Part of being a democratic organization is ensuring YOU have a voice in what we do. To help give your voice volume, we've created a film opinion poll. We have many documentary films to show you - now is your chance to tell us which ones you most want to see! You'll be able to make a first choice, a second choice, and a third choice from the films listed and described below. PLEASE REVIEW THE LIST AND VOTE ONLY ONCE!!! Thanks!
THE FILMS YOU CAN CHOOSE FROM:
Darwin's Nightmare - Forty years ago, a voracious predator is introduced into the waters of Tanzania's Lake Victoria where it quickly extinguishes the entire stock of native fish. Its ecological impact aside, the Nile Perch becomes highly prized for its tender, plump fillets, barely meeting the demand at elegant 4-star European restaurants. Huge empty foreign cargo planes land to export the lake's gourmet bounty, taking out 55 tons of processed fish daily. In their wake, they leave starving villagers to scrounge a meal out of the discarded fish heads and rotting carcasses. With massive epidemics, raging civil wars, crime, homelessness, and drug-addicted children, the question becomes what do these planes really deliver to this destitute community? The answer is as shocking as it is devastating, and Darwin's Nightmare become a nightmare for all mankind. http://www.darwinsnightmare.com/
King Corn - Ian and Curt, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat, how we farm, and the stuff we're really made of. http://www.kingcorn.net/
Manufactured Landscapes - A striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed fro his large-scale photographs of "manufactured landscapes" - quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams - Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization's materials and debris. The film follows him through China, as he shoots the evidence and effects of that country's massive industrial revoluation. With breathtaking sequences, such as the opening tracking shot through an almost endless factory, the filmmakers also extend the narratives of Burtynsky's photographs, allowing us to meditate on our impact on the planet and witness both the epicenters of industrial endeavor and the dumpting grounds of its waste. http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/film.php?directoryname=manufacturedlandscapes
Money as Debt - Where does all this money come from? How could there be that much money to lend? The answer is ... there isn't. Today, money is debt. If there were no debt, there would be no money. If this is puzzling to you, you are not alone. Very few people understand, even though all us of are affected. This fast-paced and highly entertaining animated feature by artist and videographer Paul Grignon explains today's magically perverse debt-money system in terms that are easy to understand. http://www.moneyasdebt.net/
The Money Masters: How Banks Create the World's Money - THE MONEY MASTERS traces the origins of the political power structure. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money. The development of fractional reserve banking practices in the 17th century brought to a cunning sophistication the secret techniques initially used by goldsmiths fraudulently to accumulate wealth. With the formation of the privately-owned Bank of England in 1694, the yoke of economic slavery to a privately-owned "central" bank was first forced upon the backs of an entire nation, not removed but only made heavier with the passing of the three centuries to our day. Nation after nation has fallen prey to this cabal of international central bankers.
The success of the central banking scheme developed into a far-reaching plan described by President Clinton's mentor, Georgetown Professor Carroll Quigley, "to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank....sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the levels of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."
Several short-lived attempts to impose the central banking scheme on the United States were defeated by the patriotic efforts of Presidents Madison, Jefferson, Jackson, Van Buren and Lincoln. But with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, America was firmly lashed to the same yoke, so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the masses a yoke little better than slavery itself. That yoke inevitably grows heavier with ever-compounding interest, and totals over $20 trillion of debt owed by the American people today ($80,000 per American) ultimately to these bankers.
This vast accumulation of wealth concentrates immense power and despotic economic domination in the hands of the few central bankers "who are able to govern credit and its allotment, for this reason supplying, so to speak, the life-blood to the entire economic body, and grasping, as it were, in their hands the very soul of the economy so that no one dare breathe against their will." http://www.themoneymasters.com/
News War - Drawing on more than 80 interviews with key figures in the print, broadcast and electronic media, and with unequaled, behind-the-scenes access to some of today's most important news organizations, FRONTLINE correspondent Lowell Bergman examines the challenges facing the mainstream news media, and the media's reaction, in "News War," a special four-part series.
