I grew up watching a program called 60 Minutes with my parents. I liked the hard-questioning investigative reporting. I no longer have a TV but sometimes spend weekends with my family out of town. When we watch 60 Minutes there is still that edge but seemingly less of it. Our world now is many times more complex than it was in my youth and there is still just two peeks a week at uncomfortable subjects. Smaller organizations have been taking up the slack [some cable documentary channels for instance].
One of the most aggressive investigative journalism organizations is VICE. A link is on our network page. Click on news or video. Below is a sample of their material. Keep in mind that these are the geeks that brought you Cannibal Warlords of Liberia.
Ghost Rapes of Bolivia is about an autonomous Mennonite colony in the South American country whose president is treated like a back-talking stepchild by our own president. Apparently demons have been raping women and girls while they lay in bed next to their husbands and sisters.
The Chemical Valley is a pretty typical left wing investigation of some pretty typical corporate poisoning of poor and working class people who live downriver from their chemical-spewing Mount Doom. The reporter is a real whiner so I was irritated by his tone and failed to complete my viewing. The explanation of how government regulations are gamed by companies who do not want to stop dumping mercury in fresh water was eye-opening, and sounded curiously like the food stamp fraud that is probably being committed by the peasants who these benevolent companies are simply trying to elevate by turning them into 1960s superheroes.
Egypt After Morsi was an honest effort at pseudo-combat reporting by a likeable and even-handed bearded Brit who was really worried about his cameraman getting shot. He was continually accused of being an American by the people on the street on both sides of the political divide as they burned pictures of our ruler and shouted slogans like ‘Fuck America!’ the interesting thing was that the pro-Morsi Islamists were a lot more civil to the reporter and expressed much less hate toward America than the everyday Egyptians who encouraged the military take over that ‘Fuck America!’ virtually condoned.
This is What Winning Looks Like is by far the best documentary of the lot. It featured interviews by the editor with the seasoned British war correspondent who did the film. It primarily consisted of his interviews with U.S. Marine advisors and footage of their interactions with the Afghan Police and Military, who are ethically one step below American prison gangs. To a man the Marines are sterling examples of ethical warrior culture, and the scumbags they are advising are the most reprehensible wastes of DNA imaginable. It seems a crime that any of these fine Marines might die defending these flea-bitten dope fiends that work for the ‘warlords’ that the CIA backs with our tax dollars.
Watch this video. The film opens with a speech by My Owner, in which he tells the ‘American People’ that we are ‘pulling out responsibly’ [Sounds like the do-it-yourself birth control I learned on a street corner when I was 13]. Examples of our responsible exit include such eye-opening moments as ‘soldiers’ stoned on heroin trying to fill sand bags, ‘soldiers’ selling their own perimeter fencing at the local bazaar, ‘police’ smoking pot in front of police station pot plants while being lectured by Marine advisors, group desertion by ‘police’ officers, ransom kidnappings by local politicians working under U.S. protection, a fuel siphoning scam, and an admission by one Afghan warlord that he condoned the rape and murder of small boys by his men so that they would not have vaginal intercourse with their grandmothers!
Once again, in another country that the U.S. has bombed back into the Stone Age, we hand over the puppet strings of power to the worst, least warrior-worthy, elements of society, without having defeated the warrior culture we came to eliminate. There is one Marine officer who is heroically incapable of lying to the reporter. This man has a bigger conscience than is mentally healthy in a war zone, and is psychologically incapable of being a politician. He is nearly moved to tears as he describes how depressing it is to work in a supportive military/law enforcement capacity with child molesters and child murders.
This is what victory looks like.
