Behind the Mask (2006)

“I don’t believe you can ever challenge the law without Direct Action.”

Behind the Mask, directed by Los Angeles animal rights lawyer Shannon Keith examines why some animal rights activists feel compelled to break the law and risk jail in order to liberate animals from factory farms and laboratories. The title refers to the ideas behind the acts of those who wear masks when raiding those nasty little laboratories and farms. If there’s another film out there that bothers to ask people in depth exactly why they feel so strongly about the issue of the treatment of animals, and why they break into facilities to save animals and expose the treatment meted out, I don’t know about it.

Now let’s be perfectly clear here; the Animal Liberation Front is not an organization. So you can’t write off and ask for a membership card and you can’t join. That said, the Animal Liberation Front has guidelines which are posted on the website www.uncagedfilms.com , the website created by the makers of Behind the Mask. Labeled a terrorist group, ALF has been around now for decades, and as with all marginalized groups, they have become ‘unnewsworthy.’ The film’s tagline is: The film the government doesn’t want you to see, but I’d argue that it’s a film that corporations don’t want you to see. Although of course, government and corporations are connected in the most advantageous and powerful ways.

The film examines some of the methods used by ALF, and we see footage of raids on various labs and farms. Various animal activists (some of whom have served prison time for their actions) address issues involved in animal liberation. Some see animal liberation as the “modern day underground railroad.” Others raid labs, breaking the law, in an attempt to bring the treatment of lab animals to the attention of the public. One PETA activist describes her harrowing undercover work in a laboratory, and Ingrid Newkirk, president of PETA addresses the idea that every consumer can do something by simply not purchasing products from companies who test on animals. One of the arguments that supports the testing of animals is that it is a necessary process for its contributions to human medicine. Dr. Vlasak, a trauma surgeon addresses the absurdity of the argument that animal testing contributes to human medicine (it doesn’t): “the vast majority of all animal research is never ever useful for treating human health issues.”

Interviewee Rod Coronado addresses one of the criticisms of ALF by stressing that “it’s very easy to prevent human fatalities when carrying out Direct Action.”

Given the subject matter, some of the footage is grueling. Animals die on screen in the most disgusting and appalling ways using so-called efficient methods. I’ll admit some of the footage disturbed my sleep for several nights, but I expected this when I started the film. And to be honest, I think this is one of the reasons the general public shy away from the details of what goes on in the labs and slaughter houses; we don’t want to educate ourselves about the issues because part of us knows full well that the process of exactly how that bacon ended up in the supermarket shelf, for example, is full of earth-shattering violence and disdain for the suffering of animals. Some of the footage includes scenes in slaughter houses, and some of the footage exposes the conditions that exist in the labs–along with some horrendous photos of lab animals. One scene, for example, shows a burly lab tech punching a Beagle unconscious telling the dog “you had your chance.”

The film also makes the point that the vast pharmaceutical companies use pressure to pull media ads targeting laboratory animal abuse. While the film points out that Direct Action and economic sabotage have closed several facilities (a rabbit farm, for example), the point is not made that some of those closed down are very small time operators with fairly easy access. The huge laboratories, which are as secure as Fort Knox, remain largely untouched. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of these actions just make insurance companies fatter and richer, and I loathe insurance companies.

One great interview in Behind the Mask reinforces the idea that animal liberators have become increasingly marginalized–and often painted with the same brush as terrorists when we see the lead singer of Goldfinger, John Feldmann whose house was surrounded by helicopters and a SWAT team after his wife attended an animal rights protest.

One of the arguments made in Against All Odds: Animal Liberation 1972-1986 (a brief history of the development of the Animal Liberation Movement) is that marginalization is the natural result of the intense criminalization of protestors–for example in the sentencing of acts of simple trespass. By blocking legal avenues for protest, society gets what it creates–illegal actions. This book, by the way, also argues that animal liberation, herded into illegality, has moved in the wrong direction.

Ultimately, animal liberation raises some complex, uncomfortable moral questions. Have acts of animal liberation brought the issue of animal exploitation in factory farming and laboratory testing to the public’s attention? Or do people just tune out at the mention of ALF?

Unfortunately it’s going to be very, very difficult to create a paradigm shift against the eating of meat–although this may happen with the seeming increasing number of meat contamination cases that make the headlines and enter public consciousness. But I do think the area of laboratory testing is ripe for education. The film makes the point that laboratory testing that involves animals is an “industry that regulates itself.” Most of the ‘public’ simply don’t know what’s involved in product testing, and if they did, it’s likely that a certain percentage would boycott corporations that operate with such flagrant, disgusting and careless disregard for animal life.

In the meantime, watch Behind the Mask and inform yourself about exactly how animals are treated. One thing we can all do is stop supporting companies that test on animals by simply not buying their products. For more information on corporations that test on animals, visit www.caringconsumer.com

Behind the Mask is available at www.akpress.com

The Long Exile by Georges Simenon

“He was a petit-bourgeois down to the cut of his jacket, the knot of his tie, and his manner of speaking–the epitome of provincial France, but transported suddenly to the other side of the world, and surrounded by people who, if one looked at them closely, were like supernumerary actors in some exotic stage spectacle. “

George Simenon’s novel The Long Exile is the story of two young anarchists who become fugitives and flee from France to South America following the murder of a wealthy Parisian.

