Debt and the Economic Colonization of Greece

Laboratory Greece: The Crisis that Change Our Lives

Directed by Jacopo Brogi (2019)

Film Review

Despite its length, this documentary is well worth watching.  My favorite part was the beginning, which concerns the liberation of Greece from Nazi occupation during World War II. Greece was the only country in Europe in which the resistance movement defeated the Nazis long before the Allies arrived.

In fact in October 1944, Greece was re-occupied by British troops demanding the restoration of the Greek King (George II) to the throne. Then British prime minister Winston Churchill ordered Greek that resistance fighters seeking to establish democratic rule arrested, beaten, imprisoned and tortured.

When British forces proved unable to restore Greece’s authoritarian monarchy, US President Truman massively increased military and economic aid to the Greek king, as well as bringing hundreds of Greek intelligence agents to the US to be trained by the OSS (the Office of Strategic Services was precursor to the CIA).

The CIA would also be instrumental in propping up the military dictatorship that woud rule Greece between 1967 and 1974.

The filmmakers believe the current enslavement of Greece by the European Union and global banking institutions is comparable the British/US military occupation following World War II. The only difference is the US of debt (by the IMF, the European Central Bank and the European Commission), rather than troops, to oppress the the Greek people.

For me the other high point of the film concerns the role of US intelligence in building popular and political support (in Europe) for the European Union. Shortly after the CIA was formed in 1947, the CIA and State Department funded a secret action committee for a European economic committee. In addition, no European country could receive Marshall Plan* funds unless they committed to forming common market that would abolish tariffs and facilitate foreign investment and movement of capital across borders.

Most of the film is devoted to examining the major political corruption that led to the punishing debt repayment program and austerity imposed on Greece following the 2008 world economic crisis. The price the “Troika” (IMF, ECB and European Commission) has imposed on Greece for ongoing loans to repay their debts include privatizing nearly all Greek public assets and services, closing hospitals and schools and reducing the size of pensions and other unemployment benefits in half. With unemployment over 25%, there is massive homelessness, malnutrition and needless death from treatable conditions.

The filmmakers interview numerous local activists who applaud Britain for voting to leave the EU. They hope to force the Greek government to leave, as well

Drug Trafficking: The Watered Down Al Jazeera Version

Drug Trafficking Politics and Power: The Lost Territories

Al Jazeera

Film Review

This documentary mainly focuses on the role of Afghanistan in heroin production, of Colombia in cocaine production and of Mexico in smuggling cocaine, heroin and fentanyl into the US.

Despite a brief mention of the role of (nearly all) global major banking institutions in laundering illicit drug money, it makes no mention whatsoever of CIA involvement in international trafficking in Afghanistan and elsewhere. See Afghan, Heroin and the CIA, and articles by Peter Dale Scott and Alfred McCoy.*

In fact, the film gives the misleading impression that the Taliban is mainly responsible for Afghan heroin production, with some participation by Afghan warlords and members of former president Hamid Karzai’s government.

According to filmmakers, major heroin production began in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, when the (CIA-financed and trained) Mujaheddin (1979-1992) helped finance their opposition Soviet occupation via (CIA-facilitated) opium and heroin production. Beginning in 1994, the Taliban would also rely on heroin production to finance their efforts to bring Afghanistan under their control.

In 2000, seeking global recognition of their legitimacy (and foreign aid), they banned heroin production and burned all the country’s opium plantations over the next year. The US reintroduced opium and heroin production to Afghanistan with their 2001 invasion and occupation.

The segments on Colombia and Mexico mainly focus on the ungovernability of both countries owing to the rise of paramilitary forces (in Colombia) and armed drug cartels (in Mexico).

With the rise of the Medellin cartel (1972-1993), cocaine traffickers organized their own paramilitaries, while FARC rebels had their own guerrilla groups (1964-2017). Following cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar’s death in 1993, Mexican drug cartels would take charge of global cocaine distribution. After 2003, they would add heroin and fentanyl to their inventories.

