SHOCKING AND AWFUL MARATHON -- PART ONE
10 years after the second US invasion of Iraq, the Deep Dish TV series "Shocking and Awful: A Grassroots Response to War and Occupation" remains the most comprehensive and powerful analysis of the war and opposition that arose in the US and around the world. To mark the 8th anniversary since the first "Media Edge" telecast on April 3, 2005, we present this entire 12-part series during the next three weeks, with each Media Edge episode featuring four of the Shocking and Awful series programs:
"The Real Face of Occupation" (29 minutes)
Abu Ghraib was no exception or the actions of "a few bad apples". All the tragedies and dehumanization depicted in this film made in 2005 have only intensified in subsequent years. What is life like under occupation? On-the ground footage shows the humiliation and dehumanization inevitable in a colonial occupation.
"Standing with the Women of Iraq" (28 minutes)
What has the U.S. invasion and occupation meant for the women of Iraq? Young women by the tens of thousands have been forced to leave school, women must try to keep their families safe and secure with marauding U.S. contractors and soldiers prowling the streets, rival sectarian forces fighting for power, sporadic electricity and fresh water, few jobs and the fear of their husbands, brothers, sons or daughters snatched away to Abu Gharib or some other U.S. prison. Yet there has been fierce and consistent women's resistance to the occupation and support from women's groups in the U.S. and across the world.
"National Insecurities" (29 minutes)
In the wake of 911, the U.S. government launched a 21st century pogrom against Arabs and Muslims in the U.S, inflaming racial and religious hatreds and fears. Violence against immigrants, especially Arabs, imprisonment without trial, especially for Muslims became shockingly common occurrences in the United States. Jason da Silva's film tracks the heavy hand of the state as it disrupted the lives of so many ordinary people in launching of the Bush administration's "War on Terror." Comparisons are made to the Chinese Exclusion Act of the late 19th century and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
"The Art of Resistance" (29 minutes)
The growing impact of artists and cultural performances that have invigorated and enlivened resistance to America's imperial war on Iraq. Picasso responded to the fascist takeover of Spain in the 1930s with his famous painting Guernica. Artists today are responding the the U.S. occupation of Iraq and domestic repression with music, murals, street performance, comedy, cartoon animations and giant puppets. ("Part of what I really found really wonderful about the demonstration was that so many people who are not artists, who don't make things in their daily life, thousands and thousands of them took a piece of cardboard off a box...there were so many wonderful signs of every kind in words, images. Some were funny, some were very cynical, but they were really full of life, they were real outpourings." Artist Mary Frank in The Art of Resistance)
