brock (Media Matters) provide context and guidance for the story of Fox News and its effect on society.

This documentary also reveals the secrets of Former Fox news producers, reporters, bookers and writers who expose what it's like to work for Fox News. These former Fox employees talk about how they were forced to push a "right-wing" point of view or risk their jobs. Some have even chosen to remain anonymous in order to protect their current livelihoods. As one employee said "There's no sense of integrity as far as having a line that can't be crossed."

Director/Producer Robert Greenwald has produced and/or directed 53 television movies, miniseries and features. He is the director of Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Uncovered: The Iraq War and the Executive Producer of the UN series - Unprecedented, Uncovered and Unconstitutional. His new media company, Brave New Films, recently distributed The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress and produced two new TV series - the “ACLU Freedom Files” and “The Sierra Club Chronicles” – which can be seen on Link TV and via the internet.

LIFE AND DEBT (2001)

2009-01-08T22:49:00.004Z

Life and Debt is a 2001 American documentary film directed by Stephanie Black. It examines the economic and social situation in Jamaica, and specifically the impact thereon of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank's globalization policies. Its starting point is the award-winning non-fiction essay A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid.

Kathleen C. Fennessy's review of the documentary states:

“Set to a beguiling reggae beat, Life and Debt takes as its subject Jamaica's economic decline in the 20th century. The story has reverberations in the plight of other third-world nations blindsided by globalization, like Ghana and Haiti. After England granted Jamaica independence in 1962, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) stepped in with a series of loans.”

These loans were conditional on structural adjustment policies, which requiring Jamaica to enact economic reforms - trade liberalization, privatization, and deregulation. However, the reforms were unsuccessful and left the country with $4.6 billion dollars in debt. The film blames the IMF and the West for causing this situation.

The film features a number of interviews with former Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley in which he critiques the system of International Financial Institution loans. He is particularly critical of required structural adjustments as an attack on the sovereignty of many former colonial nations and suggests the system is akin to imperialism or neocolonialism. Similar claims have been made popular by former Chief Economist of the World Bank Joseph Stiglitz.

"We Live with Life and Debt, Freedom not yet" -- Jamaican reggae song

Official Site

IMDB

The Killing Zone: Dispatches (2006)

2009-01-07T23:05:00.000Z

Dispatches reporter Sandra Jordan and producer Rodrigo Vasquez risk their lives to reveal the shocking level of daily violence and murderous hate in the Gaza Strip.

An American peace activist was crushed to death by an IOF bulldozer; a British peace protester was shot in the head by an IOF sniper and remains in a coma; and a British cameraman was shot dead by the IOF.

Within hours of arriving Sandra and Rodrigo are shot at and tear-gassed by Israeli troops breaking up a memorial service for Rachel Corrie, an A merican peace activist crushed by an Israeli Army bulldozer before.

OCCUPATION 101

2009-01-06T18:20:00.004Z

A thought-provoking and powerful documentary film on the current and historical root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unlike any other film ever produced on the conflict, Occupation 101 presents a comprehensive analysis of the facts and hidden truths surrounding the never ending controversy and dispels many of its long-perceived myths and misconceptions.

The film also details life under Israeli military rule, the role of the United States in the conflict, and the major obstacles that stand in the way of a lasting and viable peace. The roots of the conflict are explained through first-hand on-the-ground experiences from leading Middle East scholars, peace activists, journalists, religious leaders and humanitarian workers whose voices have too often been suppressed in American media outlets.

The film covers a wide range of topics -- which include -- the first wave of Jewish immigration from Europe in the 1880's, the 1920 tensions, the 1948 war, the 1967 war, the first Intifada of 1987, the Oslo Peace Process, Settlement expansion, the role of the United States Government, the second Intifada of 2000, the separation barrier and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, as well as many heart wrenching testimonials from victims of this tragedy. (From the official site)

STRANGERS (2003)

2009-01-05T22:25:00.003Z

A somewhat timely short film directed by Erez Tadmor & Guy Nattiv.

Strangers tells the compelling tale of two young men, one Arab and one Jewish who are motivated by fear to overcome their racial prejudice and hatred when suddenly confronted with a menacing gang of skinheads.

Erez Tadmor and Guy Nattiv are graduates from the Tel Aviv school Camera Obscura School of Art. The pair are currently developing their first feature film about a holocaust survivor. All Searchlab Shorts are unrated.

