Films

Sir, No Sir!.
In the 1960's an anti-war movement emerged that altered the course of history. This movement didn't take place on college campuses, but in barracks and on aircraft carriers. It flourished in army stockades, navy brigs and in the dingy towns that surround military bases. It penetrated elite military colleges like West Point. And it spread throughout the battlefields of Vietnam. It was a movement no one expected, least of all those in it. Hundreds went to prison and thousands into exile. And by 1971 it had, in the words of one colonel, infested the entire armed services. Yet today few people know about the GI movement against the war in Vietnam.

Sir! No Sir! will change all that. The film does four things: 1) Brings to life the history of the GI movement through the stories of those who were part of it; 2) Reveals the explosion of defiance that the movement gave birth to with never-before-seen archival material; 3) Explores the profound impact that movement had on the military and the war itself; and 4) The feature, 90 minute version, also tells the story of how and why the GI Movement has been erased from the public memory.

(One veteran in this film now manages Pepper Spray Productions, and brought a film as media tool class to our summer camp).

Voices in Wartime – 56 minutes
Immediately following the US invasion of Iraq a small team of filmmakers began creating Voices in Wartime. They filmed veterans from Vietname and Iraq, civilian survivors of warfare in Nigeria, Columbia, the US, Iraq and many other countries. Poetry of soldiers and civilians during wartime is traced from ancient Sumeria, and Homer's Greece to the American Civil War, the Crimean War, the Great War and Second World War. This film leads to rich discussion about war and its effects on people.

Extremely well done.. Study questions are available. Full curriculum for WWI, American Wars in Asia,

THE GROUND TRUTH: After the Killing Ends, takes an unflinching look at the training and dehumanization of US soldiers, and how they struggle to come to terms with it when they come back home. ??This film overrides familiar images of heroic soldiers in battle, and overjoyed returning faces, reunited with their families with one effortless stroke. Instead, we see a scenario that can include illness, amputation and injury, depression and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD), of which Iraq has become a fertile breeding ground. While America's poor treatment of veterans is not news to most, The Ground Truth makes it so personal and real, it is impossible to dismiss its characters simply as war statistics. ??The film gives us glimpses into a Marine Corps boot camp that allows us to comprehend how a man or woman can kill as part of their job. We get hit with more understanding of our soldiers' dehumanization by seeing Iraq combat footage that shows routine indiscriminate killing. Their jobs over, the confusion, guilt and shame that comes home with these "killers" is the tip of the iceberg. Left with few resources and families that cannot understand what they have seen or done, their anguish only intensifies. Foulkrod's graphic footage and still-photographs of the ground conflict in Iraq, should forever shatter the sanitized images found on the nightly news and provide a much needed wake-up call for all of us.

Soldiers of Conscience – Showing Nov 9th at Olympia Film Fesitval; viewed at Seattle Film Festival June, 2007.

From West Point grads to drill sergeants, from Abu Ghraib interrogators to low ranking reservist-mechanics; soldiers in the US Army today reveal their deepest moral concerns about what they are asked to do in war.

Their message: every soldier wrestles with his conscience over killing. Although most decide to kill, some refuse. Soldiers of Conscience reveals that far more soldiers refuse to kill than we might expect.

Made with official permission from the US Army, filmed in state-of-the-art High Definition video, Soldiers of Conscience includes never before seen footage of basic training and the war in Iraq, with an original soundtrack from an Academy Award winner and composer.

Soldiers of Conscience is a realistic yet optimistic look at war, peace, and the power of the human conscience.

Students, Not Soldiers, PepperSpray Productions. Reports from war resisters, military recruiters, and student activists driving recruiters out of schools in Seattle. Students and soldiers are struggling to find their own moral compass in a time of illegal war and inquisition. These soldiers and students choose humanity over war.

Military Myths: I Want You! Paper Tiger production
Excellent short video. The film focuses on youth of color and the racial/economic profiling behind recruitment. Military Myths takes a critical look at the military's promises of travel, money for education, job training. It considers how the media represents war and how military life compares to the reality of war told by veterans who have been there. Interviews with activists and students are presented along with statistics from the Veterans Administration, the central committee for Conscientious objection, and pentagon studies that clear the myths of military life.

