Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers
Our government and corporations like Halliburton have developed a "cost-plus" arrangement where the more money Halliburton spends on the war, the more it makes. For instance, instead of fixing a flat tire on an $80,000 truck, they will just burn the entire truck and buy a new one. They get reimbursed for all this, plus a percentage profit on top. It encourages waste. Who pays for all this? We do. Learn how Halliburton/KBR ruins American families by sending it's civilian employees into war zones to be killed. And how they provide US troops with water contaminated with "malaria, typhus, giardia…the list is really really long…of the 67 water treatment plants that Halliburton runs, 63 of them have unsafe water…and the marines are showering in it every single day," former Halliburton/KBR employee. Democrats in congress have tried to pass initiatives to limit this kind of abuse, even to simply set up committees to review this kind of abuse. But no republicans will ever vote for it. Does it feel like these millionaire republicans are stealing your money? Current Halliburton CEO, David Lesar, made 42 million dollars in 2004. How much money have you made from the war? "It's a legal way of stealing from the American people and the military," former Halliburton/KBR truck driver. "I'm a patriot. I love our country. I want our country to survive. And the survival of our country depends on us taking it back," SGT army national guard.
Why We Fight
In Eisenhower's farewell address he warned the American people to "guard against the military-industrial complex." The military is now a 3/4 Trillion dollar business. "Profits went up 25% last year. When war becomes that profitable, you're going to see more of it," Chalmers Johnson, former CIA. "9/11 taught us that war can be privatized, destruction can be privatized." For Example, Cheney is a former Halliburton CEO. Their net worth since the Iraq war has quadrupled. Do we fight because of "communism," "terrorism," "freedom," and "liberty," or do we fight because the Cheneys and Bushs of the world become multi-millionaires when we do? "We must not let the weight of this combination endanger our liberty or democratic processes…God help us when a president is sitting here who doesn't know as much about the military as I do," Eisenhower. oops..
America: Freedom to Fascism
Hear lawyers and US officials discuss how the Supreme Court has routinely not been able to convict "non-taxpayers" because "there is no law that requires US citizens to pay a Federal Income Tax." Introduced in 1913, the 16th Amendment was supposed to "to lay and collect taxes on incomes," but no US court has ever determined that the 16th Amendment was actually ratified by all states. What the courts have said is that because the [then] US Secretary of State, Philander Knox, "certified" that the Amendment was properly ratified, the courts of the United States must consider it properly ratified. The federal courts have stated that whether or not the Amendment was, in reality, properly ratified is a "political question.”
Bush Family Fortunes – The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
This is the video version of Greg Palast's book. Learn about the friendships that the Bush's have with the Bin Laden's and the leaders of Saudi Arabia – the country where 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers are from.
The Oil Factor
Is it coincidence that the "terrorist-states" that we wage war on also hold 3/4 of the world's oil supply?
Bush's Brain: How Did This Happen?
Learn about the nasty things that Karl Rove and other political advisors do to win elections by playing on the emotions of the public, such as starting "whisper campaigns" in 1994 that popular TX governor Ann Richards appoints homosexuals to office. Bush unexpectedly won the election with 53% of the vote. See also “Karl Rove: The Architect,” Frontline, PBS.
The Fog of War
Former US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara asks, "How much evil must we do in order to do good?" Along with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US government destroyed city after city in Japan, murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians. The Cold War and Vietnam are also discussed.
67 cities total. 100,000 civilians were killed in one night. Tokyo was a “wooden city.” “If we had lost the war, we would have been persecuted as war criminals. If it’s immoral when you lose, what makes it moral if you win?” approx 500,000 total civilian deaths (compared to 1,700 US civilian deaths in all of WWII).
In McNamara, you will never see a political person who is more authentic, personable, and smart.
General LeMay orchestrates the massive bombing campaign on Japan.
What I Learned About US Foreign Policy
Iran Contra Affair: the funding and organizing of terrorizing Nicaraguan villages to gain support for US backed, right wing dictators, while at the same time, flying cocaine back into the US. All this during Nancy Reagan's "war on drugs." Secret wars in Laos and Cambodia that involve bringing heroine into the US. "The selling of arms and the drug trade are two of the five major money making activities for the CIA." "None of these covert operations in the last 30 years have made the US or the world more secure. You can't point to one. What they've done is temporarily made some people a lot of money." See excerpts from "Genocide by Sanctions" in Iraq.
School of the Americas: learn to how to assassinate archbishops who speak out against US terrorizing small countries.
Panama: Thousands of civilians killed in 1989 by US invasion. "We have identified 15 mass graves in Panama which hold men, women, and children, that the US government is responsible for." All the major newspapers – the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the LA times – endorsed the "war," whereas the UN voted overwhelmingly that it was in flagrant violation of international law. The US then appointed it's own president, Guillermo Endara, and vice president of Panama. In 1991, Endara passed an amendment to forever abolish Panama's right to have an army. Later that year, the US passed treaties to ensure its control of Panama, stating that it was no longer able to defend itself. President Bush then declared to Congress that Panama was a "free democracy." Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General: "No poor people on this planet are safe from our government, unless we do something about it." .
