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New Documentary On Late Sixties Civil Unrest Is A ‘Rosetta Stone’ For Decoding The Modern Day Police State

January 2, 2023 Marjaan Sirdar, Unicorn Riot. , , , , , ,
Minneapolis, Minnesota – A new documentary film shines light on the history of the militarization of American police in an era defined by civil unrest, drawing sharp parallels to today. Without mentioning recent events in the entire film, Sierra Pettengill’s new documentary “Riotsville, USA” still invokes striking parallels between the late 1960s and the George Floyd protest uprisings in 2020. The film was produced during 2015-2021, premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January 2022 and was widely released in September by Magnolia Films; it’s attracted more coverage in lists of top documentaries for the year. [See our editor’s note below for more Unicorn Riot original reporting on domestic military and police training programs.]

Film Recounts Latina-Led Fight Against Military Sexual Abuse

November 30, 2022 Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early, Popular Resistance. , , , ,
Two years ago, city hall plaza in our hometown, Richmond, CA., was the scene of a protest vigil organized by Estefany Sanchez and her two sisters. Estefany is a Richmond resident and an Army veteran whose experience of sexual harassment in the military led her to identify strongly with the tragic case of Vanessa Guillen, a 20-year old soldier at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas. Guillen was sexually harassed by fellow soldiers, at a base with one of the highest rates of sexual assault, sexual trafficking, suicide, and murder anywhere in the military.  Her complaints to superior officers were repeatedly ignored before she was killed while at work in an armory on the base. Guillen’s assailant, Aaron Robinson, then secretly moved, dismembered, and buried her body, with the help of a civilian accomplice still awaiting trial.

Scheer Intelligence: Brave Boys Who Helped End The Vietnam War

October 15, 2021 Robert Scheer, ScheerPost.com. , , ,
Decades after the end of the Vietnam War, the impact on both Vietnam and the United States is still felt. Yet few Americans are aware that the conflict, which killed several million people, ended in large part thanks to the anti-war movement made up of, among others, 570,000 Americans that refused to be drafted to fight a war that many saw as immoral even then. Among those, 3,250 draft resisters–many of whom considered themselves conscientious objectors–were punished with up to five years in prison, including the anti-war activist and journalist David Harris. These valiant young men from a wide range of social classes are the subject of the documentary “The Boys Who Said No,” directed by Judith Ehrlich, who joins Robert Scheer on this week’s “Scheer Intelligence” to discuss her film.

Scheer Intelligence: What They Got Wrong In ‘The Trial Of The Chicago 7’

December 11, 2020 Robert Scheer, ScheerPost.com. , , ,
“The Trial of the Chicago 7,” an Aaron Sorkin film that recently aired on Netflix, brought an important chapter in the history of American activism to screens around the globe. Based on real events, the film dramatizes the 1969 trial of eight activists who were arrested during the Vietnam War protests that took place in Chicago at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, Lee Weiner, John Froines, and Bobby Seale were all charged with attempted incitement of a riot after the Chicago Police Department, under orders from then Mayor Richard Daley, brutally repressed the summer demonstrations.

Scheer Intelligence: Justice Ginsburg’s Life And Legacy

September 25, 2020 Robert Scheer, ScheerPost.com. , , ,
The documentary filmmakers discuss their film “RBG” on the life and career of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. While Justice Ginsburg did not grant access to filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen right away, eventually she allowed them an intimate look at her life and her career-long fight for equal rights. West and Cohen tell host Robert Scheer that Ginsburg has embraced her recent emergence as a pop culture icon because she believes it is an opportunity to reach a younger generation.

‘Green’ Billionaires Behind Suppression Of ‘Planet Of The Humans’

September 10, 2020 Max Blumenthal, The Grayzone. , , ,
It is hard to think of an American film that provoked a greater backlash in 2020 than “Planet of the Humans.” Focused on the theme of planetary extinction and fanciful proposals to ward it off, the documentary was released for free on YouTube on April 21. The date was significant not only because it was the eve of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, but because a global pandemic was tearing through America’s social fabric and exposing the human toll of the country’s globalized, growth-obsessed economic model.

Reclaiming Work: Can Cooperatives Overthrow The Gig Economy?

June 24, 2020 By Shyam Krishna, Red Pepper. , , ,
The pandemic has brought into focus the stark conditions and precarity faced by workers in the gig-economy. When the dust settles, can these workers who were at the frontlines of this crisis build a fairer future? The workers featured in Reclaiming Work believe so. This short documentary by Cassie Quarless and Usayd Younis of black & brown film features cycle courier cooperatives who offer a socialist alternative to the digital giants of Deliveroo and Uber. In fact, La Pájara, one of the cycle cooperatives showcased in the documentary, was formed following protest movements against Deliveroo in Madrid. Cooperatives like these are supported by the wider federation of CoopCycle – a ‘platform cooperative’ countering mainstream economic models of platform capitalism.

View The Frontline Documentary On Gaza That PBS Pulled

May 28, 2019 Alison Weir, Israelpalestinenews.org , , , ,
Recently, hundreds of PBS stations around the United States were scheduled to broadcast a powerful new Frontline documentary: One Day in Gaza. But viewers tuning in found that it had been replaced by a slightly updated Frontline report on Robert Mueller that had been broadcast two months before and had been streaming online ever since. PBS no longer has the Gaza film listed on its schedule. The documentary was to be aired on the one-year anniversary of events that took place on May 14, 2018, when tens of thousands of men, women, and children in Gaza gathered with the intention of deploying the tactics Gandhi had used in freeing India from British control.

