Documentaries about the United States

Documentary buffs, rejoice! There are a lot of very good documentaries coming out of the not-quite-yet-a-police-state of America. The following are all worth a look (or a listen is enough in most cases) if you’re interested in what America’s really doing, where it’s headed and how the hell we got here. As they say, “no matter how far down the wrong road you’ve traveled, turn around (it ain’t gonna get any better until you do).”

The following order is by release date, not by preference or rating.

Why We Fight (2005)

An excellent documentary of the history of the military industrial complex in the U.S.A. It starts with Eisenhower’s parting warning to America about being controlled by fear and by a powerful marriage of corporate and military interests. It features the always excellent Chalmers Johnson, author of the American Empire Project trilogy, providing some much-needed background to America’s “involvement” in the world. It includes interviews with the always unapologetic Richard Perleman and the always disingenuous William Kristol—two of the prime drivers of the march to war against Iraq (from inside and outside the administration, respectively)—as well as interviews with soldiers involved in the initial attack. The film is as even-handed as it is possible to be about an international war crime, though for some it will be way too liberal and for others it will be far too forgiving. At any rate, the information it offers is quite accurate and not obviously spun through omission or change of context.

Iraq For Sale − The War Profiteers (2006)

A decent documentary (with lower production values than Why We Fight) about the large role played by private corporations in the way America makes war. It investigates both the profligate waste of the process—with billions in contracts going to private corporations to do jobs ordinarily done by a military already trained and paid to do that work—as well as the neglect for basic levels of safety in pursuit of higher profit margins. Though many of the interviewees don’t come across as directly sympathetic—they seem quite self-interested and happy to make war just to earn the big bucks—most come from the extreme poor of America and are subject to extreme pressure and desperation when a fantastic job is dangled before their eyes. Though they almost all claim that they were going to “help liberate Iraq”, none of them bothered to determine just how likely that goal was—mostly because it helped ease their consciences.

In Debt We Trust (2006)

A film by Danny Schechter that warned of the big crash that was coming if Wall Street and the U.S. government were to continue its insane debt culture. The documentary starts at the (relatively) small level with credit card debts and moves on to predatory mortgages (including the now-famous sub-prime ones). The film is an excellent view of the ravages of America’s debt culture from the bottom up, such as check-cashing places and rent-to-buy as well as places that are legal loan-sharking (one place offered $1000 for a car worth $9000 as collateral … at hundreds of percent interest). It also includes some discussion of the also now-famous CDOs and CDSs that blew up the bubble on Wall Street (belying the popular trope that “no one saw this coming”). Schechter is currently working on Plunder: The Crime Of Our Time, for which he’s seeking funding to complete.

IOUSA (2008)

This documentary picks up where In Debt We Trust left off, examining the effects of the debt culture on the federal government. Discussed are the federal debt, how and when deficits exploded, the real effects of Social Security and Medicare (and how they are plundered to pay off current debts) as well as America’s shocking trade deficit. Interviews with Alan Greenspan (boo!), Paul Volcker (yay?), Warren Buffet (yay!) as well as two guys who know a lot about the problem but who get zero media coverage. The film covers the history of American debt, deficits and economic policy from its inception in 1776 until the present day. Even without the weight of the “too big to fail” banks on its shoulders (with the $13 trillion they’ve sucked out so far to fill the $400 trillion hole they made), the US government has $53 trillion in obligations and promises.

Food, Inc. (2008)

Excellent film with high production values and the star power of Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) and the extremely loquacious Joel Salatin (of Polyface Farm) as well as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation). The disgusting underbelly of the highly subsidized American food machine is exposed for all of its corruption and corporatization. From Monsanto’s 90% monopoly on soybeans—with seeds that farmers aren’t allowed to re-use and which invade other farmer’s fields…who they then successfully sue for using Monsanto seeds without paying—to the “pink slime” meat-like ammonium products that goes into 70% of the hamburgers in the country. It examines how we approach food—or rather, how we’re trained to approach food with fairy tales of bucolic farms; it shows how unhealthy our food production is—because of the monoculture, because of unclean practices and because of the massive amounts of cheap sugar we consume; it exposes the vast amount of petroleum consumed at all levels—with 10 calories of petroleum energy used for each food calorie produced.

Standard Operating Procedure (2008)

This film focuses on American foreign policy with an in-depth examination of the tortures at Abu Ghraib—using the world-famous pictures as well as dozens of interviews with both the perpetrators and the investigators. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski is the only high-ranking person interviewed, but the smirking, smiling ladies of Abu Ghraib are featured heavily. As in Iraq for Sale, it’s hard to be too sympathetic with the bad apples that were punished while their commanding officers—who were clearly responsible for the policies that led to the despicable acts committed at Abu Ghraib—escaped unscathed. Once you see the pictures and hear them describe what they were doing, you realize that they didn’t think of their prisoners as people at all. Their claims that the situation—they were under mortar bombardment and were watching their comrades-in-arms return from patrols with massive injuries—caused them to “do anything to get information out of the detainees” ring somewhat hollow. Though their arguments are understandable, it’s only in a context of a complete absence of morals and respect for humanity. They didn’t just do what they were told—they did it with gusto. None of them really expresses much remorse, instead spending most of their time basically either feeling sorry for themselves or justifying actions that are unjustifiable in a moral society.

Collapse (2009)

This documentary is a long interview with Michael Ruppert and basically covers the ramifications of “what happens when we run out of oil?” It’s an extremely well-substantiated argument that, well, we’re f@#ked. Ruppert isn’t very popular because of this, but his arguments, while not completely unassailable, are strong. Everything we do involves petroleum—either as input material (for plastics) or as energy or both—and even other energy sources require petroleum to kick-start them. That is, we need petroleum to produce solar cells and we need other energy to enrich uranium enough to use in reactors (which energy usually comes from coal or oil). He calmly shoots down the viability of replacement sources like the Alberta tar sands or ANWR. The basic inviability of the economy—the unlimited growth capitalist model—is also discussed. An all-around interesting and scary film (though he tries to be hopeful at the end).