Wow, I just got done watching the documentary
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised which covers the events surrounding the coup which put Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez out of power temporarily in 2002. It was filmed by a group of Irish filmmakers who were doing a documentary on Chavez but then got caught up in all of the action as it took place. Maybe I'm biased towards films like this, but I thought it was fucking amazing. I've never been so interested in what was going on in a documentary before.
Quit wasting your time reading this and go watch it over at
Google video. Below are the parts that I liked the most. Don't read the following if you're going to go watch it, it might spoil some of it for you.
At the beginning of the movie, before the coup, the filmers were at a meeting on the wealthy side of town where a bunch of rich, white people were gathered and discussing what they should do. A rich, white girl tells the filmers that the poor have no values and that they haven't "struggled" like the rich have. But then, when they are filming the meeting that she is attending, the speaker at the meeting says "keep an eye on your domestic servants". I thought that was great. Having domestic servants can really make life tough.
The film shows clips of the private media during the whole ordeal and of course the media shows a very obvious bias and even lies when the people retake the Presidential palace after the coup. Before the coup however, when covering the peaceful demonstrations in support of Chavez, the media says that the demonstrators were "like the mobs used by Mussolini and Hitler".
There was awesome footage shot in the Presidential Palace of the guards and people when they knew that the army had switched sides and was surrounding them with tanks and was planning on bombing the building if Chavez didn't resign as President.
When the people took back the Presidential Palace, the Chavez's VP was getting sworn in as President (Chavez was being detained by the army). After being sworn in, you see the VP on the phone saying to someone "I hope this will settle now that I've been sworn in as Vice President", and then you hear someone else say "You're President" and then he says "Yes, I mean President". I thought that was amusing.
I think the most exciting part of the film is when the people in support of Chavez surround the Presidential Palace currently being controlled by the "transitional government". With the people around it, the guards of the palace (with hidden loyalties to Chavez) decide to organize and take back the building. Once they've taken it back, you see a couple of soldiers on top of the building with their fist in the air and waving at the cheering people.
I meant to make a post about my religious deconversion today, but that will have to wait until next time. I just had to tell you about this documentary. Hope you like it.
9 comments:
I heard about this several months ago, but never got around to viewing it. What an awesome documentary. Thanks for the link, and for bringing people of like minds together.
As to your deconversion story, could you also maybe do one about how you went from being a Faux news-watching Bushbot to having the views you do today? Both would make good stories, I'm sure.
Thanks again!
-Mookie
Mookie,
Thanks for the comments, I'm glad you enjoyed the film as well. I was thinking of doing a post about my political deconversion as well at some point, and I appreciate your interest in it =)
ka,
From what I can gather you are the creator of that documentary which attempts to debunk 20 lies that are in the film, and appears you are overwhelmingly the largest activist against the film. I watched a bit of your documentary, but I do not live in Venezuela so if you tell me one thing and the video says another I don't have a very effective way of reconciling the two. Early in the video you claim that the promotion of the movie and it's acceptance by major European news agencies constitute an expensive campaign to promote pro-Chavez propaganda. Why would pro-Chavez interests, whose financial situation surely pales in comparision to any pro-US, pro-capitalist interests, be able to win out in a propaganda war and be able to win over mainstream news agencies such as the BBC?
Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Chavez. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is not the best logic in all cases, but I think it applies in this one.
In the Irish documentary, the people who are against Chavez are lily white - females covered in makeup and jewelry, fancy clothes, meeting in posh buildings with windows for walls - claiming that those who support Chavez are "lazy" and "don't want to work hard", etc; whilst those who support him are short and brown - jean- and t-shirt-clad, dirty, meandering through the slum streets - call for equal rights and adherence to the constitution. Chavez, although slightly better dressed, is short and brown, just like them. I hate to bring up the race card, but knowing some of the history of South America, I think it is pertinent to this discussion.
It was clear to me in the last scenes, when they caught the assholes who engineered the coup, that the Chavez supporters were going to be fair to them. If I were a brutal dictator like they claim Chavez is, I would have had them all killed, execution-style, right there in the palace courtyard, in front of all the people. Chavez nor his followers did any such thing.
I wasn't born yesterday, and I don't think the other people that frequent this blog are either. Take your half-assed, biased, poorly-constructed anti-documentary somewhere else.
-Mookie
ka,
Perhaps you are not. On the web I found lots of instances of "KA has taken the trouble to make the movie "Radiografia de una Mentira" (X-Ray of a Lie) available to watch or download from the web". My web browser only displayed that "KA has taken the trouble to make the movie". So my apologies for that.
However, in what way do you think that Chavez is the same as Bush? Have the people of Venezuela not seen a rise in their living conditions since Chavez took power? Will the Venezuelan people not have a better future as a result of Chavez's medical, educational, and economic programs?
It is a very good movie. Further if you really want to learn more about the story, specifically the radically anti-democratic role played by the United States, much of the U.S. documentation has been released and placed online at:
http://www.venezuelafoia.info/
Chavez has won twice as many elections (6) with much higher ratios in his favor than Bush. Make no mistake about it, the U.S. is the world's primary threat to democracy, as was illustrated in 2002 coup against Chavez, or right now in the U.S. endorsed mass starvation campaign against the Palestinians because they had the audacity to vote in a way the U.S. didn't like. At the same time, the U.S. itself is becoming much more of a "democracy" in line with our "democratic" allies like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan.
Americans for Chavez
http://www.americans-for-chavez.com
Bolivarian Circle 'Chief Tierra Blanca'
ka,
Are you white or brown?
It is a waste of his blog space to repeat myself, but in case you missed it the first time:
"In the Irish documentary, the people who are against Chavez are lily white - females covered in makeup and jewelry, fancy clothes, meeting in posh buildings with windows for walls - claiming that those who support Chavez are "lazy" and "don't want to work hard", etc; whilst those who support him are short and brown - jean- and t-shirt-clad, dirty, meandering through the slum streets - call for equal rights and adherence to the constitution. Chavez, although slightly better dressed, is short and brown, just like them. I hate to bring up the race card, but knowing some of the history of South America, I think it is pertinent to this discussion."
My guess is that you are white.
FYI, race was never an issue in the U.S. (Ha!)
Thank you for the links, Delta and KA. I watched both "pro" and "anti" documentaries. Unless I missed something the "anti" documentary did not seem to challenge any of the major elements of the narrative of the original film. They've mostly done nit-picking of the details to discredit the message of the first documentary. And I don't think it was very convincing. Even if original film does have some errors (whether intentional or not we don't know) the main story still seems to remain the same.
thank you nice sharing
araba resimleri
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