BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

Censorship and/or a lack of guts is alive and well at the Discovery Channel.  The channel has announced that it will not show the documentary “Taxi to the Dark Side” citing it as “controversial.”

Although the movie documentary in now playing in theatres across the country and has been nominated for an Academy Award, the Discovery Channel who purchased the rights to show the movie has now dropped the idea.  Unfortunately, Discovery will hold the rights to the movie for three years.  The only hope of showing the movie on television between now and three years from now is if Discovery decides to sell the rights… or maybe, with enough support for the movie, they could change their position.

If there is anyone left in the country who does not know the subject matter of the movie, I will give you a hint.  The story is about an Afghani taxi driver who was taken into American custody, imprisioned, tortured, and died five days later.  It isn’t make believe or fantasy.  It’s a true story and it deserves to be seen.

According to Alex Gibney, the film maker:

Well, it turns out that the Discovery Channel isn’t so interested in discovery. I mean, I heard that—I was told a little bit before my Academy Award nomination that they had no intention of airing the film, that new management had come in and they were about to go through a public offering, so it was probably too controversial for that. They didn’t want to cause any waves. It turns out, Discovery turns out to be the see-no-evil/hear-no-evil channel.

Read Gibney’s full interview on Democracy Now! 

Americans may not want to see what we are doing to prisoners captured in Afghanistan or Iraq, but it is our responsibility to watch and to decide if what we see is the America we want to be.  I can assure you, it is not. 

Since the war began, the government has prohibited us from seeing caskets being returned to Dover Air Force Base because of the fear that Americans would sit up and take notice, seeing boxes draped in flags being removed from the cargo hold of an airplane.

Now, Discovery has taken the right to see the most explosively violent documentary from the airwaves by buying up the rights for television showing for the next three years.  That said, the movie is being shown in theatres across the country. 

Spend a few dollars for a movie ticket, buy a box of Kleenex, sit through the entire movie, and prepare to spend a sleepless night.  And, in case you are wondering, the content of this movie is not suitable for children… it’s barely suitable for humanity.  You will walk away sick to your stomach and ashamed of what our government is doing to those they capture in war… even to the innocent taxi driver.