TV programs worth watching
Sun August 29 — Sat September 2

Self-styled Australian "media hooligan" John Safran's last 
television series was the AFI-award winning Music Jamboree in 
2002 (awards for Best Comedy Series and Most Innovative Program 
Concept).

In that series he formed a Jewish boyband and tried to get signed 
to a Christian record label. His latest series, John Safran 
Versus God (SBS 8.30pm Mondays), described as an eight-part 
"rummage through the mosques, temples, churches and chicken coops 
of the religious world", continues in the same vein.

In the first episode he goes to London to see an extremist 
Islamic cleric notorious for the number of Fatwahs he has issued 
and tries to get him to issue a Fatwah against Australian 
television personality Rove.

In a later episode he goes to Mormon capital Salt Lake City and 
door-knocks on behalf of atheism, causing Mormons to be impolite 
to him.

Saffran's style could be described as sub-Michael Moore, but he 
lacks Moore's vision or perspective. Where Moore tries to make 
you laugh and think, Saffran seems only interested in laughs.

Whether you find his activities wry, outrageous or ludicrous will 
probably depend on your personal taste. For me, it was all a just 
a bit too derivative.

Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is a procedure that 
allows IVF (Invitro Fertilisation) couples to screen embryos for 
genetic disorders. PGD, and the opposition to it, is the subject 
of this week's Insight: Generation Next (SBS 7.30pm 
Tuesday).

Robert and Jenny Davies are the parents of healthy new baby 
Isaac, thanks to PGD technology. Robert suffers from a kidney 
condition.

"It's a disease that has profoundly affected my family, killing 
off essentially 50 percent of my family so we selected a healthy 
embryo in terms of that disease and in so doing, we've stopped 
the generation of that disease down the future generations."

It seems incredible that there could be opposition to such a 
scientific breakthrough, but there is, mainly from people who 
think we are "playing God" by using it. To back up their position 
they resort to dire warnings about "Nazi style eugenics" and even 
argue that preventing genetic disorders "disadvantages" other 
people who have those disorders.

British professor Lord Robert Winston, well known for the 
acclaimed BBC series The Human Body, defends the new 
procedure.

"To enforce a particular system of parenting on people where 
there is a genuine handicap, where they are already possibly 
bringing up a genuine handicapped child, or seen a child die, 
it's extraordinarily demanding to suggest that really they should 
perhaps comply to an ideal of parenting which actually you may 
not share because you've never been in the situation of having 
that genetic defect in your family."

SBS originally screened the two-part documentary The World 
According To Bush over two nights in mid-July. They are 
repeating it this week on one night (SBS Tuesday Part one 8.30pm 
and Part two 10.00pm).

The program covers such things as the business connections of the 
Bush "dynasty", the close ties between the Bush family and 
administration and Saudi Arabia, and how Bush's own religious 
beliefs and ties to the Christian right shape his presidency 
including his foreign policy.

Prescott Bush, the current President's grandfather, invested 
money for the Nazis during World War II. Trading with and for the 
Nazis is the basis for the Bush family fortune (and this is the 
guy who prattles on about patriotism).

One of Prescott Bush's companies even operated mines in Poland 
using inmates of nearby concentration camps as forced labour. 
Today, the Vice President's wife sits on the board of the giant 
arms firm Lockheed Martin, a company which receives lavish US 
federal government contracts.

George Bush senior works for the Carlyle Group, a notorious 
private equity house which handles nearly US$16 billion in 
investments. Charles Lewis, director of the Centre for Public 
Integrity, points out that the majority of its activities are 
linked to the defence sector. Bush senior is therefore working 
for an American military contractor during a period when his son, 
the President, conducts a war.

Historian Joseph Trento observes that Saudi Arabia spends more 
money in Washington than almost any other government. Ex CIA 
analyst Robert Steele comments, "we have essentially been whores, 
political whores for the Saudis for the last 40 years".

In a report to the Defence Policy Board, analyst Laurent Muarwiec 
described Saudi Arabia as America's most dangerous opponent in 
the Middle East and active at every level of the terrorism chain. 
When his report was leaked Muarwiec lost his job.

The program examines the de facto alliance between the Christian 
right and the Israeli lobby. Adviser to Ronald Reagan, Michael 
Ledeen claims that a higher percentage of American Christian 
evangelicals support Israel than do American Jews.

Analyst Robert Steele compares the propaganda efforts of the 
current administration to Goebbels. He claims that even while 
people were still dying during the September 11 attacks White 
House officials were calling a serving general to tell him to 
"pin it on Iraq".

Ex-chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix (of the UN) and David Kay 
(from the CIA — the Iraqis always said the weapons inspectors 
were disguised CIA agents) criticise how the Bush administration 
pursued the fictional Weapons of Mass Destruction. Kay comments, 
"the worse thing for a democracy is to suppress the truth in the 
interests of an election".

Soundtrack To War, shot, recorded, produced and directed 
by George Gittoes, is a horrifying peek into the cultural desert 
that is the mentality of the US Army. Screening on The Big 
Picture (ABC 8.30pm Wednesday), Gittoes' film takes the 
soldiers' taste in music as the key to exploring their approach 
to their "mission".

With nothing to fight for, these troops must be "pumped up" to go 
into action. For this they rely on heavy metal and rap, often 
hooking up CD players to the intercom systems of their tanks and 
APCs so that they go into battle with the lyrics to Let the 
Bodies Hit the Floor ringing in their ears.

And, as these soldiers readily admit, when they're pumped up they 
will kill "anything that moves".

The film reveals a strange dichotomy. While the minds of many of 
the US "grunts" seem to be near bottomless pits of ignorance, 
making them perfect soldiers for imperialism, others are frank in 
their denunciation of the war and of US motives for being there.

In between talking about music they observe that the Iraqi people 
"hate us and want us to leave. We shouldn't be here."

Many of the spontaneous rap performances by battle-weary US 
soldiers captured on film by Gittoes were used in Michael Moore's 
Fahrenheit 9/11.

For the most part, however, this look at the US Army reminded me 
most strongly of the Nazi Wehrmacht. Which is no doubt the aim of 
the Pentagon.