Connecting The Plots: “America – Freedom to Fascism”

by Rob Williams (http://www.robwilliamsmedia.com)

Hollywood producer Aaron Russo is a guy who knows how to have fun, having produced such movies as “Trading Places” (featuring comedian/actor Eddie Murphy).

But his new film “America: From Freedom To Fascism” is a radical departure from such fare.

As Russo tells the story, in making his new documentary he set out on a quest to answer a question he’d heard for many years.

Namely, is there really a law requiring U.S. citizens to pay taxes on their labor?

What he uncovers along the way, he then weaves into one of the most important grassroots documentaries in a long time. Bring plenty of popcorn with you to see this film, because you will need energy for the post-screening journey.

Here are but five dots Russo connects in “Freedom To Fascism.”

Revelation #1: The U.S. government has no legal or Constitutional right to tax our labor. The 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which led to the imposition of a graduated income tax on all wage-earning Americans, was never legally ratified. The much-feared Internal Revenue Service (IRS) actually has absolutely no legal or constitutional mandate. Buried beneath hundreds of pages of legalese, the IRS fine print says that tax-paying citizens enjoy “voluntary compliance” with IRS statutes. There is not a single law requiring us to pay taxes on our income to the federal government.

Read those last sentences again for dramatic effect.

Revelation #2: Our U.S. economy, built on paper money, is a collective blend of faith and farce, a system under which “the bankers win and the American people lose,” as Russo says. Reach into your pocket and pull out a $1 dollar bill. Take a few seconds to study it. Now, recognize that the U.S. monetary system since 1913 has not actually been run by the U.S. government. Instead, the illegally-created Federal Reserve System allows a privately run Delaware-incorporated bank to loan the U.S. government money, at interest, to fund the running of our country. “The Federal Reserve is no more federal than Federal Express,” observes researcher Michael Ruppert. “The government works for a private bank,” explains investment analyst Catherine Austin Fitts, a bit more ominously. “And the private bank works for its owners.”

Who actually “owns” the Federal Reserve? No one seems to know.

Revelation #3: The much-ballyhooed “war on terror” helps cloak the federal government’s more stealthy war on U.S. citizens. Consider just three of the so-called “executive orders” passed in recent years:

1. E.O. #10999 – Allows the U.S. government to take over all modes of transportation.
2. E.O. #1000 – Allows the U.S. government to mobilize civilians into work brigades.
3. E.O. #11921 – Allows the President of the United States to declare an emergency that is not defined and Congress cannot review the action for six months.

Not to mention the USA PATRIOT Act.

You know - “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”…?

The so-called “USA PATRIOT Act” IS an acronym, remember, a cleverly-named acronym that allows for secret FBI and police searches of our homes and offices; secret wiretaps on our phones, computers, and Internet; secret investigations of our bank records, credit cards, records, library and reading activities; and medical, travel, and business records, as well as the freezing of funds and assets without prior notice or appeal.

And where IS Osama, anyway?

Revelation #4 – REAL ID and RFID. Last year, Congress approved the creation of a national identity card under the REAL ID Act. Slated to go into effect in 2008, the Act requires all U.S. citizens interested in traveling on an airplane, opening a bank account, collecting Social Security payments, and obtaining U.S. governmental services to sign up and carry a REAL ID card.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), meanwhile, is an automatic identification method capable of accessing data from a small chip, one that can be implanted into a product, animal, or person. And yes, a handful of U.S. citizens already enjoy the many benefits that come with chip implantation, which is already being sold as a “security measure” for “peace of mind” in a post 9/11 world.

I’m not even sure George Orwell would know what to say here.

Revelation #5 – Electronic Election Fraud. Russo’s film just touches on this topic, covered much more comprehensively by other citizen researchers like Bev Harris, Mark Crispin Miller, Greg Palast, and Steve Freeman, but the moment he gives us is startling. Russo captures computer programmer Clinton Eugene Curtis testifying before a public forum conducted by members of the House of Representatives stating how easy it is to design a simple and virtually undetectable computer code to rig an election for either candidate with a 51/49 split, because, “in 2000, I wrote a prototype for present Congressman Tom Feeney,” explains Curtis.

Tom Feeney is a Republican Congressman from the great state of…

Anyone?

You guessed it.

Florida.

Even for someone who is familiar with the Oz-like spectacle going on behind the curtained façade of our imperial two-party political system, Russo’s film is a real eye-opener.

“The war on terrorism,” he concludes, “is the war on your freedoms.”

Indeed.

“Freedom to Fascism” makes the prospect of peaceable secession from the United States empire seem an even more important task, if not our most viable option, as we confront a 21st century imperial police state emerging from the wreckage of our once-honored republic.

Find out more about the film at Freedom to Fascism

The Vermont independence movement will be sponsoring screenings of this film around the once and future Vermont republic this fall.

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Dead Man’s Chest: Pirates of the Caribbean, Take 2

Hollywood box office records were broken last week-end when the new “Pirates of the Caribbean” film brought home more than $130 million its opening three days. A bit mystified at this news, I set out to discover what might explain the popularity of this new pirate flick. If you saw “Pirates of the Caribbean, Part 1 (“The Black Pearl”), you know that the plot of these films, such as it is, revolves around competition for the 2 Gs that drove the ambitious during mercantile times: gold and glory.

Beyond this, though, the movie has all the trademarks of blockbuster summer stardom.

In other words, it is two-plus hours of wonderful mind (numbing?) eye candy.

Here are just a few possible explanations for this film’s success:

1. Johnny Depp – “To what do I owe the pleasure of your carbuncle?” a boozy pirate captain Jack Sparrow asks at film’s beginning. Indeed, Depp’s Sparrow functions as sort of an everyman’s buccaneer – off balance, glib of tongue, slightly under the influence, and made up as a sort of grotesque and clown-like (but street-savvy, or rather, sea-savvy) buffoon. All else fades into significance when Depp is on the screen. Pity poor Orlando Bloom’s Will and Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth, having to hold down the almost-absurd romantic leads in the face of such insouciance. With his sense of comedic timing and slapstick demeanor, Depp makes plainfolks pirating downright sexy and fun for the whole family.

2. Special Effects and Make-Up – Ships swallowed whole by a mysterious angry force. Heart-stopping cinematography, from mighty oceans to lush rain forested tropical islands. Fantabulous semi-period costumes: Bloom in pantaloons, Knightley in a corset and bustle. Sparrow’s eight-eyed make-up job alone is worth the price of admission.

3. Identifiable good and bad guys – Hard to argue with the East India Company as the evil proto-corporation meddling with our protagonists’ efforts to swashbuckle and fall in love. And who can NOT like the Bloom, Knightley, Depp trifecta? Easy on the eyes.

4. TREMENDOUS marketing. From Johnny Depp on the cover of “Rolling Stone” last week to high-energy movie previews running like 24/7 electronic wallpaper on television and movie screens, to articles about the film everywhere I turn, the marketing mojo behind this film is impressive.

5. Nostalgia. 21st century life in our surveillance society is so mind-numbingly routinized and predictable, at times. “Pirates” invents an era of high seas adventure and populates it with one-dimensional but heroic figures who simply want to have as much fun as possible following their bliss, as Joseph Campbell famously observed.

Will “Pirates” make much of an impact on you?

Nah.

But that’s OK.

Heck, it is the height of summer. Eat, drink, and be merry.

Yo ho ho, and avast, matey!

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