The film identifies Sinaloa, Jalisca New Generation, Gulf, Ciudad Juarez and Los Zetas as the major Mexican cartels. Each is identified with a specific geographic region, though turf struggles translate into constant boundary shifts. Each cartel also controls the extortion, kidnapping and human trafficking schemes for their region.*

When the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) ruled Mexico (1929-2000), they received a cut of the cartels’ drug profits. In return, they played a mediating role in disputes between cartels.

When the PRI was voted out of power in 2000, this mediating role ceased, which the film blames for Mexico’s massive increase in violence. More than 60,000 Mexicans have been murdered or disappeared since 2006.

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*Peter Dale Scott CIA Drug Trafficking and The Politics of Heroin

**Afghanistan currently produces 80% of the world’s heroin

***Criminals who engage in such activities must pay a “tax” to the drug cartel running their region.

The film can be viewed free at the Al Jazeera website: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/featured-documentaries/2021/1/25/drug-trafficking-politics-and-power-the-lost-territories

The Murder of Jamal Khashoggi

The Murder of Jamal Khashoggi

DW (2020)

Film Review

This documentary is based on the Turkish intelligence investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance and apparent murder. It was subsequently authenticated by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Khashoggi*, a dissident journalist, left Saudi Arabia for the US (where he worked for the Washington Post) in September 2017 after running afoul of Saudi authorities for criticizing their human rights violations.

He disappeared on October 2, 2018 after entering the Saudi consulate in Ankara Turkey. He was collecting divorce papers needed to fulfill Turkish legal requirements prior to remarrying. Although his  fiancee Hatice Cengiz waited for him outside the consulate, but he never reappeared. Khashoggi and Cengiz, a Turkish divorcee** and PhD student, first met at an academic conference in May 2018.

On October 8, Turkish authorities began leaking intelligence to the international media that Khashoggi had been killed and dismembered during his visit to the Saudi consulate. This intelligence included surveillance footage on a 15-member Saudi security team. It shows the team arriving in Ankara on October 2, buying 20 large suitcases, visiting the consulate and leaving by plane ten hours later. It also shows two vehicles leaving the consulate a few hours after Khashoggi’s visit, traveling to the Consul’s residence and from there to a car wash. Most importantly it included a surveillance audiotape from the consulate consistent with Khashoggi being injected with a sedative, suffocated with a plastic bag and dismembered with a bone saw.

fter reviewing this evidence, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded in June 2019 that Khashoggi was the victim of a deliberate premeditated extrajudicial assassination. He called for Saudi Arabia to extradite the 15-member security team to Turkey to be tried for Khashoggi’s murder.

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*Jamal Khashoggi was the nephew of the prominent arms Saudi arms dealer, Adnan Khashoggi, known for his role in the Iran–Contra scandal. Jamal was also the cousin of the late Dodi Fayed, the lover killed with Princess Diana in the August 1997 Paris car crash.  Jamal Khashoggi Saudi Arabia Journalist Connect Princess Diana Dodi Fayed

**Cengiz has one son by a prior marriage to Turkish movie star Deniz Oral (see Deniz Oral Biography) and Khashoggi three previous marriages and four children (see Hatice Cengiz Biography)

The Spy in Your Phone

The Spy in Your Phone

Al Jazeera (2021)

Film Review

This film concerns Al Jazeera reporter Tamer Almisshal, who learned in mid-2020 that advanced phone spyware was collecting all his passwords, texts, emails and social media posts. He sought help from Citizen’s Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. They discovered his phone had been hacked by Israeli-made Pegasus software. The latter is marketed by the Israeli company NSO Group to United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia to monitor dissident journalists and human rights activists.

Al Jazeera believes that Saudi Arabia used Pegasus to track the movements of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi (prior to murdering him in 2018). They believe UAE hacked Almisshal’s phone because of his investigation into the three-year embargo of Qatar by Saudi Arabia and UAE (which ended January 5 – see Arab States Agree to End Three Year Boycott of Qatar.

