Citizens Peace Justice Medford

The Iron Wall                   2007              52 Minutes
In 1923 Vladimir Jabotinsky, leading intellectual of the Zionist movement and father of the right wing of that movement, wrote:

“Zionist colonization must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an IRON WALL, which the native population cannot breach.”

From that day these words became the official and unspoken policy of the Zionist movement and later the state of Israel. Settlements were used from the beginning to create a Zionist foothold in Palestine.

After 1967 and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the aim of the settlement movement became clear – create facts on the ground and make the creation of a Palestinian state impossible. Thirty nine years of occupation and the policy started showing results. There are now more than 200 settlements and outposts scattered throughout the West Bank blocking the geographic possibility of a contiguous Palestinian territory.

The Iron Wall documentary exposes this phenomenon and follows the timeline, size, population of the settlements, and its impact on the peace process. This film also touches on the latest project to make the settlements a permanent fact on the ground – the wall that Israel is building in the West Bank and its impact on the Palestinian’s peoples.

Settlements and related infrastructures are impacting every aspect of life for all Palestinians from land confiscation, theft of natural resources, confiscation of the basic human rights, creation of an apartheid-like system, to the devastating impact in regards to the future of the region and the prospect of the peace process.

Proposed Future CPJ Film Showings

1.   A Really Inconvenient Truth (Joel Kovel) 2007   (85 Min)
2.   Health, Money and Fear (Dr. Paul Hochfield) 2011    (90 Min)
3.   The Strangest Dream 2008 NFB Canada   (95 Min)
4.   Radiant City 2008   (85 Min)
5.   Motel Kids 2010   (60 Min)
6.   Triangle - Remembering the Fire 2011   (45 Min)
7.   Prisoner (Yunis Abbas) 2006   (72 Min)
8.   Morristown Earth & Sun 2007   (60 Min)
9. Food, Inc. 2008   (90 Min)
10. When the Levees Broke - Spike Lee 2011 (2 Parts - 1 Hr each Part)
11. What a Way to Go 2007 (2 Hrs)
12. Which Way Home 2009 (80 Min)
13. La Americana 2008 (65 Min)
14. Out of Balance -Exxon Mob & Climate 2008 (65 Min)
15. The Corporation (3 Parts) 2005 (105 Min)
16. Under the Hood (World of Torture) 2008 (2 hrs)
17. The Oath (POV) 2010 (90 Min)
18. Occupation 101 2007 (90 Min)
19. Ground Truth 2006 (72 Min)

1. A Really Inconvenient Truth obstensibly tells the story of Joel Kovel's run for the Presidency in 2000, the year we tragically elected George Bush. Kovel, who is one of the great intellects of the recent past, in my opinion, lost his professorship at Bard College after his book, Overcoming Zionism, was published by the University of Michigan Press (and then, shortly thereafter, pulled from the shelves and all copies destroyed by the publisher). The book later found a new publisher outside the US, (Pluto Press, London) but left Kovel without a teaching job. Kovel went on from there, however, to write one of the gems of the eco-socialism movement: The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World?

The documentary film by independent film-maker Cambiz Khosravi, exposes the hypocricy of Al Gore and others like him who profess that only minor changes in Western lifestyles will save the planet from global warming and the forthcoming planetary disaster. The film, made prior to the controversy embroiling his criticism of Israel and subsequent dismissal, helps to provide the viewer with a vision of the hard truth of global warming, and an introduction to the essential principles of eco-socialism.
View a trailer for the film here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoB21S0b-H4

2. Health, Money and Fear Produced by a Corvallis emergency physician (Paul Hochfeld), “Health, Money and Fear” answers three questions about our broken health care non-system. Why does is cost so much? What does it say about us? What can we do about it? WhileCongress was focused on the symptom: lack of Universal Coverage,, it ignored the underlying problem: COST. Until they address the perverse incentives that drive up costs, the “reform” we are going to get will be more government subsidies to hand to the insurance industry so they can continue to thrive administering a dysfunctional health care system that is better at producing profits than health. The elements of the solution must address the elements of the problem: technology, the fear of liability, mass marketing of prescription drugs, the profit motive, chaos in medical records, unrealistic expectatiions, and the multitude of insurance companies that add substantially to cost without contributing anything to health.
This is another film that can be viewed in its entirety online at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckSyGD6uoR0&feature=player_embedded

3. The Strangest Dream tells the story of Joseph Rotblat, the history of nuclear weapons and the efforts of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs – which he co-founded – to halt nuclear proliferation.Nuclear physicist Joseph Rotblat was branded a traitor and spy after walking away from the Manhattan Project, builders of the first atomic bomb. But, with Bertrand Russell, he went on to help create the modern peace movement, and eventually to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

As more of us turn our attention to the dangers of global climate change, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that carbon emissions and sustainable energy sources won’t matter much if we can’t forestall the development of weapons of mass destruction. The Strangest Dream, a documentary film about the life of scientist Joseph Rotblat, reminds us of the continued importance of the non-proliferation movement in today’s fragmented world.

Joseph Rotblat was a nuclear physicist who spent much of his life trying to ensure that ethics played a role in scientific research. He was the only scientist to leave the Manhattan Project on moral grounds, and he was a founding member of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. In recognition of the impact of his work, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995.

Rotblat was an exceptionally intelligent and principled individual who consistently balanced alarm with optimism. For years, scientists had purposefully removed themselves from the applications of their research. Rotblat wanted to change that. As one of his colleagues says, Rotblat wanted to “transform physics into something that could help people help people.”

