Preview
The War For Oil and Drug Money
Aftermath: Unanswered Questions From 9/11
Thursday, December 11
Carpenter’s Union Hall
It’s become abundantly clear that no matter how much time has passed since that grim September morning, the 9/11 attacks were a wake-up call to a world still demanding answers to a growing list of unanswered questions.
First-time filmmaker Sherlye Carlson is one of many activists whose life changed on September 11. One of the volunteer organizers of the G6B People’s Summit in Calgary (the counter conference to the June 2002 G8 leaders summit), Carlson brought her video camera to the summit and suddenly became a filmmaker – in 10 places at once.
"I couldn’t stop researching," says Carlson. "September 11th really woke me up completely. I began reading four to five hours of information per day, and then found myself going through this intense editing and learning process with this footage."
Carlson’s endeavours manifested themselves into the raw, one-hour documentary The War For Oil and Drug Money, screening in Calgary after a successful tour in Edmonton, Thunder Bay, Fredericton, Toronto and Winnipeg. After five months of gathering data, supporting imagery and montages, Carlson has become her own roadie for the tour, enlisting as many audience members as she can to see the film, educate themselves further and demand answers from government.
"I’m trying to get people to stand up on their soap box," Carlson says, "because this whole war (on terrorism) is being manufactured, and you don’t get to learn this anywhere."
As the title suggests, The War For Oil and Drug Money is a speculative investigation into FBI coverups, intelligence failures, White House communication and corporate pipeline connections that gives credence to theories of a greedy U.S. master plan to control the world of oil. Featuring commentary by From the Wilderness journalist Michael Ruppert and Global Outlook editor-economist Michel Chossudovsky, the film is particularly valuable to a younger generation unaware of the past history of U.S. oil interests abroad.
"Almost every person in the U.S. administration is, or has been, involved somehow in oil," says Carlson. "They are in line with the banks, interest rates, and what the consumer gets for his/her dollar. If oil is dwindling, we aren’t allowed to know how much, and we’re going to pay for that with the lack of energy sources, especially in the next 50 years."
Carlson admits the reaction to her screenings has ranged from wide-eyed enlightenment to a general confirmation of people’s own suspicions, particularly considering the lack of a "smoking gun" in Iraq. The filmmaker is stupefied by the U.S. government’s denial of the alleged "manufactured war," and even more miffed by Canada’s own liquidation of natural resources.
"I think people are feeling powerless, especially after all those huge world protests, which didn’t make a significant change," she says. "There’s a younger generation that understands what goes on, are educated, and do have access to alternative information, but we’re sometimes so cynical we become inactive. The people affected by this have faces and names, and we have the power to make a change."
Carlson’s film accompanies the Guerrilla News Network’s Aftermath: Unanswered Questions from 9/11. Narrated by hip-hop star Paris and featuring interviews in six cities, the 30-minute film features nine people answering 11 of the most pressing questions from that historic day. Despite the Network’s reputation for conspiratorial views, Carlson’s happy her own work accompanies the short.
And rightly so. Speculating that "intelligence failures" were actually successes and that G8 forces are complicit in "facilitating terrorism to increase their economic prestige and power," The War For Oil and Drug Money may in fact be guerrilla news.
"Is conspiracy a good word or a bad word, anyway?" asks Carlson. "It connotes off-the-wall thinking, when in fact it’s stating that there is something we’re not being totally told about. And here, we are being given evidence to support it."
However Carlson’s film is looked upon, she’s determined to create activists of all of us. On hand at the screening to participate in discussion, her determination for proper leadership and transparency is unwaivering.
"I don’t know if we’ve ever seen this much disparity between rich and poor. We’re seeing ourselves in historic terms, as elitists exploiting the workers, and we’re moving downhill," she says. "It’s either going to be chaos or a slow, slow uphill battle. People need to demand the media do their job, that politicians do their job, and in legal terms that we stay accountable via UN representatives, CEOs, the Geneva Accord, our bill of rights – our freedom depends on this."
The War for Oil and Drug Money screens Thursday, December 11th at the Carpenter’s Union Hall, located at 310 - 10 St. N.W. at 7 p.m. Admission is by donation. |
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