Citizens Lab ultimately discovered that 36 Al Jazeera journalists had phones infected by Pegasus software.

Citizen Lab first uncovered the existence of Pegasus spyware when it was used to target UAE dissident Ahmed Mansour in 2016. It’s also used to target journalists in African and Latin American countries. Unlike other spyware, Pegasus has “zero click” capability. This means it can download itself (by dialing a phone number) without the user answering, clicking on a link or downloading a file.

The film also reports on a UAE enterprise known as Dark Matter that uses Pegasus to spy on US journalists and activist. The company employs a number of former NSA and CIA officials in their surveillance activities. This, according to NSA whistleblower William Binnie, is illegal without clearance from the contracting agency that employed them.

People who believe their phone is being hacked can contact Citizens Lab at  https://citizenlab.ca/ for assistance.

 

 

Ending Global Corruption: What Are Our Chances?

I Can’t Get You Out of My Head

Part 6 Are We Pigeon? Or Are We Dancer?

Directed by Adam Curtis (2021)

Film Review

The final episode in Adam Curtis’ I Can’t Get You Out of My Mind series focuses on complexity theory. According to the theory, because human beings are part of a complicated system they can never totally understand, our conscious thoughts have nothing to do with our actions. Therefore, it concludes, social activists have no hope of ending corruption and human suffering in modern day society.

Until the total commercialization of the Internet that occurred after 2010, Silicon Valley icons believed the Internet could be used for social change. This by enabling large groups of people to share information outside the control of corporate and political elites. 

Curtis covers the 1999 rise of Putin, who Curtis describes as the ultimate technocrat who believes in nothing. The film portrays all Putin’s political decisions as tactical moves, devoid of any ultimate objective. Throughout his career he has cynically played off popular anger against the oligarchs. When this fails he plays the populist/nationalist card and to appeal to Russia’s glorious history and its (alleged) role as the last defense against a corrupt West.

Other key events Curtis covers in Part 6 include

• The 2001 dotcom crash, which he blames on private banks lavishing money on essentially worthless dotcom companies to drive up their share prices.
• The CIA torture (at Guantanamo) of former Mujaheddin* operative Abu Zubaydah, who was kidnapped in Pakistan in 2002 despite discontinuing his paramilitary (“terrorist”) activities in 1992 following a severe head injury.  
• The rise of Dominic Cummings within Britain’s Brexit movement. Cummings believes computers allow us to to use complexity theory to understand the unelected global elite behind globalization and to take back power from them.
• The rise of corruption in China, in part due to collusion between party and government officials and criminal gangs. According to Curtis, the main purpose of Xi Jinping’s Social Credit policy is to suppress growing popular anger against government corruption.**
• The role of artificial intelligence (ie allowing computers to write their own algorithms by feeding them massive data) in disastrous decisions (by the financial sector and their regulators) in triggering the 2008 global economic crash.
• The Russiagate and Qanon conspiracies that dominated media and social media during Trump’s presidency

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*The CIA secretly trained, armed and funded the Mujahaddin (under the leadership of Osama bin Laden) in their fight against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1979-1989).

**Social Credit uses a massive public surveillance system to monitor the activities and social interactions with every resident and reward them for “acceptable” behavior with financial benefits and other perks.

 

Due to age restrictions video can only be played on YouTube.

 

The Billionaire Who Nearly Brought Herbalife Down

Betting on Zero

Ted Braun (2016)

Film Review

This is the very sad story about efforts by billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman to end Herbalife’s predatory pyramid scheme by 1) short selling* their stock and 2) pressuring regulators to end their deliberate exploitation of low income and minority communities.

Bloomberg News reporter Christine Richard’s 2011 book Confidence Game describes how Ackman helped to bring down MBIA (Municipal Bond Insurance Association) by purchasing credit default swaps against them. In 2012, she alerted Ackman to a similar scam perpetuated by the multibillion dollar international health supplement company Herbalife. Ackman’s response was to short sell Herbalife’s stock (in an endeavor to drive their stock price down) and to engage in a multimillion dollar investigation and public information campaign to pressure federal and state regulators to take regulatory action.