The Long Exile, with shades of Conrad and Graham Greene, is an excellent book, but its central figures Charlotte Godebieu and Joseph Mittel are problematic characters as anarchists. Joseph Mittel, a tragic, frail figure is the son of anarchist and Bonnot gang member Mittelhauser. While the state was unable to convict Mittelhauser of involvement in the Bonnot gang due to insufficient evidence, he is arrested during WWI for “passing state secrets to the enemy” and there commits suicide “having opened up the veins in his wrists with the handle of a spoon which he had sharpened on the edge of his plate over several days.” Still a child, Mittel is subsequently abandoned by his mother, and he later alters his name and is more or less adopted by the French anarchist community. Mittel, whose life story is similar to some of the details of the life of the French film director Jean Vigo, has TB, lived in a sanitarium, and worked in a film company. While Mittel doesn’t really espouse anarchist beliefs, it’s the only world he’s ever known, and anarchists are the only people who’ve ever helped him–finding him employment, and a place to stay. Without the anarchist community, Mittel realizes he would have starved.

Charlotte Godebieu, however, is an entirely different case. In reality, she’s a prostitute, a thief, and a blackmailer who’s learned that a veneer of anarchist beliefs lends a certain romanticism to her behaviour. Charlotte brags about her exploits and her sketchy beliefs, exaggerating details as she draws a crowd of male admirers. She justifies the blackmail and murder of her former employer as necessary in order to finance the publication of the newspaper La Liberte, but even Simenon doesn’t seem to take Charlotte’s proclaimed anarchism seriously. With Charlotte, the author creates a portrait of a very unpleasant character who steals from her own impoverished family.

With help from an anarchist bookseller, Mittel and Charlotte manage to get passage on a ship sailing to South America, captained by the renegade gun-running Mopps. Mopps very quickly becomes obsessed with Charlotte even though he has no illusions about her character: “She’s totally devoid of feeling. She gives herself because she has no choice, or because there may be something in it for her. She thinks of nothing but making herself appear interesting, and when she saw I wasn’t impressed by her freethinking notions, she dropped the subject.” Even though Mopps decides that Charlotte is “no better than a trollop,” he still becomes her lover.

On the long voyage to South America, the other crew members ask Mittel if it’s “true” that he’s an anarchist, and then the next question is whether or not Mittel has “ever thrown a bomb.” When Mittel replies “never” they are clearly disappointed and ask “what’s the point” of being an anarchist if you don’t throw bombs? While the crew is initially a little nervous about Mittel, he soon gains everyone’s respect and Captain Mopps’ affection.

At one point, Mittel admits to himself that “he was no anarchist, but that he was the son of an anarchist, and this made him a kind of aristocrat among aristocrats. He was forced to attend all their meetings as an example to the younger generation.” He feels as though there’s “no escape” for him, and that no matter where he travels “there were anarchist, groups, cells, only waiting to grab him and do him honor” as the “son of a French Martyr.” While Simenon’s use of the word “aristocrat” is jarring when describing Mittel’s position in the anarchist community, this is the author’s attempt to describe the anarchist community’s view towards the son of a deceased comrade. Simenon doesn’t seem to take Mittel’s complaints about the pressure from the anarchist community quite seriously. Mittel is seen as a sympathetic, yet weak lost character who lacks any ability to make decisions about his own fate. At several points in the novel, he remarks that he had “no choice” about his life, and indeed even his exile to South America with Charlotte is something that simply happens.

Charlotte and Mittel eventually land in Columbia where Mittel takes a job working in a remote mine that supposedly yields a large amount of gold. Trapped here with Charlotte and a Belgian geologist who may or may not be insane, Mittel becomes involved in a murderous scam and experiences human greed and corruption through his brush with a group of corrupt businessmen. Mittel’s weak character leads him into trouble when he’s finally forced to take a stand in the warring business community of Buenaventura.

Escaping from Columbia and the intricate politics of rival business interests, Mittel and Charlotte travel to Tahiti to join Mopps. Here Charlotte manages a bar for ex-pats, and Mittel who’s left to observe Charlotte’s flirtations and affairs, begins to mull over his life….

A surface examination of Simenon’s protagonists may lead us to the hasty conclusion that Charlotte and Mittel embody all the negatives stereotypes of anarchism. But Simenon is not unsympathetic to anarchism in this novel. Indeed Simenon’s creation of Charlotte and Mittel as anarchists exemplify the idea that all sorts may be attracted to anarchism, and that as the son of an “anarchist martyr” Mittel carries a legacy that no one is likely to forget. Even though Mittel is not involved in Charlotte’s crime, he immediately is linked to the murder by the press. Furthermore, Simenon makes it perfectly clear that while Mittel and Charlotte are labeled as anarchists for different reasons, neither of the characters are, in fact anarchists at all. Mittel at first sees Charlotte as a “militant anarchist” while he is “halfhearted at best” but by the time they are stuck in Columbia he realizes that they “are just a couple of pathetic little people.” While in the beginning Mittel admires Charlotte’s force of character, he later admits that she committed murder “not so much from devotion to the Cause as from bravado, because she wanted to prove she was something better than a servant.”

Deserter (2008)

“I don’t understand this war, but I’ve seen what it’s done to the guys who’ve come back and that scares me. I don’t think I’m a coward, and I don’t want to desert my friends or my unit, but I’m not going to kill for this war, and I’m not going to die for it.”

