Showing posts with label documentary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label documentary. Show all posts
Monday, March 30, 2015
Thursday, August 2, 2012
The One Percent & Born Rich (documentary films)
The director of both the above films is Jamie Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson billion dollar empire. So at least one of the top 1% sees the larger problem that so much wealth in so few hands causes. Good on you, Jamie.--jef
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Poisoned in the Fields
Victims of Agrochemicals Break Their Silence
by RAUL ZIBECHI
“My wife washed her face with rain water the day after they fumigated farmland about three kilometers from here and she started getting rashes on her arms and her body. That was a year ago. Now she’s very affected, she’s been diagnosed with lupus and is undergoing chemotherapy.” Jorge Mérola, a farmworker from Villa del Carmen in the middle of Uruguay’s soy region, speaks from the depths of a pain that is easy to understand, but almost impossible to relay to others.
A local doctor explained that the marks on Mérola’s skin are caused by “agrochemicals” sprayed over fields from small planes. “Six of my calves died with the same symptoms. They go stiff, they have no muscular mobility, and their jaws lock. The same thing happened to some neighbors,” he explains between long pauses.
When asked why he didn’t report what happened to his wife, Mérola reveals his abysmal distrust of authorities: “I didn’t want to report this to the Ministry of Livestock because a while ago there were a lot of fish dying in the Yi river, and their response was that it was because there wasn’t enough oxygen in the water. With that kind of response, I didn’t want to report anything.”
Mérola’s testimony is one of the many included in the video Collateral Damages (Efectos Colaterales), a documentary made by Redes Amigos de la Tierra Uruguay (Friends of the Earth in Uruguay) and the Programa Uruguay Sustentable (Sustainable Uruguay Program). Reporters Ignacio Cirio and Edgardo Matiolli led the production and it will be released in early February. It can be found on Radio Mundo’s web page. It’s the first visual work that presents proof of the serious human consequences of fumigations.
Breaking the Silence
All the workers interviewed by Cirio demonstrate a keen understanding of the changes in local production: the introduction of crops like soy and fumigation with agrochemicals, the spread of monoculture farming to such an extent that “you see yourself getting closed in on,” as Isabel Olivo, from the Rural Women’s Group Network, puts it. Despite being active in grassroots organizations, Olivo admits “you feel like you have no weapons to fight it.”
Mérola’s case shows the solitude of those affected by fumigations—a solitude characterized by the distance and absence of the State and the complicity of actors like doctors who should be playing an active role. In spite of the seriousness of what happened to his wife, Mérola did only one interview, on the Sarandí del Yi radio station, which Cirio picked up and turned into the beginning of his investigation. Today his project is one of the very few to break the silence.
“Those affected don’t see the State as an entity that guarantees their rights,” he affirms, after traveling hundreds of kilometers across the areas most affected by fumigations like Florida, Flores, Durazno, Paysandú and Salto.
“Professor Elsa Gomez filed a complaint after her school was sprayed two times in a row. When public health workers interviewed her, they demanded proof that would link the health problems with agrochemicals. The State doesn’t protect them, but it makes demands of them,” concludes Cirio. Gomez teaches in a small town in the province of Durazno. In Collateral Damages she explains how the planes sprayed pesticides just meters from the school over the course of several days in 2009 without anyone showing, at least publicly, the slightest sign of concern.
“There are many things that people don’t want to come out and say, because they’re neighbors, because they rely on each other, but I know of cases that have been covered up and I see how they go out to fumigate with broken equipment,” says Luis Ferreira, who was president of the school commission in Merinos, in the province of Paysandú. His son, like other children, has stomach problems and vomits every time the planes fumigate less than 100 meters away from the school.
In his film, Cirio interviews beekeepers who have watched their hives disappear, small-scale livestock owners and farmers, village neighbors, nurses and teachers who discover the consequences of agrochemicals for their students’ bodies. He didn’t interview any doctors. When asked about the silence of those who are aware of the situation and its causes, he reflects: “Businesses make deals with schools, social clubs and hospitals. The doctors don’t say anything.”
On several occasions the team that made Collateral Damages had problems with “mosquito” (a vehicle for land fumigation) drivers who saw them filming. Some of them got out of their vehicles and wanted to know what the piece was about. “They have orders not to let themselves be filmed,” Cirio concludes.
In spite of the difficulties, he found that rural and small town inhabitants were aware of the growing problem they are facing. This is because, among other things, “they are informed, they travel, they ask questions and, for this reason, they demand that the government carry out an in-depth study of the situation.” Onelia Dominguez, a nurse’s assistant in the town of Rincón de Valentín, believes that the workers don’t demand adequate working conditions because they’re afraid they’ll lose their jobs. She agrees with Cirio that “no one has ever come to investigate.”
Overcoming the Solitude
Although the indifference of both the government and the university is the main cause for the silence among the victims, this is also a population with little opportunity to make itself heard.
In March of 2001, the Uruguayan Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fishing prohibited aerial spraying closer than 500 meters from schools and land spraying closer than 300 meters “to diminish the risk of exposure to intrinsically dangerous substances.” But to comply with the rules, someone must control or report abuses. Isabel Cárcamo, from the Red de Acción en Plaguicidas (RAP-AL), said, “We have had the experience of working with communities that find it very difficult to denounce the impact of fumigations, either because they have relatives working in crop-dusting or because it’s their livelihood, or because they live in small towns where everyone knows everyone and the business even ‘helps’ the community.”
