LeeMobile

So inbetween assignments and studying I’ve gotten a chance to watch two really good documentaries that I wish everyone will have a chance of seeing. Who Killed the Electric Car? and Control Room.
Yes, I realize that documentaries are never free from bias, but you’ve got to ask what media source is free from any bias at all? The best that we can do is to take in as many opinions we can, and somehow find the truth inbetween all the grey areas.

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I’ve just finished watching Control Room, a documentary about the Al Jazeera news network. Al Jazeera is an Arab run news network, probably the first of its kind ever in the Arab world, to report the news as an independent observer. It has shaken up the Arab world with its openness and frankness and has criticized all sorts of Arab regimes and nations. As a result, many Arab governments publicly denounce Al Jazeera as a credible source of news.

Personally, I haven’t see Al Jazeera before as I don’t have satellite television. But the network seems to be very progressive and candid, displaying images of those wounded and injured and even dead. It’s something that we haven’t really seen in Western media and television from self-enforced censorship and to make things “kosher” to us.

Though, there is too an element of propaganda in not showing such images. The Iraq war after all is just that, a war. Wars do not exist without innocent people dying and getting maimed. The lack of reporting such images is in itself a form of propaganda. What I found interesting throughout the documentary were the clips from press conferences where Donald Rumsfeld would denounce the network for displaying graphic images, and citing it as war propaganda. It just seems all so hypocritical, how a government body that abuses the media (”Today George Bush has raised the terror threat level from orange to pastel green. OMG THE IRISH ARE ATTACKING!!!”) would call images from the aftermath of their bomb strikes propaganda.

At any rate, if you don’t buy into the documentary’s portrayal of Al Jazeera, it is a good documentary to view the world of journalism as the Iraq war went on.

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Who Killed the Electric Car? is a great documentary about the promise and delivery of the electric that happened around 5 or 6 years ago.

The state of California, a state with the worst air quality in the US, had passed a law requiring all automakers to sell a certain number of zero emission vehicals.  GM, in response to this law, had developed an electric car, the EV1.  It was the first of its kind for decades.

It ran purely on batteries and electricy and produced no emission.  Though it only had a maximum range of between 60-100 miles per charge, it would fit usage by most consumers (really, who drives more than 100 miles in a day to commute anyways?  Not more than 10% of the population I gather).  It was not only a really green car, it was a really FAST car.  Accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in less than 4 seconds… faster than most sports cars.  The EV1 even looked really cool.  I’d drive one if I could, it’d be pimpin’ rad.

Anyways, due to pressure from the oil companies, government, and car manufacturers the state of California got rid of it’s zero emission laws.  What ended up happening was that automakers, such as GM, who built these wonderful electric cars took all the electric cars produced and crushed them all (they only leased these cars to consumers).  No automaker wanted anyone driving any electric vehicle on the roads, because they didn’t want to hurt their own business.  They didn’t want consumers to be reminded that there was and is a solution to all the car smog out there.
The solution to our oil addiction was here, and it got totally crushed.  I’ve never felt so sad for a car before.  It’s strange, but watching the documentary made me feel so empathy for those activists trying to keep the dream of the electric car alive.

What’s also really interesting to note from this movie is the last segment on the hydrogen fuel cell, and how it’s a big smoke screen for the auto-industry.  The hydrogen fuel cell right now is a “promise” of things to come in 20 years, when in fact producing such a car would be completely infeasible.

Anyways, enough of my incoherent ranting and raving of these two really good documentaries.  Go pick them up!  They’re a lot more entertaining and interesting to watch than you think.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 12th, 2006 at 8:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.