Deserter from Big Noise Films (www.bignoisefilms.com) is the background story of Ryan Johnson’s decision to go abandon the military and go to Canada. From California’s socio-economically depressed Central Valley region, Ryan joined the army in 2003. When faced with deploying to Iraq, Ryan contacted the GI Rights Hotline and then with his wife Jen, he went AWOL, drove to Canada and slipped into the “modern day underground.” During the Vietnam War approximately 100,000 sought refuge in Canada, and Desertion is a subject that’s largely being ignored by mainstream media at this time.

Ryan’s decision is basically the core of the film’s content, and we see Ryan in various stages of his decision-making process–from a phone call to the Hotline and on the road to Canada. Although the film’s focus is Ryan, his situation is emblematic of thousands of young people who find themselves torn between the demands of conscience and military orders. In 2004, the Pentagon admitted that 5500 soldiers had deserted since the beginning of the war in March 2003. While according to some websites in the fiscal year 2007 alone 4,698 soldiers deserted.

Ryan presents arguments for the moral dilemma he faced. Obviously becoming a deserter and seeking asylum in Canada is not an easy decision to make. This is a decision that has permanent irreversible consequences, and those who become deserters leave family, friends and country behind–perhaps never to return. The decision is further complicated by the fact that it’s unclear whether or not U.S. military personnel will be allowed to stay in Canada. Furthermore, there’s no sign that the Iraq War will be ‘over’ any time soon, and it’s perfectly obvious that anyone who deserts from the military will have to stay away until the political climate changes.

Footage makes it clear that this was not an easy decision for Ryan, and the film creates a platform for his arguments. Basically, he felt caught between moral obligation and military duty in an impossibly difficult situation. Knowing that going to Iraq would mean involvement in a war he did not agree with, and the possibility of killing, Ryan understood that with desertion he faced social ostracism and a jail sentence for his act. Clips of interviews from Iraq veterans, including Camilo Mejia, underscore the idea that changed by the experience of war and haunted by Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) “no one ever comes back from Iraq.” The implication is that if you go to war, you are going to come back as a statistic one way or another.

I don’t think anyone makes the decision to become a deserter lightly, and the footage of Ryan’s explanations underscore that he had nowhere to turn. Given the social and familial pressure to conform, let alone all the economic pressures, flag waving and patriotism that get tied up into the argument, it’s much easier just to conform and go along with the madness.

For those detractors who argue that Ryan shouldn’t have signed up in the first place, well …. yes. But once having signed up, what happens when someone experiences a shift in morality? Since this is Ryan’s story, the film doesn’t directly deal with the legal route to leaving the military–gaining Conscientious Objector status. It’s not an easy process. In the five calendar years 2002-2006 425 CO applications were filed with an overall 53% approval. At this time the number of deserters far exceeds the number of CO applications filed for the same period.

The film refers to the idea that military enlistment is influenced by socio-economics, and this is a very touchy subject in some quarters. After all, the implication that the members of the working class are fighting wars while some people are laughing all the way to the bank may dampen all that war-mongering enthusiasm.

Over the last few months, I know three young men who have joined the military for financial reasons after their recruiters swore they wouldn’t have to go to Iraq. Now most of us take it for granted that the recruiters say whatever is necessary to get those signatures on the enlistment papers, and given the current state of affairs, it takes a certain level of naiveté to believe that you’re not going to get sent to Iraq. But that’s just what has happened over and over again. I remember one woman looking me in the eye and telling me the recruiter told her 18-year-old son that he wouldn’t be sent to Iraq because he was needed in ‘Intelligence’ in the U.S. Well guess who got sent to Iraq?

We can expect to see more films on the subject on those military personnel who resist. I hope Ryan’s story causes anyone contemplating a stint in the military to think twice about it. And Ryan & Jen, wherever you are, I wish you the best of luck.

 

Deserter is available at www.akpress.com

My Boy Jack (2007)

“If our brief is to tell the truth but a truth that is bearable to the British people, do we dilute the figures?”

Whenever I watch films concerning WWI, I always find myself wondering what sort of madness gripped the world for this period of time. Not that wars have become more acceptable or less absurd, but the depictions of trench warfare of WWI always bring out the sheer insanity of war, and then, of course, there’s the death toll of around 20 million.

The film My Boy Jack is the story of one soldier who was killed in WWI. The soldier is 18-year old Jack, the only son of Nobel Prize winning British writer Rudyard Kipling (David Haig). Directed by Brian Kirk (who also plays the role of Kipling), the film centers on the Kipling family dynamic. Father Rudyard Kipling hobnobber with the King can’t wait for the shooting party to begin in France. His attitude spreads to his only son, Jack (Daniel Radcliffe), and the two of them agree that Jack can’t miss the action.

Jack, however, is rejected by the military for his extremely poor eyesight. While some families would use their position and influence to excuse their children from war, Rudyard Kipling pressures the army to take his son. Jack is as blind as a bat without his spectacles, and military personnel grasp the inherent danger of placing Jack in charge of enlisted men, but Kipling, who was never a military man, coerces and bamboozles his acquaintances until he gets what he wants–his son in a uniform.

