| | The House suffers an "American Blackout"
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney with GNN director Ian Inaba
All I can say is:
wow.
Last night I went with my sister
and dad to the Atlanta Film Festival, where we saw the Atlanta premier
of the Sundance favorite "American Blackout."
Ms. McKinney was
dressed in African garb with a peace sign where congressmen usually put
their American flag pin (oh, you mean this is AMERICA? I thought this
was the Dominican Republic -- thanks for reminding me Captain *******
Obvious Congressman!). My family all shook her hand and we went and sat
in the Georgia State University auditorium to watch the film.
The
head director of the Atlanta Film Festival came up and spoke about how
he and Congresswoman McKinney were at the premeir at Sundance. The film
won there big, and it was worth going to a place where the temperature
was "about 3 or 4 hundred degrees below zero," he joked.
We
first watched a cool short named "Spin." It was a great art film, the
kind of stuff you don't get to see in the corporate theaters.
Next we saw "American Blackout."
This film blew me away.
It
was created by Ian Inaba, a graduate of UCLA film school (who also
attended the screening). He stayed with Ms. McKinney for three years,
documenting her activities in Congress and the way the rest of the
politicians and the media treated her and portrayed her. He also met
with many other journalists (as close as the Atlanta Journal
Constitution and as far away as the BBC's Greg Palast) and a few more
politicians (Congressmen Bernie Sanders, John Lewis, John Conyers) to
discuss democracy in America in relation to Black people.
The film starts with an investigation into the year 2000 election.
This
was jaw-dropping. Cynthia McKinney and John Lewis, the Atlanta-area
Congressmen set up a special investigation into the 2000 election,
interviewing the head of the Atlanta-based private corporation that
help set up the voter rolls in Florida. The man openly admit that his
country had disenfranchised THOUSANDS of people from voting in Florida
-- with rolls they had helped get from Republicans in Texas and
Florida.
But get this: the only living taped recording of this
investigation was captured by a man sitting close to me, the guy who
runs Atlanta Indymedia, an independent progressive news network. The
ONLY LIVING RECORDING of the investigation that looked into how a
virtual coup de tat occured in our country and set across events across
the world was captured by the man sitting close to me -- and most of
the American public has never seen it.
Ian Inaba, the
director, told us that there were other local news stations at the
investigation, but none of them ever aired the footage.
Hmm. Imagine that.
Congressman
Lewis told us the devastating truth about all of this: if it weren't
for this coup de tat and the corporate media's virtual silence over the
direct wiping out of thousands of voters simply because they were black
or latino, "Al Gore would be President right now, and there would be no
war in Iraq."
The film then went into McKinney's life. It showed her activities in Congress, her home life, her friends.
Then it got nasty.
Ms.
McKinney was the first and only Congressperson after 9/11 to question
the Bush Administration's sequence of events. She asked, "What did you
know and when did you know it about 9/11?"
Then all hell broke
loose. The media attacked her, saying she was saying Bush pulled off
the attacks. Members of her own party tried to shut her up. Both the
President and Vice President called the Democratic leaders and forced
them not to do an investigation into 9/11. But she wouldn't keep her
mouth shut, so she continued to be attacked.
Now we come to the
Heart of Darkness. Republicans staged a campaign against her in 2002.
They knew a Republican hadn't a chance in hell of ever winning the 4th
district. So they mobilized all of their Republican voters to seize the
Democratic Primary. They hired a man (interviewed in the film) to run
what was close to a racist campaign against her -- selecting mostly
white males to come into the Primary and vote for Denise Majette, her
opponent. In a district with only 7,000 registered Republicans, maybe
1/3 of the total votes for the Democratic Primary came from
REPUBLICANS.
And they sent a great deal of money to Majette.
Majette accused McKinney of getting money from Arab terrorist
organizations. The AJC (atlanta journal constitution newspaper) kindly
helped foment that rumor as well as saying she was thinking 9/11
happened because Bush ordered it to happen (not the truth).
The
film shows exactly who she got her money from: the head of a Muslim
charity that had 0 terror links and a Muslim NBA player.
Congresswoman
McKinney lost 2002. It was later admitted by the Bush Administration
after prodding by the 9/11 Commission and Michael Moore and Greg Palast
and others that, yes, they did know there were warnings of the 9/11
attack. Many of them. They ignored them. McKinney was right. But the
media didn't backtrack to set the story straight. No, McKinney was a
conspiracy, far-left black fanatic. That was much better selling story.