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism
Learn how Fox News operates. Why do they need slogans like, "We report, you decide," and "Real journalism, fair and balanced."? Learn the interesting techniques they use to turn otherwise critical, intelligent, average Americans into belligerent, right wing conservatives. "North Korea loves John Kerry." "Really?" "Yeah."
Orwell Rolls in His Grave
"Lots of people are getting the feeling that the media elites and the political elites are one and the same." "The media system is a subsidy of Corporate America." Nazi leader Joseph Goebbles once said that what you want in the media is "an ostensible diversity that conceals a uniformity." "A march 2003 CNN/Gallup poll found that 51% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was personally responsible for the 9/11 attacks…Why did they think that?" Learn more about how the Reagan campaign delayed the release of hostages in Iran by offering the hostage-takers arms (see Cover-Up). Learn more about the 2000 election in Florida – Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris prevent thousands of African Americans from voting, and conservative Justice Antonin Scalia stops the re-count. Is it still a democracy if nine old judges in Washington decide the winner, instead of all of us regular Americans?
Hidden in Plain Sight
Learn about U.S. policy in Latin America through the prism of the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, GA (renamed, in January of 2001, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), the military school that trains Latin American soldiers in torture, such as Panama dictator Manuel Noriega and death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson of El Salvador. Learn about the El Mozote Massacre, where an entire village is murdered, including all the children. Ten of the twelve persons directly responsible for this were graduates of the School of the Americas.
Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq
Learn how US and British imposed sanctions in Iraq in the 1990s were responsible for the deaths of over half a million children. When asked by 60 Minutes if putting this kind of economic pressure on Saddam Hussein's regime was worth the death of so many innocent civilians and children, US Secretary of State Madeline Albright replied, "It's a hard choice, but we think it's worth it."
Coverup: Behind the Iran Contra Affair
In 1980, Reagan offered to sell weapons to Iran, who held 52 hostages from the US embassy, in order to delay the freeing of the hostages, which would have ignited too much support for Jimmy Carter. The hostages were freed 76 days later, on Reagan's inauguration day. In 1986, The Reagan Administration sold arms to Iran and used the proceeds to fund the Contras, an anti-communist guerrilla organization in Nicaragua. Reagan denied this was happening, then a week later admitted that it was.
The Trials of Henry Kissinger
See what the job of Secretary of State is all about. Genocide in Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor; assassinations in Chile, and so on. When Iran and Iraq went to war against each other in the early 80s, Kissinger said, "I hope they kill each other." "The art of diplomacy." "Sometimes a Statesman has to chose between evils." "War Criminal."
Hearts and Minds
Vietnam. "If we lose Indochina, we will lose the Pacific, and we will be an island in a sea of communism," Senator McCarthy. When asked by an elementary school classroom how it was in Vietnam, Lt. George Coker replied, "It was a beautiful place, except for the people. The people there are backward and very primitive…they make a mess of everything." General William Westmoreland, former Chief of Staff for the Army, and 1966 Time Magazine man of the year, said, "the Oriental does not put as high a price on life as we do in the West…(to them) life is not important." Hmm..
Sacred Lies, Civil Truths
Learn about the Christian Coalition's intimate and expensive relationship with the Republican party. Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, Robert Reid, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed.
Manufacturing Consent
Noam Chomsky's look at the media. Those who own media corporations either hold high government positions or are "in bed" with those who do. Their job is to keep us complacent and uninformed. When 200,000 people are murdered in East Timor by the Indonesian government, why don't we hear about it? Because the US (your tax dollars) supplied 90% of the arms needed to carry it out.
Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Price
Learn how one of America's worst corporations makes billions by mistreating its employees and driving out community-based businesses. "The Walton family believes they're a good Christian family. Not if they are going to make billions at the expense of poor workers." "They have one of the worst environmental records in the nation."
Waco: the Rules of Engagement
51 day siege. 86 dead. Learn how the Dept of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and the FBI operate, and how no independent investigation was allowed after the incident.
Deliver us From Evil
Cover ups of child sexual abuse from small communities in CA on up to the big Pope in Rome. "It's big business to the church. It's like a big corporation." "Secrecy about sex is built in to the system. I won't tell on you if you don't tell on me." "Church theology is such that preserving a Bishop's position of power is more important than some child abuse case. The case involves lay people, whereas the Bishop is a representative of God," and therefore somehow exempt from such scrutiny. Since the 4th century, old white males in the church have been trying to figure out ways to get away with child rape and so on, mostly by pretending it doesn't happen and moving offenders to other communities. Good job guys, can I have a wafer?
Libby, Montana
A small town fights a big company for poisoning them with asbestos/vermiculite.
Crips and Bloods: Made in America
The rise of gangs in LA.
“Part of the mechanics of oppressing people is to pervert them to the extent that they become the instruments of their own oppression.”
- black leaders assassinated in late 60s/early70s, therefore the generation that follows has no identity, nothing to attach themselves to.
“We had the generation that our parents came from, and we had the great personalities of their generation to connect with. We had something to attach ourselves to. They didn’t.” Kumasi
Surviving Progress
Ronald Wright, Jane Goodall, Margaret Atwood and many others on the ideals of modern civilization and progress.
Blind Spot
Joseph Tainter, Bill McKibben, Derrick Jensen and many others on our current and catastrophic energy crisis
Collapse
Michael Ruppert, former LAPD officer and author of Crossing The Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, addresses the problems of modern progress.