An important documentary by Scott Noble. The Power Principle exposes the hidden agenda driving American foreign policy over the last seven decades and its gruesome consequences.
Historian Michael Parenti calls the film “A gripping, deeply informative account of the plunder, hypocrisy, and mass violence of plutocracy and empire; insightful, historically grounded and highly relevant to the events of today.”
In an interview for Soldiers for the Cause, a veterans group supporting the Occupy movement, filmmaker Noble outlines the theses advanced in his documentary:
- The Cold War was not just a struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States; the real struggle was between American corporations and the Third World.
- Top policy planners in the US and other Western nations were acutely aware that the Soviet Union had a conservative foreign policy. You can see this in numerous declassified documents.
- Nevertheless, the American government engaged in what can only be described as a campaign of terrorism against the American people, constantly invoking the “Soviet Menace” to justify military spending and war.
- The United States does not have a free press.
- The Pentagon is a Keynsian Mechanism.
- The American government was responsible for genocide during the Cold War.
- The Empire is similar to the mafia.
- Corporate interests are inextricably wed with military policy.
- American imperialism is not of recent vintage.
- Elites deceive themselves as well as the public.
- The US is not exceptional. It is behaving pretty much as powerful states always have.
- Western elites supported fascism prior to, during and after WWII.
- A WWIII scenario is almost inevitable unless the American public wakes up – and fast.
For more information see the film’s website.
And now, the documentary:
The Power Principle – I: Empire
The program notes:
An Introduction to the Empire; Iran – Oil and Geopolitics; Guatemala – the “merger of state and corporate power”; The Congo – Neocolonialism; Grenada – “The Mafia Doctrine”; Chile – “libertarianism with a small l”; Globalization: Consequences.
1945: Grand Area Strategy; Fascism: a “rational system of the plutocracy”; Case Studies: the Greek Communists; The Italian Communists; the Spanish Anarchists; Fascism’s Western backers; Trading with the Enemy; Fascism as “preservation of civilization”; the Cold War and “A Century of Fear”.
The Power Principle – II: Propaganda
The program notes:
The Soviet Menace?; Case Studies: El Salvador, Nicaragua; Propaganda: Self-Deception and blowback; The “International Communist Conspiracy”; Declassified Documents; NSC 68; The Pentagon as Keynsian Mechanism; The Military Industrial Complex; The War against the Third World; Shifting rationales; What is imperialism?; Case Study: Haiti; “War is a racket”.
Fear-based conditioning – The War of the Worlds, The Triumph of the Will; World view Warfare; The Russians are coming; Television: The “perfect propaganda medium”; Soviet vs. American propaganda; Hollywood and the Pentagon; Psywarriors and the media; Operation Mockingbird; The Pentagon Pundits; Project Revere; The Bomber Gap; “scare the hell out of them”.
The Power Principle – III: Apocalypse
The program notes:
Mutually Assured Destruction; MAD men – Curtis Lemay and the super hawks; MAD men – Hermann Kahn and the Rand Corporation; Over flights as provocation; Cuba: the “danger of a good example”; terrorism against Cuba; “Unconventional warfare”; the Cuban Missile Crisis and the “man who saved the world”.
Why did the Soviet Union collapse?; Gorbachev: a “more violent, less stable world”; the Pentagon’s New Map; Did Ronald Reagan end the Cold War?; The Brink of Apocalypse: Able Archer; The betrayal of Russia; The expansion of NATO; Yugoslavia and Libya; the Yeltsin coup; Living standards in the former Soviet Union; A third way?
eats shoots 'n leaves 