Herbalife was founded in the 1980s by Mark Hughes. After Hughes died in 2000 from an accidental overdose, former Disney CEO Mark O Johnson took over as Herbalife CEO. Just like other pyramid schemes, Herbalife derives profit, not from selling health products, but from continuously recruiting new distributors – and pressuring them to recruit other distributors.

According to the investigation Ackman commissioned, only 17% of these distributors could make a living selling Herbalife. Forty percent earned less than $1,000 and 40% were left with a garage full of Herbalife products which had passed their expiry date. One reason Herbalife is so difficult to sell is that it’s three to four times more expensive than Slim Fast, the closest equivalent available in pharmacies and supermarkets.

In the US, Herbalife deliberately targets illegal migrants in the Hispanic community, who are reported to immigration if they complain about the way the company treats them. The film profiles a grassroots group in Los Angeles that organized a series of protests highlighting the fraud Herbalife had perpetuated against them. In 2014, they joined a class action suit of 1.5 million former Herbalife distributors. Despite losing an average of $10,000 apiece, the California judge approved a settlement awarding them $10 each.

In 2016 the FTC ruled that Herbalife was indeed a pyramid scheme. The penalty imposed was essentially a slap on the wrist – a $200 million fine and an order to restructure their corporation.**

Ackman’s short selling scheme was defeated the same year when rival billionaire Carl Icahn*** invested heavily in Herbalife shares to short up their stock price. Ackman would exit his short position in 2018.

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*Short selling means investing in way to derive income if the stock price falls. When a large number of investors (or a large hedge fund) short sells a single stock, it can force its price to collapse.

**Herbalife was required to reduce shipping costs they charged distributors, to increase their acceptance of unsold product, to crack down on unofficial distributors, and to engage an independent monitor.

***In 2017, Trump appointed Icahn as his key regulatory advisor.

Public library patrons can view the full film free on Kanopy.

The Boeing 737 Max: When Cost Cutting Threatens Passengers’ Lives

Boeing 737 Max: Deadly Assumptions

DW (2020)

Film Review

This documentary concerns worrying shortcuts Boeing took in its development of the 737 Max, resulting in two fatal crashes (and 346 death) in 2018 and 2019. Filmmakers obtained their information from Boeing whistleblowers and from a lawsuit victims’ family filed against the manufacturer. The film also raises troubling questions about the failure of the FAA to adequately enforce safety regulations.

The first Max crashed in Indonesia in October 2018. On investigation, the FAA, identified a potential for the plane’s MCAS software system to malfunction. Statistically  engineers predicted the faulty MCAS could cause one plane crash every three years. Victims of the second, Ethiopia Airlines, crash assert that either Boeing or the FAA should have grounded the 737 Max at this point. However, for some inexplicable reason, both deemed the risk to be acceptable.

According to lawyers for the victims, Boeing began work on the Max in 2011 to compete with the Eurobus Neo. Launched n December 2010, enhanced fuel efficiency made the latter far cheaper to operate than anything Boeing had to offer. Instead of designing a totally new aircraft, to save costs Boeing simply mounted the engines higher on their 50-year-old 737 model. To compensate for the difficulty in manoeuvrability this caused, the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation Software System (MCAS).

The MCAS, in turn,  had an unfortunate tendency to increase the plane’s downward thrust without the pilot’s knowledge The second crash led both the EU and China to immediately ground their Max jets, with the FAA following suit a day later. Although Boeing had warned pilots about potential problems with the MCAS after the first crash, the Ethiopian Airlines pilot was unable to compensate for the downward thrust effect of the MCAS. Again owing to cost concerns, Boeing had resisted offering pilots simulator training on the faulty planes.

