Helen Caldicott Speaks: If You Love This Planet

Not to be confused with Direct Cinema's Oscar-winning 1982 film If You Love This Planet featuring Dr. Caldicott, Helen Caldicott Speaks: "If You Love This Planet" is a video recording of a speech which the noted author and pediatrician gave in Marin County, CA. Caldicott's speech is very much like firing a shotgun at a watermelon from 2 yards away: it's messy and it lacks precision. Her target is America , or more precisely, White American Males. While W.A.M.'s as a group certainly have more than their fair share of bad apples, it seems a bit of a stretch to attribute to them all of the world's woes. Yet, Caldicott mixes her unattributed statistical barrage with a steady stream of anti-American (and especially American Male) sentiment. Broadly speaking, we Americans are violent, stupid, brainwashed people who are slaves to the propaganda spewed forth by our corporations. By contrast, Caldicott's native Australia we are told features the world's best press and its people do not use guns (excuse me?). All of this from a thinker who regularly says things like: "I think the elephants are more valuable than we are" or "I will die for the roses." Which is not to say that Caldicott doesn't have some thought-provoking things to say; she does, and quite often her comments are both astute and humorous. But her off-the-cuff speech includes so much chaff with the wheat: she brags about being shot at, she suggests that a million people should storm the White House and take back the government (she's serious), she fondly recalls a recent 3-day seminar on "soul attainment" during which a "pure soul" was delivered. One is simply tempted to request that she call when the shuttle has landed. Technically speaking, the video is strictly amateur. A pair of (occasionally shaky) home video cameras are used to record the speech, and the resultant image is much less than broadcast quality. Often interesting (and sometimes exasperating), Helen Caldicott: "If You Love This Planet" is nevertheless a technically poor production of a very scattershot speech. Not recommended. (Available from: Learning Networks, 123 Cazneau Ave., Sausalito, CA 94965; (415) 332-6035.)