Documentary series on foreign policy free at Tech

By the Standard Staff - 10/08/2004

A new 10-week series of documentaries will be shown on the Montana Tech campus. The first viewing of was already held Oct. 7, but offerings continue every Thursday.

Like two previous Citizens Education Project series, this fall's offering is also free to the public. It is sponsored by the Montana Tech Peace Seekers, Butte's Taking Action for Peaceful Solutions (TAPS) peace group, and by Sacred Ground. Topics are focused on major political and social issues of the new century.

All films will be shown at 7 p.m. Thursdays in S&E 113, a theater-style classroom in the first building next to the Marcus Daly statue, and will be led by Tech history and government professor George Waring.

Film offerings include:

Oct. 14: "Palestine is Still the Issue." This 2002 film was made at a time when President Bush's foreign policy advisers were counseling that regime change in Iraq would be the best way to advance the U.S. proposed "Road Map for Peace" between Palestinians and Israelis. Award-winning Australian journalist John Pilger conducts numerous interviews in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel that indicate U.S.-Israeli policy must account for the realities on the ground.

Oct. 21: "Breaking the Silence" will be shown. A 2003 documentary, it features the reporting of award-winning Australian journalist John Pilger. In a series of interviews with neoconservative publicist William Kristol, Douglas Feith of the Defense Department, and John Bolton of the State Department, Pilger presents the Bush administration's case for launching the war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq. By traveling through Afghanistan, Pilger examines the reality of the claims that the Taliban had been defeated before Iraq was invaded in March, 2003.

Oct. 28: "Imperial Grand Strategy." This June 2003 video of a talk by Noam Chomsky introduces the thesis that Chomsky advanced in his best selling book, "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance." Chomsky places the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq within the overall U.S. government's long-term strategy of global control, a strategy that requires unilateral warfare, the dismantling of international agreements, and the militarization of space.

Nov. 4: "Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War." This 2003 documentary presents interviews with former Ambassador Joe Wilson, United Nations weapons inspectors Scott Ritter and David Albright, anti-terrorism expert Rand Beers, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, and David Corn, the Washington editor of the Nation magazine. Through an examination of the changing reasons presented by the Bush administration for the invasion of Iraq, the film makers make the case that the American public were systematically misled by their highest officials into accepting the need for a preemptive war in Iraq.

Nov. 11: "The New Rulers of the World." This 2001 documentary features award-winning Australian journalist John Pilger's examination of how "globalization" is working in Indonesia By a series of interviews conducted with officials of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, corporate CEOs and the people of Indonesia, some answers to the following questions become evident: "Who are the real beneficiaries of the globalized economy?" and "Who really rules the world today?"

Nov. 18: "Corporate Theft of Water." In this 2004 Z Magazine documentary, Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians, describes in detail how corporations, with the collusion of governments, have stolen water from communities, mostly in third world countries, and sold it back to citizens at outrageous prices. In an interview with Sonali Kolhatkar of KPFK Pacifica radio, Barlow adds to the information in her talk by describing in more detail how the corporate theft of water has been carried out worldwide. She closes with information about the groups struggling for water justice.

Nov. 25 is the Thanksgiving Day holiday. No film will be shown.

Dec. 2: "The Future of the U.S. Economy." This Z Magazine documentary features a talk given in 2001 on the Bush administration's neo-conservative economic policies. Ellen Frank gives a detailed history of U.S. Economic policy from the development of Keynesianism in the '30s and '40s to today's return to the Coolidge

economic policies of 1920s.