Thursday, May 22, 2014

A THROWBACK



This documentary was made just prior to the start of Bush's "shock and awe" in 2003.  Randy Adkins owned a local video shop in Gainesville, Florida where he made copies and fixed equipment among other things.  People used to bring old film into his shop when their parents died and they cleaned out the attic.  That's where he got alot of the Nazi footage in Arsenal of Hypocrisy.

I was touring the country doing talks at the time with an overhead projector showing documents about the US Space Command's mission of  "full spectrum dominance".  While in State College, Pennsylvania I was hosted by Veterans for Peace member Peter Shaw who suggested I produce a video of the things I was sharing in my talk.  He even made the first sizeable donation to make it happen.

I went to Randy and asked him if he'd like to make a documentary.  He'd never done one before nor had I.  So on a very hot Florida day he set me up in his garage and turned on the lights.  I went through my overhead slides, but by then I had the talk nearly memorized, and did it in one take.  By the time we finished the one hour of filming I was burning up inside the steaming airless garage.

Next we began sticking images into the script and Randy added the footage that he had dug up.  It was a low budget operation and one of the things I am most proud of having done during my organizing career.

Arsenal of Hypocrisy got around the globe a time or two and helped a great deal to expand the discussion around these important issues.

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