See this movie if you can. For a sample of its flavor in poetic animated form, do check out the video of TRUE LIES, which plays with BLACKOUT at the IFFB.
AMERICAN BLACKOUT is doing the festival circuit now, and is due to play in Ohio and Georgia in upcoming weeks. Ohio is significant in that the film covers voting "irregularities" in that state that have been ignored by the mainstream news media, and the government, surrounding the Presidential election of 2004. Georgia is significant because in telling its truths about the manipulation of the electoral system at many levels to negate the voices of certain voters, the film focuses on Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney's efforts to bring those truths to light in the press and on Capitol Hill.
Playing in an indie film fest in Boston, I'm sure its audiences here were all extremely sympathetic and found most if not all of its content to be sadly as they'd feared and expected, although in light of McKinney's most recent press, the film's coverage of her brave and successful efforts to give voice to those who deserve, but have been shut out of, the democratic process, may have been something unexpected and inspriational to see.
I really don't know what to make of the hubbub over her encounter with the D.C. police. There's a segment in the documentary that seems to foreshadow the actual incident. In the footage, it's her first day back on the Hill, she's apparently travelling w the documentary camera crew, the guard is obviously not at the top of his game... Does it MEAN anything...? I suppose you'll have to see the movie and decide. =)
I'm verrry curious to see how this film plays in a more mixed audience. To borrow the annoying newsmedia political color scheme... A "red" or "purple" audience. Maybe on a college campus...? I gotta say, without some kind of bait-n-switch scheme, it's difficult to imagine the scenario that gets a good political mix of an audience into a screening.
Does anyone remember a blip, maybe over a year ago now, about a conservative independent film festival, held in Texas? I wonder how successful an event that was.
* Found that blip. How could I forget that one of the showcased features was MICHAEL MOORE HATES AMERICA? Samantha Bee did an excellent bit of DAILY SHOW coverage on the director in NYC, heh.
There's a moment in this film, early on, that had this weird science fictiony effect on me. I'm not familiar w all the politicians and representatives of the Black Caucus, but one of them, Rep. John Conyers, plainly and simply summs up the ripple effect of the unjust disappearing of thousands of African-American votes in Florida in the 2000 Presidential election frighteningly well...
If those votes had been cast and counted, G.W.B. would not have been declared President, and we would not be engaged, involved, and mired in a war in Iraq.
My dopey brain, such as it is, soaked in that truth for a few seconds, and perhaps, because by default it's so used to processing the twists and turns and flexibility of the fiction I feed it for entertainment, had me imagining that I, and the world, had been folded, or flipped, or shunted, into an alternate, what-if, reality. I mean, how COULD this be real? This seems like a Harry Turtledove novel written in a sensible and sane reality...
Only, too unbelievable for Turtledove.
Here comes my crazy talk - Did a teenaged Karl Aisles sometime in the future get access to Bill Jobs's wayback/transporter machine? Note, this machine ends up splitting the traveller into two individuals upon arrival, that may or may not need to remain connected to each other for survival, in a strong-weak Captain Kirk doppelganger kind of way... I still haven't worked all the science fiction out, sorry.
Did he zap himself into the relative past with some basic information and after-the-fact political analysis that he's/they've used over and over again to influence turn of the 21st American character (at least as it's presented by the media), shape and/or dictate what seems to be public opinion, and work his way up the Republican party heirarchy to ultimately get G.W. in the White House, creating this incredibly unlikely alternate reality? So far from the best of all possible worlds...?
Perhaps there was no 9/11 in the baseline reality... And Karl and Roger had to scratch out and rewrite their Cliff's notes, play by ear and/or borrow from others' existing heritage playbooks.
Like I warned you, crazy talk. Escapist. Not at all helpful or productive. That's me and my so-called brain. Sorry.
It would be nice to wake up from this, though, wouldn't it?
I caught a bit of an interview with Henry Rollins on NPR a couple days back. The interviewer was starting a discussion on his involvement w the USO, entertaining troops in Iraq...
NPR: You've got yourself something of a reputation as an angry man...
Rollins: Well, I'm a conscientious American. I have to be angry.
Keep on keepin on~
1 comment:
I know I've said it to Joe, and I think I've said it to you, but there are times that I really do believe that we're in an alternate reality, where we ended up on the wrong side of the 2000 election.
Somewhere, there's the evil Mike (without a goatee), living in a world where Gore was elected in 2000 (and maybe even 2004) also, we didn't invade Iraq, and perhaps some other parts of the past 6 years didn't happen...
It's like waking up in Boston, and all the Baybank machines become Bank Boston machines, as if Baybank never even existed... That's how I feel about the last 6 years, politically.
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