Thursday, December 02, 2004

The Truth About...
We're watching TV3 last night, and during the ads there's this promo for a documentary coming up on TV3 - shots of pills, vegetables and food, with voiceovers asking "Are vitamins safe? Do I need to take supplements? Isn't fresh food enough?" Then on comes the voice of authority saying "watch The Truth About Vitamins on..." Is this sheeeet for real?
So here's some other imaginary doco ideas we came up with... The Truth About Lamps, The Truth About Feet, The Truth About Glass, The Truth About Kneecaps, The Truth About French Fries (they're from Belgium)... Feel free to add your own ideas, I'd love to hear them.
Just don't be surprised if they end up on TV when some overzealous researcher from TVland surfs by and steals them, ah, I mean creatively acquires them.

Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation
is the name of a book by journalist Pratap Chatterjee. Here's a few excerpts about the book- here and here.

"Iraq, Inc. introduces us to the former soldiers and police officers lured to the conflict zone by offers of high pay from companies including Blackwater and DynCorp. Yet, as illustrated by the private contractors hired to interrogate prisoners at Abu Ghraib, recruits often lack the expertise and training required to meet basic human rights standards in occupied Iraq. Further, the author investigates several other shadowy companies operating in Iraq and reveals the failures of the psychological warfare firm SAIC to run the Al Iraqiyah radio and television network, an American sanctioned Iraqi "free press." Such ironies, Chatterjee suggests, are not lost on the Iraqis even as they are unknown to the American public.

In the concluding chapter, the author describes the company hired to run elections for Iraq, the most plausible American exit strategy. Yet, Chatterjee shows that this very company is importing Mormon preachers and disgraced city officials from Texas to impose an election system that ignores basic principles of democracy."

Chatterjee tells the Berkely Daily Planet that “In the first Gulf War one in 100 ‘boots on the ground,’ as they call it, was a private contractor.” When the U.S. invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003, one in 10 was a private contractor. “Today, as we speak and the U.S. is launching a war in Falluja, one in four ‘boots on the ground’ is a private contractor.”
Tip of the hat to Jeff Chang.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

the truth about truth! true!
~demonsurfer