The Age of Commercialism

One of my all time favorites.

Just what I expected

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) **** (out of 4) Excellent, Oscar-winning documentary taking a look at the use of torture during the Bush administration. The documentary takes a look at a couple men who were beaten to death at the Bagram Prison including an Afghan taxi driver who picked up three passengers and was never heard of again until he was murdered inside the prison. Throughout the documentary we get interviews with experts on torture, journalists who broke the story and also with actual soldiers who were involved with the torture. Director Alex Gibney does a terrific job at looking at everything involved in this including the political and moral sides of it. The torture aspect is something that there are so many rules around that it would seem like an obvious thing not to do but we then learn about various loopholes that were used so that terrorists could be abused in order to get more information about terror plots. We also get to know how many of the soldiers who were arrested were made to look like bad apples yet they said they were just following orders. The documentary takes a look at all the torture acts ranging from water boarding, sexual humiliations and of course the actual physical abuse. The film shows some pretty graphic photos and videos so those squeamish will certainly want to be prepared to look away from the screen. The documentary is broken into several different segments with each looking at a different aspect of the story. One of the most interesting pieces involves the taxi driver because it turned out he was an innocent man who had no connection to terrorism. The documentary is one that really makes you think because if you go into it feeling that terrorists do deserve to be tortured, you're quickly reminded that several innocent people were being tortured and killed. The film even admits that many people believe that torture should be allowed under certain circumstances. TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE is a very disturbing documentary that shows some ugly images and makes you wonder who was in charge of all of this stuff. It's not an easy film to sit through but it's worth watching and discussing.

The Nuremburg trials left us two legacies. First, no matter what your rank, you are responsible for your actions. As one Nazi after another said, "I was just following orders", we made it clear this was no excuse for war crimes. Second, given the winners get to write history, we have a deluded mindset that war crimes are things other people commit, not us.Alex Gibney has tried to send a message about America's hypocritical sacrifice of longstanding principles by focusing on a single man, a taxi driver tortured to death by American forces in Afghanistan. This focus never allows us to forget that these victims are people just like us, and they are the victims of terrible crimes for which no one has been held accountable.Gibney reveals how high up knowledge and sanction of these crimes goes. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfield are directly responsible for the official policy allowing torture, increasing the number of people who have never faced war crimes charges but should do so.It is confronting, saddening and maddening to watch. But what undermines Gibney's effort is that he doesn't give us the full context. Instead he allows the soldiers' own words to absolve them of responsibility by allowing claims of "just following orders" to go unchallenged. Worse, he allows the miserable excuse of being "poorly trained", as if an adult needs to be told that torturing people, especially people they know are innocent, is wrong.This is a cop-out. Our failed humanitarian intervention in Somalia revealed that torturing civilians (often to death) for sport and photographing it is a popular hobby among many military forces, and those of many Western democracies including the US are no exception. Yet we insist on seeing them as one-off instances of "a few bad apples" out of control, rather than an indication of a systemic, ingrained culture that urgently needs to be dealt with. All Bush and Co did was sanction activities many soldiers were already engaging in, but Gibney cannot or will not acknowledge this.I can't fault his technical skills, it's methodical and well-edited. But I cannot add "well researched" or "thorough". By not giving us the broader context and by not looking at the culture that encourages war crimes among US soldiers, he let these guys off lightly.

A bomb went off, and we looked away. The medieval tableaux of Abu Ghraib did manage to shock us for a while. Then, some people were punished, and we convinced ourselves that was all of them.According to the Global Views survey, in 2010, 42 percent of Americans were in favor of "using torture to extract information from suspected terrorists." This is 6 points higher than in 2008; 12 points higher than in 2004. Could this become a majority soon? Are these people who have seen and remember those photographs? Have they reconciled themselves to such scenes? Could I? "Taxi to the Dark Side" is an exceptionally meticulous documentary that takes the case of an Afghan taxi driver who was beaten to death by interrogators at Bagram base in 2006, and puts it in the context of American anti-terror policy. It shows young soldiers with no training in interrogation, given vague instructions and strong expectations of results - and when the story goes public, they are hung out to dry. One interview, one document at a time, the fog of legal and moral ambiguity is dispelled, until televised denials by administration officials shrink to nothing next to a stark red pillar of human suffering.Maybe our culture won't let us believe that the good guys can do such things to innocent people. The detective throws down his badge and solves the case outside the system. He hits a man in the face; he gets a name. He pistol-whips another man; the man is reluctant, and he gets shot in the leg. A bartender gets dunked into dishwater. He almost dies, but gives up his contact.There was ambiguity in movies like The French Connection, but at some point, the detective stopped ever being wrong. This documentary makes a compelling suggestion that popular entertainment has helped spread the idea of justified and reliable torture.Taxi to the Dark Side won the Oscar for best documentary, and nobody saw it. It barely made a quarter of its budget. That's really too bad. It's a good idea for citizens to see it, then think about whether they believe that everything's OK.

I often complain about the lopsidedness of documentaries. And more often than not, whenever I mention this, people pepper me with insults because they believe "that's what documentaries are designed to do." I beg to differ. Let me show you what I mean.There are some seriously stilted documentaries that look at one side (and ONLY one side) of an issue and never give credence to the other. How about an interview with someone who opposes the views that the documentarians are putting forth? How about some information that might refute what is being told? This one-sidedness is just too easy to find. Things like AFTER INNOCENCE, THE FUTURE OF FOOD, and RELIGULOUS are prime examples (there are tons more but I don't have the time nor inclination to mention them).Occasionally – if not extremely rarely – a documentary will come along that allows both sides to speak. And such is the case with the Academy Award winner TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE.The story starts and ends with the murder of Dilawar, a taxi cab driver in Afghanistan who is mistakenly picked up by U.S. forces and sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for interrogation. Once there, he soon dies from injuries sustained at the hands of his captors. The middle of this documentary is the meat and potatoes of what went horribly wrong with the U.S.'s war on terror. It's a serious eye-opener. Not because it focuses on the problems the U.S. had with its detainees after 9/11, but because it allows everyone to speak about the successes and failures of torture. Yes, torture.From the men on the ground (staff sergeants and privates) to the President's advisory attorney at the U.S. Dept. of Justice (John Woo), we get to hear from just about everyone on the topic of the incarcerated detainees and their treatment at the hands of untrained and unprepared interrogators. It is astonishing, too, to learn that not a single person above the rank of sergeant was punished for the death of Dilawar (nor any other detainee who was abused). You mean to tell me that these grunts were responsible for ...everything? Give me a break! I don't delude myself any longer. The U.S. (either overtly or covertly) now uses "enhanced interrogation techniques" (e.g. torture). Make no doubt about it. We do it because we want to protect ourselves. But at what cost to our own moral compass? We claim to follow The Geneva Convention, but do we? Not as far as I can tell. And don't take my word for it. Watch ALL of the people in this documentary talk about this very subject and come to your own conclusions.