I watched The Trials of Henry Kissinger on Sundance's DOCday and was enthralled by the information. It begins in an era of American history that does not get much press. It chronicle's Kissinger's rise to prominence and his role in both the extension of our Vietnam involvment as well as his efforts to overthrow the government of Chile. This overturning of the democratically elected leader of Chile resulted in the rise to power of Pinochet. Pinochet ruled for 17 years in Chile and his death squads and civil rights abuses rank right up there with Hitler, Hussein and many, many other evil despots. The filmmakers make a compelling argument for the inclusion of Kissinger among the ranks of those who feel the ends justify the means - even when those ends are assassination, murder and bombing and torture of innocent non-combatants.

The real disturbing part about the whole scenario is not only the implantation of Pinochet in Chile and the Khmer Rouge in East Timor, but more importantly how it never made any of the mainstream media in America. Those who have an inkling of what happened in Chile as the top general and elected president were assassinated justify it by saying we had to keep Communism off our hemisphere. All that was kept out was a democratically elected government. What is also unknown to even those "in the know" is that the onus for the killings had nothing to do with Communism, but had everything to do with commerce. Yes, it always comes back to Capitalism. ITT and Pepsi-Co both had a stake in the copper mining of Chile and under the new President, this industry was set to be nationalized - thus removing the largest supply of copper in the world from the hands of Corporate America. Check who's campaigns received HUGE financial boosts during and after Pinochet was put in power (Nixon and his buddy Kissinger) and check out which companies paid the largest sums - ITT and Pepsi-Co.

The important lesson in all this is - don't believe me. Don't believe a documentary. More importantly, don't believe the nightly news. Check who funds the news and you will see that it is biased. Find out for yourself. Do the research. We can stick our heads in the sand and pretend that America is a shining beacon of good and truth in the world - we can say it doesn't matter because there is nothing we can do about it - at the very least though, we can be intellectually honest with ourselves and admit we live in an imperfect country run by flawed human beings and keep doing what we can to root out the bad and promote the good. Or we can just say that is the price we pay for our SUVs, smoothies and IMAX theaters.

Don't get me wrong - I love this country. There is more opportunity here than in any place on earth. It is filled to the rafters with honest, kind and good people. I just think that while we can appreciate the great things about this country - we must all do our part to do as our founding fathers intended and keep in check man's tendency for corruption when given power... regardless of whether they come from a third world country - or the world's only superpower.
RATING 9 out of 10

Oh yeah, and I forgot to blog the Cowboys game from Sunday (how's that for a polar opposite subject?)


Parcells intended the game against the Saints to be a confidence builder for Quincy Carter as he makes his first ever playoff run. OOPS! Someone forgot to tell QC that he was supposed to play well. Well, not that anyone is listening to me but for three seasons I have been driving the "Quincy Carter MUST GO" bus. Hopefully, we picked up some passengers from the Cowboys' head office after his horrible performance Sunday.

The Quincy Rating: (with apologies to both of my Grandmothers)
RATING 5 dunce caps
my dead grandmother could have done better
- posted by Chris @ 12:23 AM