Orwell rolls in his grave: Movie review

I was not surprised but shocked and appalled after seeing this documentary. This is about how media manipulates the news we hear. This film is neither as flashy or hyperbolic as a Michael Moore work, nor ridden in conspiracy theories. This is a must see, especially for the right-wingers, who often complain of a "liberal media". This movie expressly dispels that notion; they care not about what's left or right (pun intended) but just about themselves.


To whet your appetite, I will highlight some of the contents of this superb piece of work. It contends that we are moving from a democracy to what can be called a "Mediocracy". We have an 'illusion of choice', as we see so many magazines, newspapers, cable channels, music and films available. What we do not realize is that there are so few publishers, studios and labels who control the majority of information fed to us. In the early 1990s, there were over 50 companies ran media institutions; this number has dwindled down to five or seven at present.

They are one of the biggest lobbyists in Washington, and the sad part is that they control what you can know. Why would NBC, for example, give you news that could be potentially damaging to General Electric or ABC for Disney? What is even more shocking is that the regulatory body of our government the FCC, is in their pocket. After retirement, many of the FCC employees go to work for the companies that they were regulating. The Chairman of the FCC, Michael Powell, son of Colin Powell, says that he "...has no idea what the public interest is", and adds, "the oppressor here is regulation".

In addition, they fund trips for our Congressmen, which are of course 'educational'. However, we won't know that, because they don't want to report it. You would never know that $11 million were spent to scuttle a requirement for the media to allow free airtime for candidates. The Chairman of their association calls this democratic exercise a "...unconstitutional infringement on the broadcaster's free-speech rights". Come again!

It has become a complex and intertwined affair between the media, the government and corporate business. Just like TASS could not criticize the system of Communism in the old Soviet times, our media handles big business with kid gloves. Alas, we are becoming more and more like them.


Distortion of the news leads to a vastly uninformed public. And it doesn't help, as Hitler observed in Mein Kampf, that the people's power of forgetting is enormous. Soon after the Gulf War II, in March 2003, a CNN/Gallup poll found that 51% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally responsible for the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center. They probably also didn't know that not a single highjacker was Iraqi.

There are things that the Media does not want you to know, or know too well, much less analyze the issues. Here are some examples:

• If the much-hyped DEATH TAX is repealed, 50% of the benefits will go to 1/10th of 1% of population. The entire (100%) benefit will go to the top 2%. This means that 98% of us DO NOT PAY any inheritance tax to derive any benefit!


• George W. Bush violated security laws, which included insider trading, four times, according to a report by the SEC. This was available four months before the 2000 elections


• BBC reported that five months before the 2000 elections, Governor Jeb Bush moved to purge 57,000 people from voting rolls in Florida, supposedly ex-felons.A private company with Republican ties charged millions of dollars to go through databases to come up with this list. It now says that the list is inaccurate. Only 1 in 20 people on this list MAY have committed a crime; so 95% of the 57,000 are unequivocally innocent. Florida's Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, certified the election in Florida for Bush with a plurality of 537 (yes, 537) votes. Ms. Harris was Bush's campaign manager, and the Governor his brother. Oh yes, 54% of people on this list were African-Americans.


• Within days of 9/11, why did Bush allow 140 Saudi citizens, including members of the Bin Laden family, be flown out of the US with limited or no questioning?


• In was no coincidence that the hostages taken in Iran were landing as Reagan was taking the oath of office. That image, shown split-screen on TV, is etched in the brains of all those who were watching.

An Iranian specialist in the Carter Administration, Gary Sick, who served on the National Security Council from August 1976 to April 1981, had this to say (in part) in his Congressional testimony on 5 February 1992.

“In the course of interviews in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, I’ve been told repeatedly that individuals associated with the Reagan campaign for 1980 met secretly with Iranian officials to delay the release of American hostages until after the presidential election. For the favor, Iran was rewarded with a substantial supply of arms from Israel.”

“From October 15 to October 20 1980, events came to a head in a series of meetings in Paris. Accounts of these meetings vary. There is, however, widespread agreement on a number of points:

• William Casey, Reagan’s campaign manager, was a key participant.


• Iranian officials agreed that the hostages will not be released prior to the presidential election on November 4.


• In return, Israel would serve as a conduit for arms and spare parts to Iran.


• Five of the sources present in Paris for these meetings insist that George Bush was present for at least one of these meetings.”

As our hostages were coming back home, a planeload of aircraft tires was on its way to Iran from Israel.


The stories about disenfranchisement of 57,000 voters in Florida, the flight of the Saudis, and the deal with “terrorists” for the hostages would have made great works of investigative journalism. Alas, these days it only means getting a story first.

Sadder is the fact that news organizations rely on official sources, the feet of the people these “fifth columnists” are supposed to hold to fire. CBS news killed the story about the Florida voter fraud based on denial by Governor Jeb Bush, who was the TARGET of this investigation!

In “1984”, George Orwell said, “…who controls the past…controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past. It is scary if you think how we think that we are the freest country in the world, which is true, and so everything should be very transparent.


Nevertheless, we have some semblance of ‘free-speech’, and let us hope for the best. It is very true that despite all this bad news, we still live in a country and time where the general populace is the most well-off, most comfortable and the most informed in any time in history.