At 3 PM PACIFIC:
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140th Happy Birthday honours to Gandhi!
At 3:30 Pacific – Andrew Cockburn – American Casino
“I don’t think most people really understood that they were in a casino” says award-winning financial reporter Mark Pittman. “When you’re in the Street’s casino, you’ve got to play by their rules.” This film finally explains how and why over $8 trillion of our money vanished into the American Casino.
For chips, the casino used real people, like those we follow in Baltimore. They are not the heedless spendthrifts of Wall Street legend, but a high school teacher, a therapist, a minister of the church. They were sold on the “American Dream” as a safe investment. Too late, they discovered the Truth.
Cruelly, as African – Americans, they and other minorities were the prime targets for the subprime loans that powered the casino. According to the Federal Reserve, African-Americans were four times more likely than whites to be sold subprime loans.
We meet the players. A banker explains that the complex securities he designed were “fourth dimensional” and sold to “idiots.” A senior Wall Street ratings agency executive describes being ordered to “guess” the worth of billion dollar securities. A mortgage loan salesman explains how borrowers’ incomes were inflated to justify a loan. A billionaire describes how he made a massive bet that people would lose their homes and has won $500 million, so far.
Finally, as the global financial system crumbles and outraged but impotent lawmakers fume at Wall Street titans, we see the casino’s endgame in Riverside, California a foreclosure wasteland given over to colonies of rats and methamphetamine labs, where disease-bearing mosquitoes swarm in their millions from abandoned, stagnant swimming pools. Filmed over twelve months in 2008, American Casino takes you inside a game that our grandchildren never wanted to play.
American Casino director Leslie Cockburn says:
It is rare that a documentary director has the priviledge to shoot a film that becomes the greatest story of our time while in production. What was considered the worst case scenario in January 2008, when we began work on American Casino, was what actually unfolded in the year that followed. We were able to follow our characters through Wall Street’s collapse, foreclosure, bankruptcy, homelessness.
We watched whole neighborhoods ravaged by the subprime meltdown. I have spent much of my career filming in war zones and post apocalyptic societies — Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan. … but I never expected such a disaster at home. To be there, with a camera, while it was happening, telling the story, was certainly the highlight of my career.
- “American Casino is a powerful and shocking look at the subprime lending scandal. If you want to understand how the US Financial system failed and how mortgage companies ripped off the Poor, see this film”” – Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize-winning economist
- “FASCINATING! A terrific documentary chronicling the subprime-mortgage mess and the financial collapse of the past two years…
with a rare cohesive power, The Cockburns fill in the lines of connection. They function a little like Raymond Chandler as he traces the corruption that produces, at the end of a long chain of circumstances, the Lady in the Lake…
The movie is lucid and comprehensive picture of a rotten system.” — David Denby, The New Yorker- “SENSATIONALLY EFFECTIVE” — New York Magazine
- “Politicians and the media like to talk about the relationship between Wall Street and Main Street, but investigative journalist Leslie Cockburn’s debut feature gets to the guts of the matter, visiting defectors from Bear Stearns and Standard & Poor’s and other high-level players in the subprime mortgage gamble and, on the flipside, visiting the working-class Americans who were the unwitting chips on the table.” — Tribeca Festival programmers 2009
At 4 Pacific – Lte. Eric Shine
At 5:30 Pacific – Andy Worthington returns! Andy Worthington is a journalist and historian, based in London. He is the author of The Guantánamo Files, the first book to tell the stories of all the detainees in America’s illegal prison.
For more information, visit his blog here or his work on the Huff’Po
A lengthy analysis of Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s ruling in the habeas corpus petition of the Kuwaiti prisoner Fouad al-Rabiah, which I regard as the most shocking I’ve encountered in four years of research and writing about Guantanamo, because the facts of the case were, genuinely, so unexpected, and because it is such a perfectly chilling example of how the SERE-influenced interrogation program ended up exactly reproducing the false confessions extracted from captured US pilots during the Korean War – on which the SERE program itself was based!
