I don't mean to invoke the name of Harry Knowles in my reviews two weeks in
a row, but in the same lengthy conversation in which he accused me of being
too old to appreciate Lady in the Water (apparently most of America was also
"too old" this past weekend), he also asked me a question I never thought
another human being on this planet would ask me: "Have you seen a film
called America: Freedom to Fascism?" My heart practically jumped out of my
chest when he spoke these words.
I had just watched the film a couple of
days earlier, and it had scared the crap out of me to such a degree that I
was prepared to put it out of my mind until I wrote my review. Harry wasn¹t
even sure he would or could write about it. We were in complete agreement on
this movie. It looks like it was pieced together using a Commodore 64
computer. The graphics are terrible, the production value is non-existent,
and the voiceover by filmmaker Aaron Russo sounds like a lung cancer patient
on his last lung. But none of these things will stop the slow-building
paranoia levels from simmering in your brain.
If you thought Michael Moore had an agenda with his documentaries, wait
until you meet Russo, the movie producer responsible for such gems as The
Rose and Trading Places, and the director of the 1989 bomb Rude Awakening.
His film begins with a search for the actual law that requires Americans to
pay federal income tax (I¹m sure Russo knew going into this project that no
such law exits, but the search is still quite interesting).
He talks to tax
attorneys, constitutional law experts, former IRS and FBI investigators,
writers, anyone who can explain why we are shelling over huge percentages of
our income to the federal government when there is no law saying we must.
Russo interviews people on the street asking them, "What do you think your
income tax pays for?" People assume it's for things like road building,
schools, and social programs. But Russo says that income taxes in fact do
nothing more than pay off the interest on the national debt.
What follows is Russo's smartly structured dissection of how the Federal
Reserve and the world banking leadership has essentially changed the way
this country a policing agent for the Fed (which, by the way, we learn is not a
government agency, but a private group of bankers making decision about how
much money is printed, which in turn effects interest rates, inflation, and
all the other financial details that determine whether you will ever be able
to buy a home or pay off your credit cards). Sound like the work of a
paranoid conspiracy theorist? You bet it is. Does that mean he¹s wrong?
Well, he succeeding in making me very nervous.
I could spend many paragraphs of this review detailing Russo's theories and
revelations, but hear it directly from Russo in this film, which he narrates
and occasionally shows up on camera interviewing various subjects. What some
might find fascinating is that Russo doesn¹t lay the blame for the current
situation on either left- or right-wing leaders. In his eyes, they are just
as much pawns in this game as ordinary citizens. Russo may lose a few people
when he gets into discussions of National Identity Cards and microchips
under the skin, but the fact remains that these developments are reality.
(The day when you¹d be walking down the street and a police officer can stop
you and ask to see your "papers" is not a thing of the past any longer.)
Russo sees the United States as having lost its way, headed toward a police
state, not so slowly but surely. As nothing more than an eye-opening look at
the way financial institutions control our lives, this film is devastating
enough, but Russo follows the natural pathways to the worldwide bigger
picture. America: Freedom to Fascism is designed to overwhelm and frighten,
and Mr. Russo should consider his mission accomplished.