It’s the same problem that the anthropologist Carlos Santos detected. Beekeepers, for example, “confront the dilemma of not reporting the death rate of the bees so they don’t get kicked off the place where they’ve been allowed to set up their hives or lose whatever space they have,” because filing a complaint causes trouble for the landowner who rents the land used for growing soy.
Dr. María Elena Curbelo pointed out that in the vicinity of Bella Unión, an agroindustrial city where she’s been working for 16 years, rice and sugar cane plantations are sprayed with pesticides. This has led to congenital deformities in newborns and year-round respiratory problems.
She affirmed that there are various cases of pediatric leukemia in the region. She recognized that “while there were fumigations on the edge of town and one part of the population wanted to complain, the workers preferred to not risk their jobs and the people opted to remain silent.”
Most people affected by fumigation live in small towns, where everyone knows each other and there exists a persistent “cultura de esperar”–a culture of expecting someone else to solve their problems. People look to rural bosses (caudillos), landowners, and now businessmen or the government. In Uruguay, they are small towns with between 400 and two thousand inhabitants.
The rural population is systematically declining throughout Latin America. Uruguay is perhaps the most alarming case– only five percent of Uruguayans live in rural areas. Adults between the ages of 50 to 65 represent 42% of the rural population. It’s not hard to conclude that the population is in a slow process of extinction. The model of production with its disastrous health effects adds to out-migration by making rural life inhospitable.
“The Ministry of Public Health can’t recruit doctors who want to live in these places. Under such conditions,” Cirio says, “there’s an awareness of the seriousness, but there are only a few isolated efforts made with little support from organizations or professional associations.”
Cárcamo insists that powerful interests are behind the silence surrounding the effects of agrochemicals. “There is no political interest. If there were, it would be necessary to question the country’s so-called production model and the use of biofuel, among other things. The issue will really only be exposed when a political decision is made. One example is the contrast between the aggressive campaign against tobacco, while nothing is said about the impacts of the daily ingestion of agrochemicals through food and water. And the worst thing is that smoking is something you can choose, but eating and drinking water aren’t.”
Brazil, World Champion in Agrochemicals
According to a recent report by the Movimento Sem Terra (MST), Brazilian society is more and more aware of the health problems caused by agrochemical contamination. “Toxins are one of the pillars that sustain the agribusiness production model,” the organization affirms. It defines the model as export-oriented and characterized by the expulsion of families from the countryside.
Since 2008, Brazil holds first place in world rankings of agrochemical use, even though it is not the largest agricultural producer. Billions of liters are poured onto crops, and this is a practice that even the MST has not escaped. In 2010, a national campaign against agrochemicals was born and created official entities like the National Cancer Institute (INCA), Fiocruz and the Sanitary Vigilance Agency. Specialists have no doubt that agrochemicals are related to cancer. According to the INCA, in the next two years one million Brazilians will be diagnosed with cancer and only six out of every ten of those affected will recover. Furthermore, there will be consequences for millions of people who experience a number of afflictions every year. In a recent conference in Rio de Janeiro, Joâo Pedro Stédile, MST coordinator, complained that in the movement’s settlements “there are instances of breast cancer in 13 and 14 year-old girls” (Carta Maior, December 20).
Brazil’s 2011 Human Rights report, released in December by the Social Network of Justice and Human Rights explains that each year 5,600 people are poisoned with agrochemicals while only half the cases are reported. Based on reports from the Ministry of Health, the report concludes that every year there are 2,300 “suicide attempts” made with agrochemicals. The southern region prides itself on agribusiness, but at the same time this model explains 75 percent of deaths there. This surprising revelation led various scientists to undertake field studies.
One study published in the Revista Brasileira de Saúde Ocupacional by the Ministry of Labor notes the connection between suicides and the massive use of agrochemicals because organophosphates, among other things, produce psychological disorders. “Scientific evidence shows that exposure to pesticides can cause irrevocable health damages. For example, advanced neuropathy is a result of overexposure to organophosphates. Indeed, exposure is associated with a long list of symptoms and with significant deficits in neurobehavioral performance and abnormalities in nervous system functions.
The journal of the Brazilian Association of Postgraduates in Public Health also published case studies based on a survey of 102 rural workers from Nova Friburgo. They concluded that there is a direct relationship between emotional and psychological disturbances and exposure to agrochemicals.
Argentina: Doctors in Fumigated Towns
In the agricultural cycle of 1990, the Argentine countryside received 35 million pounds of pesticides. In 2010, agribusinesses used more than 300 million liters of toxins. The numbers continue to grow. In 1996, when fumigation with glyphosate began, about two liters were used per hectare. By 2010, the figure had increased to more than ten liters, and there is some land fumigated with more than twenty liters per hectare.
This data was presented during the First National Conference of Doctors in Fumigated Towns, in August 2010 in Córdoba, Argentina. The conference was held by the Department of Medical Sciences of the National University of Cordoba. A hundred and sixty doctors from ten provinces and dozens of towns attended.
The conference led to the creation of the University Environment and Health Network, committed to following up on health problems created by agrotoxins.
The event’s final report states, “The doctors pointed out that, generally speaking, they have served the same populations for more than 25 years, but they find that recent years have been completely different, and they link the differences directly to systematic fumigation with pesticides.” Rodolfo Páramo, pediatric and neonatal doctor at the Malabrigo hospital in the Norte de Santa Fe reported the disturbing rate of twelve deformations of 200 births in 2006.