My Boy Jack illustrates the peer pressure afoot in wartime. There’s one scene of Kipling speaking and inciting his audience at a war rally, and there’s one great scene when Jack is drinking in a pub with his best friend, Ralph. Although the subject of Jack’s lack of uniform is not addressed directly, Jack obviously feels very uncomfortable and out-of-place surrounded by soldiers while he’s in civilian clothes.

Thanks to his father’s determination and influence, Jack is commissioned in the Irish Guards. There’s a firm hierarchy afoot with 17 year-old Jack in charge of a platoon of Irish volunteers, and we see that ever-popular tradition of the upper classes herding the peasants into war and slaughter. One segment of the film focuses on Jack’s determination to improve his marksmanship, and of course, there’s a bitter irony here as the training these military schools provide (his friend Ralph attends Sandhurst) implies that there’s some special skill required for being a target on the fields of France.

Even though Rudyard Kipling was privy to the horrendous casualties lists (one day leaves 458 officers and 11,161 enlisted dead), he still urges his son on. This, of course, raises the question why do parents feel it’s their ‘duty’ to pressure their beloved children to enlist? What is it about a flag and rabid patriotism that casts the normal aspects of responsible parenting aside as children are urged and pressured to cast sanity to the winds and throw their young lives at hopeless lost causes? The film does an excellent job of portraying Kipling as a saber-rattling, bastion of the British Empire–an armchair warrior who lives subliminally through the imagined future heroic exploits of his son, and of course, Jack, conditioned to live up to his father’s notions of the glories of Empire, doesn’t struggle against his father’s illusions, but instead buys all the patriotic notions of war hook, line and sinker.

The film juxtaposes some great scenes of Kipling’s gorgeous country home in Burwash, East Sussex with the muddy trenches in France along with Jack Kipling’s inglorious death at the Battle of Loos the day after his 18th birthday. When the Kipling family first learn that Jack is missing, they begin an exhaustive search to find him.

With its tight focus on the Kipling family, many issues raised by the film pass unchallenged. While the Kipling family suffered a devastating tragedy, this tragedy was shared by millions of families who did not have the means to search for their lost sons. In light of his son’s death, Kipling doesn’t analyze or confront his role in the War Office where he helped craft propaganda and was indirectly and collectively responsible for sending millions of men–sons, brothers, husbands to their deaths. Kipling’s guilt largely rests on the idea that he facilitated his son’s death by using his influence to get Jack a commission, but then the family veers away from that notion by emphasizing that this was what Jack wanted. However, given his father’s rabid patriotism and thwarted military ambitions, just how much was 17-year old Jack’s choice and how much was conditioning?

While the film treats all of its subjects with poignant sensitivity, the film ends with Kipling reciting his poem, My Boy Jack written for his dead son, and there’s no argument that Kipling loved his only son (at one point he asks: “How could I condemn my son to oblivion?”). But in spite of Kipling’s grief, there’s the idea that he still didn’t really get it. A few accusations fly from Jack’s mother and sister, but they are buried under the poem’s line “Except he did not shame his kind” and the idea remains that Kipling shoved aside the utter senselessness of his son’s death and grieved ultimately with the consolations of ‘noble’ sacrifice and duty to king and country.

Libby, Montana (2004)

“The inclination of public agencies to protect the worker at any expense (usually the employer’s) seems to be a firmly entrenched political phenomenon which should be considerable concern to us.”

I was telling an acquaintance about the documentary Libby, Montana when he stopped me and said, “wait a minute. Where did you say this happened?” I wondered if perhaps he hadn’t heard me say the title–but no, it wasn’t that; he just couldn’t align the idea that an ecological nightmare occurred and was covered up for decades in the state that many Americans consider a pristine paradise.

Libby, Montana begins with a casual mini tour through the small town of around 2600 residents. It looks like a nice place, and it’s certainly breathtakingly gorgeous. But there’s a horrifying story here–a tale of corporate greed and deceit that left a legacy of death and disease for Libby’s inhabitants.

Libby’s main industry was logging, and the mine was just a “sideline” when Vermiculite was first discovered. As the logging faded, a strip mining operation–the Zonolite Company–sprang up in town. In 1963, through an exchange of stock, the mining company merged into W.R.Grace and was the area’s major employer offering steady work for the town’s inhabitants. Libby became the provider of 80% of the world’s Vermiculite. 12-13 railroad cars a day were loaded with the stuff, at a rate of 200,000 pounds per car. Business was booming; dust filled the air and the lungs of the workers, their families and other town residents. But back when the mine officially began in 1919, no one really understood what they were dealing with. One interviewee explains that in the 50s and 60s Vermiculite was viewed as a miracle product; residents layered it on their gardens to improve the soil, and there were even attempts to bake cookies with it as an ingredient. Unfortunately the ore Vermiculite from the Libby mine also contained elements of Tremolite asbestos.

Well you can’t blame people for fooling about with asbestos before they knew just how deadly it was. Reminds me of the way people started drinking liquid radium back when they thought it was a miracle elixir.

But internal memos from W.R. Grace reveal that the company heads were fully aware of the deadly effects of the asbestos-contaminated Vermiculite, and that the workers were deliberately left in the dark about their deadly exposure to asbestos. The company required annual x-rays and even maintained charts of death and disease rates as they tracked just how many people died and what the chances were of plant workers dying of Asbestosis (92% if you worked there for 20 years). And even though the company heads were fully aware that the asbestos-contaminated Vermiculite was a deadly material as far back as 1956, they kept on working the mine, exposing their workers, polluting the community, and reaping huge profits for decades.

