I Know I'm Not Alone
Picking up from my experience of the Michael Franti show at Lake Tahoe, I can now add another more accessible experience to the documentary he made called I Know I'm Not Alone which I just watched yesterday, courtesy of the Carson City, Nevada Library - which I continue to be very impressed with for even having something like this available. It is one of those movies that you cannot watch without it having an effect. He went out to Iraq and Palestine, and if my memory of the timing is correct, this was not far from the time kidnappings were taking place that resulted in heads being removed - so even if his motive was to make a commercial movie, you have to admire an artist who is willing to risk his life to do what he is doing, and a lot of the last recording of his "Yellfire" is the back drop for his footage - which kind of explains lines like "90 degrees at 6 in the morning".
If there is any way to watch this movie, watch it - even if you aren't a fan of his music. There are disturbing portions - watching young kids in Baghdad in a hospital with portions of their legs either removed or about to be removed, and watching a young girl recite a poem about love and her fear of dying in a war - makes you realize these are real people out there who are experiencing a hellish existence - in part because of a war we are spending billions of dollars on without any real clear objective or purpose in being there. I don't think the movie is an effort to necessarily bash the United States or even Israel for the conditions in Baghdad and Israel in occupied zones there, as much as to show what people are going through out there.
Moving over toward Israel, I have been limited somewhat to media coverage of the conflict there, and I was not aware that a massive wall is in existence and still being built - mainly in an effort to protect Israelis from the Palestinian suicide bombings. He goes into Israel to get the point of view of some who believe that wall is necessary to prevent additional bombings, but he also shows the suffering of those on the other side of the wall, who live in third world conditions and have their homes and lands demolished by the Israeli Army. The association I have with this wall is the building of the wall surrounding the Warsaw Ghetto by the Nazis during the holocaust and I can't help draw a connection. I know there is a difference - in that Jewish people were not blowing themselves up in Germany, but still - the Nazis saw them as a threat in their own way - enough to go to the trouble of killing millions of them, and regardless of a perceived threat - it is kind of hard to understand how such a divisive wall of any kind can lead to anything positive, especially when you have one side living in western affluence, and the other living in third world poverty. Whatever the reason for it, it is just pretty sad and disturbing to see it in place.
I know a lot of the focus on the "War on Terror" is the notion that we, as the good Christians of America that most of us are, appear to have the answer and all of these crazy people from another religion are trying to take away what we have because they "hate freedom" - but if you focus on the economic aspect of it, the fact that we live pretty affluently in comfort while billions of others live in horrible conditions, in part as a direct result of what we do have - well - then something at some point has to give - and it was a matter of time that we were attacked, just like it is most likely a matter of time that we will be again. Just think about the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending in a war that is just adding and contributing to the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people, and you can't help but wonder what the effect would be if that same amount of money went into feeding those in poverty and creating a world where the extreme conditions of poverty would not create a situation of desperation where a suicide bomber has nothing else to look forward to anyways. If I was one of the powerful, that is how I would be fighting the "War on Terror" but apparently those in charge seem to know better than I do.
Anyways - if you get a chance to watch this movie - watch it.
If there is any way to watch this movie, watch it - even if you aren't a fan of his music. There are disturbing portions - watching young kids in Baghdad in a hospital with portions of their legs either removed or about to be removed, and watching a young girl recite a poem about love and her fear of dying in a war - makes you realize these are real people out there who are experiencing a hellish existence - in part because of a war we are spending billions of dollars on without any real clear objective or purpose in being there. I don't think the movie is an effort to necessarily bash the United States or even Israel for the conditions in Baghdad and Israel in occupied zones there, as much as to show what people are going through out there.
Moving over toward Israel, I have been limited somewhat to media coverage of the conflict there, and I was not aware that a massive wall is in existence and still being built - mainly in an effort to protect Israelis from the Palestinian suicide bombings. He goes into Israel to get the point of view of some who believe that wall is necessary to prevent additional bombings, but he also shows the suffering of those on the other side of the wall, who live in third world conditions and have their homes and lands demolished by the Israeli Army. The association I have with this wall is the building of the wall surrounding the Warsaw Ghetto by the Nazis during the holocaust and I can't help draw a connection. I know there is a difference - in that Jewish people were not blowing themselves up in Germany, but still - the Nazis saw them as a threat in their own way - enough to go to the trouble of killing millions of them, and regardless of a perceived threat - it is kind of hard to understand how such a divisive wall of any kind can lead to anything positive, especially when you have one side living in western affluence, and the other living in third world poverty. Whatever the reason for it, it is just pretty sad and disturbing to see it in place.
I know a lot of the focus on the "War on Terror" is the notion that we, as the good Christians of America that most of us are, appear to have the answer and all of these crazy people from another religion are trying to take away what we have because they "hate freedom" - but if you focus on the economic aspect of it, the fact that we live pretty affluently in comfort while billions of others live in horrible conditions, in part as a direct result of what we do have - well - then something at some point has to give - and it was a matter of time that we were attacked, just like it is most likely a matter of time that we will be again. Just think about the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending in a war that is just adding and contributing to the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people, and you can't help but wonder what the effect would be if that same amount of money went into feeding those in poverty and creating a world where the extreme conditions of poverty would not create a situation of desperation where a suicide bomber has nothing else to look forward to anyways. If I was one of the powerful, that is how I would be fighting the "War on Terror" but apparently those in charge seem to know better than I do.
Anyways - if you get a chance to watch this movie - watch it.
posted by Zook at 6:57 AM
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