The neonatal service at the Perrando Hospital in Resistencia, Chaco, released its own statistics: in 1997, there were 19.5 deformities in every 10,000 newborns. In 2008, the number tripled to 85.3. In the same period, the land area planted in soybeans in the province quadrupled.
The final conference report took into account the many testimonies and reports presented and concluded, “It’s important to point out that official epidemiological reports are scant. According to what the doctors say —relying on their own figures acquired through observation— public health officials haven’t heeded the alarm from health groups and reports from the general population.” The Chaco report is “one of the only such reports generated publicly with interjurisdictional participation.”
Medardo Ávila Vázquez, coordinator of the medical network, stated that despite the scientific evidence presented, authorities from national and health care sectors are unwilling to accept reality and, in particular, unwilling to acknowledge the pathological changes in the rural population.
He decided to work with groups like the Mothers of Ituzaingó, a neighborhood group in Córdoba surrounded by soy where 300 out of 5,000 inhabitants have cancer, or the Stop Fumigating Collective that opted to protest instead of dying in silence. This group insists that “there is no controllable or safe fumigation,” which is why all fumigation should be stopped.
The Ituzaingó case shows that fumigations affect the poorest of the poor. Without organization and public protest, nothing will be gained. Back in 2002 the Mothers condemned “endosulfan and heavy metals in water tanks in people’s homes,” but to this day their children keep dying of leukemia and suffering from deformities.
Avila’s data is deeply disturbing. “There are more than 12 million people affected by fumigation in the country. In these areas, the rate of birth defects is four times higher than in the cities. Cancer is responsible for 33% of deaths in Barrio Ituzaingó—the leading cause of death— while in big cities the primary causes are cardiovascular problems, which accounts for 27% of the deaths, followed by cancer at 19%.”
by RAUL ZIBECHI
“My wife washed her face with rain water the day after they fumigated farmland about three kilometers from here and she started getting rashes on her arms and her body. That was a year ago. Now she’s very affected, she’s been diagnosed with lupus and is undergoing chemotherapy.” Jorge Mérola, a farmworker from Villa del Carmen in the middle of Uruguay’s soy region, speaks from the depths of a pain that is easy to understand, but almost impossible to relay to others.
A local doctor explained that the marks on Mérola’s skin are caused by “agrochemicals” sprayed over fields from small planes. “Six of my calves died with the same symptoms. They go stiff, they have no muscular mobility, and their jaws lock. The same thing happened to some neighbors,” he explains between long pauses.
When asked why he didn’t report what happened to his wife, Mérola reveals his abysmal distrust of authorities: “I didn’t want to report this to the Ministry of Livestock because a while ago there were a lot of fish dying in the Yi river, and their response was that it was because there wasn’t enough oxygen in the water. With that kind of response, I didn’t want to report anything.”
Mérola’s testimony is one of the many included in the video Collateral Damages (Efectos Colaterales), a documentary made by Redes Amigos de la Tierra Uruguay (Friends of the Earth in Uruguay) and the Programa Uruguay Sustentable (Sustainable Uruguay Program). Reporters Ignacio Cirio and Edgardo Matiolli led the production and it will be released in early February. It can be found on Radio Mundo’s web page. It’s the first visual work that presents proof of the serious human consequences of fumigations.
Breaking the Silence
All the workers interviewed by Cirio demonstrate a keen understanding of the changes in local production: the introduction of crops like soy and fumigation with agrochemicals, the spread of monoculture farming to such an extent that “you see yourself getting closed in on,” as Isabel Olivo, from the Rural Women’s Group Network, puts it. Despite being active in grassroots organizations, Olivo admits “you feel like you have no weapons to fight it.”
Mérola’s case shows the solitude of those affected by fumigations—a solitude characterized by the distance and absence of the State and the complicity of actors like doctors who should be playing an active role. In spite of the seriousness of what happened to his wife, Mérola did only one interview, on the Sarandí del Yi radio station, which Cirio picked up and turned into the beginning of his investigation. Today his project is one of the very few to break the silence.
“Those affected don’t see the State as an entity that guarantees their rights,” he affirms, after traveling hundreds of kilometers across the areas most affected by fumigations like Florida, Flores, Durazno, Paysandú and Salto.
“Professor Elsa Gomez filed a complaint after her school was sprayed two times in a row. When public health workers interviewed her, they demanded proof that would link the health problems with agrochemicals. The State doesn’t protect them, but it makes demands of them,” concludes Cirio. Gomez teaches in a small town in the province of Durazno. In Collateral Damages she explains how the planes sprayed pesticides just meters from the school over the course of several days in 2009 without anyone showing, at least publicly, the slightest sign of concern.
“There are many things that people don’t want to come out and say, because they’re neighbors, because they rely on each other, but I know of cases that have been covered up and I see how they go out to fumigate with broken equipment,” says Luis Ferreira, who was president of the school commission in Merinos, in the province of Paysandú. His son, like other children, has stomach problems and vomits every time the planes fumigate less than 100 meters away from the school.
In his film, Cirio interviews beekeepers who have watched their hives disappear, small-scale livestock owners and farmers, village neighbors, nurses and teachers who discover the consequences of agrochemicals for their students’ bodies. He didn’t interview any doctors. When asked about the silence of those who are aware of the situation and its causes, he reflects: “Businesses make deals with schools, social clubs and hospitals. The doctors don’t say anything.”