The film travels from the site of the first nuclear test site in New Mexico, to the destruction of Hiroshima in the Second World War, to the site of the first Pugwash Conference in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. It describes Rotblat’s personal and professional achievements through interviews with his contemporaries and others who are familiar with his work. Some of the most moving scenes are spent with his niece, who eloquently describes her uncle’s poise and charm. More than a biography, this film examines the history of the weapons race and the role of scientists in world politics.

http://films.nfb.ca/strangest-dream/

4. Radiant City As long as there is suburbia, it will be chic to slam it.
What distinguishes Gary Burns' incisive, scathing documentary Radiant City, among other things, is that it acknowledges the lure of urban sprawl is as every bit as phony yet intoxicating as the tug of cinema itself. Artifice no longer apes reality; it is reality. And the endlessly cloned, characterless suburbs, he seems to say, are the product of a culture in which life has become as manufactured and distant as the people we see on movie screens.

It's a depressing observation, yes, and not entirely a new one. As one expert observes in the film, co-directed by journalist Jim Brown, the suburbs have always been one of the birth-stains of the 20th century. But Burns, the Calgary-based satirist behind Waydowntown, manages to illustrate his point in new challenging ways. In doing so, he bends the documentary form itself, something that will please some and frustrate others.

A compelling combination of talking heads -- mostly authors and urban planners -- and slice-of-suburban life, Radiant City spends much of its time following the Moss family, a typical 'burb brood that's having difficulty adjusting to life in the hinterlands of their city. The kids -- a son and a daughter -- feel isolated. Dad, faced with endless commutes and a neighbourhood still under construction, is performing in a play that mocks his life of mowing lawns and hosting backyard barbeques. Only Mom, a rigid taskmaster who wanted a new home away from the noise and over-expense of the inner-city, is satisfied with their new digs.

Further skulking around suburbia, Burns and Brown encounter other transplants: a single mom and her teenage daughter live in newly-developed townhouses segregated from the community's single-family dwellings. This so-called social apartheid, it's noted, is a relatively new development. In Europe and in neighborhoods built prior to World War II -- before the landscape was developed around the car -- the homes might have been smaller, but there was a larger sense of community. Most entertaining, though, is the author who eviscerates "spiritually degrading" suburban life with a precision that is as single-minded as the stroke of a hammer.
http://www.nfb.ca/film/radiant_city/

5. Motel Kids The Motel Kids of Orange County is an HBO Documentary about the lives of children who live in extended stay motels. People with low income sometimes do not have the money to be able to move into their own apartment, so they have to live in weekly hotels for extended periods of time - sometimes, there are whole families living in a single hotel room. This HBO Documentary takes a look into the lives of the children who live in such conditions. For many low income families, weekly hotels are a common part of life, even here in the Rogue Valley - This film sheds some light on this more and more commonplace issue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HznOyrzJMN0

6. Triangle - Remembering the Fire, is an HBO production about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in NY City, that struck on March 25, 1911, and killed 146 workers, mostly young women and teenage girls. The event has just had its 100 year commemmoration. PBS also made a documentary film of the tragedy, but the HBO film struck me as far superior, with more period pictures and even films, and with captivating music and narration that makes the heart-rending flim even more tragic. The film also goes deeper into the background of the union struggle that preceded the fire than the did PBS version. HBO has produced some wonderful documentary films, and this one ranks at the top of the list, in my opinion.
The film's website also has a short trailer: http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/triangle-remembering-the-fire/index.html

Israeli Wall

CPJ Medford

Medford CPJ's
Next Presentation
will be:

   The Iron Wall

The Iron Wall
click here

7:00 PM
Tuesday
Feb 21, 2012

Medford Congregational
Church of Christ
Lidgate Hall,
1801 E. Jackson St.

2 blocks above
Hedrick Middle School

Medford CPJ's
Recent Films:

Blood in the Mobile

For Neda
HBO Prod'ns

Israel and Palestine
presentered by
Sam & Ruth Neff

Battle for Marjah
Anderson, Wonke, Davies
HBO Films

If You Love this Planet
Helen Caldicott Presenation
Terre Nash NFB Canada

The Welcome
Kim Shelton, Director
Bill & Kim McMillan - Producers

The Calling
Stuart Kershaw

Iraq's Secret War Files
BBC Channel 4

Pete Seda - Terrorism
and Security Abuse

Wartorn 1861-2010
Joni Alpert & Matt ONeil

The Dark Side of
Chocolate (Child
Slavery)
Int'l Labor Rights
Forum

Daniel Ellsberg:
Most Dangerous
Man in America

Project Kashmir
Independent Lens

Intimidad
David Redmon &
Ashley Sabin

WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN:DESTRUCTION
OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI

Frontline: Behind Taliban Lines

The Power of Community:
How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

Frozen Dreams -
ICE Raid on Portland's
DelMonte Cannery

Howard Zinn: You Can't Be
Neutral On a Moving Train

"Health Consequences
of the Iraq War"

"Immokalee USA"
Georg Koszulinski

PrivateArmies Al Jazeera "Faultlines"

"Fixer"by Christian Parenti

The Last Truck
HBO Films

"Rethink Afghanistan"
by Robert Greenwald

"Walking It Off:
A Veteran's Chronicle"
by Doug Peacock

"KPFA On The Air"
PacificaRadio
documentary

"The Cats of Mirikitani"