War On Democracy

In one of his best and most important films so far (94 mins), John Pilger looks at how the people of Latin America are subjugated to the imperial designs (or, “national interests”) of the United States – and how the people are fighting back.

Coolies – How Britain Reinvented Slavery

The abolition of the slave trade should have put an end to the slave economies of Britain’s colonies.  Instead, as this BBC documentary (58 mins) shows, indentured Indian coolies were transported by slave-ship across the far-flung corners of the Empire. (h/t SmashingTelly.com)

Stealing A Nation

In this award-winning special report (56 mins), John Pilger tells the story of one of the British Empire’s most inhuman and cynical postwar crimes: the dispossession and deportation of two thousand of its citizens from their tropical island paradise, to make room for the largest American airbase outside the U.S., and the sustained conspiracy to whitewash them out of existence.

See also the UK Chagos Support Association and Wikipedia.

Art, Truth and Politics – Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize Lecture

Almost uniquely among his contemporaries, the social conscience of poet and playright Harold Pinter prevents him from keeping silent on the atrocities of our age. Winning the 2005 Nobel Prize for literature gave him the platform for this powerful lecture (46 mins), though I do not believe it has ever been aired on a major channel.

Better-quality video is available from the Nobel Prize website. Transcript follows.

Confessions Of An Economic Hitman

After years spent undermining the economies of developing nations, bringing them under control of history’s most subtle and most global empire, self-described economic hitman John Perkins blew the whistle in 2004. Though studiously ignored by the mainstream media, his Confessions… found a massive audience; it spent some time in the New York Times’ bestseller list without that paper ever having reviewed it.

In this address (52 mins + 16 mins Q&A) to the activist group Veterans For Peace (h/t Opinionated Indian), Perkins explains the methodology of what he calls Imperial Corporatocracy and how it has dominated the history of the last 60 years.

Part One…

… where Perkins explains how debt is used as a tool of empire, and looks at the last three decades in the Middle East. The oil embargo of the early 1970s was followed by an intense colonisation of Saudi Arabia; it took some time longer to get there in Iraq.

Part Two…

… on the decades of repression of South America, and the recent continent-wide popular uprising against the Corporatocracy. Also, Perkins’ call for activism against corporate excesses.

Iraq – The Bases Are Loaded

What do the world’s second busiest airport, an embassy the size of the Vatican city-state, and an important Mesopotamian heritage site have in common? See this documentary (28 mins) from AlternateFocus (h/t PeoplesGeography).

Slowly, the occupying armies in Iraq are moving from many small encampments to a few town-sized megabases. Far away from the frontline – and further still from the Iraqi people – these vast luxurious complexes make a pretty penny for the industrial military complex, and will guarantee an American presence in Iraq for generations. Forget “… when the job is done”, and welcome to imperial annexation.

Freedom Next Time – John Pilger’s Chicago Address

What better way to inaugurate this new blog than with John Pilger’s address (44 mins) to the recent Chicago Socialism Conference? Drawing upon his own vast experience, Pilger pulls no punches in this comprehensive account of how the media helps promote the agenda of Empire, covering up and normalising some of the 20th century’s worst crimes.

Transcript follows: