Archive for March, 2010

The Modern Racist Paradigm

This is a well researched documentary that exposes the “White” Media’s long-term agenda to standardize Caucasian people as the “social norm” for general society.

Through the globalization and centralization of the “White” media and its constant propagation of repetitive images depicting Caucasians in positive roles and as protagonists while usually depicting Non-Caucasians as background characters and antagonists — which are often connected to negative themes and stereotypes — the media elite have been able to effectively condition general society into subconsciously adhering to a racist social hierarchy in which Caucasian people are at the very apex.

The documentary addresses many modern-day internalized racist psychological dispositions (subconscious forms of internalized racism) which are unknowingly passed down from generation to generation due to the globalization and pervasiveness of “Whiteness” a cultural assimilation process of which, is directly derivative to historical European expansionism, colonialism, and imperialism.

Posted by Sarah on March 29th, 2010 No Comments

Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children

The Social Care Home – where 75 unwanted children are growing up – is the main employer in the small village of Mogilino. Few of the children can talk, not necessarily because they are unable but rather because no one has ever taught them how.

Kate meets the children in this tragic, silent world, such as Milan, the gentle giant who spends his days doing chores and watching over the others, and mildly autistic 18-year-old Didi, who is able to talk, and has plenty to say, but no one to speak to. The children that surround them suffer a variety of problems, many are blind or deaf and some are unable to leave their beds, many are literally wasting away.

Abandoned into the hands of the staff at Mogilino these children inhabit a bleak uncaring world, so devoid of normal everyday stimulus that many have taken to rocking slowly and constantly in their chairs just for something to do.

Bulgaria has more institutionalised mentally and physically disabled children than anywhere else in Europe. This film is a heart-rending and eye-opening look into the life of one such institution.

Posted by Sarah on March 29th, 2010 No Comments

Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment

It’s important not to think of this as prisoner and guard in a real prison. The important issue is the metaphor prisoner and guard. What does it mean to be a prisoner? What does it mean to be a guard? And the guard is somebody who limits the freedom of someone else, uses the power in their role to control and dominate someone else, and that’s what this study is about.

In the summer of 1971, Philip Zimbardo, Craig Haney, and Curtis Banks carried out a psychological experiment to test a simple question. What happens when you put good people in an evil place-does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph?

To explore this question, college student volunteers were pretested and randomly assigned to play the role of prisoner or guard in a simulated prison at Stanford University. Although the students were mentally healthy and knew they were taking part in an experiment, some guards soon because sadistic and the prisoners showed signs of acute stress and depression.

After only six days, the planned two-week study spun out of control and had to be ended to prevent further abuse of the prisoners. This dramatic demonstration of the power of social situations is relevant to many institutional settings, such as the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.

Posted by Sarah on March 29th, 2010 No Comments

Ryanair Caught Napping

Ryanair was founded in 1985 by Irish businessman Tony Ryan. It is Europe’s largest low-cost carrier, operating 270 low-fare routes to 21 European countries.

Two Dispatches undercover reporters spent five months secretly filming Ryanair’s training programme and onboard flights as members of the cabin crew.

The reporters reveal what really takes place behind the scenes: inadequate safety and security checks, dirty planes, exhausted cabin crew and pilots complaining about the number of hours they have to fly.

And watch Ryanair staff speaking frankly about their experiences and attitudes towards passengers.

Posted by Sarah on March 29th, 2010 No Comments

Why We Bang

The film, Why We Bang, produced and directed by Orlando Myrics and Clifford Jordan for Ghetto Logik Entertainment is an independent film that documents the historical background of LA’s Bloods and Crips gangs, then transitions into several interviews of current and former members of the Bloods and Crips of Los Angeles.

Ghetto Logik, a Film Company based in South Los Angeles offers their first urban documentary as a result of being disappointed in seeing outsiders far too often portray the stories of ghetto residents. “We just got tired of seeing people, not from our community making so called “Hood movies” that did not really depict what our community was all about, our goal is to bring real images and real stories about real people to the big screen.”

Their first effort, Why We Bang is an in-depth look into Gang Culture in Los Angeles that shows up-close, the life in South Los Angeles, talking and walking with real gang members first hand. Their approach was to show the gangs, their motivations and deadliness and to capture the voices of the mothers who have lost children to the violence that gangs bring. Their story, through several narratives will inform you Why We Bang.

Posted by Sarah on March 29th, 2010 No Comments

Inside Burma – Land of Fear

More than a million people have been forced from their homes and according to the United Nations, untold thousands have been massacred, tortured, and subjected to a modern form of slavery. Burma, says Amnesty International, is a prison behind bars. John Pilger and David Munro go undercover in one of the world’s most isolated, and extraordinary countries, Burma, which AmnestyInternational calls ‘a prison without bars’. They discover slave labour preparing for tourism and foreign investment.

International Actual Award for Risk Journalism, Barcelona, Spain, 1996; Bronze Plaque in the category of ‘Social Issues – International Relations’, The Chris Awards, Ohio, 1996; Gold Special Jury Award, ‘Film & Video Production division’, WorldFest-Charleston, 1996; Award for Best Factual Programme, RTS Midland Centre Awards, Birmingham, 1996; Gold Apple in the category ‘Politics: Social organisations in other lands’, National Educational Media Network Film & Video Competition at The 1997 NEMN Apple Awards, Oakland, California, 1997; the updated version won a Gold Special Jury Award in the ‘Film & Video Production division’, WorldFest-Houston, 1999.