The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire

December 6, 2018 Michael Oswald, Roarmag.org , , ,
The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire, is a documentary film that shows how Britain transformed from a colonial power into a global financial power. At the demise of empire, City of London financial interests created a web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions that captured wealth from across the globe and hid it in a web of offshore islands. Today, up to half of global offshore wealth may be hidden in British offshore jurisdictions, and Britain and its offshore jurisdictions are the largest global players in the world of international finance. But, as the world of offshore finance grew, so too did the inherent corruption that secrecy and unaccountability breed.

Censored Documentary Exposes Israel’s Attack On Black Lives Matter

September 10, 2018 By Max Blumenthal, Mintpressnews.com , , ,
When the Movement for Black Lives released a platform in August 2016 that supported the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement and identified Israel as an apartheid state engaged in a project of genocide against Palestinians, the Israeli government snapped into action. Previously unreleased footage from Al Jazeera’s censored investigative documentary, “The Lobby – USA,” shows Israeli diplomats complaining about the Black Lives Matter “problem” and boasting about their cultivation of established black civil rights activists as pro-Israel proxies. The footage also reveals how the Israel lobby orchestrated the sudden cancellation of a Black Lives Matter fundraiser at a New York City nightclub.

A New Documentary Unspools The Life Of Malcolm X

March 24, 2018 By Alex Demyanenko, Capitalandmain.com , ,
Most people know that Malcolm X began his public career by calling for black separatism. Lost Tapes: Malcolm X reveals surprising details that have not been seared into our collective view of the martyred activist. At the end of the Smithsonian Channel’s Lost Tapes: Malcolm X, Ossie Davis delivers a stirring eulogy for Malcolm X, the fallen Muslim minister and human rights activist. “And we will know him then for what he was and is,” Davis intones, “a Prince – our own black shining Prince!” The haze of history has obscured some of the finer details of this remarkable leader’s life, one cut short by assassination at the age of 39 in 1965. Schools go into far greater detail about the life and times of another spiritual leader, Martin Luther King Jr., but in the shadows behind King’s narrative lurk remarkable stories of a prince that have been largely ignored.

‘Whose Streets?’ Tracks Inspirational Call For Social Justice

August 14, 2017 Jordan Riefe, www.truthdig.com , , , ,
By Jordan Riefe for Truth Dig - On Aug. 9 three years ago, unarmed teen Michael Brown was shot dead by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Mo. The killing took place under disputed circumstances, and Wilson was never charged for the shooting. In the days that followed, peaceful demonstrators were met by a military show of force that escalated into violence, mayhem and looting. “A riot is the language of the unheard” is Martin Luther King Jr.’s answer to those who ask why the disaffected don’t pursue justice through established channels. “Ain’t no Constitution in Ferguson,” says a protester in the gritty new documentary “Whose Streets?” as he ponders Barack Obama’s days as a constitutional law professor. “Tell that n—– he needs to teach a new class and bring his ass to Ferguson, Missouri, and tell us why there ain’t no Constitution.” While a wide majority of protests in the wake of Brown’s killing were peaceful, the media focused on looting and destruction of property. In the eyes of the public, the images shown on TV rationalized the militarization of police forces, newly fortified after the Department of Defense 2013 decision to provide surplus MRAPs (mine-resistant ambush protected military vehicles), bayonets, grenade launchers, assault rifles and other tactical weapons to local law enforcement.

Black Snake Killaz: A #NoDAPL Story

May 11, 2017 Staff, www.unicornriot.ninja ,
By Staff of Unicorn Riot - In Black Snake Killaz, Unicorn Riot brings you the raw experience from many frontline actions throughout the struggle to protect the water. Although the Dakota Access Pipeline is completed, the impact of the movement will be long-lasting. As fossil fuel extraction projects continue to impact some of the most vulnerable communities throughout the United States of America, the importance of the water protectors story grows. This film is a collaborative creative commons project being produced by Unicorn Riot, a non-profit 501(c)3 educational media organization. Our journalists, who were on the ground covering the demonstrations throughout the entire campaign to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, have gathered extensive footage and are working hard to produce this film for historic and educational purposes. We need your help in the creation of this documentary. PRODUCTION FUNDING: Research, editing, and other aspects of production must still be completed. We hope to gather enough financial support for this project to wrap up remaining interviews and finish the post-production phase of the film. Our production team also needs funding for hardware, such as external hard drives, a better editing station, and to support cloud-based file sharing.

Divided But Fighting Back: Interview With Inequality Documentary Filmmakers

October 18, 2016 Alex Demyanenko, www.capitalandmain.com ,
By Alex Demyanenko for Capital and Main - Depending on whom you ask, Solly Granatstein and Rick Rowley have spent their careers either causing trouble or exposing truths. As investigative journalist-filmmakers they have been on the front lines of digging up facts and battling the status quo, all to expose injustice. They’ve been pretty damn good at it too. Granatstein worked for 60 Minutes for 12 years and has won seven Emmys, a Peabody and a host of other awards. Rowley’s Dirty Wars

“Do Not Resist”: Police Militarization Documentary Everyone Should See

October 15, 2016 Ryan Devereaux, www.theintercept.com , , ,
By Ryan Devereaux for The Intercept - The officers, members of the Richland County Sheriff’s Department tactical team, were descending on a modest one-story house looking for drugs and guns. The team smashed through the windows of the home with iron pikes, then stormed the front door with rifles raised. Inside, they found a terrified family of four, including an infant. As the family members were pulled outside, Atkinson’s camera captured a scene that plays out with startling regularity in cities and towns across the country
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