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Arundhati Roy: Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy
Arundhati Roy Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy
Actor: Arundhati Roy
Genres: Documentary
NR     2008     3hr 30min

INSTANT MIX IMPERIAL DEMOCRACY AND CO - DVD Movie

     
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Movie Details

Actor: Arundhati Roy
Genres: Documentary
Sub-Genres: Documentary
Studio: Mvd Visual
Format: DVD - Color
DVD Release Date: 10/28/2008
Original Release Date: 01/01/2008
Theatrical Release Date: 00/00/2008
Release Year: 2008
Run Time: 3hr 30min
Screens: Color
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaDVD Credits: 1
Total Copies: 0
Members Wishing: 1
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Languages: English
 

Movie Reviews

A great thinker and an important message
Prosser H. Picot II | Haymarket, VA USA | 05/27/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)

"This DVD includes Arundhati (pronounced "Ah-run-da-ti") Roy's 18 Sept 2002 speech "Come September" in Santa Fe New Mexico. It is a great lesson in the politics of war and what this nation as been doing for at least the last 50 years. She points out that we are, understandably upset that 3,000 people were killed in the USA on 9/11 by (almost entirely) people from Saudi Arabia, but we don't have clean hands.

"About half a million Iraqi children have died as a result of the sanctions. Of them, Madeleine Albright, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, famously said, "It's a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it.".

Of course that was just part of our history, supporting dictatorships in Chile, Greece, Iran, Indonesia, and half a dozen other South American countries are acts that many people know about,but George Bush hides behind Elvis Presley, when he says that people hate us for our "freedoms". She also covers the bloody history of Israel's occupation of Palestine, and some amazingly racist quotes from some of Israel's leaders. If you trust corporate America's news organizations to tell you the truth, this will worry you, but you if are able to face the truth and want to hear articulate arguments that you can help make the world better, this is a great place to start. You can't do much if you don't know the facts. You can be sure that the people who suffered under Saddam know he was our "boy". As Ms. Roy says,

"The U.S. government says that Saddam Hussein is a war criminal, a cruel military despot who has committed genocide against his own people. That's a fairly accurate description of the man. In 1988, Saddam Hussein razed hundreds of villages in northern Iraq, used chemical weapons and machine guns to kill thousands of Kurdish people. Today we know that that same year the U.S. government provided him with $500 million in subsidies to buy American farm products. The next year, after he had successfully completed his genocidal campaign, the U.S. government doubled its subsidy to $1 billion. It also provided him with high quality germ seed for anthrax, and helicopters and dual-use material that could be used to manufacture chemical and biological weapons. So it turns out that while Saddam Hussein was carrying out his worst atrocities, the U.S. and the U.K. governments were his close allies.

"So what changed? In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. His sin was not so much that he had committed an act of war, but that he had acted independently, without orders from his master. This display of independence was enough to upset the power equation in the Gulf. So it was decided that Saddam Hussein be exterminated, like a pet that has outlived its owner's affection.

Her message is that many of the people of the world know the difference between the goodness of the U.S. people and the acts of the US government (and the CIA), but if we want to reach the rest of the world, we need to know our own history. Nothing that Hamas has done is worse than what our government and Israel have done.

These arguments are not just about the past. Today we are justifying preventive detention without the right to a fair trial, or any trial. It should seem odd to all of us that we protect our own right to a fair trial by denying that to someone else. The Declaration of Independence says that all men are equal under the law. Where did we agree to give up on that? Dick Cheney, and even Barack Obama refer to the detainees as "terrorists" and not as "alleged terrorists" when it is our system, or it was our system, that only a jury can make that decision, after hearing reliable evidence in a fair trial. That is a freedom we can not turn on and off like a tap; it may be off when we need it. Don't let the government tell you what America is about, it is our country and they work for us, we tell them what to say. It was misunderstanding that, that got King George kicked out."