Footage includes some extremely painful interviews with various EPA employees and ex-W.R. Grace employees and their families. One worker recalls how he didn’t even know that Tremolite was a form of asbestos. Another worker tells how he went to see a doctor who identified him as a resident of Libby by just the state of his lungs. There’s some fascinating archival footage of mine manager, Earl Lovick squirming when questioned about his knowledge of the health hazards: “some things shouldn’t need to be explained” he argues, “You don’t need to tell an employee not to touch a hot iron.” I don’t quite get Lovick’s analogy between not touching a hot iron and air-born asbestos dust, but apparently the analogy worked for Lovick.

In the potent fusion of state and corporate interests, we also see how politics fits into the picture. The governor is pressured into visiting Libby to listen to the town residents both for and against naming Libby as a Superfund site. While she offers to pray for the residents, Ronald Reagan appoints J. Peter Grace (CEO of W.R. Grace) and the Grace Commission to conduct a report on Cost Control –an ‘investigation’ into waste and inefficiency in Federal government. (Grace was a member of the Council for National Policy–a Conservative ‘think tank’ which includes many other notable members such as Jack Abramoff, Jerry Falwell, Oliver North and Milton Friedman).

And of course, there’s always the question, who gets the bill for all this? The EPA wrestles budget problems, and the town’s residents wrestle one another. So the film follows the money trail as fingers are pointed and billions disappear. From directors Drury Gunn Carr and Doug Hawes-Davis, the co-founders of Missoula-based High Plains Films.

Manda Bala (2007)

“Organized crime has entered the very centre of power.”

“Tell me a place in the world where politicians are not sons of bitches” observes Jamil, a jaded policeman from Sao Paolo’s anti-kidnapping division in the excellent documentary Manda Bala. Admitting that there are not enough police to protect the wealthy elite in San Paolo, Jamil’s job is to solve kidnappings; he’s just one part of the chain of corruption and crime in a place where the phenomenally rich and extremely poor rub shoulders. But here in Sao Paulo, with the “world’s largest private fleet of helicopters,” the wealthy often take to the skies, negotiating the city through a series of roof top helicopter landing pads. This is one way–perhaps the only way–in Sao Paolo to avoid confrontations with the poor.

Manda Bala (aka Send a Bullet) examines the nature of corruption and class division through a handful of Sao Paulo residents. There’s an affluent plastic surgeon who specializes in reconstructing ears removed by kidnappers, and there’s a man who owns and operates a frog farm. A kidnapping victim describes her ordeal at the hands of brutal kidnappers, and although she remains remarkably calm when recalling how her ear was carved off of her head, there’s the sense that the veneer of tranquility is brittle and ready to shatter. Also included in the film is an interview with a balaclava-clad kidnapper who very succinctly describes why and how he developed a career from kidnapping and maiming the wealthy. Remorse is beside the point; to the kidnapper it’s a matter of survival. Establishing networks of accomplices, the kidnapper argues that he returns a chunk of the loot to his own impoverished neighbourhood–a ghetto in Sao Paolo. Obviously after a number of these lucrative crimes, the kidnapper could afford his own sprawling estate in the country, but instead he chooses to remain with his own people.

Other segments include a man who, for the camera, is known as Mr. M. He describes the need for bulletproof cars and takes a course titled: “How to Drive Your Bullet-Proof Car and Avoid Getting Kidnapped.” With grainy footage of various brutal kidnapping tapes interspersed with the interviews of Sao Paolo residents, we begin to get the idea that Sao Paolo is not for the faint of heart. But what is the thread that binds all these Brazilians together? The film makes it perfectly clear that crime and corruption begins at the top, and referring to the corrupt political system, one man argues the choices are simple: “you either steal with a pen or a gun.”

In a country in which politicians are free from civil courts, elected officials run amok with so called public funds, lining their own fat foreign bank accounts while laundering money through various mythical public projects. The film follows the career of a politician who “became a gangster not a governor.” Jader Barbalho–a student leader under Brazil’s military dictatorship went to law school and rose through positions in the government. As a senator, it’s charged that his government programmes looted the country–ensuring, of course that the rich (Jarbalho in this case) stay richer and the poor stay…well, poorer. This section of the film establishes that the food chain of crime and corruption underlying Brazilian society is responsible for the horrendous conditions in Sao Paolo. One interviewee who attempted to force Barbalho to answer for his crimes asks: “do judges in Brazil see people in the same way or do they have difficulties in sending to jail people of their own class?” And this is, of course to anarchists, a rhetorical question.

Another interviewee seems at a loss to explain exactly why Barbalho remains untouchable for his crimes: “I am embarrassed that we have politicians that have stolen so much public money to make themselves rich while people remain in extreme poverty and yet they keep electing them.” Perhaps the answer to that one is that some votes are bought and paid for.

From director Jason Kohn, this fascinating film’s tagline is “When the rich steal from the poor…the poor steal the rich.”

Bending The Bars by John Barker

“News came through that a con on C wing had been murdered by screws in the block beaten to pulped pulp then hanged to cover it up, a suicide story. It seemed too cynical to be true. I knew screws could be brutal but this was too much, all my deepest fears congealed.”

