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Showing videos filed under: diplomacy
Phyllis Bennis: The US and Egypt: Our Role in the Uprising
February 1, 2011"Who do you think you are, telling Egyptians what they should be doing?" Phyllis Bennis would like to ask Hillary Clinton. The Obama administration has made some good steps in its policy toward the ongoing uprising in Egypt, she notes, mentioning a willingness to rethink military aid and calling the Egyptian people's demands legitimate. But Phyllis calls for the US to go further in its support and actually stop funding the military and police in Egypt--currently the second largest recipient of US foreign aid, after Israel.Philip Rizk, Phyllis Bennis, Uncloaking Koch & Inequality
January 31, 2011"People are sick and tired of the way things have been for the past 30 years," says Philip Rizk, a blogger and filmmaker based in Cairo. In 2009, Philip was detained by state security after taking part in a protest in support of Gaza, and so has intimate awareness of the control and terror inflicted by the state on its people--who are only escalating, with a general strike called for today and a "Million March" for Tuesday.Carne Ross: WikiLeaks Disclosures and Dangers
January 5, 2011"We need to break down the assumption that foreign policy is something that should be left to these elites," says former British diplomat Carne Ross, who resigned over the Iraq war. The WikiLeaks cable releases, as he puts it, "reveal the extraordinary gap between private action and public rhetoric" on the part of governments--and that's what's been the most damaging.David Swanson, Carne Ross on WikiLeaks, and Trade
January 4, 2011"They've turned the deficit into the new Saddam Hussein," notes David Swanson, but he points out that if the deficit commission results in reduced military spending, it could have some small benefit. His new book, War is a Lie, delves into the myths about war, ultimately coming up with an argument that war is never justifiable.Personal Democracy Forum: Government Secrets
December 15, 2010While we talk about the consequences for journalism and the Internet from the WikiLeaks releases, it's important not to forget what's actually in the cables that are causing a stir. Former British diplomat Carne Ross discusses the contents of the cables and what they mean for those watching--and those mentioned therein.Personal Democracy Forum: Is the Internet Free?
December 15, 2010"We do not have the Internet we think we have," says Douglas Rushkoff, author of Program or Be Programmed. What we think of as a free and open Web is actually highly controlled by corporations and cash flow. We saw one example of this when WikiLeaks found itself without server space or fundraising ability when Internet service providers, including Amazon.com, cancelled their services and PayPal and MasterCard and Visa refused to process their transactions.Personal Democracy Forum: Is the Watchdog Press Dead?
December 15, 2010"The sources are voting with their leaks," notes Jay Rosen of New York University's school of journalism. If the watchdog press was doing its job, wouldn't leakers be going to mainstream news outlets like the New York Times and the Guardian directly, instead of to WikiLeaks first? Meanwhile, Emily Bell, formerly of the Guardian and now at Columbia University's journalism school, says that whether we like it or not, WikiLeaks is the new face of journalism.Personal Democracy Forum: Wikileaks and Internet Freedom
December 14, 2010This weekend, the Personal Democracy Forum convened a symposium on WikiLeaks and the Internet. GRITtv was there as well, and today we bring you excerpts from that event, with journalists, academics, activists, and others talking about the impact of the leaks site on our political and technological systems.Ann Wright: WikiLeaks and Accountability
November 30, 2010"We were told as diplomats, 'Don't ever put anything in a cable you wouldn't want on the front page of a newspaper.' It shows that they're a lot of arrogant people, that the system itself wasn't checking itself," says Ann Wright, Retired United States Army Colonel and former State Department official, of the latest documents released from WikiLeaks. Meanwhile, several of the diplomatic cables released depict possibly illegal actions by the U.S. government, and Wright notes that the chances of anyone being held accountable are slim.Ann Wright, Ari Berman & Karen Finney, and Dave Zirin
November 29, 2010"We were told as diplomats, 'Don't ever put anything in a cable you wouldn't want on the front page of a newspaper.' It shows that they're a lot of arrogant people, that the system itself wasn't checking itself," says Ann Wright, Retired United States Army Colonel and former State Department official, of the latest documents released from WikiLeaks. Meanwhile, several of the diplomatic cables released depict possibly illegal actions by the U.S. government, and Wright notes that the chances of anyone being held accountable are slim.
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