PALESTINE IS STILL THE ISSUE (John Pilger)

2009-01-05T17:39:00.003Z

From the intro to the film: Twenty-five years ago, I made a film called Palestine Is Still The Issue. It was about a nation of people - the Palestinians - forced off their land and later subjected to a military occupation by Israel. An occupation condemned by the United Nations and almost every country in the world, including Britain.

But Israel is backed by a very powerful friend, the United States. So in 25 years, if we're to speak of the great injustice here, nothing has changed. What has changed is that the Palestinians have fought back.

Stateless and humiliated for so long, they've risen up against Israel's huge military machine, although they themselves have no arm, no tanks, no American planes and gun ships or missiles.

Some have committed desperate acts of terror, like suicide bombing. But for Palestinians, the overriding, routine terror, day after day, has been the ruthless control of almost every aspect of their lives, as if they live in an open prison. This film is about the Palestinians and a group of courageous Israelis united in the oldest human struggle - to be free..

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land (Media & the Israel-Palestine Conflict )

2009-01-05T00:38:00.002Z

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land (2004) provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites–oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others–work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported.

Through the voices of scholars, media critics, peace activists, religious figures, and Middle East experts, Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land carefully analyzes and explains how–through the use of language, framing and context–the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media, and Israeli colonization of the occupied terrorities appears to be a defensive move rather than an offensive one. The documentary also explores the ways that U.S. journalists, for reasons ranging from intimidation to a lack of thorough investigation, have become complicit in carrying out Israel’s PR campaign. At its core, the documentary raises questions about the ethics and role of journalism, and the relationship between media and politics.

STEALING FREEDOM (Dispatches)

2009-01-03T20:00:00.003Z

Returning to the police state - loss of liberties- surveillance society theme of previous posts, here is political commentator Peter Hitchens taking a look at how the recent avalanche of security legislation has affected the civil liberties of ordinary people in

Britain

. The result, Hitchens explains, is that we are sleepwalking into a Big Brother state. Travelling across

Britain

, Hitchens meets ordinary people who have suffered needlessly because of new legislation and increased police powers. The programme also contains interviews with the Lord Chancellor Charles Falconer, Lord Carlisle, an independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, and Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty.

This Revolution

2009-01-02T21:58:00.002Z

This Revolution is a 2004 political film starring Rosario Dawson. Directed by filmmaker and activist Stephen Marshall, creator of the video news magazine Channel Zero and founder of Guerilla News Network, the docu-drama film blends fiction with reality, focusing on the effects of the media's bias in order to maximize profits. The film was also part of the 2004 Official Sundance Selection.

Jake Cassevetes (Nathan Crooker) is a world renowned cameraman who has just arrived back from being embedded during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Jake does not buy into the currently vogue conspiracy theory of a corporate-controlled press. Though, after having much of his best footage in Iraq censored by the network, Jake is growing disillusioned with his corporate masters. During this Jake befriends a young boy (Brett DelBuono), and in time meets his mother, Tina Santiago (Rosario Dawson), a pretty young widow whose husband died while serving in Iraq, who he comes to form a close bond. Jake then gets an assignment to shoot on the streets of the Republican National Convention protests, there he meets Seven, one of the young leaders of a masked anarchist Black Bloc. Jake quickly wins the trust of the group and is allowed to shadow them as they move through the demonstration. Later that night, after shooting Seven with her mask down describing the Bloc's militant objectives, the videotape is returned to the network with the rest of his footage by Jake's Girlfriend and co-worker Chloe (Amy Redford), without Jake's permission. When he goes to retrieve the tape, he is told the network made a deal with the Department of Homeland Security to review all footage to look for potential terror suspects. Which is in fact being used to compile a database of activists. Realizing the danger he has brought to Seven and the Black Bloc itself, Jake decides to use his skills and access at the network to jam the government controlled corporate media and broadcast the truth of the protests and the message of a new generation of activists.

WHICH WAY THE REVOLUTION?

2009-01-01T21:32:00.002Z

Filmed debate between Ian Bone, founder of Class War, and Howard Moss of the Socialist Party (SPGB). Filmed at the SPGB's head office, Clapham, London, on 20th September 2008. Chair: Bill Martin.