But
McKinney and her people mobilized in the two years between 2002 and
2004. She gave more than forty speeches across the country. She
strongly campaigned against the war. Majette decided she didn't even
want to go for reelection. She took a suicidal bid at Senate and lost.
McKinney won the primary with about 50% of the votes, her two closest
opponents getting about 20 percent each. This time McKinney had a team
of lawyers with her, determined to stop disenfranchisement of black
voters.
So McKinney regained her seat -- but Nancy Pelosi
refused to give her her seniority back. A Republican who returned after
a 15 year hiatus got his seniority back. Pelosi didn't want a strong
progressive to stand up in the Congress. After all, Pelosi didn't
hammer Bush about the 9/11 investigations like McKinney did. She didn't
want investigations into child slavery and sex slaves in US
contractors. She didn't care enough to ask for a negotiation into black
voter disenfranchisement, with maybe over a million eligible voters
blocked off the polls. No, McKinney was a "firebrand" -- so Pelosi
stripped her of her seniority.
The film then continues,
talking to many other politicians and journalists about McKinney and
the horrible plague of black voters getting stripped from the voting
list by Republican-controlled electronic machines and vote counters.
Greg
Palast says "McKinney has a constant case of Touerrett's Syndrome --
She can't stop telling the truth." Congressman Lewis, a civil rights
hero who was good friends with Reverend Jackson and King, recounted on
how badly he was beaten fighting for the right to vote all those years
ago -- and how the deaths of so many activists are being shamed by the
illegal disenfranchisement of black and latino voters. Congressman
Bernie Sanders, the socialist Independent from Vermont, talked about
how money controls politics, and how anyone who goes past a certain
line in attacking the status quo as McKinney did -- well, you know what
happens to them. The AJC later apologizes for slandering McKinney.
And
then comes election 2004. In Ohio districts with white republicans at
the helm get far more voting machines per person -- the man who
organized this is interviewed and found to be a liar. Kenneth
Blackwell, the secretary of state in Ohio, nixes any kind of
investigation into it. Black voters standing four hours in the rain,
many going home, are shown.
Election 2004 -- was possibly stolen.
I'd
never believed this before watching this film. Now I do believe. Some
may say the points the film makes (it and its many awards it has
recieved) are debateable. To that I say -- EXACTLY! It SHOULD be
debated. The progressive, black, minority, Left in this country can't
all be dismissed by a white, powerful Establishment. We need FREE
DISCUSSION is what this movie is trying to say. We need to be able to
rebel without being attacked by all corners, without being suppressed
into nothing by a thousand roadblocks to democracy!
After the
film ended I went and thanked Ian Inaba. I told him I lived in an upper
middle class, "non-progressive" district, and films like this "blew my
mind." The Congresswoman, Inaba, and the audience discussed a lot about
the film. It was apparent we were outraged. Outraged that a defiant
rebel is attacked with lies and slander simply because she is a defiant
rebel. Outraged that our country's elections can be blatantly STOLEN
and anyone who fights that is labeled a conspiracy nut. Outraged that
anyone who joined the antiwar movement is a "firebrand." Outraged that,
in the words of the BBC's Greg Palast, we are still living with
"apartheid elections, apartheid media, and an Apartheid America"
I
don't care at all about this cop incident with McKinney. Maybe she was
wrong. Big deal. She's been an outspoken voice for the poor and
downtrodden, taking every risk for her constituents (she talks about in
the film how she was stalked by a Saudi man and the Ku Klux Klan for
her positions).
This is what happens to a rebel. Any little
thing is used to attack them. They have to be saintly -- otherwise they
are demons in the eyes of a powerful establishment. Meanwhile blatant
war criminals, thugs who bend to the will of any corporate donor or
lobbyist -- they are angels, the embodiment of kind Anglo Saxon values.
I
stand with Cynthia McKinney. I wish she was my congressman, not that
party-liner Tom Price. And I'm proud of her and the progresssive left
and the minority voters who stood for hours more than their white
counterparts in the rain, because their districts are less wealthy and
apparently are less worthy of getting a free and fair vote as Ohio 2004
has shown.
I am outraged, and if you aren't, see American Blackout.
Thanks for reading.
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| | Posted 6/11/2006 3:11 PM - 62 Views - 12 eProps - 9 comments
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