Category Archives: documentary

November 22, 2011 · 5:11 pm

Juxtaposition: the tear gas edition

Artifact 1. The editor-in-chief of the Bay Citizen was gassed in the #occupy oakland actions.

I looked down and my hand was black, my four fingers covered in toxic chemicals. I couldn’t feel my hand much but could clench it and unclench it and assumed I was okay. My blue flannel shirt also was black, stained where the canister had struck me and discharged. I was soaked in tear gas, but for some reason it was having less of an effect than the burning on my hand.

Another strange but not entirely unexpected thought popped into my head: 6 inches lower and it would have hit me in the crotch.

via Gassed – The Bay Citizen.

Artifact 2.  South Korean debate involves MPs using tear gas in the parliament building.

An opposition MP set off a teargas canister in the South Korean parliament in a failed attempt to prevent the ruling party passing a free trade deal with the US.

Proponents said the deal, the largest US trade pact since the 1994 North America Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), could increase commerce between the two countries by up to a quarter. But the opposition claims it will harm South Korean interests, putting jobs at risk.

via South Korean MP lets off teargas in parliament | World news | guardian.co.uk.

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November 7, 2011 · 4:38 pm

Chris Hedges and Cornel West prosecute Goldman Sachs

Thanks to Glen E. Friedman, we have a little write up and video from Chris Hedges and Cornel West prosecuting a corporation in the #occupy wallstreet park.

This is the kind of street theater we need to see in cities all across America. In addition to marching and occupying public places, we need to explore creative and provocative ways to capture the attention of the media. In our ADD culture, we’ve got to keep things interesting. West and Hedges are taking a page from the Abbie Hoffman play book.

via WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE?: THE PEOPLE VS.GOLDMAN SACHS: CORNEL WEST AND CHRIS HEDGES PRESIDING.

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October 29, 2011 · 3:56 pm

#scottolson #occupy wallstreet

Here is the ice-cold footage of US Marine Scott Olson getting shot by the Oakland police department.  Feel free to watch with a cynical eye, but check out when the flash bomb explodes in the midst of people trying to help an injured person.

This is intended to anger you.

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October 23, 2011 · 5:20 pm

#Occupy wall street brings attention to police violence

Officer Michael Daragjati had no idea that the FBI was listening to his phone calls. Otherwise he would probably not have described his arrest and detention of an innocent black New Yorker in the manner he did.

Daragjati boasted to a woman friend that, while on patrol in Staten Island, he had “fried another nigger”. It was “no big deal”, he added. The FBI, which had been investigating another matter, then tried to work out what had happened.

According to court documents released in New York, Daragjati and his partner had randomly stopped and frisked a black man who had become angry and asked for Daragjati’s name and badge number. Daragjati, 32, and with eight years on the force, had no reason to stop the man, and had found nothing illegal. But he arrested him and fabricated an account of him resisting arrest. The man, now referred to in papers only as John Doe because of fears for his safety, spent two nights in jail. He had merely been walking alone through the neighbourhood.

via Police brutality charges sweep across the US | World news | The Observer.

The rest of the article has a sad roundup of recent police violence abuses in the United States.  Good for visibility discussion and CHANGE.

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September 8, 2011 · 5:28 pm

Michael Moore: tough guy

thanks scrapetv for the image

I have thoroughly enjoyed a number of Michael Moore’s films.   He has also played the Muhammad Ali role of public intellectual articulating resistance.   As a result of his critiques of the government and corporations, he has been widely scorned and attacked.  He has a new book coming out and the Guardian excerpt is pretty hardcore.  Read it for the rundown of just how ugly harassment and threats can get.  Of course Michael Moore continues to fight.

I chose not to give up. I wanted to give up, badly. Instead I got fit. If you take a punch at me now, I can assure you three things will happen: 1) You will break your hand. That’s the beauty of spending just a half hour a day on your muscular-skeletal structure – it turns into kryptonite; 2) I will fall on you. I’m still working on my core and balance issues, so after you slug me I will tip over and crush you; 3) My Seals will spray mace or their own homemade concoction of jalapeño spider spray directly into your eye sockets while you are on the ground. As a pacifist, please accept my apologies in advance – and never, ever use violence against me or anyone else again.

via Michael Moore: I was the most hated man in America | Books | The Guardian.