Posted by Sarah on March 29th, 2010 No Comments

Ruby Ridge

Ruby Ridge used to refer to a geographical location in the state of Idaho, but after an incident that took place there 10 years ago on Aug. 21, the phrase has come to refer to a scandalous series of events that opened the eyes of many people to the inner workings of the federal government, including the vaunted Federal Bureau of Investigation. Now that 10 years have passed, the feds will accelerate their ongoing effort to “move forward” and have the scandal declared “ancient history.” But the Ruby Ridge episode should not be soon forgotten.

On August 21, 1992 a paramilitary unit of the U.S. Marshals Service ventured onto the 20-acre property known as Ruby Ridge. A man named Randy Weaver owned the land and he lived there with his wife, children, and a family friend, Kevin Harris. There was an outstanding warrant for Weaver’s arrest for a firearms offense and the marshals were surveilling the premises. When the family dog noticed the marshals sneaking around in the woods, it began to bark wildly. Weaver’s 14-year-old boy, Sammy, and Kevin Harris proceeded to grab their rifles because they thought the dog had come upon a wild animal.

A firefight erupted when a marshal shot and killed the dog. Enraged that the family pet had been cut down for no good reason, Sammy shot into the woods at the unidentified trespasser. Within a few minutes, two human beings were shot dead: Sammy Weaver and a marshal. Harris and the Weaver family retreated to their cabin and the marshals retreated from the mountain and called the FBI for assistance.

Posted by Sarah on March 29th, 2010 No Comments

The Zeitgeist Movement: Orientation Presentation

The Zeitgeist Movement is not a political movement. It does not recognize nations, governments, races, religions, creeds or class. Our understandings conclude that these are false, outdated distinctions which are far from positive factors for true collective human growth and potential. Their basis is in power division and stratification, not unity and equality, which is our goal. While it is important to understand that everything in life is a natural progression, we must also acknowledge the reality that the human species has the ability to drastically slow and paralyze progress, through social structures which are out of date, dogmatic, and hence out of line with nature itself. The world you see today, full of war, corruption, elitism, pollution, poverty, epidemic disease, human rights abuses, inequality and crime is the result of this paralysis.

This movement is about awareness, in avocation of a fluid evolutionary progress, both personal, social, technological and spiritual. It recognizes that the human species is on a natural path for unification, derived from a communal acknowledgment of fundamental and near empirical understandings of how nature works and how we as humans fit into/are a part of this universal unfolding we call life. While this path does exist, it is unfortunately hindered and not recognized by the great majority of humans, who continue to perpetuate outdated and hence degenerative modes of conduct and association. It is this intellectual irrelevancy which the Zeitgeist Movement hopes to overcome through education and social action.

The goal is to revise our world society in accord with present day knowledge on all levels, not only creating awareness of social and technological possibilities many have been conditioned to think impossible or against “human nature”, but also to provide a means to overcome those elements in society which perpetuate these outdated systems.

An important association, upon which many of the ideas of this movement are derived come from an organization called ” The Venus Project” directed by social engineer and industrial designer, Jacque Fresco. He has worked nearly his entire life to create the tools needed to assist a design of the world which could eventually eradicate war, poverty, crime, social stratification and corruption. His notions are not radical or complex. They do not impose a subjective interpretation in their formation. In this model, society is created as a mirror of nature, with the variables predefined, inherently.

The movement itself is not a centralized construct. We are not here to lead, but to organize and educate.

Posted by Sarah on March 29th, 2010 No Comments

Mechanized Death – Legendary Driving Safety Film

Legendary “shock” driving safety film featuring numerous scenes of mutilated cars and injured/dead people and a voice over lacking in compassion.

Produced in cooperation with the Ohio State Highway Patrol and shown to millions of young drivers for over 40 years.

Signal 30 is just one of several Driver’s Education films produced by Highway Safety Films, filmed at actual auto accident scenes and consisting largely of color closeups of mangled accident victims.

Other titles in the series included Carrier or Killer, Highways of Agony, Mechanized Death and Wheels of Tragedy. There were also imitators; Death on the Highway is probably the most (in)famous.

Posted by Sarah on March 29th, 2010 No Comments

Children of the Secret State

North Korea, a country of 22 million. Up to 3 million of its’ people have starved to death in the last 10 years. More than 40% of North Korean children now suffer from chronic malnutrition. Children of the Secret State is an investigation into North Korea, considered by many as the last Stalinist dictatorship, a hidden and sealed country riddled with propaganda and saturated with hostility to democracy and the West. Joe Layburn and the Hardcash team discovered a young North Korean, known by the pseudonym Ahn Chol, who has been filming undercover so that the world can see what is going on in his native land: the country where his parents both starved to death.

His devastating footage shows some of the estimated 200,000 street children, mainly orphans, foraging for food in the mud and the gutters, ignored by the adults around them and ignored by the state which claims they are at its bosom.

Posted by Sarah on March 29th, 2010 No Comments