Bergman traces the recent history of American journalism, from the Nixon administration's attacks on the media and the post-Watergate popularity of the press to new obstacles presented by the war on terror and changing economics in the media business and the Internet. The topic has special resonance for Bergman, whose career as a journalist for FRONTLINE, The New York Times, ABC News and 60 Minutes has included reporting on the issues that are critical to the current controversies. "There has been a perfect storm brewing in the world of news," says Bergman. "Not since the Nixon administration has there been this level of hostility leveled at news organizations. … [But] unlike the confrontations of 35 or more years ago, today's news war sees the very economic foundations of the business shifting." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/
No End in Sight - The first film of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq’s descent into guerilla war, warlord rule, criminality and anarchy, NO END IN SIGHT is a jaw-dropping, insider’s tale of wholesale incompetence, recklessness and venality. Based on over 200 hours of footage, the film provides a candid retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials such as former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Ambassador Barbara Bodine (in charge of Baghdad during the Spring of 2003), Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, and General Jay Garner (in charge of the occupation of Iraq through May 2003) as well as Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, and prominent analysts. NO END IN SIGHT examines the manner in which the principal errors of U.S. policy – the use of insufficient troop levels, allowing the looting of Baghdad, the purging of professionals from the Iraqi government, and the disbanding of the Iraqi military – largely created the insurgency and chaos that engulf Iraq today. How did a group of men with little or no military experience, knowledge of the Arab world or personal experience in Iraq come to make such flagrantly debilitating decisions? NO END IN SIGHT dissects the people, issues and facts behind the Bush Administration’s decisions and their consequences on the ground to provide a powerful look into how arrogance and ignorance turned a military victory into a seemingly endless and deepening nightmare of a war. http://www.noendinsightmovie.com/
The Persuaders - Americans are swimming in a sea of messages. Each year, legions of ad people, copywriters, market researchers, pollsters, consultants, and even linguists—most of whom work for one of six giant companies—spend billions of dollars and millions of man-hours trying to determine how to persuade consumers what to buy, whom to trust, and what to think. Increasingly, these techniques are migrating to the high-stakes arena of politics, shaping policy and influencing how Americans choose their leaders.
In "The Persuaders," FRONTLINE explores how the cultures of marketing and advertising have come to influence not only what Americans buy, but also how they view themselves and the world around them. The 90-minute documentary draws on a range of experts and observers of the advertising/marketing world, to examine how, in the words of one on-camera commentator, "the principal of democracy yields to the practice of demography," as highly customized messages are delivered to a smaller segment of the market. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/
Tell the Truth and Run - This Academy Award nominated biopic of muckraking journalist George Seldes is a piercing look at censorship and suppression in the media.
80 years a newspapersman, Seldes became America's most important press critic. Through Seldes's encounters with Lenin and Mussolini, the tobacco industry, J. Edgar Hoover and "The Lords of the Press," Tell the Truth and Run raises profound ethical, professional and political questions about America's news media. Seldes at 98 is witty and still impassioned about his ideas and ideals. With Ralph Nader, Ben Bagdikian, Daniel Ellsberg and Jeff Cohen of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). http://www.mediarights.org/film/tell_the_truth_and_run_george_seldes_and_the_american_press.php
Uncounted - UNCOUNTED is an explosive new documentary that shows how the election fraud that changed the outcome of the 2004 election led to even greater fraud in 2006 - and now looms as an unbridled threat to the outcome of the 2008 election. This controversial feature length film by Emmy award-winning director David Earnhardt examines in factual, logical, and yet startling terms how easy it is to change election outcomes and undermine election integrity across the U.S. Noted computer programmers, statisticians, journalists, and experienced election officials provide the irrefutable proof.
UNCOUNTED shares well documented stories about the spine-chilling disregard for the right to vote in America. In Florida, computer programmer Clint Curtis is directed by his boss to create software that will “flip” votes from one candidate to another. In Utah, County Clerk Bruce Funk is locked out of his office for raising questions about security flaws in electronic voting machines. Californian Steve Heller gets convicted of a felony after he leaks secret documents detailing illegal activities committed by a major voting machine company. And Tennessee entrepreneur, Athan Gibbs, finds verifiable voting a hard sell in America and dies before his dream of honest elections can be realized.
UNCOUNTED is a wakeup call to all Americans. Beyond increasing the public’s awareness, the film inspires greater citizen involvement in fixing a broken electoral system. As we approach the decisive election of 2008, UNCOUNTED will change how you feel about the way votes are counted in America. http://www.uncountedthemovie.com/