In the 1970s, a group called the Angry Brigade claimed responsibility for a number of actions in Britain–including the bombing of the home of employment minister Robert Carr. After other bombings, arrests took place followed by the longest conspiracy trial in the history of the British legal system. At the conclusion of the trial of the Stoke Newington Eight (this refers to the eight people eventually tried for conspiracy and weapons possession) twenty-three-year-old John Barker received a ten-year sentence for his role in the Angry Brigade. Deemed a Category A prisoner–A Danger to the State, Barker was locked up and rotated through several British prisons. After completion of seven years of this sentence (1971-1978), Barker was released. Bending the Bars is a collection of essays covering those seven years inside.

The book is not a memoir in the strictest sense. This is not a chronological account of day one forward until release–although the book does end with Barker walking out of prison. Instead this is a collection of essays highlighting some of Barker’s experiences in prison. Barker states that “the cops had framed an guilty man,” so there’s no self-pity–but there is a strong analysis of exactly what it’s like to be caught in the net and tossed into a system that attempts to manage and control Barker and his fellow cons. In spite of some very hard times, in the foreword, Barker states that his “time inside was the golden age of such prisons…. Since that time we have endured Mrs. Thatcher, Michael Howard and Tony Blair, all keen on punishing people who are not ‘Hard-working families who play by the rules’ as Blair put it. Prison is almost exclusively for working class people who do not ‘play by the rules’.”

Barker argues that prison is “like an experiment in social control” with a purpose under New Labour “to destroy what remains of collective solidarity amongst cons.” Indeed Barker cites many examples of protest solidarity amongst prison inmates, and it’s clear that to the Barker and his fellow cons, they had to stick together. The sense of unity amongst cons prevails–from Barker’s contacts with the Irish prisoners to the odd con rumble, but the cons attempt, for the most part, to retain the sense that their collective situation and condition warrants solidarity. Indeed it’s quite clear that when the cons stand together, they are at their strongest. In-fighting and the odd snitch weaken their solidarity, and tension and frustration erode friendships at times.

The first essay Early Days: Brixton covers Barker’s “comprehensive tour of misery”–his initial adjustment, his boredom, and the realization that in prison you can’t control even a tiniest detail of your own life. Everything is subject to routine–when you get up, when you go to bed, and Barker describes the feeling of power prisoners experience when they execute a seemingly minor act of independence. On the receiving end of the system, Barker recognized that “a sadist in the Home Office” dreamed up many of the conditions inside the prison (Derrick Jensen’s book Welcome to the Machine goes into the subject of prison design in some length). Barker’s argument that some sicko had to have had a hand in designing the prison and its systems of control is a point made repeatedly throughout the book–from the petty humiliations, the “shit parcels,” and the sweat box. On one occasion, the prisoners are ordered to make a large number of prison beds for Saudi Arabia, and on another occasion, the cons gather to watch a film that just happens to have a death row, execution sequence. “Asylum mode” cube shaped cells at Long Lartin Prison seem designed with a clinical interest in isolation in mind, and Barker wryly notes that he “could do without the deluxe shitting service but did not want to live in a box.” In this regimented, depersonalized and isolated world, with privacy stripped away, small kindnesses carry great weight.

The thing I found most surprising about the book is that Barker’s sense of humour prevails. In spite of confinement, in spite of losing someone he loved, he conveys moments of joy, and relates many amusing conversations amongst the prisoners. For example, in the chapter Manoeuvres, Barker recalls a conversation about Pavlov–a touchy subject given the situation. One con enrolled in an Open University course on behavior proceeds to defend Pavlov as a man who “was just describing the facts.” Barker answers: “But the facts as you call them came out of a set-up. The dog didn’t need the fucking bell to eat his dinner.” In another chapter, a con “had this thing about spaceships.”

Bending the Bars comes across as a remarkably honest, direct and unpretentious record of some of Barker’s experiences. This is not an account written by a cynical, hardened, angry individual. Instead, Barker comes across as an accepting individual who learns to cope with imprisonment, who fights depression and despair. He notes guards who seem to have some sort of standard of behavior and guards who are just sadistic and have an unhealthy enjoyment of their jobs. Included are some fascinating observations about the Irish prisoners, and this brings up the issue of hunger strikes. Barker includes his thoughts on the hunger strike as a tactic and notes that while he was willing to join such a motion in solidarity, “we didn’t believe in it as a tactic because it seemed to assume that the other side were ultimately humane people.” I’d never thought of it in those terms before.

The book makes it clear that the notion that prison is supposed to ‘rehabilitate’ inmates is ludicrous. It’s all about punishment, power, and control–although Barker did get to make a few pillowcases. On another note, I wish the book included some sort of glossary. I was able to infer meaning into some terms used, but in other cases, I had no clue what some words meant.

On an aside note, and to reiterate Barker’s observation that “prison is almost exclusively for working class people who do not “play by the rules” Z Magazine January 2008 pp. 23-24 included the “Prison Challenge Quiz.” If you haven’t seen this and are interested in the subject, get your hands on a copy. Anyway, question 12 asks: Which crime will get a stuffer sentence?

a. embezzling $5,000,000
b. stealing a doughnut.