Boeing whistleblowers informed filmmakers about other Boeing cost cutting measures that pose potential risks to passenger safety. Examples include 800 airplanes with damaged bolts (caused by using the wrong tool to tighten them), metal slivers in the wiring (that could cause shorts by damaging the insulation) and oxygen masks (on the 787) that fail to deploy 25% of the time.

According to the New York Times, the FAA and Canadian and Brazilian regulators lifted their grounding ban on the Max in  December 2020. The families of those killed aboard the two fatal flights argue the Max is still unfit to fly. For now, American and other airlines allow “anxious” passengers to rebook flights if they wish to avoid the troubled aircraft.

Chappaquiddick: The Tragic Accident that Destroyed Ted Kennedy’s Presidential Ambitions

Chappaquiddick

Directed by John Curran (2018)

Film Review

The first (presumably of many) docudramas about the tragic accident at Chappaquiddick that destroyed the late Ted Kennedy’s presidential ambitions.

In it, Kennedy is portrayed as an extremely insecure and entitled rich brat who lives in terror of his tyrannical father Joe Kennedy. What comes across best in this production is that the persona the world knew as Ted Kennedy was one created for us by a network of extremely shrewd (and cynical) political advisors.

Thanks to their expert “management” of the episode, Kennedy got off with a two month suspended sentence (and one year probation) for leaving the scene of an accident, despite the fact he was driving while intoxicated and his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne could possibly have been rescued had he made immediate contact with the police.*

Prior to watching the film, I was unaware of the extreme pressure on Ted to run for president after his brother Bobby was killed in June 1968. I was also unaware he was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1980.

After watching numerous documentaries about the event, the version of Chappaquiddick that makes most sense to me is that Kennedy’s car flipped over when he accidentally drove off Dike Bridge into Poucha pond. He escaped from the car but not his passenger Kopechne. According to his campaign staff, he had been drinking at a “cookout” prior to getting in the car. In my view, his high blood alcohol levels were the most likely reason he postponed notifying the police until the following morning.

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*I agree with legal experts who believe he was guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

Anyone who belongs to a public library can view the film free on Kanopy. Type “Kanopy” and the name of your library into your search engine.

Frackman: Anti-Fracking Activism in Queensland

Frackman: Anti-Fracking Activism in Queensland

Directed by Richard Todd (2015)

Film Review

This documentary concerns “accidental” anti-fracking activist Dayne Pratsky, a Queensland farmer who refused to allow Halliburton to frack for coal seam gas on his farm. When his neighbors’ kids started getting sick with headaches, rashes, and nosebleeds, he organized a grassroots campaign to pressure the government to either ban or properly regulate fracking.

What impressed me most about the film is its similarity to our experience here in Taranaki. Fracking began here about 25 years ago, though the number of wells increased exponentially when skyrocketing oil prices and new horizontal drilling technology increased its financial viability.

As in Australia, foreign oil and gas companies moved into Taranaki with no notification or consultation of local residents. Likewise, in both countries farmers agreed to one or two wells and were suddenly surrounded with 10 or more. Taranaki residents living adjacent to wells are experiencing the same nosebleeds, headaches, rashes (and cancer), as well as the smoke and benzene smell of 24/7 flaring, the deafening noise of drilling and heavy truck traffic, water contamination with toxic chemicals, and atmospheric venting of methane gas and carcinogenic benzene.

The film depicts Pratsky eventually joining forces with Drew Hutton, founder of Australia’s Lock the Gate campaign. Hutton helped us start our own Lock the Gate campaign in Taranki nine years ago. He helped Pratsky organize an inspired protest action in which scores of farmers blocked Halliburton’s access to their fracking rigs with pickup trucks.

Faced with the reality that he couldn’t expose a wife and family to the health risks of living in an industrial fracking zone, Dratsky eventually allowed Halliburton to buy him out and left his his farm.

He remains as active as ever in the anti-fracking movement and supports his former neighbors seeking similar buyouts. As in Taranaki, Queensland farms covered with fracking rigs are virtually impossible to sell on the open market.

