Category Archives: Documentaries and Film

Autumn War

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This video was posted by Shelley Douglass on Facebook. She writes:

“This video is made of actions taken at Notre Dame University during the Viet Nam war – the Notre Dame resistance, which sponsored marches and a Resistance Mass at the foot of touchdown Jesus. Members of the resistance turned in their torn-up draft cards at the offertory procession. The celebrant was Archbishop Thomas Roberts of England, with Fr Dave Burrell CSC and others. The background music is the Missa Luba, which was a constant accompaniment to our lives those days. We were so full of hope! We’re a bit battered, but many of us (those who are still alive) keep up the struggle. (Tim McCarry, Presente)!”

I wasn’t alive back then but I am very interested in keeping these memories alive. So many Catholics my age (37) have no idea that any of this ever happened, that there was such as thing as resistance to war grounded in Catholic teaching. What happened? You won’t see much of this on Catholic campuses these days! Now the most “Catholic” campuses are probably the most pro-war. Seems to me this was a sort of golden age before the Catholic consciousness about issues of war and peace became completely warped by the American civic religion, before the question of war and peace was reduced to mere “politics” and “policy,” when these questions were wrestled with religiously and earnestly and philosophically and humanely, before the public debate about war and peace had to be filtered through a strict “neocon” or “theocon” lens. But my perception is probably off. Of course the mainstream public back then probably saw the war much the same as the mainstream public sees “The War” (“on terror”) now — “Communism” and “terrorism” can be used interchangeably and you can play all the same cards in the game of justification.

I really like this video because it shows the protesters as being calm, peaceful, faithful and loving. There is hope and strength. So often these days the protesters from that time are portrayed, in Hollywood films and “60s documentaries” —  as drugged out party people who just wanted to drop acid, get high and have a good time. These people are clearly acting out of something more than just teenage rebellion and a desire to subvert.

I’m wondering what Paul and Doug were up to back then. Would you guys have been in these protests if you had attended Notre Dame or would you have been in a different crowd?

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid!

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Gradually the truth about the enormity of the evil which the U.S. has unleashed upon the world is penetrating the consciousness of Americans. We need to have a national conversation about what has happened and perhaps the passage of time and the breathtaking collapse of American government illusions about the “success” of its Middle Eastern policies have given us an opportunity to reflect.

Here is an another example of the evidence which is mounting that our government leaders had numerous warnings about the dangers which they chose to ignore:

South Africa Told Bush, Blair That Iraq Had No WMDs

According to the author of a new book, in 2003 both South African President Mbeki and former President Nelson Mandela tried to warn Bush and Blair that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. The Guardian reports that

“He [Mbeki] warned that the wholesale removal of Saddam’s Ba’ath party could lead to a national resistance to the occupying coalition forces. But with huge military deployments already under way, Blair’s mind was clearly made up.”

And here’s the latest from Mike Flynn, former head of DIA. Flynn expresses regret in an interview over the invasion of Iraq. He describes U.S. policy and actions variously as a “mistake,” a “strategic failure,” a “huge error.” Flynn says that “History will not be and should not be kind with that decision.”  A Catholic looking at the story without blinders on might well conclude that it was pure evil, not just a mistake, and that this evil U.S. policy led directly and inexorably to the rise of Islamic State.

Want to know where ISIS came from? Take some time and watch and read this report from the Guardian about what was happening in Iraq from 2004-2006.

“Petraeus and Steele would unleash this local force on the Sunni population as well as the insurgents and their supporters and anyone else who was unlucky enough to get in the way. It was classic counterinsurgency. It was also letting a lethal, sectarian genie out of the bottle. The consequences for Iraqi society would be catastrophic. At the height of the civil war two years later 3,000 bodies a month were turning up on the streets of Iraq — many of them innocent civilians of sectarian war.”

Is it possible for an entire nation to repent for its sins? We need to find out fast because that is the only possible chance for saving America. Being an optimist by nature, I think it can happen if Catholics lead the way. But the surest way to short circuit the process is to advocate a new American all out war and invasion to “degrade and destroy” ISIS. Do you think that might be what the “Father of Lies” has prescribed for the world at this time? The Army of the Head Choppers against the Army of the Baby Choppers. Be afraid, be very afraid! But pray all the time, be Catholic all the time, and never give in to despair.

War: A Commentary (1983)

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War: A Commentary by Gwynne Dyer is a 1983 Canadian television miniseries filmed by Gwynne Dyer, now available on YouTube. The miniseries was commissioned by the National Film Board of Canada and consists of 8 one-hour episodes. Episode 3, “The Profession of Arms”, was nominated for an Academy Award. The series was broadcast to 45 countries.

From a 1985 review in The New York Times:

“Mr. Dyer, who comments on camera as he walks over old battlefields from the Civil War to the trenches of World War I and the bombed-out cities of World War II, has strong credentials in military history. He has taught at the Canadian Forces College and served as a senior lecturer on war studies at Sandhurst, Britain’s Royal Military Academy. His book ”War” (Crown Publishers), an expanded version of the series, leaves the same impression as this program: ”War” is a cautionary tale against World War III.”

The Man Who Saved The World (2014)

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A film about Stanislov Petrov, a hero from the Soviet Union who saved the world with a decision he made one night in 1983.

Here is a link to the official homepage. Here is a trailer narrated by Kevin Costner.man saved

In the trailer he says he never wanted to go into the military. He says his parents pushed him into it.

An article about the documentary in Commonweal. Here is an article about Petrov in The Atlantic.

I hope it is coming soon to a theater near me!

Hit and Stay (2013)

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About

On May 17, 1968, nine Catholic activists entered a Selective Service office in suburban Catonsville, Maryland, dragged stacks of draft records outside, and set them on fire with homemade napalm. They then prayed and waited to be arrested. After their trial captured national headlines others heard their call to action.

Between 1967-1972, there were hundreds of acts of civil disobedience against U.S. draft boards and the Dow Chemical Co., resulting in the destruction of hundreds of thousands of 1-A draft files and the orderly process of the U.S. government’s ability to wage war in Vietnam. Hit & Stay portrays the hidden history of the Action Community and the raids they staged that turned priests, nuns, and college students into fugitives and targets of the FBI.

HitAndStay.com