The Revolution Will Not Be Televised!

You can now watch the excellent documentary "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" for free online at this website. It makes for compulsive viewing - better than any Hollywood thriller I've seen in years.

Here's the blurb from the website:

This behind the scenes documentary focuses on the media's role in the 2002 coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Two independent filmmakers were inside the presidential palace on April 11, 2002, when Hugo Chavez was forcibly removed from office. They were also present 48 hours later when, remarkably, he returned to power amid cheering aides. Their film records what was probably history's shortest-lived coup d'état.

You can read more about the coup here at Wikipedia and about American involvement in the coup (all that oil needs a steady hand to regulate) at the Guardian here. Interesting that once again Elliot Abrams was in the forefront of channelling U.S. support to overthrow democratically elected leaders.

I seem to recall reading an article in the newspaper a few years ago about how some OPEC leaders had been tipped off in advance about the coup by American government officials, but I can't find it on the web at the moment so maybe I was just imagining things.

Go watch the documentary!

IZ

Rehabilitating Ralph Nader

Remember Ralph Nader? Scourged by the whip of democrat scorn and anger after Gore's loss of the 2000 elections, he seems to have faded into obscurity. Some democrats have even heaped all the ills of American domestic and foreign policy from 2000 onwards on his shoulders.

I'm not sure that's fair. As long as the the mainstay of Democrat election campaigns will remain "we are not Republican", even as candidates inch ever closer to the right, I don't think American foreign policy (or even domestic policy to a great degree) is going to be necessarily very different from Republican policy. Many of the Democrat winners of the 2006 elections could easily pass for Republicans in terms of their ideas and policies save one: public criticism of Bush. Now that 2006 is in the past even that dividing line isn't as thick as it used to be.

Here's an article on a documentary on Ralph Nader. I would be very interested in seeing it and if it reminds people that there was more to him than the sucking away of votes from Gore in 2000, so much the better.

IZ

Iraq Documentaries

Two of the pictures up for the best documentary Oscar are about Iraq. Both seem pretty interesting and I think I would like to see them. So far, I haven't seen anything really special about the Iraq war. Michael Moore's 'Fahrenheit 911' didn't seem well put together or thought out, though it was powerful in bits. 'Control Room' which was an inside look at Al Jazeera was very interesting and very well done, however it wasn't about Iraq as such. I confess I actually never finished watching 'The Iraq War Uncovered' - it was far too dry, and really didn't present anything anyone who had been following the news in those days wouldn't already know (unless maybe all they watched was Fox or something).

So, 'Iraq in Fragments' and 'My Country, My Country' both sound particularly interesting, especially since they are about Iraqis and about life after the invasion.

IZ