All too often, the phrase "corporate free press" is something of an oxymoron. Whether to maximise sales, to attract advertisers, or simply to promote the interests of their wealthy owners, the mass media open strange, self-serving and grossly distorted windows onto the world.
This website is another window. Here you'll find documentaries, lectures and interviews following a different editorial line.
Welcome to a new 21st century year, and how better to kick it off with a bit of real life sci-fi? This 29 minute documentary examines the American establishment’s attempts to consolidate its hegemony through the militarisation of space.
Okay, there’s unintentional hilarity from the low production values – including the worst autocue reading I’ve ever seen, and the old confusion between, on the one hand, Cheney and Rumsfeld’s wildest and most sinister fantasies and, on the other, the real world – but serious points are raised and it’s worth seeing through the medium to the message
If you know Mark Steel at all, it’s probably as a recurring guest on BBC comedy panel shows (Buzzcocks, QI, etc). However, he’s also an ardent socialist, and for those of you who are getting sick of badly sync’ed audio on video clips, I offer you the following audio clip: Mark’s lecture on Marx, an entertaining biography of a flawed but brilliant man, worlds away from the sinister figure of capitalist demonology and equally distant from the equally sinister figure of Stalinist hagiography.
More conventional and in-depth profile of Collett, and more disturbing too.
This one goes inside the BNP project and explores Collett’s ego and ideology, while ReBrand is a more shoe-string kind of affair, showing him with real people in the real world. I think both sides of the BNP are worth looking at.
This 1992 BBC documentary (Three episodes of one hour each) uncovers at Operation Gladio, the American-led operation to establish a network of right-wing (often fascist and neo-fascist) paramilitaries in postwar Europe.
Initially conceived as a safeguard against Soviet invasion, Operation Gladio was used to manipulate domestic politics and keep the left from power – and may be behind some of the century’s most notorious terrorist attacks and political murders.
Part One: The Ringleaders
Looks at the establishment of the stay-behind networks during the liberation of Europe.
Part Two: The Puppeteers
In the decades that followed, terrorist attacks and high profile assassinations set the pace of politics – what became known as the “strategy of tension”.
Part Three: The Foot Soldiers
Investigates the role of the stay-behinds in a series of grisly murders in Belgium and the killing of a former Italian Prime Minister, as well as their infiltration of the extrem left.
I’ve stopped getting spam from eBay about early Christmas shopping, and started getting spam from eBay about last-minute Christmas shopping. ‘Tis well and truly the season, then, to stand up to the relentless pressure upon us to consume, consume, consume through the pre-Xmas rush. Here’s two short films and an even shorter stand-up clip that I hope will offset and allay some of that stress.
The Production Of Meaning
From Adbusters (h/t Openmedia), this is a bit too stylish and unsubstantial for my taste (as is the Buy Nothing Day initiative), but it’s enjoyable enough and should put some of the constant background hum of advertising into perspective. 15 minutes.
The Story Of Stuff
Consumer-capitalism made very very simple, in a cute 21 minute animation by Annie Leonard (h/t ReclaimingSpace). Finally, a TAYT video you can watch with all the family.
Bill Hicks on Marketing
If you only have time for one of these clips, here’s a stand-up gem from the late Bill Hicks that you owe it to yourself to watch – especially if you work in marketing. 3 minutes.
A bizarre but compelling examination of humour in the Third Reich (58 mins). At first this was tolerated, and even encouraged – back then, no-one took the Nazis too seriously, and the more people were snickering the less they were rising up – but as the war drew on jokes became a channel for subversive informationand dissent, and by the end laughter out of turn was cracked down upon severely.
Most of us have no direct experience of war. Most of what we do know of war comes from films, and overwhelmingly American films. Tonight we bring you not one, but two documentaries, via Michael Greenwell, that show how Hollywood’s portrayal of war is influenced by the American military.
