Axis of Evil: Perforated Praeter Naturam

In the wake of a stinging CIA report showing that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction comes a new film prompted by the foreign policy failures of the Bush administration. AXIS OF EVIL is a feature-length documentary that deconstructs the rhetoric of the President’s catch phrase and illuminates the ways in which our government manipulates truth, language, and the media to hijack popular culture and opinion.

“Evil is a reactionary, emotional frame,” wrote Axis of Evil producer Jim Swanson, in an essay in the book that inspired the film. “We must replace concepts of sin and evil with a nurturing and positive frame that recognizes harmful actions and their causes, and encourages appropriate remediations.”

  In interviews with 16 journalists, artists, scholars, and activists, including Howard Zinn, Daniel Ellsberg, Bernardine Dohrn, James Weinstein, and others, AXIS OF EVIL explores the concept of evil and how it has been used to justify political and military actions. But unlike most recent Bush-bashing documentaries, the film addresses the broad, complex, and interwoven issues of terrorism, racism, militarism, and other such social ills. It’s a reasoned discussion of evil as it truly exists in our society, rather than a polemic against the war in Iraq.

But make no mistake, this is not a film that sits on the fence. The activists behind AXIS OF EVIL are deeply concerned with a society that has been drifting away from democratic principles, and they hope to provoke an intelligent consideration of the current state of the union. As dissent, debate, and discussions--like the one contained in this film--become increasingly supplanted by spin, symbolism, and sound bites, the need for voices like those in Axis of Evil becomes only greater.