On several occasions the team that made Collateral Damages had problems with “mosquito” (a vehicle for land fumigation) drivers who saw them filming. Some of them got out of their vehicles and wanted to know what the piece was about. “They have orders not to let themselves be filmed,” Cirio concludes.
In spite of the difficulties, he found that rural and small town inhabitants were aware of the growing problem they are facing. This is because, among other things, “they are informed, they travel, they ask questions and, for this reason, they demand that the government carry out an in-depth study of the situation.” Onelia Dominguez, a nurse’s assistant in the town of Rincón de Valentín, believes that the workers don’t demand adequate working conditions because they’re afraid they’ll lose their jobs. She agrees with Cirio that “no one has ever come to investigate.”
Overcoming the Solitude
Although the indifference of both the government and the university is the main cause for the silence among the victims, this is also a population with little opportunity to make itself heard.
In March of 2001, the Uruguayan Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fishing prohibited aerial spraying closer than 500 meters from schools and land spraying closer than 300 meters “to diminish the risk of exposure to intrinsically dangerous substances.” But to comply with the rules, someone must control or report abuses. Isabel Cárcamo, from the Red de Acción en Plaguicidas (RAP-AL), said, “We have had the experience of working with communities that find it very difficult to denounce the impact of fumigations, either because they have relatives working in crop-dusting or because it’s their livelihood, or because they live in small towns where everyone knows everyone and the business even ‘helps’ the community.”
It’s the same problem that the anthropologist Carlos Santos detected. Beekeepers, for example, “confront the dilemma of not reporting the death rate of the bees so they don’t get kicked off the place where they’ve been allowed to set up their hives or lose whatever space they have,” because filing a complaint causes trouble for the landowner who rents the land used for growing soy.
Dr. María Elena Curbelo pointed out that in the vicinity of Bella Unión, an agroindustrial city where she’s been working for 16 years, rice and sugar cane plantations are sprayed with pesticides. This has led to congenital deformities in newborns and year-round respiratory problems.
She affirmed that there are various cases of pediatric leukemia in the region. She recognized that “while there were fumigations on the edge of town and one part of the population wanted to complain, the workers preferred to not risk their jobs and the people opted to remain silent.”
Most people affected by fumigation live in small towns, where everyone knows each other and there exists a persistent “cultura de esperar”–a culture of expecting someone else to solve their problems. People look to rural bosses (caudillos), landowners, and now businessmen or the government. In Uruguay, they are small towns with between 400 and two thousand inhabitants.
The rural population is systematically declining throughout Latin America. Uruguay is perhaps the most alarming case– only five percent of Uruguayans live in rural areas. Adults between the ages of 50 to 65 represent 42% of the rural population. It’s not hard to conclude that the population is in a slow process of extinction. The model of production with its disastrous health effects adds to out-migration by making rural life inhospitable.
“The Ministry of Public Health can’t recruit doctors who want to live in these places. Under such conditions,” Cirio says, “there’s an awareness of the seriousness, but there are only a few isolated efforts made with little support from organizations or professional associations.”
Cárcamo insists that powerful interests are behind the silence surrounding the effects of agrochemicals. “There is no political interest. If there were, it would be necessary to question the country’s so-called production model and the use of biofuel, among other things. The issue will really only be exposed when a political decision is made. One example is the contrast between the aggressive campaign against tobacco, while nothing is said about the impacts of the daily ingestion of agrochemicals through food and water. And the worst thing is that smoking is something you can choose, but eating and drinking water aren’t.”
Brazil, World Champion in Agrochemicals
According to a recent report by the Movimento Sem Terra (MST), Brazilian society is more and more aware of the health problems caused by agrochemical contamination. “Toxins are one of the pillars that sustain the agribusiness production model,” the organization affirms. It defines the model as export-oriented and characterized by the expulsion of families from the countryside.
Since 2008, Brazil holds first place in world rankings of agrochemical use, even though it is not the largest agricultural producer. Billions of liters are poured onto crops, and this is a practice that even the MST has not escaped. In 2010, a national campaign against agrochemicals was born and created official entities like the National Cancer Institute (INCA), Fiocruz and the Sanitary Vigilance Agency. Specialists have no doubt that agrochemicals are related to cancer. According to the INCA, in the next two years one million Brazilians will be diagnosed with cancer and only six out of every ten of those affected will recover. Furthermore, there will be consequences for millions of people who experience a number of afflictions every year. In a recent conference in Rio de Janeiro, Joâo Pedro Stédile, MST coordinator, complained that in the movement’s settlements “there are instances of breast cancer in 13 and 14 year-old girls” (Carta Maior, December 20).
Brazil’s 2011 Human Rights report, released in December by the Social Network of Justice and Human Rights explains that each year 5,600 people are poisoned with agrochemicals while only half the cases are reported. Based on reports from the Ministry of Health, the report concludes that every year there are 2,300 “suicide attempts” made with agrochemicals. The southern region prides itself on agribusiness, but at the same time this model explains 75 percent of deaths there. This surprising revelation led various scientists to undertake field studies.
One study published in the Revista Brasileira de Saúde Ocupacional by the Ministry of Labor notes the connection between suicides and the massive use of agrochemicals because organophosphates, among other things, produce psychological disorders. “Scientific evidence shows that exposure to pesticides can cause irrevocable health damages. For example, advanced neuropathy is a result of overexposure to organophosphates. Indeed, exposure is associated with a long list of symptoms and with significant deficits in neurobehavioral performance and abnormalities in nervous system functions.