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August 25, 2011 · 5:35 pm

Google: drug dealer

I have seen spam ads from pharmaceutical outlets offering to sell me pills on the side of my Gmail account.   I never really thought about the fact that Google has to take money for all those sketchy side advertisements.  Whoops.  Turns out that they spent a few years slanging pills for international drug dealers.

As early as 2003, Google “was aware of these advertisements by Canadian online pharmacies, and that these pharmacies were in fact unlawfully shipping prescription drugs into the United States,’’ Neronha said. Google actively assisted the pharmacies in developing advertising strategies that would enhance their sales, and its own revenues, he said.

via Google to pay US $500m in drug ad inquiry – The Boston Globe.

No problem.  They’ll pay up — giving the United States $500 million in a settlement. Probably a tiny portion of the money they made selling pills.

1.  Compare these kinds of settlement deals to the problems that your average “drug dealer” would face.  Street drugs?  Most street drugs have their origins in pharmaceutical work these days!  Want to see something terrible?  Perhaps the most scarring documentary I’ve seen in a few years is Vanguard’s “Oxycontin express.”  Showcasing a single county in Florida (Dade) which has become the legal pill capitol of the US, the documentary shows the terrible personal impact and the economic profit involved.

2.  I think that the prohibition against buying international pharmaceuticals is part of the financial lock down of US citizenry’s declining dollar.  A response to lots of prescriptions, less health insurance coverage — the cheap imported medicine seems appealing.  And a threat to pharmaceutical companies who can sell in the USA.  It seems especially hypocritical given the history of the US suing other nations for making generic versions of US AIDS drugs.

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August 25, 2011 · 4:18 pm

Archive: old top ten august 19

  • Weekly Top Ten August 19 2011

    1. ZZ Top – Fandango
    2. Curren$y – “What means the world to me.”
    3. Strolling on the beach
    4. Dry hopped IPA at Redwood Curtain Brewery
    5. Family vacation photos
    6. Gucci Mane and Waka Flocka Flame – “Mud Music”
    7. Drunk skype parties
    8. Michael Jackson roller skating party
    9. bicycle riding
    10. Fresh blackberries

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August 14, 2011 · 11:51 pm

Rap and riots in the U.K.

Someone is paying attention . . . oh yeah, the Guardian.  Thanks.

The most extraordinary of the bunch is also the most full-on. They Will Not Control Us, a snarling litany of dispossesion and rage against politicians, police and the media, will be a bit strong for some stomachs – and not only because of the wailing chorus lifted from the Muse track Uprising. By a little-known rapper called 2 K Olderz, it’s nothing if not direct. “Dear Mr Prime Minister …” it begins, “was you travelling on London transport the day the bombs went off?/ How about you go and pay rent to the landlord, earn shit money doing a labouring job?/ We’re living like shit in this country, while you’ve got your feet up living nice and comfy/ Well we know where the problem is, the people acknowledge this: stand up to the politics.”

via Rap responds to the riots: ‘They have to take us seriously’ | Music | guardian.co.uk.

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July 21, 2011 · 5:23 pm

Eli Porter documentary

Eli Porter is a disabled emcee whose high school battle video has become a key hip hop trope.   Here is the documentary about the actual footage.  Complete with commentary from the internets celebrities.

 

 

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June 27, 2011 · 4:11 pm

Fishbone documentary!

I bet if you enjoyed punk rock music in the nineties you have a scar from a Fishbone show.   I’m pretty sure that the enthusiastic Fishbone audience of Burlington Vermont in 1992 (maybe 1993?) are responsible for the cracked rib floating around in my chest.   Like any other Fishbone fan, I ain’t mad.

If you ever listened to Fishbone, saw them live, or encountered them in any way, you cheered them on.  They were so good that any fan with a heart wished that every other rock/punk/funk/soul/energy fiend would see clear to loving Fishbone too.

I saw them again maybe three years ago at an outdoor festival in Northern California and I thought my  heart was going to explode from the energy.

Now we have a new documentary on Fishbone.  Screw the narrative structure, if this movie has ten minutes of live footage, I’m buying it.

Thanks to neo-griot for the link.

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