In case you made the mistake of using common sense to gauge your answer, I’ll include the answer; it’s b: stealing a doughnut. A man pinched a doughnut. This was shoplifting, but pushing a shop worker in the process turned the incident into armed robbery. That would normally have netted a 5-15 year sentence, but a prior record could bring a sentence of 30 years to life.

The million-dollar embezzler, on the other hand, an Enron conspirator pled guilty to helping himself to more than 5 million. This landed a 6-year sentence but good behavior could shave off 2 years.

If you are interested in reading more about The Angry Brigade, I recommend Anarchy in the UK: The Angry Brigade by Tom Vague and The Angry Brigade: The Cause and The Case. Britain’s First Urban Guerilla Group by Gordon Carr.
 

The Unknown Soldier (Der Unbekannte Soldat) 2006

“We see by the gathering of the NPD that not everybody has received the lessons of history.”

The documentary The Unknown Soldier from Michael Verhoeven covers the controversy stirred by the exhibition Crimes of the German Wehrmacht. The exhibition’s premise was to reveal the role of the Wehrmacht in the systematic extermination of the Jews. According to exhibition organizer Hannes Heer, and many fellow historians who share his view, it was simply not possible for 6 million Jews to be eradicated without the explicit assistance of the Wehrmacht (”The SS could not have carried out this crime without the help of the German Army”). There’s the feeling that charging the Wehrmacht (and by extension the average German soldier) with crimes of extermination somehow “broke the taboo” on the subject.

The original exhibit opened in 1995 and then was closed in 1999 in order to answer charges that some of the photographs were faked. The exhibition reopened in 2001 after an investigation revealed that some of the documentation contained inaccuracies, but that there were no forgeries and that the overall presentation was correct.

When I heard about this documentary, I didn’t immediately grasp the level of controversy involved–after all, it makes perfect sense to me that the German Army assisted the SS. The filmmaker captures the outrage of the emotional crowds outside of the exhibition. Members of the fascist NPD (National Democratic Party) gather outside of the exhibit–along with old soldiers, their surviving family members, and riot police. Many of the old soldiers spew forth fascist venom, and some of the sons and daughters of deceased Wehrmacht soldiers hug photos of their fathers stating categorically that they were heroes who do not deserve to have their reputations tarnished.

Interviews are included of various historians who argue both sides of the controversy, and in the middle of it all, Hannes Heer is accused of having a Commie agenda.

The film includes some amazing archival footage, and some of it is quite brutal–mass executions and graves. Some of the most damning evidence is found in footage from the Ukraine. Of course, detractors argue that the photos of the German soldiers in front of mass graves are just proof of guilt by circumstance, and they argue that the Soviets executed the Jews and that the Germans just found the graves. Another argument is that the bodies were from allied bombing raids and that they were dragged out of the rubble and used for propaganda. But this doesn’t explain away all the evidence (or the letters sent back home), and then there’s the fact that there were 3.4 million Soviet POWs in 1941, and by the spring of 1942, 2 million were dead. The film argues that “a strong infrastructure of collaboration” existed between the SS and the Wehrmacht, and to me–a non-German whose father did not fight for the Wehrmacht, it seems obvious. But then again I have no emotional stake in nursing an image of my father as a WWII hero.

One of the most interesting parts of the film reveals how various section commanders reacted to the order to execute Jews. The film touches on the idea that officers could refuse orders to execute Jews but that for the average soldier, this failure to follow an order meant death. The idea of soldiers who deserted rather than follow out orders is mentioned. To those of us who are non-German, it’s probably a lot easier to accept the idea that the Wehrmacht had a role in the extermination of Jews. But then again ALL soldiers have opportunities to off civilians. War isn’t pretty, and so it seems in some ways the horrified reactions to the German exhibit are a reflection of the idea that wars are heroic and clean cut. You know, the good guys against the bad guys, but common sense should tell us that war creates opportunities for mass murder. Just look at some of the abuses that are leaking from the current debacle in Iraq–Abu Ghraib, Haditha and the murders in Mahmoudiya of an entire Iraqi family.

The film could have used a few clips about the forced enlistment of men into the Wehrmacht. For example, between 1941-1944 140,000 Alsatians between the ages of 17-38 were forced to enlist and most were subsequently sent to the Russian Front. Some tried to escape (most were shot), and several officers refused to enter the SS (they were shipped off to a concentration camp). One of the most interesting aspects of the film, and one that was perhaps not emphasized quite enough is the idea of “The Unknown Soldier.” While the film goes into the history of this symbolism, it hints that the term can mean something else entirely–the horrendous brutal murders that take place by “unknown” perpetrators–soldiers whose uniforms create anonymity and whose crimes remain unsolved, but it should also refer to those few soldiers who refused to cooperate and died for their defiance.

The Nasty Girl (1990)

“The roadblocks of a stubborn and guilty bureaucracy.”

Director Michael Verhoeven’s film The Nasty Girl is the story of Sonja (Lena Stolze). Raised in the small Bavarian town of Pfilzing, she attends convent school as her mother doesn’t want Sonja to mix with “anti-social kids and socialists.” Apart from the odd flash of naughty behaviour, Sonja has a very conventional upbringing. She’s the epitome of a good girl. Considered a “teacher’s pet” she’s obedient, tidy, quiet, and studious, so it comes as no surprise when she enters an essay competition and wins first place. With her model essay Freedom in Europe Sonja wins a holiday in France. Later, Sonja is encouraged to enter a second essay competition, and her next topic is My Hometown During the Third Reich. Sonja’s mother admonishes her to concentrate on “positive things,” and considering exactly what Sonja uncovers, well this little hint points to the conclusion that many people in Pfilzing had a damn good idea exactly what happened in town during WWII.

