Burp! Pepsi Versus Coke

John Pilger’s first collaboration with fellow Australian director Alan Lowery, looks at the worldwide struggle for soft drink supremacy by the Coca Cola company, and illuminates the power of multinational corporations.

(Watch the whole film)

Robert Fisk – Beirut To Bosnia

Filmed in the 1990s, this series takes journalist Robert Fisk through Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt and Bosnia. He warns that the crimes of the West and Israel are breeding a culture of resistance, resentment and religious radicalism in the Middle East – a warning that the last decade has surely vindicated.

(3 episodes, 52 mins each. h/t Israel’s 60th Birthday)

1. The Martyr’s Smile

2. The Road To Palestine

3. To The Ends Of The Earth

Sir, No Sir! The GI Revolt

In the sixties too, the U.S. was engaged in an unpopular, unjustifiable and ultimately unwinnable war. Then, a whole generation of young men were drafted to fight, to die, and to kill in Vietnam. This is the story (50 mins) of how those young men said “no”.

(Go to Google Video)

The Namibian Holocaust and the Second Reich

Decades before the rise of Hitler, the German elites’ quest for Lebensraum led them to a more aggressive colonisation of their newly-acquired African territories, in what we now call Namibia. This culminated in the systematic annihilation of two native peoples, through slave labour and concentration camps. (h/t Popper’s List)

(go to Google Video)

The African survivors’ descendants are still lobbying the German government for recognition and reparations for the genocide today, while many of the racial theories and demobbed soldiers went on to play important roles within the Freikorps and the Nazi movement. The genocide of the Armenians is now slowly gaining recognition, but the precursors to fascism in European imperialism remain a taboo subject.

Hollywood at War

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.

Hollywood and the Pentagon

Operation Hollywood

See Michael’s blog for a review of both films.

Breaking The Silence

This special report (52 mins) from 2004 sees John Pilger explode the War On Terror myth with revealing interviews and shocking coverage of warzones.  The segments on Afghanistan are particularly illuminating – especially if we bear in mind that, eclipsed by the disaster that is Iraq, the violence has only been escalated there since this film was made – and it’s also the source for that “pre-fascist” quote.

The Miami Model

A film about the errrmmm… ‘enthusiastic’ policing at the FTAA protests in Miami 2003

The New Rulers Of The World

In this documentary (53 mins), John Pilger looks at a new informal kind of Empire – that which acts through and on behalf of transnational corporations – and how it can be just as violent and exploitative as the formal empires of the past.

The Money Masters

I have taken this documentary down, as it became apparent that it was bringing traffic in from the fascist British National Party and their supporters.

If you’re not with these scum, I apologise for the inconvenience.

If you are, then all I have to say to you is FUCK OFF AND DIE YOU NAZI BASTARDS!

Dahr Jamail – Unembedded Journalist

Sick and tired of listening to the mainstream media pore over General Petraeus’ scripted briefing?  I know how you feel, and have the antidote: Dahr Jamail’s address (43 mins) at the Chicago Socialism 2007 conference.

Disgusted with the coverage of the war in American journalism, Dahr Jamail saved up and took his camera and his laptop to occupied Iraq.  His unembedded dispatches are now recognised as crucial sources of information from the warzone – and are almost unique in their independence from occupying forces.

Dahr’s book Beyond The Green Zone is released next month.

See also John Pilger’s address at the same conference, and the documentary The Bases Are Loaded.