The journal of the Brazilian Association of Postgraduates in Public Health also published case studies based on a survey of 102 rural workers from Nova Friburgo. They concluded that there is a direct relationship between emotional and psychological disturbances and exposure to agrochemicals.
Argentina: Doctors in Fumigated Towns
In the agricultural cycle of 1990, the Argentine countryside received 35 million pounds of pesticides. In 2010, agribusinesses used more than 300 million liters of toxins. The numbers continue to grow. In 1996, when fumigation with glyphosate began, about two liters were used per hectare. By 2010, the figure had increased to more than ten liters, and there is some land fumigated with more than twenty liters per hectare.
This data was presented during the First National Conference of Doctors in Fumigated Towns, in August 2010 in Córdoba, Argentina. The conference was held by the Department of Medical Sciences of the National University of Cordoba. A hundred and sixty doctors from ten provinces and dozens of towns attended.
The conference led to the creation of the University Environment and Health Network, committed to following up on health problems created by agrotoxins.
The event’s final report states, “The doctors pointed out that, generally speaking, they have served the same populations for more than 25 years, but they find that recent years have been completely different, and they link the differences directly to systematic fumigation with pesticides.” Rodolfo Páramo, pediatric and neonatal doctor at the Malabrigo hospital in the Norte de Santa Fe reported the disturbing rate of twelve deformations of 200 births in 2006.
The neonatal service at the Perrando Hospital in Resistencia, Chaco, released its own statistics: in 1997, there were 19.5 deformities in every 10,000 newborns. In 2008, the number tripled to 85.3. In the same period, the land area planted in soybeans in the province quadrupled.
The final conference report took into account the many testimonies and reports presented and concluded, “It’s important to point out that official epidemiological reports are scant. According to what the doctors say —relying on their own figures acquired through observation— public health officials haven’t heeded the alarm from health groups and reports from the general population.” The Chaco report is “one of the only such reports generated publicly with interjurisdictional participation.”
Medardo Ávila Vázquez, coordinator of the medical network, stated that despite the scientific evidence presented, authorities from national and health care sectors are unwilling to accept reality and, in particular, unwilling to acknowledge the pathological changes in the rural population.
He decided to work with groups like the Mothers of Ituzaingó, a neighborhood group in Córdoba surrounded by soy where 300 out of 5,000 inhabitants have cancer, or the Stop Fumigating Collective that opted to protest instead of dying in silence. This group insists that “there is no controllable or safe fumigation,” which is why all fumigation should be stopped.
The Ituzaingó case shows that fumigations affect the poorest of the poor. Without organization and public protest, nothing will be gained. Back in 2002 the Mothers condemned “endosulfan and heavy metals in water tanks in people’s homes,” but to this day their children keep dying of leukemia and suffering from deformities.
Avila’s data is deeply disturbing. “There are more than 12 million people affected by fumigation in the country. In these areas, the rate of birth defects is four times higher than in the cities. Cancer is responsible for 33% of deaths in Barrio Ituzaingó—the leading cause of death— while in big cities the primary causes are cardiovascular problems, which accounts for 27% of the deaths, followed by cancer at 19%.”
Sunday, August 14, 2011
ZEITGEIST: Moving Forward (2011)
This is the whole, Official Online (Youtube) Release of Zeitgeist: Moving Forward by Peter Joseph.
On Jan. 15th, 2011, Zeitgeist: Moving Forward was released theatrically to sold out crowds in 60 countries; 31 languages; 295 cities and 341 Venues. It has been noted as the largest non-profit independent film release in history.
This is a non-commercial work and is available online for free viewing and no restrictions apply to uploading/download/posting/linking - as long as no money is exchanged.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Reagan - The Documentary
(It's an Iframe embed code, so I can't resize to fit in my blog's 480 pixel width. You can toggle in full screen mode or here is the direct link so you can resize to whatever you'd like. I just noticed that the video doesn't even show on Google Buzz, so you Buzzers will have to click the link for sure. I thought Iframes, fixed the embed problem on Buzz. Guess not.)
I've never been a fan of Reagan, if that isn't obvious. And recently, several economists have made compelling arguments that our financial troubles today can be traced directly back to Reagan's initial tax cuts for the wealthy (he raised taxes on us poor folks 6 times). The redistribution of wealth in the US began again under Reagan which would culminate today into the greatest disparity between rich and poor this country has seen since the first decade of the 1900s. That is Reagan's most lasting legacy.
The fact he traded arms for hostages to fund covert operations in Central America seems par for the political course these days, and I wasn't surprised when old footage of the Mujahideen leadership meeting with Reagan in the White House, and there's Osama bin Laden, who was one of the Mujahideen leaders and a US ally while the Mujahideen fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. And there's also that infamous photo of Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein in 1983, shaking hands on the deal in which the US sold Iraq the weapons they used on the Kurds. So none of that covert, secret stuff surprises me. I just assume that all presidents have similar dirty little secrets, and yes, they all lie about them.
But Reagan being such an iconic figure for the Republicans--I know for a fact there are members of the GOP who hold Reagan in higher esteem than any of our founding fathers, AND Jesus Christ as well. And many of those Tea Baggers who love Reagan--working class people who are suffering through this *sssshhh* depression (with a small "d"), can't grasp that Reagan policies are what led to the loss of their jobs, their pensions, and their tax dollars being funneled to the rich.