We would also like to share our earlier conversations with:
Mike Ferner is a writer from Ohio and president of Veterans For Peace
Robocops Come to Pittsburgh
…and bring the latest weaponry with them
By Mike Ferner, After Downing Street, Civil Rights / Liberties
No longer the stuff of disturbing futuristic fantasies, an arsenal of “crowd control munitions,” including one that reportedly made its debut in the U.S., was deployed with a massive, overpowering police presence in Pittsburgh during last week’s G-20 protests.Nearly 200 arrests were made and civil liberties groups charged the many thousands of police (most transported on Port Authority buses displaying “PITTSBURGH WELCOMES THE WORLD”), from as far away as Arizona and Florida with overreacting…and they had plenty of weaponry with which to do it.
Bean bags fired from shotguns, CS (tear) gas, OC (Oleoresin Capsicum) spray, flash-bang grenades, batons and, according to local news reports, for the first time on the streets of America, the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD).
Mounted in the turret of an Armored Personnel Carrier (APC), I saw the LRAD in action twice in the area of 25th, Penn and Liberty Streets of Lawrenceville, an old Pittsburgh neighborhood. Blasting a shrill, piercing noise like a high-pitched police siren on steroids, it quickly swept streets and sidewalks of pedestrians, merchants and journalists and drove residents into their homes, but in neither case were any demonstrators present. The APC, oversized and sinister for a city street, together with lines of police in full riot gear looking like darkly threatening Michelin Men, made for a scene out of a movie you didn’t want to be in.
As intimidating as this massive show of armed force and technology was, the good burghers of Pittsburgh and their fellow citizens in the Land of the Brave and Home of the Free ain’t seen nothin’ yet. …
COHA Research Fellow Sebastian Castaneda
The Consolidation of U.S. Military Presence in Colombia & Those Who Are Apprehensive Over it
The ongoing negotiation between the United States & Colombia, which strengthened military cooperation by granting U.S. military personnel & civil contractors access to seven Colombian military bases, has generated contentious internal & regional debates. Throughout the hemisphere, many questions remain regarding the real motivations, benefits, & above all, the significance of the U.S.-Colombian deal. These questions have been fueled by the secrecy surrounding the negotiations & their details. What many agree on is that the pending military agreement is more than a mere fight against drug-trafficking & terrorism. With the Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA), Colombian President Álvaro Uribe will be able to secure significant resources for his controversial Democratic Security strategy & for his already successful battle against insurgents & drug trafficking.
Moreover, the new arrangement serves as a further boost to Uribe’s image as Washington’s most reliable U.S. ally in the Americas. Now he also can turn his hopes to advancing the Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which is currently blocked in the U.S. Congress, which soon may be lifted now that the Obama administration is preparing the way for this to occur. Growing political isolation from the rest of Latin America is the high price that Bogotá apparently is willing to pay. The U.S. stands to institutionalize strategic geopolitical & economic ties with Colombia even as the rest of the region grows increasingly autonomous from U.S. influence.
For full article click hereChina’s Policy Paper on Latin America & the Caribbean
On November 5, 2008, the Chinese government released a policy paper on Latin America & the Caribbean, as it had previously done so for Europe in 2003 & for Africa in 2006. Although it may not come as a huge surprise that Latin America is the most recent region for which China has formally spelled out its foreign policy position, the region has been historically perceived as being under the United States’ sphere of influence.
Perhaps the importance of the Chinese policy paper lies in the timing of its release. The release of the paper deliberately coincided with the unfolding of the current financial crisis; this congruence of events has allowed China to expand its influence in this somewhat neglected region without attracting any lasting venom from the U.S. China’s policy paper formally evidences the importance of Latin America & the Caribbean as part of China’s growth plan for its long-term strategic interests.
Most of all, this includes access to raw materials as well as a plethora of natural resources, the infiltration of new foreign markets, the reduction of diplomatic support for the Republic of Taiwan, & the strengthening of Beijing political standing on the global stage through strong alliances cemented with the developing world.
The policy paper’s general context
The policy paper explicitly states its main objective is to “clarify the goals of China’s policy in this region, outline the guiding principles for future cooperation […] & sustain the sound, steady & all-around growth of China’s relations with Latin America & the Caribbean.”
