WARNING! THIS POST MAY CONTAIN INFORMATION THAT WOULD CLASSIFY IT AS A SPOILER! IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM, PLEASE WATCH IT BEFORE READING THIS COMMENT!
This excellent film certainly has an agenda, as anyone anywhere who wants a suppressed truth to be known should. To those viewers who have written that this is a one-sided polemic that fails to portray the truth of the Panamanian war, did you not read the commentary of the gentleman who was there? Or the comment by the further-right-than-Reagan gentleman who has researched the topic extensively and who again stamps the film with his seal of veracity? Some will not rest, I suppose, until every last citizen has been lobotomized into spouting the neoconservative dictum that the Bush family's pro-fascism machinery continues to generate even today. And to those who label this film as created by leftists--is that what an affection for the truth gets you in this new century, a big bad label to let everyone know that this one can't be trusted to spout the party line? Awwww, what a shame. Listen up, "right" leaning folks, name-calling failed to impress us once we graduated the first grade, and is evidence of the weakness of your arguments.
This film is dead on in its facts and has been backed up by independent investigations over and over again. The Bush government needed the canal to ensure that the cocaine pipeline which had successfully financed so many CIA black ops around the world continue unfettered, and no amount of Panamanian bloodshed could be enough to deter that overwhelming need. This need also brought George H. W. Bush out of his behind-the-scenes role to become part of the ticket that used illegal and treasonous manipulations of arms and hostages to win the White House from Jimmy Carter, who made the error of signing into law a treaty that would return the Canal back to the people of Panama when our "lease" on the land ran out in 1999. (See also Barbara Trent's other excellent documentary, CoverUp.) The revelations in this film are key to understanding the events of the past 30 years in our nation, including the dubious portrayal of events that transpired on September 11, 2001.
And lest you fall into claiming that my naming the Bush fascism machinery as such is similar name-calling, I suggest you read your history books and explore the subject of our current president's grandfather, Prescott Bush, and his sales of oil, heavy plate, and light plate steel to Nazi Germany throughout WWII until the Legislature put a belated stop to it in 1946. The Bush family has supported fascism and denounced democracy for over 60 years, and continues to do so, in direct contempt of the Constitution and the citizens of our country. To label these men fascists is to correctly identify their political agenda, nothing more.
That said, this film deserved its Academy Award and should be required viewing for every US high school student nearing legal voting age. An excellent and revealing film that if viewed by enough Americans might have prevented the horrors of terrorism that our government continues to commit on its own citizens and around the world. I am ashamed--not at being an American, but at the fact that we have failed the promise of this nation and betrayed our Founding Fathers by abdicating our responsibilities to elect
sane and safe government for ourselves and for our children. Wake up America! The fascists may have lost Europe, but thanks to wealthy and corrupt sympathizers like the Bush family, they took a far greater prize, namely, the lives of you and me.
Although I did not "enjoy" this film, it is on my list of favorite movies of all time for its hard-hitting, no-holds-barred examination of something sorely lacking in our nation today: the Truth.
This excellent film certainly has an agenda, as anyone anywhere who wants a suppressed truth to be known should. To those viewers who have written that this is a one-sided polemic that fails to portray the truth of the Panamanian war, did you not read the commentary of the gentleman who was there? Or the comment by the further-right-than-Reagan gentleman who has researched the topic extensively and who again stamps the film with his seal of veracity? Some will not rest, I suppose, until every last citizen has been lobotomized into spouting the neoconservative dictum that the Bush family's pro-fascism machinery continues to generate even today. And to those who label this film as created by leftists--is that what an affection for the truth gets you in this new century, a big bad label to let everyone know that this one can't be trusted to spout the party line? Awwww, what a shame. Listen up, "right" leaning folks, name-calling failed to impress us once we graduated the first grade, and is evidence of the weakness of your arguments.
This film is dead on in its facts and has been backed up by independent investigations over and over again. The Bush government needed the canal to ensure that the cocaine pipeline which had successfully financed so many CIA black ops around the world continue unfettered, and no amount of Panamanian bloodshed could be enough to deter that overwhelming need. This need also brought George H. W. Bush out of his behind-the-scenes role to become part of the ticket that used illegal and treasonous manipulations of arms and hostages to win the White House from Jimmy Carter, who made the error of signing into law a treaty that would return the Canal back to the people of Panama when our "lease" on the land ran out in 1999. (See also Barbara Trent's other excellent documentary, CoverUp.) The revelations in this film are key to understanding the events of the past 30 years in our nation, including the dubious portrayal of events that transpired on September 11, 2001.
And lest you fall into claiming that my naming the Bush fascism machinery as such is similar name-calling, I suggest you read your history books and explore the subject of our current president's grandfather, Prescott Bush, and his sales of oil, heavy plate, and light plate steel to Nazi Germany throughout WWII until the Legislature put a belated stop to it in 1946. The Bush family has supported fascism and denounced democracy for over 60 years, and continues to do so, in direct contempt of the Constitution and the citizens of our country. To label these men fascists is to correctly identify their political agenda, nothing more.
That said, this film deserved its Academy Award and should be required viewing for every US high school student nearing legal voting age. An excellent and revealing film that if viewed by enough Americans might have prevented the horrors of terrorism that our government continues to commit on its own citizens and around the world. I am ashamed--not at being an American, but at the fact that we have failed the promise of this nation and betrayed our Founding Fathers by abdicating our responsibilities to elect
sane and safe government for ourselves and for our children. Wake up America! The fascists may have lost Europe, but thanks to wealthy and corrupt sympathizers like the Bush family, they took a far greater prize, namely, the lives of you and me.
Although I did not "enjoy" this film, it is on my list of favorite movies of all time for its hard-hitting, no-holds-barred examination of something sorely lacking in our nation today: the Truth.