Oliver Stone, 'South Of The Border' Tour Guide (NPR link)

[Mika]

Worth the listen.

Oliver Stone, 'South Of The Border' Tour Guide
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128084538


Oliver Stone won Oscars for blockbuster films like Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July. He has also been a controversial political commentator and documentary film maker.

His latest film, South of the Border, explores Latin America's shift toward socialism led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Stone tells NPR's Neal Conan what it was like to meet and film with Chavez, in addition to the leaders of Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Cuba's current leader, Fidel Castro's brother, Raul.

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[Peace Patriot]

1. Thank you for posting this! It's the first time, in a lo-o-o-ong time, that NPR has done anything

worth listening to, and Neal Conan for once curtails himself as to his leading, pro-corporate, pro-war profiteer questions! That's amazing in itself. And how refreshing it is to hear some truth about Venezuela on NPR or anywhere in our corpo-fascist press.

You can feel Conan squirming around, trying to find ways to reduce the political content of the interview--especially Stone's more objective view of Chavez and of the leftist democracy movement that has swept South America (with leftist presidents elected in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, and, for a long period, Chile--also in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala and an almost in Mexico, and a leftist as president of Honduras until the sneakily U.S. supported rightwing military coup). Stone is very perceptive and "gets" the unity among these presidents on issues of Latin American sovereignty, independence and social justice. He understands that the U.S. has been trying to pick them off, one by one. He knows the historical context--he perceives these leaders' resistance to U.S. "divide and conquer" tactics, and that it is based on THEIR knowledge of history. He knows why this revolution is happening--the long history of U.S. interference capped by the "neo-liberal" policies of the IMF, which crippled Latin American economies and impoverished their people, and made them prey to U.S. multinationals. He's gone there in person and interviewed numerous leaders and others. But when Conan asks what I would call "CIA questions"--questions formulated to riff off of the lies that have been planted in our corpo-fascist press about Chavez--and Stone answers with the truth, for instance, about Venezuela's corpo-fascist media (worse than Faux News; active in COUPS against the elected government), Conan changes the subject to something personal, for instance, did Stone's experience in Vietnam influence his politics? (duh), or something weird like, why does he make documentaries which don't make much money compared to feature films?

Here is an interviewee--a highly successful filmmaker who addresses himself to social and political problems, an award winner, a very knowledgeable man--with views that directly contradict the bullshit larded on us about Latin America by our controlled press, and by our State Department, and by the CIA and the Pentagon--and he has to talk fast to give a complete and informative answer to Conan's idiotic questions--questions fed to Conan by a 'controlled' staff, in a heavily 'controlled' news organization. Conan himself seems very uninformed--and I would guess that that is a habit of mind of his. His talent is glibness--being able to sound like he knows something. So he can't really argue with Stone--who is very well informed, indeed. All he can do is read his scripted questions as if they mean something to him, when they don't. WTF does he care about the egregious lies about Venezuela throughout the corpo-fascist press including NPR, or about an on-going policy of U.S. interference, or about dead journalists in Honduras, or about poverty in Latin America? Yawn. Get this over with. Where is his latte?

Still, I was impressed with Conan letting Stone answer at all. Conan often jumps in, in these interviews, if something isn't following the 'correct' U.S. corporate/war profiteer line, with his "CIA questions"--loaded, leading questions, meant to give prominence to the corpo-fascist viewpoint, and he often does a "trump" at the END of an interview--throws in a question (opinion) to colorize the interview, in the last seconds, when his assertions cannot be answered. Perhaps Stone is just too fast on his feet, too media savvy (having conducted zillions of interviews himself) and too knowledgeable to be tripped up in this way--so Conan (and puppetmasters) settle for making the interview SHORT, and cutting that by half with off-the-wall personal questions. Or maybe Stone insisted on some ground rules. In any case, the interview is well worth listening to--for all the information that Stone tries to pack into his answers, to counter the disinformation everywhere else.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Looking forward to hearing this. Thank you for posting it here. Recommending.

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[Judi Lynn]

3. Washington Post's film critic is also pitching propaganda:

Director Stone leaves no passion unstoked, and Silverdocs film is no exception
By Ann Hornaday
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 23, 2010

There's something strangely appropriate about the fact that, a scant five weeks after talking about capitalism in Cannes -- while presenting the world premiere of "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" -- Oliver Stone is heading to Washington to talk about socialism in Latin America. "From Cannes to Cochabamba," Stone says with a laugh during a phone conversation this week. "It's glorious."

Cochabamba would be the city in Bolivia where the director spent time while filming "South of the Border," his polemical, personal, deeply passionate love letter to left-leaning movements that have recently taken hold in the region. The documentary is an on-the-fly travelogue in which Stone meets and greets such leftist leaders as Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, Bolivia's Evo Morales, Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Ecuador's Rafael Correa.

"South of the Border" was born of Stone's longtime interest in Latin America and abiding disenchantment with U.S. foreign policy and mainstream media. The film, scheduled to open in Washington July 2, will have its local premiere Wednesday at the Silverdocs documentary festival, where Stone will be on hand to answer questions.

And there will be questions.

In "South of the Border," Stone makes no pretense of objectivity. Devoting most of the film to Chávez, he makes no secret of his infatuation with the populist leader, at one point filming him at Chávez's childhood home and "directing" him in a scene riding a kid's bike. Stone doesn't interview Venezuelan dissidents, or anyone who disagrees with Chávez's policies, which have recently included a bid to become president for life and revoking the license of television stations critical of his regime.

Stone does address the troubling issue of human rights abuses in Venezuela -- but only to remind viewers that Colombia has an even worse record and that because it's an ally in the war on drugs, it basically gets a free pass.

"I interviewed Chávez because I thought he's an underdog and he's getting the shaft," Stone says simply. "Because he's a democratically elected leader and he's getting a bum rap. The elections in Venezuela have been monitored to death. They have electronic and paper ballots. It's the cleanest system I've ever seen. And we're condemning them? After how Bush got elected in 2000? It makes me angry, this double standard, this hypocrisy."

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/22/AR2010062204929.html

This paper is nothing, if not consistant.