Earlier this year, Congressman Alan Grayson invited a Pakistani family who witnessed their grandmother getting blown up by a US drone to testify in front of Congress. After jumping through legal hoops for months, the Rehmans finally arrived to DC to testify about how drone warfare has tragically impacted their lives.

However their lawyer, Shazad Akbar, was suspiciously missing. The State Department inexplicably refused to grant him a visa, despite the fact that Akbar had traveled to the US many times before. Ultimately, only five members of Congress took the time to show up and listen to the Rehman family’s message.

I had the great opportunity to provide the Rehman family, including Rafiq, his children Zubair age 13, Nabeela age 9, as well as their lawyer, Jennifer Gibson, a platform on Breaking the Set to tell their somber story.

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The Rehman Family on Breaking the Set 

Many people in this country have accepted the false notion that drone strikes are a necessary evil to fight the ubiquitous threat of terrorism. Yet the government’s logic to either use ground troops or drones to fight ‘terror’ is a false dichotomy that must be countered.

The common argument that drones are the most strategic and effective weapon in modern warfare has been proven categorically false. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as many as 926 civilians have died in Pakistan alone from US drone strikes. Not to mention the fact that the civilian death toll could be as high as 3,595, considering how the simple act of being a military aged male in a strike region deems you a militant worthy of execution in the eyes of the US government.

An in-depth study done by the New America Foundation showed that drones only have a two percent average success rate at killing high level targets on the ground. This means that 98% of the time, innocent people are probably being killed.

Beyond these cold death statistics, it’s crucial to recognize that every casualty from these shadow wars is a human being like you and me. These people have faces, names and families left behind to mourn their loss.

If Islamic extremism is a threat, it needs to be dealt with in other ways. The US government should be working with foreign governments to capture alleged high level terror targets and put them on trial. It shouldn’t be a problem for Obama to release proof of their guilt if these suspects are already considered dangerous enough to outright execute.

Every drone strike that hits these remote villages causes twenty new ‘terrorists’ to form with renewed hatred toward the US government. Not only are drones ineffective, but they arguably cause the proliferation – not reduction – of terrorism.

Despite the inefficient and counter-intuitive nature of drone wars, these flying death traps dominate modern warfare. Their continued use becomes more clear when taking into account how Bush’s drone architect said that the reason Obama has ramped up drones is to avoid the bad press of Guantanamo Bay.

This is the stark reality we’re living in. The President is a constitutional lawyer who opts to assassinate people in order to not deal with the messy consequences of sending them into a Gitmo-style prison abyss.

I urge you to heed the words of the Rehman family. Resistance to unmanned killer drones must be formed in mass in order to end this criminal policy once and for all.

Abby Martin for Media Roots

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Some of you may already be familiar with Zeitgeist, a controversial documentary film trilogy that challenges everything you think you know about the world. If you aren’t, do yourself a favor and get acquainted.

The first movie release, Zeitgeist, analyzes the social constructs that keep humanity’s consciousness stunted; Zeitgeist: Addendum dissects the unsustainability of the current economic system; The epilogue, Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, outlines the notion of structural violence, mechanization and the blueprint for a new system – one that can exist harmoniously with nature.

The viral film series has since spawned a global collective called The Zeitgeist Movement or TZM, an international initiative of activism and awareness pushing the notion that the current social and economic structure is inherently flawed, and must be transformed in order to ensure a sustainable future for all.

The Zeitgeist trilogy, as well as its follow-up Culture in Decline series, have challenged many of my preconceived paradigms as well as greatly inspired my activism, so it was awesome to sit down with Peter Joseph, founder of The Zeitgeist Movement Global, for an in-depth interview. Whether or not you agree with his philosophy, it’s undeniably thought-provoking and deserves to be heard.

Abby 

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Peter Joseph Breaks the Set on The Zeitgeist Movement

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Not many people can cross over from professional wrestler to Hollywood actor to Governor of a state – unless of course, you’re Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura.

After leaving the world of wrestling, Ventura ran for mayor and then Governor of Minnesota as an independent candidate, proving that defeating the two-party monopoly is possible. Since his gubernatorial run, he’s hosted a popular television show and written several best-selling books.

His latest book is called ‘They Killed our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK.’ With the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Ventura joined me on Breaking the Set to discuss the evidence of a government conspiracy and the potential for a 2016 presidential run with radio host Howard Stern.

Abby

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Jesse Ventura on Breaking the Set

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On the national day to fight police brutality, Breaking the Set highlights the most recent examples of police overstepping their authority in cities across the US. ANSWER Coalition’s Mike Prysner discusses his organization’s shocking and heart wrenching documentary No Justice, No Peace!, a film about the rampant rise of police brutality and the growing resistance movement.

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Epidemic of Killer Cops

No Justice, No Peace! is an original documentary by Liberation News about the growth of a dynamic people’s movement against police brutality.

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No Justice, No Peace!

This 30 minute film is centered around the organizing efforts of more than 40 families of police brutality victims for a statewide march in Anaheim, California on July 21, 2013. The date was symbolically chosen as the one-year anniversary of the execution of Manuel Diaz by the Anaheim police and subsequent crackdown on the community.

No Justice, No Peace! features footage from significant demonstrations leading up to the July 21st action, including protests that shut down the Anaheim police station. The film also shows the organizing efforts of participants, interviews with families, attorneys and activists in the police brutality movement.

This documentary was made by Los Angeles filmmaker and California Institute of the Arts Ben Huff. It was co-filmed and produced by ANSWER activist and organizer Krissana Limlamai.

To order a copy of the DVD or to host a screening, call 323-394-3611 or email [email protected].