Link TV Documentary on US-Iran Citizens' Initiative

Thanks to Iran Nuclear Watch for the tip-off...

From the Press TV website:

"Near the steps of the Capitol building in Washington, American citizens and U.S. Congressional representatives took part in a special event using a row of 60’s-era red “hotline” telephones to talk directly to ordinary Iranians in Tehran, including a 60-year-old petroleum engineer, a software designer, a French literature professor and a high school student. Many of the more than 50 conversations focused on personal questions while stressing the need to get dialogue going and building better relations between the U.S. and Iran."

You can watch the documentary here: http://www.linktv.org/programs/talktoiran

Video: It Shouldn’t Happen to a Muslim

Via the Fanonite…

In this Channel 4 Dispatches documentary It Shouldn’t Happen to a Muslim Peter Oborne looks at whether or not Islam and British Muslims have been demonised by the UK media. Three years after the July 7 bombings in London, Peter Oborne reports on whether the attacks, combined with fears of terrorism, have fuelled the rise of violence and intolerance towards the Muslim community in Britain. Oborne meets British Muslims who live in fear of being attacked, and investigates whether press coverage of terror incidents has had the side-effect of portraying Islam and British Muslims in a negative fashion. - Youtube

This documentary has got it's problems, but it's interesting nevertheless...I thought the parallels between the reactions of the Evening Standard to London's Jewish community at the beginning of the 20th century and the pronouncements of the tabloid media today regarding Britain's Muslim community were particularly interesting, and something which myself and many others have echoed for some time...not to mention the reams of distorted and wholly fabricated stories with the sole aim of demonizing a minority section of the population for the sake of sensationalism and selling newspapers...it's also worthy of note how the all-encompassing category of 'Muslim' has come to replace more 'taboo' racist terms like 'Paki', 'wog' etc...this is perhaps the chief route by means of which a racist discourse transforms itself, in the hope of legitimation and assimilation into the mainstream - 'Muslim' in the west has in many respects become a legitimate synonym for racist fulminations...it's also interesting how the journalists of the right-wing media claim they are merely recapitulating the views of their readers...funny how they think the preferred option is reinforcing ignorance, prejudice and racism as opposed to challenging such bigoted preconceptions in an effort to dispel them...finally, the crypto-Nazi BNP and its constituency who draw upon the lexicon of ethnic cleansing and the likening of 'Muslims' to cockroaches shows the depth of hatred and growing ignorance pervading Britain's streets, often surreptitiously or tacitly supported by the British tabloid press who not only panders to such stupidity but even full-heartedly caters to it...

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Documentary: The Secret Government

Excellent documentary made by that bastion of good, old-fashioned American journalism, Bill Moyers, and fascinating on account of how many parallels there are with the Bush administration's 'war on terror', reliance of the 'politics of fear', disdain for Congress, international law and finally the American people. It is also worthy of note how much the situation has declined even since Iran-Contra and how to paraphrase Gore Vidal 'the republic has well and truly been lost'.

Moyers details the formation of a 'secret government' from the end of the Second World war, through the coups in Iran and Guatemala (both of which had catastrophic results in the longer-term), the Bay of Pigs, assassination attempts made against foreign leaders and dignitaries, the Vietnam War and the My Lai Massacre, Watergate and finally Iran-Contra. A dangerous and unaccountable rival to the legislative branch has long been in the ascendancy - the nexus of executive power, the Pentagon and the CIA - with little respect for the law, they are free to carry out whatever they deem necessary in the name of 'national security' and safeguarding the American people against 'foreign threats'. The trend has precipitously worsened since the scandal of Iran-Contra - one only has to look at the total inaction of a pliant, timid and meek Congress in response to the authorization of covert ops against Iran and ongoing flippant brinkmanship that may well provoke a disastrous war to ensue as a direct result.

This is the first part of the documentary:



You can watch the whole documentary here:

http://www.iranian.com/main/blog/sadegh/video-secret-government

Planet of the Arabs : Orientalism and Racism Cont...

Documentary: Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal has long been a lone voice of reason and blistering wit in a ocean of mediocrity and officially sanctioned propaganda. This documentary provides an overview of Vidal's life, times and work and makes interesting viewing. At 82 this great man of letters is still going strong and continues to draw the world's attention to the crimes committed by this administration, which couldn't wait a moment longer to jump over the precipice and ensure the 'death of the republic' by means of the steady dismemberment of Magna Carta and thus the rule of law, due process and many other fundamental civil liberties that have simply been chewed up and spat out over the last 8 years.

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Documentary: Taking Liberties

Take a look at this interesting, if in part, flawed documentary on the rapid erosion of civil liberties in the United Kingdom, since the election of the Labour government in 1997, led by Prime Minister Tony Blair. The documentary's main premise is that civil disobedience and protest against government policies are progressively being outlawed in a de facto manner, as they increasingly and somewhat worryingly are subsumed under laws originally drawn up to militate against and counteract terrorism. All in the name of 'freedom' mind you; what a farce...