Saint Ronnie Raygun is also responsible for amassing such a huge mountaion of debt which we've never been able to pay off, and which has increased with every president since, most notably our current and previous presidents. President Ronald Reagan is more myth and real. Ronald Reagan was a flawed executive--as they all are--ultimately no better or worse than the others who held his job. I believe he had only the best intentions behind his bad decisions to knowingly break the law in the Iran-Contra Operation, he even admits (kind of) his error in judgment--even says some of his advisors were adamant he not pursue an illegal course.
This documentary presents a nice historical perspective on Ronald Reagan's political journey from president of the Screen Actor's Guild; to his initial affiliation as a liberal Democrat and fan of Roosevelt's New Deal; to being questioned in McCarthy's Pink scare in the Communist witchhunt in Hollywood in the 1950s--which though publicly, he did not name names, privately, he had become an FBI informant, giving the FBI a whole bunch of names. Then through the communist controversy, he embraced conservatism, became governor of California, and lost 3 campaigns for GOP presidential nominee before finally getting his party's support in 1980.
This film presents many points of view toward Reagan, from the Saint Ronnie views held by Grover Norquist and his bunch, to the candid views of some of his staff who disagreed with him on policy decisions, reporters who broke the Iran-Contra scandal story, political commentators, and his two sons, Michael and Ron. And here's the kicker: Reagan's views back then were closer to Obama's and Clinton's than to either of the Bushes. Reagan would be a moderate Democrat if his career had begun more recently and he was active in politics with the same views he had then. Ronald Reagan, blue dog Democrat, and not Saint Ronnie of the GOP. Would he have been as memorable as a Democrat? Probably not. He was big government, and even though he blasted big govt with his rhetoric, the size of the federal govt increased under Reagan and both Bushes. Goldwater spun in his grave like a plane propeller.
Reagan is a very fair account of Ronald Reagan's life, it seems by all accounts. It's not a character assassination, and you could argue that some of Reagan's worst moments sort of get glossed over without much depth (like his FBI informant role, the Iran hostage release after his inauguration, etc). While no one says anything horrible about the man, damning evidence is presented that should have knocked Reagan off anyone's high pedestal. He broke the law, and it was an impeachable offense. But he made the rich in this country so much richer, and for that, he is America's favorite president, even by many poor people who are clueless how connected his policies are to their poverty.
I enjoyed the film, and enjoyed the new perspective shown on those days. I was in 6th grade when Reagan was elected and a sophomore in college when his term ended, and during his two terms, I had become politically aware, and opposed his administration quite demonstratively. My mom worked the Republican Convention in Dallas in 1984 as a volunteer, and I was outside in the "Rock Against Reagan" demonstration where punk bands set up their equipment as close to Reunion Arena as we could get. See, there were no Free Speech Zones back then.--jef
Friday, January 21, 2011
Top Documentaries
I want to give props to a website called TopDocumentaryFilms.com .They host links to literally hundreds of documentary films on a wide variety of topics. Now, I typically gravitate to the ones regarding the current economic mess and the shift of our government to authoritarian rule (no matter which puppet is charge), but I do watch films on other topics too.
So, now a list of recommendations (I'll do this from time to time).
Top 10 Documentaries for Mr. Jefro Today
So, now a list of recommendations (I'll do this from time to time).
Top 10 Documentaries for Mr. Jefro Today
10. The Beauty of Maps
Documentary series looking at maps in incredible detail to highlight their artistic attributions and reveal the stories that they tell.09. Bukowski: Born Into This
Director John Dullaghan’s biographical documentary about infamous poet Charles Bukowski is as much a touching portrait of the author as it is an exposé of his sordid lifestyle.08. Bruce Lee – A Warrior’s Journey
Bruce Lee was inarguably the greatest martial arts star of his generation, and his intense on-screen charisma and astounding fighting skills make him the standard by which other martial arts heroes are measured.07. Beyond Treason
Department of Defense documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act expose the horrific underworld of the "disposable army" mentality and the government funded experimentation upon US citizens conducted without their knowledge or consent.06. A World Without Water
As less and less water is available, you have yet another problem being added and that is the problem of privatization. There are companies now saying ‘why don’t we bottle it, mine it, divert it, sell it, commodify it.’ Every day 3900 children die as a result of insufficient or unclean water supplies.05. Big Bucks, Big Pharma: Marketing Disease & Pushing Drugs
Pulls back the curtain on the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry to expose the insidious ways that illness is used, manipulated, and in some instances created, for capital gain. Focusing on the industry’s marketing practices, media scholars and health professionals help viewers understand the ways in which direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising glamorizes and normalizes the use of prescription medication.04. American Hardcore
The history of hardcore punk–the tougher, faster, and more politically minded stepchild of the ’70s punk movement that arose in the ’80s–is examined in exuberant detail in Paul Rachman’s documentary.03. Big Brother, Big Business
Every day technologies are being used to monitor Americans with unprecedented scrutiny – from driving habits to workplace surveillance. Shoppers and diners are observed and analyzed; Internet searches are monitored and used as evidence in court. It is big business that collects most of the data about us. But increasingly, it’s the government that’s using it.02. Totally Bill Hicks
A celebration of the comedy of Bill Hicks. The film is structured around the different strains of comedy in the Hicks stand-up, sampling the best of his confrontational performance.01. American Drug War: The Last White Hope
35 years after Nixon started the war on drugs, we have over one million non-violent drug offenders living behind bars. The War on Drugs has become the longest and most costly war in American history, the question has become, how much more can the country endure?
