Film Review: "Stealing America...Vote by Vote"

"Stealing America...Vote by Vote "
A Film by Dorothy Fadiman
Ohio Premier at the Drexel Gateway Theater, Columbus, Ohio Sunday, September 24, 7:30 pm.

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 credibilty 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 grasswork 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.

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