"Stealing
America . . . Vote by Vote "
A Film by Dorothy Fadiman
Dorothy Fadiman's powerful, moving, infuriating,
comprehensive and brilliant new film might well be re-named "The Crime of
the Century."
We all now know that the elections of 2000 and 2004 were
stolen. The only thing that the American people can be proud of about
George W. Bush is that they (or we) have never chosen him president.
Fadiman's many awards include an Emmy and an Oscar
nomination, and in this excellent film, we can see why. She uses these 70
cinematic minutes to patiently, methodically and convincingly dismantle
any possible remaining arguments against the reality of what was done to the
American democratic process in 2004, primarily in Ohio.
With neither hysteria nor hyperbole, she presents a series
of interviews with voters, election officials, writers and experts who have
followed the theft since before it was perpetrated (by way of disclosure, brief
interviews with myself and my frequent co-author Bob Fitrakis appear in
the film). Fadiman wisely peppers the piece with clever, on-point clips
from the major media, most importantly from Comedy Central.
The frequent appearances of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., add
grativas. He has just, after all, used Rolling Stone Magazine to drop
another major bomb on the credibility of a voting process which has been
thoroughly raped by the Republican Party, with results that can only be
described as being somewhere between catastrophic and apocalyptic. Much
of Kennedy's research has derived from the dogged work of Ohio's unsung
grassroots election protection network making his appearances all the more
relevant.
The sum effect of STEALING AMERICA: Vote by Vote is to
enable us to understand in no uncertain terms that we either act on this issue,
or we lose what few threads remain of our precious democracy. Fadiman
wisely ends STEALING AMERICA with first-person testimonials of citizens
who have taken the issue into their own hands, as did our nation's
founders more than 200 years ago, in opposition to another George.
May we be once again successful, and perhaps, this
time, even a bit wiser. The founders, after all, left the door open for
electronic voting machines. This time, we know better.
Harvey
Wasserman is co-author, with Bob Fitrakis and Steve Rosenfeld, of WHAT HAPPENED
IN OHIO?, just published by the New Press. He
is author of SOLARTOPIA! and HARVEY WASSERMAN'S HISTORY OF THE U.S., available at
www.harveywasserman.com.