Also, somewhat ironically, I got a letter in the mail today from the State of Virginia saying that I owe them a couple bucks and that if I don't pay it by a certain date, that they are going to go into my bank account and forcefully take the money. I, perhaps somewhat naively, didn't think that was legal. Lo and behold, it is. Granted, it takes a court order, but if you fuck with the fed, I can't imagine it would be that hard to get one. Makes me wonder, if that is constitutional? I don't know, but it was what I was thinking going into watching this movie.
I have to admit that I was terrified by the film, as all good propaganda is meant to do. I won't get into the lot of it, but Russo does a good job defending his points, and those points are actually kinda good. Points like, you know, that bankers should not be more powerful than the government, issues about The Federal Reserve being an independent banking institution separate from the actual government, that the main usage of people's income tax is used to pay off interest on the national debt not on national resources like roads, education, etc.
But here's always the thing with films like this: they take you for the ride, and then you come to find out all the back story behind it. Turns out Russo was good friends with Alex Jones, a right wing radio host/media entrepreneur whose latest film is on the Fall of the Republic, and . . . (drumroll please) Obama and The New World Order. Another serendipitous occurrence. You should check out the movie site, it's full of theories on the Anti-Christ. Just so you're prepared for the second coming and all.
Then, after a little googling, I come to find out on a blog that Russo himself owed almost $2 Million in back taxes. Really? Is that not somewhat a conflict of interest? I'm sure you will say, "well that's because he was choosing not to pay!" Well, $2 mil is a lot of money for an out of work movie director. I'm just saying. Then there are the issues of the tax organizations he interviews. For example, www.tax-honesty.org says that if you watch ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, or CNN that you are grossly misinformed. Hmm, guess which major news channel is left out. Then we come to find out that almost all of the people interviewed for this film are major supporters of Texas Republican Representative Ron Paul. *sigh*
And this isn't to say that Russo doesn't make some good points. For starters, his interview with former IRS Commissioner Sheldon Cohen is horrendous. Horrendous in the way Mr. Cohen responds to Russo's questions, and I find it difficult to believe that it could have been edited to paint Mr. Cohen in a certain light. I mean, the man basically says that the IRS is above the law. That's alarming.
At the end of the film, he also goes into the implanting of microchips into masses of people and how scary that can be. What that has to do with income tax I'm not sure, but it's still interesting. But then we find out that he's crazy and it makes all the stuff he says just seem like rubbish, which is disappointing. I kinda felt the same way when I first read Naomi Wolf's book The End of America, but at least Wolf is a semi-respected author who doesn't jump on all the conspiracy bandwagon nonsense. The difference is credibility. While Wolf goes out on a limb, at least she has the credentials to back her up. After researching the film, Russo's integrity takes a hit, which is a shame, because if he had done more research, this film could have been powerful.
And here's the thing: yes, these things should be investigated. I'm all for transparent government. Yes, The Patriot Act is detrimental to our democracy. Yes, the normal citizen should be more aware of their rights and do more proactivity to ensure them. But why aren't normal people saying these things? People who don't have to bring up the anti-christ when Obama's name is mentioned. Or Bush's for that matter. (Please, if that man was the anti-christ, I think we'd all make it to heaven.) And when normal people do say these things, why don't more normal people pay attention?
And here's my main thing with all of the conspiracy stuff: do I believe that things go on behind closed doors that the public doesn't know about? Of course. But I think the main problem in all of these theories of The New World Order and so on is that, like always, the notion of the human capacity is totally not even brought into the equation. Like 6 billion people are just going to go along and be like, "ok yes, please do all these horrible and nasty things." I mean, hello, does the French Revolution ring a bell? For every Louis XVI there is a Rousseau, for every George III there is a Thomas Jefferson, for every Bush Jr. there is a movement of Hope, for every Nazi Axis, there are the Allies (hopefully minus the 6 million murdered in genocide, but that is a different conspiracy theory all together), hell, for every Voldemort there is a Harry Potter. I mean, this is history repeating itself here. So what if a group of shadow elite global financiers do exist, they're going to take over 6 billion people? You all say it's happening now and yet our financial systems are failing and there is a global shift happening in the way that human beings not only view themselves, but their consciousness. So what if they do take over? It will only be a matter of time before another revolution, for that is human history. Not even those who own all the money on the planet can stop human nature from prevailing. And not all human nature is detrimental. Just ask Mr. Potter on the forms of old magic.
My very long and convoluted point in all of this is that the more I see all these movies about death, destruction, power manipulation, the rapture, the anti-christ, 2012, the end of the world and so on, the more I realize just how ingrained fear is in our society. It's like we're afraid of everything, even to the point where we get afraid to live. Do I believe in the shadow elite and the secret government plots and the plans of The New World Order? Does it matter? What I believe in is the human capacity for what is good. Sappy I know. Now that isn't to say that people need to get off their asses and actually partake in this democracy before it is swept out from under them, because they do. But that isn't living in fear. By doing that, we are living in hope, which from what I understand, is what Mr. Obama has been asking of us all along.
However I don't think I'm going to get out of paying my money to the good ol state of VA.
One thing I did learn from America: Freedom to Facism? That we had a supreme court justice named Felix Frankfurter. Man, the playground must have been hell for him . . .
I will also say that Russo died in 2007 of bladder cancer, with conspiracy theorists screaming murder. Cue X-Files theme music . . . now.
One last point: to Russo's credit, in some ways he's right. Our freedoms are no where near how the founding fathers saw them. Granted, we are in a totally different time and place then 250 years ago, and Jefferson said himself, that as things change with time, so much the laws of the country. But the things in the film that ring alarm bells: such as the woman in Florida getting tasered, the interview with Mr. Cohen, the willy-nilly printing of money by the Federal Reserve, the absolute power that people with money have across the globe, the actions of the WTO and the IMF, the micro-chip implanting thing combined with the government tracing of money by technology - these are all things that should be of concern. I am well aware of the fact that America is not as free as we would like to believe. But we're also not Iran. In fact, what this country needs are people as passionate about their freedom as the people in Tehran are. For if we are passionate about freedom in a time of peace from within, we will not have to be engaged with war from within in the future.
*****
On another note, in reference to something else I said in my previous entry, I always feel kind of awkward talking about race, kind of like I really shouldn't be saying anything, but because no one else does that I then kind of have to. I was reading this story on, once again Huffington Post, where critics of Avatar are saying that the movie is racist; you know, that the white guy has to go and pretend to be one of the heathens to then save them, because, well, the heathens obviously can't save themselves, so the caucasians come to the rescue once again. Only the interesting thing was that it was the caucasians who were saying that the movie was racist, while a black film professor was kinda "eh" on the subject and praised it as a stunning work. This makes me think that all this pontificating on white people's part, myself included, is just another form of repression. Instead of letting people of other races talk for themselves, the whites once again have to do it for them. Is this a fair argument? I don't know. I'll let the academics spend their time hashing it out. I don't want to steer people away from calling out prejudice. But I also don't want to force words into people's mouths, especially when whites already have a history of silencing.
Update, January 17, 2010: In the New York Times today, Frank Rich writes an interesting Op-Ed about Harry Reid and his current debacle with race. For the most part, exempting Michael Steele, most blacks are ho-hum about Reid and his comments, while for the most part it is the white conservatives calling for his resignation. Why are white people always more astounded by racism when it's them who are perpetrating it? Or, is it that minorities are just used to the abuse?
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