Vancouver International Film Festival

Author: 
Scott Wood

On Sunday September 30th, Scott Wood, host of the interview show, attended the Vancouver International Film Festival’s screening of The War On Democracy.

The War on Democracy

UK, 2007, 95 min, 35mm

Directed By: John Pilger

From the VIFF website: “Veteran reporter John Pilger describes The War On Democracy as his most positive film to date, a strange thing to say about a documentary that systematically itemizes the appalling legacy of US involvement in Latin American affairs. Still, for all the heart-rending personal testimony, chilling archive footage and images of grinding poverty, there is a note of cautious optimism, in a powerful work that suggests the real Land of the Free is to be found in Uncle Sam’s back yard.”

The film offers documentation of the same scenario repeated over and over. The people of a South American country elect a leader who wants to lessen the harsh impacts of Colonialism and economic slavery on the population. Note I say “lessen” here. It is not like they are threatening to end US economic ties. Enter the US who stage a coup, directly or indirectly, install a puppet dictator. This dictator then tortures and disappears any resistors.

Highlights of the film include interviews with creepy ex-CIA chiefs. You have to see it to believe it. They know they are on film yet the arrogance is unbelievable.

This film should be compulsory viewing in all American households. Perhaps after viewing the actions of their government and the atrocities carried out in their name, the American people would start to realize why people are willing to crash airliners into US landmarks. And then perhaps they would get off their asses and do something about it.

In this dark era where half-assed lies and hair-brained misdirection is all the US media requires to ignore rampant corruption in the US government so they can focus on Lindsay Lohan and OJ Simpson, it is a tremendous relief that illiterate uneducated people living in squalor can band together and force social change. This said, it still makes me fear for the future, when a highly educated wealthy society like ours cannot see what those people living in poverty see too clearly. Our own provincial Liberal government has an equal zeal to sell off and privatize most of our collective assets to foreign interests. 

For more information, check out www.viff.org.

Tune in to the interview show with host Scott Wood, every Monday @4:30pm on CJSF 90.1FM for more interviews with your favorite indie acts. You can also listen online at www.cjsf.ca.

 

  • Posted on: 11 March 2016
  • By: Administrator