Was at Atlanta premier of "American Blackout" with McKinney

[Terran1212]

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.