Let me know if you liked or disliked any of these. I don't know how often I'll do this. I have no affiliation to the site, but I sure do enjoy the hell out of it.
peace
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Inside Job: Face to Face with People Who Destroyed Economy
Director Ferguson makes the case that the meltdown wasn't just an unfortunate accident, it was totally avoidable.
By Emily Wilson, AlterNet
Posted on November 7, 2010
vidlink
Inside Job, the infuriating and compelling new documentary from Charles Ferguson, tells the story of the global financial crisis of 2008, which led to millions of people around the world losing their homes and jobs.
Critics have been raving about the film's insight and incisiveness. Kenneth Turan from the Los Angeles Times wrote, "After watching Charles Ferguson's powerhouse documentary about the global economic crisis, you will more than understand what went down -- you will be thunderstruck and boiling with rage."
Ferguson makes the case that the meltdown wasn't just an unfortunate accident -- it was totally avoidable. Through interviews with financial experts such as International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, French Minister of Finance Christine Lagarde, and former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, and detailed explanations of credit default swaps and derivatives, Ferguson paints a picture of an unethical industry driven by greed, rampant deregulation and an indifferent government. Ferguson, who also made No End In Sight, about the Iraq war, has a PhD in political science, and worked as a government consultant and a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He is clearly outraged about what happened. "You can't be serious," he tells a former governor of the Federal Reserve who claims they tried to find out who was responsible.
Ferguson sat down with AlterNet in San Francisco to talk about how he felt compelled to make this movie after recognizing the level of criminality to which the financial industry had sunk.
By Emily Wilson, AlterNet
Posted on November 7, 2010
vidlink
Inside Job, the infuriating and compelling new documentary from Charles Ferguson, tells the story of the global financial crisis of 2008, which led to millions of people around the world losing their homes and jobs.
Critics have been raving about the film's insight and incisiveness. Kenneth Turan from the Los Angeles Times wrote, "After watching Charles Ferguson's powerhouse documentary about the global economic crisis, you will more than understand what went down -- you will be thunderstruck and boiling with rage."
Ferguson makes the case that the meltdown wasn't just an unfortunate accident -- it was totally avoidable. Through interviews with financial experts such as International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, French Minister of Finance Christine Lagarde, and former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, and detailed explanations of credit default swaps and derivatives, Ferguson paints a picture of an unethical industry driven by greed, rampant deregulation and an indifferent government. Ferguson, who also made No End In Sight, about the Iraq war, has a PhD in political science, and worked as a government consultant and a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He is clearly outraged about what happened. "You can't be serious," he tells a former governor of the Federal Reserve who claims they tried to find out who was responsible.
Ferguson sat down with AlterNet in San Francisco to talk about how he felt compelled to make this movie after recognizing the level of criminality to which the financial industry had sunk.
Emily Wilson: How did you decide how much detail you were going to explain to the audience, and how?
Charles Ferguson: We wanted to make the film accessible and the ideas accessible. I did my best to keep jargon out of the film. And where it was necessary to explain something that was somewhat technical -- for example, we felt it was important to explain credit default swaps and the securitization chain because they were so critical to what happened -- we did our best to make those things accessible. Hence the graphics and using a mixture of different ways to explain things, so that if someone wasn't attuned to narration but was attuned to graphics, or wasn't attuned to graphics but would be more attuned to hearing somebody say it, we tried to explain things in an overlapping way, with a little bit of deliberate redundancy.
EW: Your background is in political science, writing, and math. Why did you become a filmmaker?
CF: I've always loved film. Ever since I was a kid I've loved movies and always had a secret dream fantasy of being able to make them. Part of the reason I love movies is they show things other media can't. To take this film, if you were to read a transcript of my interview with Glenn Hubbard [chief economic adviser during the Bush administration and current Dean of the Columbia Business School] or Frederic Mishkin [a member of Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2008, and professor at Columbia Business School], you would certainly understand I was going after something and you'd probably understand they were being evasive, but to see them conveys it in a much clearer way. It conveys something the printed word just can't.
EW: Why do you think some of those people, such as Frederic Mishkin and some of Bush's top people, agreed to give you an interview?
CF: I think they're not used to being challenged. I think they granted the interview request assuming I was going to be like the other people that interview them -- very deferential, very nice, very easy. I think it came as quite a surprise to them when I challenged them. And also that I knew as much as I did.
EW: Did they know that you knew as much as you did?
CF: They clearly did not realize that in advance, but I think they should have. I did not conceal my background, so they knew who I was. Some of them asked to see a copy of my CV. Some of them asked to see my previous film. A couple of them had seen my previous film. David McCormack, for example, who was Under Secretary of the Treasury, had seen my film. He actually has a military background. He was at West Point and was in the first Gulf War as a battalion commander. So there was no concealment in mind about who I was. I think these guys are just used to people being really nice to them because they're powerful.
EW: Was there one defining moment that made you decide you had to make this movie?