Sonja begins to research her paper with the idea that her focus will be how her town and the Catholic Church resisted the Nazis. Sonja is one of those characters who’s always been petted and accepted by those in power (she’s even given the examination questions in advance by the convent school nuns). She’s such a favourite in town that she fails to realize just how cosseted a position she has, and she has no idea what it’s like to be a subversive or a radical. Brought up to conform and obey, it’s a sheer accident that she stumbles on the town’s secret Nazi past. Motivated by naïve curiosity and a desire to discover the truth, Sonja refuses to give up her quest for information. She’s pressured not just to give up her research but also to return to her role of being a good little wife and housekeeper. Her stubborn streak carries her forward through a corrupt bureaucracy, ostracism, violence and death threats.

Over time, Sonja discovers that the Nazis executed a Catholic Priest–he’s a very acceptable icon for the town to remember, but when Sonja attempts to discover why Father Schulte ended up in a concentration camp right outside town her problems begin. In Sonja’s naivety she fails to recognize that she’s offended people in power who may be harmed by her investigation. It takes her some time to understand exactly why she keeps running into brick walls as she digs into the past. And this is one of the film’s ironies–Sonya thinks she’s discovering a story that no one knows, but the reality is that all the old-timers know exactly what she’s going to dig up if she keeps looking.

The Nasty Girl is based on a true story about what happened to Anya Rosmus as she researched her town’s past. The fact that old Nazis still run Pfilzing made me think of the Red Army Faction’s argument that many old Nazis were alive and well and still running the country in the 60s.

The film’s delightful, light ironic style certainly works for most of the film, but at times style undermines the message. Several scenes are surreal, and parts of the film appear in a docudrama format. The film’s powerful ending makes a tremendous statement regarding radicalism and society–sometimes to maintain integrity one must eschew awards, nominations and medals. The film shows that these trinkets are just another way to hijack and recuperate fringe-dwellers and subversives in their “fearless struggle for the truth.” There’s nothing like awarding someone a cheesy medal in order to maintain the political and social status quo; It’s a way of bringing you back into the fold. Makes me think of U-2’s Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire “Sir” Bono. Considering the British Empire’s history with Ireland, you’d think he would have told them to shove it. Oh well.

The Nasty Girl is in German with English subtitles

Pedalphiles (2000)

“You have to have a fairly exacting standard in order to be taken seriously” (SCAB collective member Michael).

The documentary Pedalphiles is the background story of SCAB (Skids Creating Apocalyptic Bicycles). SCAB is (was) a Wisconsin-based collective of bicycle enthusiasts whose mission was to promote the use of the bicycle as a “sustainable human-powered” and “viable alternative” to the automobile. Using scavenged bicycle parts, SCAB members created outlandish, ingenious bicycles and then infiltrated mainstream events, such as “Bike to Work Week” (AKA Middle Class Cop-Out Week). But apart from infiltration–with its goal of getting people to look at alternatives to fancy $2,000 bikes, SCAB just had a good time riding the streets of Wisconsin, developing new designs and passing out the word.

The film interviews SCAB collective members, and through these interviews the film explores the formation and growth of the group. Each of its members added their own unique talents, and this is clearly what made it work. Amanda explains, for example, how her welding skills helped the bike-making process. Collective members discuss and display some of their fantastic designs–the Preying Mantis, the Ghetto Way, the Pedal-Phile, the Huffy Nightmare, and…how could I forget…The Anal Intruder.

DVD extras include: Bike photos, and a Where Are They Now segment. This follow-up segment, filmed in 2005, 5-6 years after the original footage, is an essential part of the story. While SCAB is now a thing of the past, in individual interviews collective members all note the significance of SCAB in their lives. In spite of the fact that the collective members have taken different paths, some still maintain relationships, and some are still into bikes.

This energetic, and ultimately optimistic film from Brian Standing takes a fascinating look at how a group of young people with a range of talents and very little money put their beliefs into Direct Action. “Circumventing the whole buy-sale system” SCAB led by example. I am not much of a bike rider, I’ll admit, but after watching the film (which I thoroughly enjoyed, by the way) I started thinking that perhaps I need to break out my bike and start applying some pedal power in my life. A fair number of us realise that our current oil-dependent lifestyle will shortly come a cropper, and we all need to be prepared for that eventuality plus minimize our consumption for the health of the planet.

After the film concluded, I found myself mulling over the lives of these six very talented, creative people. I liked their decision to DO something about their beliefs, and I liked their positive approach. SCAB may well be a thing of the past, but I prefer to think of it as a beginning–not only for SCAB collective members, but also as a beginning for inspiration for those watching the film. Unfortunately, some of us are not lucky enough to live in a community with like-minded people, and so for us loners, a collective is not possible. And that makes the challenge for Direct Action a little different.

To quote collective member Tyson:
“I don’t know if I can even hope for a Utopian world at this point, just something better. And I think that’s just whatever we do in the time that we have.”

Pedalphiles is available at: www.prolefeedstudios.com