Weekend Watch

This is a new feature that is neither innovative nor requiring effort on my part so maybe, just maybe, I'll keep up with it. As you may well be able to infer this feature is about encouraging you to watch worthwhile stuff, generally documentaries and lectures. At least for now I'll try to alternate between the two. For the next three weeks we'll be watching babby's first geopolitics aka The Power of Nightmares by Adam Curtis. A three part documentary about the similarities between the rise to prominence of the Neo-conservative and Islamist movements.

This is part one.



http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1320822957676559056#

I highly recommend you watch it if you haven't before.

Nuclear Artwork

Jonny linked me this ages ago and I've consistently intended to but not actually managed to link this It is a piece of Artwork created by Isao Hashimoto which using simplistic images and sounds shows when and where every nuclear explosion occurred on earth between 1945 and 1998 and who caused each one. It is well worth a watch even if you do get the impression at the end of it that the leaders of powerful industrialised nations have a great deal in common with Chimpanzees that screech and fling their poop when angry or threatened.

thanks jonny

A more serious 9/11 post.

I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.

- Henry Kissinger 1973.

September 11th 1973 is a date which should be remembered by all citizens of the United States but it is unsurprisingly a date brushed under the carpet, unworthy of mention on Wikipedia's front page "on this day section."

September 11th 1973 was the culmination of a 3 year long US plot to overthrow the left leaning democratically elected government of Chile lead by Salvador Allende. During this plot strenuous efforts were made to destroy Chile's economy and to encourage the Chilean military to overthrow civilian government by the CIA and other US government agencies which was accompanied by a massive propaganda campaign both within Chilean and internationally to undermine Chilean democracy.

On that day 37 years ago the military finally moved in to end democracy in the country and Allende killed himself rather than be captured, his death one of around 3200 people killed by the Pinochet dictatorship that ruled the country after the US backed coup. Around a further thirty thousand Chileans were placed in concentration camps and tortured. This is in contrast to the 2977 who died on September 11th 2001. But hey a predictable backlash given US foreign policy is so much worse than the destruction of South America's oldest democracy and replacing it with a Military dictatorship that killed more people.

Predictably for a US backed regime the plight of the poor got worse under Pinochet, with the gap between rich and poor widened and Trade unions banned. Absurdly Chile under Pinochet is held up as an economic success story by Friedmanites, these free market advocates neglect to mention that Chile's biggest source of income and economic growth during the period (as it is today) was copper mining. The copper mines were publically owned, nationalised by Allende and kept hold of by Pinochet. But as ever with rightists, theres nothing wrong with government interference in the market if it benefits them.

You can read a much more indepth summary of this here. I highly reccomend you do.

A video of all nuclear detonations that have occured up to 1998.

Well thats not quite technically accurate, South Africa / Israel may have carried out a test in 1979 but thats splitting hairs. A Japanese artist created this animation of where all the nuclear explosions that we know about have occurred and plotted them onto a world map. You can see it here.

Its more interesting than you might imagine.

It really reminds me of primates hooting and hollering at each other to mark their territories. But we're way more advanced than those fucking chimps, we use the power of the atom for our petty displays!

thanks jonny