CF: The simultaneous collapse of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG in September 2008 made it pretty clear there was something truly enormous going on here, and I'd already been thinking about making a film about this subject. I was worrying about whether it would be possible to make a film about the finance interesting and wondering whether the crisis and its effects would be severe enough and sufficiently long lasting to merit making a film that takes two years to make and has to have a substantial audience to justify the effort and time and expense of making it. Well, September 2008, certainly took care of that problem. At that point it was clear to me and to people in the financial world and were watching this carefully, that this was a very deep thing and it was going to be with us for a long time. It was also clear it was sufficiently dramatic and sufficiently extreme that a lot of people would be interested in such a film if I could make it well enough.
EW: In the movie, in your questions, you seem to be angry about what happened. How much did you want to let that show, and how much did you rein it in in the movie?
CF: I wouldn't say I was always angry about it. I certainly tried to keep my cool when I was interviewing people and for the most part I think I did keep my cool. It doesn't benefit anybody if you lose your temper. It doesn't benefit the film. I wanted to keep a clear head because I wanted to get the information, and I wanted to get the answers. I wanted to make these people talk or show them trying really hard not to. I didn't want to just show a screaming match because there's no point in showing a screaming match. There certainly is an edge in my voice sometimes, but it was me being determined that I wasn't going to let these people get away with it. No, I'm not going to just let you say this and let it hang there. You're going to have to explain.
EW: What's an example of something outrageous you felt you couldn't let slide?
CF: Oh, there were quite a number of them ranging from David McCormack saying his boss, Henry Paulson, had spoken often and truthfully about the causes of the crisis when, in fact, one of the principle causes of the crisis was Henry Paulson -- a fact which Henry Paulson didn't mention very much. Then the way the academics handled the issue of their own personal conflicts of interest and the general issue of conflicts of interest in the economics discipline.
EW: Based on your research, what do you find the most upsetting or scandalous part of the story?
CF: The level to which ethics in the financial services industry have sunk. Investment banking used to be a genteel industry, and it's not anymore. It's a very ruthless, very dishonest industry. I found it quite surprising and quite shocking how far that had gone.
When I started making the film, it was already clear there had been some quite unethical behavior. That was already obvious, but I had no idea when I started making the film that for the previous three or four years the investment banks had been betting against the securities they were selling to people, and in some cases specifically designing securities so they could bet against them and profit by betting against them after they'd sold them to people. If somebody had said that to me, that this had been going on for years and it was tens of billions of dollars worth of securities, securities often sold to the pension funds of poor people, I would have said "No, I know that bad things have gone on, but that's just too evil. They wouldn't do that. That wouldn't be tolerated." But in fact, they had been doing it, and it was tolerated. It still is. Nobody has been prosecuted for this. Nobody.
EW: When this first happened, did you think people would go to jail?
CF: Yes, I did. In previous similar, far less extreme circumstances, people did go to jail. It used to be that if you committed a major financial fraud in the United States, you went to jail. In the late 1980s, there was, what was then considered a major financial crisis, caused by the collapse of the savings and loan industry, a collapse which had been brought about by a large quantity of fraud. Several thousand financial executives went to prison in the late 1980s. Several very senior Wall Street executives also went to prison for having assisted in this -- Michael Milkin, Ivan Boesky -- a large group of people went to prison.
Then in the aftermath of the dot-com bubble fewer people went to jail, but some people did go to jail. When Enron collapsed, the people who ran Enron went to prison, and the CEO of WorldCom went to prison. He's still in prison. Those things were far less extreme than what occurred here, with far fewer consequences.
EW: Why do you think that is?
CF: I think what's happened over the last 20 years roughly the financial industry has acquired so much political power that it now has impunity. Since we started having deregulation and financial crises, with each successive crisis the consequences were more severe and yet, fewer people went to prison.
EW: You talk about the 'corrosive relationships' that led to this -- what are they?
CF: The obvious, conventional one that everybody sort of knows about is between government and industry, people going back and forth between the industry that they're supposed to be regulating and the industry itself. For example, Robert Rubin, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, became Treasury Secretary of the Clinton administration. While he was Treasury Secretary, he had a major role in the further deregulation of the financial services industry and very specifically, repealing the Glass-Steagall Act which had forced a separation between investment banking and commercial banking. The first and biggest beneficiary of the repeal of that law was Citigroup. Citicorp and Travelers wanted to merge and that merger was illegal under the Glass-Steagall Act. Then Mr. Rubin and others got that law passed, and Mr. Rubin left the Clinton administration and became vice-chair of Citigroup, which then paid him over $100 million.
The less obvious one is that this is actually a triangular relationship, and the third part of the triangle is academia. People going between having positions in universities as economists and being in industry and being in government, and often being paid by industry while they are in academia and while they are writing papers and making speeches about what policy should be toward the industry they're being paid by.
EW: Why do you think people didn't get more outraged? Did that surprise you?
CF: It does surprise me. I think it's more difficult to do something about this because it's a fully bipartisan problem. You can't switch from one political party to the other. So the kind of effort people have to engage to try and become activist about this is much more complicated and much more difficult. You have to think about and know about the records of individual candidates, individual members of Congress. You have to think about who to donate money to and who not to. Or conceivably start a new organization or a new political party.
Someone said to me yesterday the American people are now weary and tired. Those people who have jobs are working harder to keep them and those people who don't have jobs don't have money and their primary concern is trying to get a job and keep their house, keep their car. And because things are so difficult for so many people, people don't have the kind of psychological energy to do the kind of things they might otherwise.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
"al Qaeda Does Not Exist" a documentary by the BBC
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
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