The Living Dead - Adam Curtis (1995)

2009-01-01T01:33:00.005Z

The Living Dead (subtitled Three Films About the Power of the Past) was the second major documentary series made by British film-maker Adam Curtis. This series investigated the way that history and memory (both national and individual) have been used by politicians and others. In three parts, it was transmitted on BBC Two in the spring of 1995.

1. On the desperate edge of now

This episode examined how the various national memories of the Second World War were effectively rewritten and manipulated in the Cold War period. For Germany, this began at the Nuremberg Trials, where attempts were made to prevent the Nazis in the dock—principally Hermann Göring—from offering any rational argument for what they had done. Subsequently, however, bringing lower-ranking Nazis to justice was effectively forgotten about in the interests of maintaining West Germany as an ally in the Cold War. For the Allied countries, faced with a new enemy in the Soviet Union, there was a need to portray WW2 as a crusade of pure good against pure evil, even if this meant denying the memories of the Allied soldiers who had actually done the fighting, and knew it to have been far more complex. A number of American veterans told how years later they found themselves plagued with the previously-suppressed memories of the brutal things they had seen and done. The title comes from a veteran's description of what the uncertainty of survival while combat is like

2. You Have Used Me as a Fish Long Enough

In this episode, the history of brainwashing and mind control was examined. The angle pursued by Curtis was the way in which psychiatry pursued tabula rasa theories of the mind, initially in order to set people free from traumatic memories and then later as a potential instrument of social control. The work of Ewen Cameron was surveyed, with particular reference to Cold War theories of communist brainwashing and the search for hypnoprogammed assassins. The programme's thesis was that the search for control over the past via medical intervention had had to be abandoned and that in modern times control over the past is more effectively exercised by the manipulation of history. Some film from this episode, an interview with one of Cameron's victims, was later re-used by Curtis in his The Century of the Self. The title of this episode comes from a paranoid schizophrenic seen in archive film in the programme, who believed her neighbours were using her as a source of amusement by denying her any privacy, like a pet goldfish

3. The Attic

In this episode, the Imperial aspirations of Margaret Thatcher were examined. The way in which Mrs Thatcher used public relations in an attempt to emulate Winston Churchill in harking back to Britain's "glorious past" to fulfil a political or national end. The title is a reference to the attic flat at the top of 10 Downing Street, which was created during Thatcher's period refurbishment of the house, which did away with the Prime Minister's previous living quarters on lower floors. Scenes from The Innocents (film) the adaptation of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James are intercut with Thatcher's reign

A WORLD WITHOUT WATER

2008-12-31T22:17:00.001Z

Every day, thousands of children die due to lack of water and poor sanitation. Billions of people do not have access to safe water. Environmental change threatens to make this situation worse but a more immediate danger is emerging. Control of the world's water is falling into the hands of the rich and water may soon take the place of oil as the world's most tradeable - and coveted - commodity - not a basic human right (indeed, the US argued this at the UN). In a future when market forces set the price of a glass of water, will many more people be left too poor to drink?

BAFTA award-winning film-maker Brian Woods' compelling and affecting film tells the intimate and revealing story of the dramatic impact of the battle for water ownership on the lives of four disparate groups of people across the developing world and in the heart of the planet's richest nation: families in Bolivia, India, Tanzania and the USA. And beyond the individual human cost of access to water, the film looks at the present and future battle for its ownership and how those living in water-rich countries hold the survival of the planet in their (currently) well-washed hands.

HISTORY OF RACISM

2008-12-31T00:17:00.007Z

This three-part documentary, originally shown on BBC 4, examines the history of racism, covering its origins with the enslavement of Africans in the sixteenth century, its overt nature in the colonial projects of the European powers and its appearance within twentieth century western societies. Featuring interviews with European, American and African academics and cultural commentators as well as employing strong images, the programme is a detailed and far-reaching assessment into the way in which racism has been constructed over the last five hundred years.

An important feature of this documentary is its strong, consistent message that racism emerged as a product of social and economic factors. Enslavement is shown to be the root of this erroneous discourse as the European intelligentsia sought to legitimise the slave trade. It is the trade of Africans which is considered to create prejudice, as Professor James Walvin states, 'they didn't become slave traders because of racism, they became racist because of the slave trade.' As a means of proving that the process of African enslavement was justifiable the concept of a hierarchy of human races existing was employed. This is examined as purely as a means to continue the highly profitable trade, echoing the work of Williams by linking the desire of capitalist systems for the ceaseless acquisition of profit with the enslavement of millions. The way in which these concepts born from economic exploitation seep into social and cultural contexts is also highlighted; the works of notable and indeed cherished philosophers and authors such as Locke and Shakespeare are shown to be riddled with the racist assumptions of the period. That the concept of racism was not initially dependent on difference in skin colour is revealed with Dr. Barnor Hesse's discussion of the contact between the indigenous peoples of the New World and European colonists. The categorisation of 'race' is thereby shown to be a system whereby groups of peoples are subordinated.