The War Tribunal, Pepper Spray productions. This is the evidence Lt Watada's defense team was prevented from presenting at his court martial for refusing to deploy and speaking out against the US war in Iraq. He is the Army's first commissioned officer to take such a stand. Testimonoy is given by:

• Danniel Ellsberg, Military analyst who released the Penagon Papers in the Vietnam War
• Denis Hlaliday, Former UN Assistant Secretary-General, coordinated humanitarian aid;
• Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University;
• Benjamin Davis, Francis Boyle and John Burroughs, stellar legal experts
• Antonia Juhasz, Policy analyst and author on US economic policies in Iraq;
• Marjorie Cohn, National Lawyer's Guild president; Thomas Jefferson law school
• Ann Wright, retired Army colonel and Stae Department official
• Remarkable testimony from IVAW members:
  • Darrell Anderson, Army First Armored Division in Baghdad and Najaf; awarded Purple Heart
  • Harvey Tharp, Former US Navy Lieutenant and JAG stationed in Iraq;
  • Geoffrey Millard, 8 years in Army National Guard, awarded 13 medals
  • Chanan Suarez-Diaz, Former Navy Hospital corpsman, Purple Heart & valor commendation
• Eman Khammas, Iraqi human rights advocate, seeking thouands of Iraqis who "disappeared"
• Stacy Bannerman, Military Families Speak Out

Why We Fight, winner Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival
"It is nowhere written that the American empire goes on forever." Important film. Inspired by president Dwight Eisenhower's 1961 Farewell Address in which he warned American about the dangers of the "corporate-military-industrial complex" (note that corporate has been left out, from his original speech). Unforgettable stories of everyday Americans touched by war with commentary by a 'who's who" of military and Washington insiders. The business of war drives a half-century of US foreign policy, and our nation has drifted far from her founding principles toward an imperial and uncertain future. About 99 minutes.

When I Came Home- 2006 Tribeca Film Festival winner.
Iraq War veteran Harold Noel was discovered by filmmaker Lohaus, he was suffering from PTSD and living out of his car in Brooklyn. The film follows Harold's struggle with homelessness and PTSD as he tries to get assistance from the Veterans Administration, city agencies, and different veteran's organizations.

Support the Truth: Stop the War on Iraq, Scott Ritter. Capitol Theater, Olympia, Feb. 18, 2005. Mr. Ritter is a former Marine, Middle East analyst and former UN Weapons Inspector. Well-informed about what is happening and not going well in Iraq and the region, he is perceived sometimes as derisive with regard to ill-informed American public.. He is well versed in the religious and sectarian differences in the Middle East, and warned in early 2005 of the Administration's desire to attack Iran. Which, while true, has been delayed possibly due to overstretched military in Iraq and US opposition to ongoing occupation in the region. Dahr Jamail spoke that evening and showed powerful photos of the war's effects on Iraqi citizens. He was the only unembedded reporter in Iraq.

Arlington Northwest 60 minutes, with six ten-minute units for Educators. 83 heartfelt conversations with US Soldiers, traveling to an from war zones; military families, veterans and children Curriculum guide available.

Your Rights Vs Military Recruiters, Glen Anderson with Fellowship of Reconciliation TCTV show.

US Foreign Policy, Oil

What I've Learned about US Foreign Policy: The War Against the Third World, CIA Covert Operations and US Military Interventions since WWII. What you Didn't Learn in School and Don't hear on the Mainstream Media. Produced by Frank Dorrell, author of Addicted to War.

The Oil Factor, 93 minutes.. Filmmakers Ungerman and Brohy spent three months in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, to assess the results of US attacks. They expose the human cost and examine the geo-strategic picture of these invasions, which may lead the world into the next global conflict.

While the world is focused on terror, "The Oil Factor" focuses on facts and figures. Did you know that:

• At the current rate of production, North America and Western Europe will run out of oil in 2010? (this won't be proven until a few years after it happens)
• Almost a half million US military personnel are deployed overseas near oil fields and oil routes?
• US military deployment in Afghanistan and Central Asia blocks China and Russia from accessing oil and hatural gas they desperately need for their economies?

