Political Media Review

With this book anarchist sociologist, Luis Fernandez, writes on his studies of policing protests (broadly speaking). At first glance, the references and style of the book might make one think it is written for other academics–dispassionately studying the behaviors of our political masters and their domestic army, the police.

A collection of essays by and interviews with some of the well-known faces of the anti-capitalist/globalisation movement, including Subcommandante Marcos, Naomi Klein and the McDonalds – trashing Jose Bove, amongst others.

Andy Worthington’s hard-hitting new book shines a stark light into the black hole that is Guantanamo Bay prison, describing the process and consequences of a US intelligence project which is at the same time both ruthless and cackhanded; all the while failing to achieve its intentions.

Letter to the President: The Streets Get Political, produced by Russell Simmons, directed by Thomas Gibson, composed by Quincy Jones, and narrated by Snoop Dogg, is a wake-up call to the world that hip-hop and rap does not mean money, ignorance, and violence, but a voice from a imprisoned, oppressed, and repressed community. This is an excellent film on the history of hip-hop and rap in the U.S. in relation to race, class, and sexism.

The War of 33 tells the story of the 33-day Israeli attack on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 through a series of blog letters written by Beirut journalist Hanady Salman, an editor with the Beirut paper As-Safir. Hanady knew the worst images of that war would not be shown by the Western media or television. So she decided to dispatch regular email updates to a group of friends and colleagues, relaying her personal accounts and many very graphic photographs from around Lebanon.

Why We Fight, produced by Eugene Jarecki, is a brilliant critical film about how the military industrial complex has been developed and promoted post-9/11. It includes clips of the Iraq War, speeches by former President Bush, and amazing interviews with top scholars and experts, from former CIA agents to members of the Department of Defense such as Gore Vidal, Chalmers Johnson, Joseph Cirincione, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, Wilton Sekzer, Sen. John McCain, James Roche, and Gwynne Dyer.

Big Noise Films has cultivated a reputation for delivering some of the grittiest documentary films out there — often first-person footage of grassroots rebellions by communities deeply affected by oppressive histories and institutions.