The use of 'race' as a means by which people are abused, brutalised, terrorised and exploited is examined in the documentary with specific examples from twentieth century America, South Africa and Britain as well as Belgian colonial rule in the Congo in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These particular examples utilise graphic images, taken from primary sources or reconstructions, to emphasise the violence which has resulted from racist perceptions. The scenes of mutilation in the Congo, the disfigured corpse of Emmett Till in Mississippi, and police brutality in South Africa are what are referred to in the documentary as, 'the savage legacy' of racism. The documentary is careful however to avoid representing only suffering by black people and discusses at length the way in which black activists have fought against the ingrained racism of western societies. Prominent in this discussion is the 1791 Haitian Revolution, which is offered as an antidote to European histories of abolition and emancipation, as the documentary uses it to highlight how enslaved peoples rebelled against their oppressors, ensuring the system of slavery was impossible to maintain. Civil rights leaders in America and South Africa are shown to have continued this struggle against those who would use concepts of 'race' to classify and differentiate.

It is the ingrained racism within western societies which is called into account by this challenging programme which states how notions of 'race' have resulted in inequality and prejudice. The documentary ends with the reminder that white people within the northern hemisphere still possess the majority of the world's wealth: a wealth which itself was established and maintained by enslavement. Black people from western countries are said to be less likely to participate in this wealth, leading to endemic poverty within some black communities. In America this situation is described in the documentary as, 'mass unemployment, mass disenfranchisement, mass imprisonment.' The programme reinforces its message of racism as a social and political tool in its closing remarks debunking those who still claim that racial difference exists within human populations: 'in scientific terms race is not a factor but in political and social terms it still divides.'

The documentary is a challenging and highly intelligent study; it maintains a coherent structure throughout the three episodes which focus on racism's origins, development and legacy. Its use of analysis from academics and individuals from a worldwide perspective marks it out as a significant piece of programming, and its quality of debate ensures that its message is heard. (review source)

PATENT FOR A PIG: The Big Business of Monsanto

2008-12-30T23:25:00.001Z

Documentary concerning the controversy surrounding the experimental science of genetic modification by biotechnology corporations and the food industry. This idea of patenting life is not new, but begs the question – if they want to patent life, then what next? The air we breathe? Water? Relax, there’s profits to be had!

SUSPECT NATION

2008-12-27T21:14:00.002Z

Following on from the Taking Liberties video posted last Saturday, here’s two more that focus on Police State Britain.

SUSPECT NATION

Since Tony Blair's New Labour government came to power in 1997, the UK civil liberties landscape has changed dramatically. ASBOs were introduced by Section 1 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and first used in 1999. The right to remain silent is no longer universal. Our right to privacy, free from interception of communications has been severely curtailed. The ability to travel without surveillance (or those details of our journeys being retained) has disappeared. Indeed, as Henry Porter (the Observer journalist famous for his recent email clash with Tony Blair over the paring down of civil liberties) reveals in this unsettling film, our movements are being watched, and recorded, more than ever before

Is Big Business the Real Big Brother?

Monitoring and surveillance of employees and customers by big business is now commonplace. Money Programme presenter Max Flint with the Personal Shopping Assistant computer, as used by customers at the Metro Future Store in Rheinberg, Germany Some German shoppers already have their purchases tracked It's increasingly a feature of our daily lives, because businesses have found that it makes good business sense. But is corporate snooping out of control? In Britain, we are all familiar with the CCTV cameras that have sprung up across our city centres and transport networks. We generally accept that they are there to counter crime and help monitor traffic flows on our busy roads. But how many of us realise that when we travel about, each of us is captured, on average, 300 times a day on CCTV, and should we be concerned? Of course, if we look up, we can see the CCTV cameras. We know they're there. But are they just the visible tip of a much larger and more deep-rooted surveillance society? Microchip RFID surveillance society big brother NWO orwell 1984 patriot act freedom tracking GPS mega corporations scanning