Reclaiming Democracy series, produced by the Alliance for Democracy, South Puget Sound Chapter. We have four interviews, each 28 or 29 minutes:

• John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (excellent interview). Mr. Perkins authored a book of the same title, and has a new book out which further details how the US cheats numerous poor countries out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay. "Jackals" or assassins are brought in when the Economic hit men do not successfully persuade heads of state to cooperate and cease their opposition to the corporate-political-banking heads whose goal is global empire.
• Bruce Gagnon, Space for Corporate Profit. Bruce Gagnon I coordinator of Global Network Againt Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He authored Come Together Right Now: Organizing Stories from a Fading Empire.
• Gagnon discusses the infiltration of corporations into our government that may allow them to accomplish their goal of intergalactic empire (where wars will be fought from space). He contends fragmented citizens groups must come together to demand a different, more promising future.
• Antonia Juhasz, brilliant economist, author of The Bush Agenda—Invading the World One Economy at a Time. (Ed: This book may be one of the most important works of the decade). Juhasz argues the administration has expanded its target to the entire Middle East through the US Middle East Free Trade Area. She describes where the Bush administration and its corporate allies are taking the world and what we can do about it.
• David Korten, The Great Turning from Empire to Earth Community. Korten discusses the perfect storm of peak oil, global warming and a growing trade deficit that he believes will lead to a great unraveling. Our hope is in embracing this opportunity to turn our economy and political system from one of domination, war and empire to a sustainable, just earth community. Korten provides a map for organizing communities around the great turning. (Local examples should be discussed to remind us that the turning is happening now, in our own community. Local groups are meeting and living Buy Local campaigns, growing food locally, building green, etc.)

Through the Eyes of Children, David Lynn and Ground View Productions. Beautiful short film depicts the lives and joy of Iraqi children and adults prior to the US "shock and awe" campaign. Images of war follow. Photos and music only, very powerful.

The Take by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein – 87 minutes Argentina: "Not Just Another Poor Country, but a rich country made poor!" The extraordinary drama of Argentina's decline during the late 20th century is a cautionary tale of violence, corruption and betrayal. In the wake of Argentina's 2001 spectacular economic collapse, latin America's most prosperous middle class finds itself in ghost towns of abandoned factories and mass unemployment.

In suburban Buenos Aires thirty unemployed auto-parts workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave. They want to re-start the silent machine, but this simple act,--"the take"—threatens to turn the globalization debate on its head. Must see film.

Palestine

Palestine for Beginners, produced by the Palestine Information Project, Linda Bevis and Ed Mast. Recorded in Seattle August 31, 2004.

Reviews Zionism, the Israeli war of 1948, the 1967 war, current occupation, and session on equal rights and peace. Q&A on One State/two State debate, and Nonviolence and Resistance. Good resource.

Darfur

The Face of Genocide, David Lynn and Ground View Productions. This is an extremely powerful film, includes very disturbing images. Voices in Wartime is developing a curriculum for the film, to assist teachers and viewers with the subject of genocide, and what we can do. Lynn recommends following Mia Farrow's website which is current with actions being taken, including the Boycott of the Beijing Olympics in 2008 if China does not take action to stop the Sudanese government backed genocide. China Petrol plays a major role in the conflict—once again, war for oil.

Darfur Diaries, based on the book by Jen Marlowe et al, is on order.

Impeachment

Constitution in Crisis: The Case for Impeachment, produced by Citizens Movement to Impeach Bush/Cheney. A Town Hall Forum in Olympia WA, February 20, 2007. Features panel with David lindorff, Ray Mcgovern, and Elizabeth de la Vega. Informative and inspirational.

Election Fraud and Reform

Unprecedented: the 2000 Presidential Election, Robert Greenwald Production. Narrated by Danny Glover. This is the riveting battle for the Presidency in Florida, undermining democracy and allowing the Supreme Court to decide the presidency. What emerges is a disturbing picture of election irregularities, electoral injustices and sinister voter purges.

Washington Public Campaigns, produced by Washclean.org. Needs to use a title like "Clean Elections" which is used in Maine and Arizona to describe their successful election reform efforts. There are clips from a PBS "NOW" show with Bill Moyers, used with permission. Two clips are included from Seattle Town Hall forums. Great for classroom discussion.