September 19th, 2008 by Manila Ryce
No End in Sight, the critically acclaimed 2007 documentary about the lead-up to the Iraq War, will be available on YouTube in its entirety until November 5th. Their official channel also features behind the scenes footage and interviews.
July 15th, 2008 by Manila Ryce
This documentary was made by mr1001nights, who obviously put a lot of work into it. Subscribe to his channel. He knows his shit.
July 2nd, 2008 by evmonk
I was reading this profile of Rush Limbaugh from the upcoming NYTimes mag and came across something odd. Not only does Limbaugh follow Olbermann’s lead in referring to his counterpart Bill O’Reilly as a real-life Ted Baxter, he also has good things to say about the rhetorical powers of Christopher Hitchens. This struck me as somewhat odd, considering Hitchens is a Marxist/Atheist who is famous for, among countless other controversial remarks, his convincing assessment of Henry Kissinger as a war criminal.
Anyway, this led me to an article and video Hitchens produced for the August ‘08 issue of Vanity Fair where he gets waterboarded. It’s an interesting enough video, which I threw on YouTube when I realized VF doesn’t allowed embedding.
Kudos to Hitchens for putting his aging, booze-saturated body under such duress. Although he taps out kind of quickly, don’t you think? (Not that I’d last any longer.) And what’s up with that music? Is that Enya?
Kaj Larson of Current TV, a former Navy Seal, submitted himself to a far more extensive and violent waterboarding session 2 summers ago. Plus Kaj’s video has more diverse, interesting commentary. Check it out by clicking below.
May 26th, 2008 by Manila Ryce
Those of you familiar with Jewish-American professor Norman Finkelstein may recall the politically motivated decision to deny him tenure at DePaul University, along with the decision to put him on administrative leave for the academic year, followed by his eventual resignation. This clear assault against academic freedom was due mostly to an aggressive campaign headed by his bitter Zionist opponent Alan Dershowitz.
Above is the trailer for an upcoming film titled “American Radical“, which documents Finkelstein’s struggle prior to this latest incident.
After landing at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport on May 23rd, Professor Finkelstein was detained by the Israeli security service Shin Bet. He was interrogated for 24 hours before being deported and told that he was banned from Israel for 10 years.
In 2006, after Israel launched a pre-planned war of aggression against Lebanon as a test-run for Iran, Finkelstein publicly expressing solidarity with the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah. While detained by Shin Bet, the high-profile critic of Israeli occupation was questioned about whether he had met with al-Qaeda operatives or had been sent by Hezbollah. Finkelstein rejected the accusations, explaining that he had traveled to Israel to visit an old friend. Regardless, Shin Bet said the professor was “not permitted to enter Israel because of suspicions involving hostile elements in Lebanon,” and because he “did not give a full accounting to interrogators with regard to these suspicions.”
May 24th, 2008 by Manila Ryce
Satellite feeds carry live unedited footage before it has been spun by the corporate media. Take an hour to watch this behind the scenes documentary from the 90s on how our “TV democracy” is run.
Artist Brian Springer spent a year scouring the airwaves with a satellite dish grabbing back channel news feeds not intended for public consumption. The result of his research is SPIN, one of the most insightful films ever made about the mechanics of how television is used as a tool of social control to distort and limit the American public’s perception of reality.
h/t Brasscheck TV
You can download the movie for free here
May 1st, 2008 by Manila Ryce
The workers’ struggle has no borders. As always, fantastic documentarian work from nauiocelotl.
April 6th, 2008 by Manila Ryce
A message from PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. This video includes an introduction by Congressman Dennis Kucinich and excerpts from Newkirk’s speech at the International Nonviolence Conference in Bethlehem. Parts 2-4 are available below the fold.
March 28th, 2008 by evmonk
I wasn’t fully aware of Phil Donahue back in the day when he was dominating daytime talk, but I vividly remember his short-lived show on MSNBC in 2002-03. As a college sophomore watching this country mindlessly head to war, Donahue was literally the only person I remember on mainstream television who consistently challenged the rationale for war. Night after night, he pleaded with Americans to pay attention and debate the disastrous course we were on. Here was a host unafraid to feature topics like the PATRIOT Act, the drug war, and Israel-Palestine, and provide a national platform for guests like Ralph Nader, Barbara Ehrenreich, and mothers of 9/11 victims who opposed war (any war) in their name. He’d run around his studio with a microphone, inviting his audience to engage in the discussion. I even remember at least one show where he was taking live calls in the studio, and I was so excited that someone on cable news was telling the truth that I did something I’d never done before and called (though I didn’t make it on air).
And then on February 25, 2003, less than a month before the Iraq war began, Donahue - then the most watched show on MSNBC - was canceled. An internal memo at NBC spoke of executives’ fears that Phil would be “a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.” The memo continued, “He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration’s motives,” and went on to describe how the Donahue show could become “a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity.”
Everyone knows what’s happened in the world since Phil Donahue was booted out of our living rooms, but what about him? He made a brief cable news cameo in 2005 to belittle and embarrass Bill O’Reilly, and now he’s back with a feature-length documentary on the war that Manila highlighted earlier this week. Good thing there are non-corporate media outlets like The Real News and Democracy Now! who aren’t afraid to put Donahue back on-screen where he belongs.
(See this excerpt from Jeff Cohen’s book for a fascinating behind-the-scenes account of the challenges the Donahue show faced at MSNBC. Cohen was a senior producer of the show, and is the founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.)
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