In the economic realm, China expresses an interest in investing in energy, mineral resources, forestry, fishing, & agriculture, areas important to expanding China’s productivity. Additionally, the Chinese government seems to show interest in infrastructure projects not directly related to its economy, albeit essential in the transportation of natural resources, & proposes to fund these projects in order to be perceived as a partner in development.
Furthermore, China expresses its desire to increase military diplomacy & sale of equipment to the region. Although many of the report’s statements are merely rhetoric & general in scope, the paper helps formalize China’s economic, diplomatic & military ties with Latin America, which were first proposed by then President of China Jiang Zemin in 2001.
For full article click here
This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Fellow Sebastian Castaneda
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General Interest: Odd Events on First Amendment Friday:
Shag Harbour Incident:
On the night of October 4, 1967, at about 11:20 p.m. Atlantic Daylight Time, it was reported that something (later referred to as a “UFO”) had crashed into the waters near Shag Harbour, on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. At least eleven people saw a low-flying lit object head down towards the harbour.
Multiple witnesses reported hearing a whistling sound “like a bomb”, then a “whoosh”, and finally a loud bang. Some reported a flash of light as the object entered the water. Thinking that an airliner or smaller aircraft had crashed into the Sound next to Shag Harbour, some witnesses reported the event to the local Royal Canadian Mounted Police RCMP detachment.
The unknown object was referred to as a “UFO” in official Canadian government documents.
A Canadian Naval recovery effort immediately followed, perhaps aided in part by the U.S. military.
The event is sometimes compared to the Roswell UFO incident and Kecksburg UFO incident, two other events alleged to be military crash-recoveries of UFOs.
The Invisible Machine
The world of electromagnetic warfare and weapons of mass destruction
Winner of the “Best Independent Documentary Award” at the Da Vinci Film & Video FestivalImagine the future – a strange new weapon is detonated high over a large city. There is no explosion, no visible destruction, but everything electronic within the range of this weapon will go out … permanently. Every electronic gadget in every home and office – disabled. No computers, no T.V., no life support systems in hospitals, no water supply, no heat, no lights – truly, a return to the dark ages. Imagine a full range of new weapons; one can take out the electricity in your city, another can destroy you. If you haven’t heard about these weapons, it’s no surprise. Their development has been secretive and they sound more like science fiction than reality. When did this reality really begin and how far advanced is it now? This revealing documentary opens the window on this -until now- secretive science.
On a calm Sunday morning in 1978, residents of Bell Island, Newfoundland hear an odd, high-pitched hum, immediately followed by a sudden and terrifying blast resounding for hundreds of miles. Witnesses observe a “straight shaft of light” descending from the sky, and a barrage of violent electrical phenomenon. Outbuildings are destroyed, livestock electrocuted, televisions explode and power lines vaporize. Observed from space, the light emissions from the “boom” are more powerful than those of the Hiroshima blast.
“The Invisible Machine” unravels the mystery of the Bell Island “boom” and in doing so takes a chilling look at the U.S. military’s experimentation with electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons,“e-bombs”, directed energy weapons that can destroy electrical and communications systems, but leave people seemingly unharmed. We interview eye witnesses, an EMP weapons designer, scientists, journalists, policy makers and activists who warn that these weapons are real and may have been used by the US military during its “shock and awe” campaign against Iraq in 2003.While the United States continues to develop and experiment with these weapons of mass destruction, the questions remain: were the bizarre events on Bell Island in 1978 related to early testing gone wrong and were directed EMP weapons at Baghdad’s electricity generation plant the most recent experiment? If so, what are the consequences of unleashing this powerful force? “The Invisible Machine” pulls back the veils of secrecy to find the answers.
- E-Bomb Aims to Stun Iraqi Forces
- E-Bomb’ Doomsday Conference Starts Today – Sharon Weinberger, Wired- DangerRoom, 8.Sep.09
- Weldon’s Plasma Weapon Attack
- New Army Weapon Aims to Fry Gadgets, People
- Air Force Preps Gadget-Zapping Microwave Missiles
- Air Force Blasts Drones With Microwave Weapons
- Air Force Plots $75 Million Microwave Weapon Push
- Air Force Eyes Energy Shields, Microwave Bombs
- Ready, Aim, Zap!
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