Link to Dratsky’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/The-Frackman-Dayne-Pratzky-141386222547945/

Anyone with a public library card can view the film free on Kanopy: https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/frackman

To sign up type “Kanopy” and the name of your local library into your search engine.

Plague of Corruption: The Book Behind Plandemic

Plague of Corruption: Restoring Faith in the Promise of Science

By Dr Judy Mikovitz and Kent Heckenlively JD

Skyhorse Publishing Inc (2020)

Book Review

The banning of the film Plandemic on YouTube and other social medial sites, has caused this book to soar to Amazon’s best seller list in a matter of weeks. As a tribute to her supporters Dr Mikovitz is offering the ebook version free at https://ebooksbag.com/pdf-epub-plague-of-corruption-restoring-faith-in-the-promise-of-science-download/

The book has a long and revealing preface by Robert F Kennedy, Jr, co-founder and chief spokesperson of Children’s Health Defense. The preface is valuable for its succinct summary of the reason Mikovits poses such a major threat to big Pharma’s vaccine industry and the federal agency that allegedly regulate it.

In 2009, Mikovits and Dr Frank Ruscetti published a study linking a mouse retrovirus knownas XMRV (Xenotropic Murine Retrovirus) to the epidemic of chronic fatigue syndrome that essentially appeared from nowhere in the 1980s. Mukovitz, Ruscetti, and other virologists that XMRV entered the human population via vaccines cultured from mouse brain cells. This discovery had the potential of costing the vaccine industry hundreds of millions of dollars if federal regulators forced them to a) screen all vaccines for XMRV and/or b) recall their vaccines.

Instead Big Pharma and federal regulators conspired to falsely arrest and bankrupt Mikovits, while simultaneously destroying her career.

Kennedy’s preface also provides a long list of doctors and scientists who have been similarly persecuted for challenging “official” medical and scientific orthodoxy. The list includes

• Ignaz Semmelweiss – committed to a mental institution in 1865 (where he died 2 weeks later) for trying to introduce handwashing to prevent child bed fever.
• Herbert Needleheim – academic career ruined for publishing study linking lead toxicity to brain damage in children in 1979.
• Rachel Carson – totally vilified in mainstream media for her 1962 book Silent Spring, exposing the dangers of DDT – until President Kennedy defied the FDA and Monsanto by appointing a panel to investigate her findings.
• Dr Alice Stewart – career destroyed in 1965 when she published paper linking x-rays in pregnant women to childhood cancer.
• Dr Bernice Eddy – career destroyed for revealing (in 1954) the presence of dangerous live polio viruses in Salk vaccine and (in 1961) the presence of carcinogenic SV40 virus in Salk vaccine.
• Dr John Anthony – fired from NIH in 1976 for paper concerning lack of proof that flu vaccine prevented influenza.
• Dr Bart Classen – career destroyed in 2002 for studies linking HIb vaccine to epidemic of juvenile diabetes.
• Dr Gary Goldman – computer scientist forced to resign in 2002 for study linking chickenpox vaccine to shingles in children.

The book itself chronicles Dr Mikovitz’s harrowing account of being stalked, thrown in jail, bankrupted, and expelled from academia that she describes in the film Plandemic.

For me personally, the most interesting part of the book concerns research into the high incidence of gut problems and autism in children of women with XMRV-related chronic fatigue syndrome. Here Mikovitz credits Dr Andy Wakefield (another doctor systematically vilified for a study linking the MMR vaccine with autism)* for uncovering the “gut-brain” connection.

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*The controversy Wakefield generated led him to lose his medical license in 2010. Despite widespread disinformation in the mainstream media (that he was struck off for fraudulent research), the excuse offered by the British Medical Council was that he ordered (allegedly) “unnecessary tests” on autistic children with gastrointestinal disease. As Likovits outlines in her book, Wakefield was vindicated in 2015 when CDC whistleblower Wiilliam Thompson revealed the CDC had actively covered up links between MMR and autism in reporting 2001-2004 studies.