912,548views since8-20-06, 5 stars, O'Bill says WATCH THIS!

On 3/18 the film was shown to a packed house in St. Charles, IL about an hour outside of Chicago. Before the film was presented the ... all » Chairman of the "We the People Foundation" Bob Schulz spoke for about 25 min, after the film's Director spoke, for an equal 25 min, and took questions from the audience. This is the video recording of the event.

This video starts with an opening montage using still images and KMFDM's song "New American Century" followed by a few words from the founder of the "Lone Lantern Society", Gary Franchi. It then opens with a short introduction speech then Bob Shulz speaks for 20 or so min. In the middle is the trailer for the film "America: From Freedom to Fascism", followed by words from the director himself, Aaron Russo and Q/A from the audience.

The film itself is so powerful in content that once the American people see it they will know the absolute truth about the deception played on them.

The film is tenatively scheduled for release on July 4th 2006.

Topics include: The IRS Tax Fraud The Federal Reserve Lie Real ID, Microchiping Americans Free Trade Executive Orders that can eslave the American People. And more...

Shot on location at The ARCADA Theatre by LLS founder Gary Franchi

...or for those who have highspeed dsl, and are lazy?

snood wrote:

...or for those who have highspeed dsl, and are lazy?

Even those who have T-1 lines, please give the members some idea as to why we should be interested in this.

Posted: Thurs., May 25, 2006, 8:42am PT

Aaron Russo's America from Freedom to Fascism

(Documentary)
A Cinema Libre Distribution (in the U.S.) of an All Your Freedoms production. (International sales: All Your Freedoms, Beverly Hills.) Produced, directed, written by Aaron Russo.

With: Aaron Russo; Sheldon Cohen, John Turner, Joe Banister, Sherry Jackson, Irwin Schiff, Bill Murphy, Ron Paul, Edwin Viera, C. Edward Griffin.


By LESLIE FELPERIN



"To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men," once wrote statesman Edmund Burke, and multi-hyphenate Aaron Russo is clearly one very displeased guy judging by "Aaron Russo's America From Freedom to Fascism." Libertarian-positioned docu argues almost persuasively that U.S. citizens are not legally required to pay federal income tax, and much less convincingly that country is becoming a police state via new identity laws. Pic should nevertheless stir interest when released domestically by indie distribs Cinema Libre, which has handled such similar dissenting, grassroots-marketed polemics as "Outfoxed" and "Embedded."

Eclectic resume of pic's writer-helmer-producer-narrator-presenter Russo includes manufacturing underwear, managing Bette Midler in her early years, producing boffo comedy "Trading Places," running for president on the Libertarian ticket in 2004, and making a melange of standup comedy and speechifying in "Aaron Russo's Mad as Hell," which was self-distributed on video.

With his warm Brooklyn accent and affectedly folksy manner, Russo has a genial-cum-pugnacious presence onscreen and a knack for boiling down complex arguments and issues into easily digestible, "Global Economics for Dummies" sound bites.

Cornerstone contention in "Freedom to Fascism" is that the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was never properly ratified, an argument popularized in Bill Benson's controversial book "The Law That Never Was," that's cited here. Along with the foundation of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913, introduction of federal tax system is described by Bob Schulz of the We the People Foundation, as the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated by government against the working men and women of America."

To support this point, Russo deploys interviews with former IRS agents who have joined pressure groups to fight imposition of federal tax. Other means of cinematic persuasion include cartoons, solemnly presented quotes from various illustrious (Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Goethe no less) and (in pic's view) notorious figures (banker David Rockefeller). All this is backed by ominous music, and quick inserts from popular movies to underscore points humorously. This is redolent of campaign advertising, but less convincing as journalism.One doesn't have to be a pro-Federalist to feel Russo's tendency to use shot-reverse-shots in interviews with those opposed to his view -- such as gamely participating former Tax Commissioner Sheldon Cohen --creates the impression that rhetorical sleight of hand is being used to undermine counter-argument.

However, the strong case built in pic's first half is weakened by the vaguely argued contention in the second that the land of the free is becoming anything but. Attack focuses on the Federal Reserve, the Patriot Act, the abolition of the gold standard, and not-yet-ratified plans to introduce identity chips on currency and in citizens in the future.

Film ends with rabble-rousing call to Americans to rise up through civil disobedience, refuse to vote for politicians not calling for the abolition of the Federal Reserve, resist imposition of ID cards, abolish computer voting, and don't believe the media. In short, vote Libertarian. Tech package is on a par with low-budget TV docs.

Camera (color, DV-to-35mm), James Salisbury; editors, Russo, Gabe Miller; music, David Benoit; sound, Pam Hudgens; sound editor, Suren. