fantastic netrunner!
seen all except terror storm.
might i suggest a few more:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Orwell-Rolls-In-His-Grave
and
http://www.videosift.com/video/No-End-in-Sight
and
http://www.videosift.com/video/Peace-Propaganda-the-Promised-Land-1
and
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Power-of-Nightmares-part-1
and
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-War-On-Democracy-by-John-Pilger
and maybe a little arundhati roy to top it off
http://www.videosift.com/video/We-Featuring-the-Words-of-Arundhati-Roy
to name a few really excellent documentaries.

Why We Fight
http://www.videosift.com/video/Why-We-Fight-BBC-Storyville-US-war-machine-documentary
End Of America
http://www.videosift.com/video/End-Of-America-a-letter-of-warning-to-a-young-patriot
War Made Easy
http://www.videosift.com/video/War-Made-Easy
America: From Freedom to Fascism
http://www.videosift.com/video/America-From-Freedom-to-Fascism-full
The Future Of Food
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Future-Of-Food
The Century of The Self
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Century-of-The-Self-Part-1-of-4
The Corporation
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Corporation-Documentary-on-Corporate-Influence

Moving this video to NetRunner's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

*beg

Sending this video to Beggar's Canyon to plea for a little attention - beg requested by original submitter NetRunner.

Sorry, but color me unimpressed. I'd be interested Naomi Wolf's set because she at least seems above outright lies, which cannot be said of Fox nor the Zeigeist crews.

I agree there are interesting pieces of information in these documentaries, but they are predominantly made up of severely biased and one sided commentary. I know people want to rally to these as an alternative to the misrepresentations in mainstream media, but that is like justifying Fox by pointing at MSNBC.

There are better sources of information out there than these. Don't watch a documentary with 5 minutes of an interview with Noam Chomsky surrounded by an hour of editorial commenting and contextualizing. Go use Google to find hours worth of uncut talks and debates by him instead. More than ever before we can get the real picture of what is happening, as witnessed by first hand sources. Want to know what things were like in Iraq before and after the war? Go use Google to find hours of accounts by people, many of them well connected, who were actually there and weigh them against each other to find the truth.

I really don't see any excuse anymore for relying on sources like these and Fox/MSNBC who so blatantly have gathered, ordered and edited facts and stories together to support the view the held in the first place.

*controversy

Excellent sift from an unlikely submitter!

*promote the truth

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued - promote requested by EndAll.

Adding video to channels (Controversy) - requested by EndAll.

Did you watch any of them, in full, bcglorf?

The world is so depressing.

ALL of the recent Adam Curtis BBC documentaries are so very good.

The Century of Self,
The Power of Nightmares,
The Trap,
Newswipe

Check 'em out.

>> ^EndAll:
Did you watch any of them, in full, bcglorf?


Nope, the trailers are more than enough for me to tell there are much better ways to spend my time. Should a person be expected to read the Koran and Bible from cover to cover before being allowed an opinion on religions based on them?

Unless people really start getting behind them it's not worth the time to go through and sifting the truth from the propaganda in them. As i said already, I'm confident there is a lot of true information in these films. I'm sure there is even a lot of new information for many people watching them. That is NOT enough for me. As I said before, FOX often has new information first. The problem I have with BOTH is in the selection of the facts made available. By presenting a long list of negatives about something and failing to include any positives you can use nothing but the truth to paint a picture that is entirely false.

From the trailers presented here(thermite babble) and the past work of some of the authors(zeitgeist) that tells me what to expect, and it isn't of any better quality than the mainstream media(some in fact appears worse). The only difference being the spin has been turned 180.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Monday, August 3rd, 2009 10:57am PDT - promote requested by EndAll.

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^EndAll:
Did you watch any of them, in full, bcglorf?

Nope, the trailers are more than enough for me to tell there are much better ways to spend my time. Should a person be expected to read the Koran and Bible from cover to cover before being allowed an opinion on religions based on them?

healthy skepticism is good,in my opinion a must-have in this media drenched climate,but to dismiss information based soley on trailers does not fit into that category.it weakens your stance and makes your opinion less likely to be taken seriously.

many documentaries have a bias,as do so many news shows we are subjected to,but the points they bring up should be pursued and discussed.what many documentaries bring to the table are questions,valid ones many times.they give a much more well-rounded context which gives us a more complete picture.i agree it us up to us to sift through the rhetoric because sometimes that all it is....rhetoric.

let me make an example.
you stated about the "thermite babble".
ok...that should be a topic of discussion,but to out of hand dismiss all other points due to a disagreement on one detail disregards a much greater point that the
"conspiracy theory" we were given and the questions therein have never been fully answered by the american government.

this is the same mentality of a fundamentalist concerning the bible.they cannot accept any conflicting information concerning the bible because to do so would be,in their minds,rejecting god.so we have creationists and young earthers.their inability to even consider ideas which challenge their understanding of the world must,at all costs,be rejected because if they even considered the possibility they may have to change their concepts and ideology.political ideology can be just as dogmatic and implaccable as religious ideology.it is a dangerous place to get stuck in for it leads to stagnation and rot.

i enjoy your comments,and even debating with you,but you are so much better than what you portray here my friend.i have no problem with disagreements,but at least digest the material before you critique said material.
seewhatimsayin?

you stated about the "thermite babble".
ok...that should be a topic of discussion


I would disagree, it should NOT be a topic of discussion. It deserves as much discussion as questions about Obama's birth certificate. It is a waste of time. I will gladly try to clarify the 'thermite babble' with friends, family and people I meet who believe it, I consider at least attempting that discussion worthwhile. I will avoid listening to hours of video that includes the 'thermite babble', that is relatively worthless.

I consider it akin to refuting the latest cult of the day. I consider watching Scientology's latest video to be relatively worthless. I do however consider discussing Scientology with friends, family and people I meet who don't know it's a scam worthwhile. I've already picked up enough about Hubbard that I really don't see the need for anymore proof for the truth of things. I don't feel a need to spend days and nights going through every piece of teaching anyone in Scientology has ever come out with before rejecting it all as not worth my time and a bad source for useful information. I consider videos that believe in the thermite myth to be in the same category of proven non-utility.


the "conspiracy theory" we were given and the questions therein have never been fully answered by the american government.


I'm not sure which 'conspiracy' you refer to. For certain I agree lots of what happened around 9/11 has not been answered, in particular a lot of what happened immediately after. My previous point though ties into my response here. Videos talking about thermite are one of the poorest places to go looking for those answers. The answer to the biggest question though is clear. Al-Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The proper response to that is littered with a lot of smoke and mirrors and a century of geo-politics, and I don't see any of the trailers for these videos looking as promising sources for wading through that.


i have no problem with disagreements,but at least digest the material before you critique said material.


Well, I've now watched the two that looked the most worthwhile.

"War Made Easy" didn't provide a single piece of novel information, and was little more than archived news footage with a one sided commentary read by Sean Penn. I learnt nothing as expected and wouldn't reccomend it to anyone. I'd in fact argue against someone not informed about recent history watching it for the very false image that it protrays of recent history taken all by itself without knowing the things the film leaves out.

"Why We Fight" confirms what I said I expected as the high mark of the videos. It includes some new footage and interviews, although the information found in those videos that is new/novel is trivial in nature. The major points and facts it does present are all available in other places, and with better context. More over, it presents an extremely one sided picture and works more strongly as a propaganda piece than as an informative work.

For anyone under the delusion that corruption isn't rampant in American government, this video has important information. There are better sources for that information though, and to be honest no video is likely to persuade people so deluded anyways. In the real world though, one has to actually look beyond the state of America and look also at the geopolitics of the places it is in conflict with. Yes, we all know Cheney is corrupt and his actions have been criminal, that isn't the final word on the Iraq conflict. In many ways, that fact is barely a footnote.

Both videos, as I've said elsewhere, follow the same road to failure as the mainstream media, and the same road to failure they themselves decry. That failure is the oversimplfication of geo-politics and it's causes. Both videos present the problem in American foreign policy as simply being too militaristic, and the solution as simple as reducing military spending or better media coverage of arising conflicts. If only the world where truly that simple. In reality things are vastly more complicated, and there is a wealth of video, interviews, and documentaries that attempt to investigate and reveal the layers of that complexity. These videos though are no where near that world.

i only mentioned the thermite babble as a point of discussion,but im glad we agree about the questions concerning the actual events of that day.lets remember the governments "version" is by definition a conspiracy theory.
thermite babble may be just that,but there are still many un-answered questions.

i am gladdened you watched some of those documentaries,even if you disagreed with their premise.i tend to agree with your point of the slanted view of many docs but i have no problem in that regard.as long as it can offer new information.
arundhati roy's we-come september happens to be my favorite.maybe because it is one womans way of seeing things and not an outright gotcha documentary.
i also could not agree with you more on the point that things are complicated and that there is a wealth of information much more soundly based.i look forward to your posts in that regard my friend.i am also glad that you did not take my post as a swipe at you....nuance can be difficult in text,and some mistake my comments as attacks.
they are not.
anyways..thanks for clarifying,always appreciate your intelligence and wit.
peace.

Here are a few videos I would consider must sees for anyone wanting to better understand the world we are in, and the terrible choices every foreign policy maker is faced with. I suppose this would be my own, current, top 5.

Between the Mullahs and the Military:
Pakistani born journalist Ziauddin Sardar returns to his country in 2007 and reports on the state of the nation and speaks to many influential people in the country and travels to some of the most unstable and dangerous parts of it. If you care about the war in Afghanistan, you really must watch this film to appreciate it's significance.

Inside North Korea:
The sift version of this is currently dead, I'll change both links if/when it comes back.
National Geographic manages to get a film crew into the country as aides to a surgeon that was allowed to work in the country for a short time. The commentary might seem over the top to some, bordering on propaganda. As you watch the documentary you will start to realize that it isn't hyperbole and the situation in North Korea is simply so awful there are hardly words to describe it.

George Galloway and Christopher Hitchens debate Iraq:
This isn't a documentary of course, it is instead a debate between two of Britain's best debaters. They are also both people who have visited and spent time in Iraq under Saddam and seen what it was like. Galloway was even able to personally meet with Saddam in the mid 1990's. I'm not sure if this is more informative or entertaining, but it's worth your time for both reasons all on their own.

Al-Anfal Campaign:
This video accounts victim testimony's from one of the worst genocides of our time. As the Iran-Iraq war ended Saddam set out to exterminate the Kurdish population in Northern Iraq, this video provides a brief glimpse of that tragedy.

Ghosts of Rwanda:
This is the single most important video I would recommend for anyone convinced that the world would be better with zero American intervention. The absolutely horrific account of what happened in Rwanda while the entire world agreed on non-intervention is vitally important to be remembered. Be warned, it is extremely difficult to watch some of this. It is like watching a recounting of the most brutal slasher/horror film ever produced, but where the 800,000 victims were real live human beings in our own world.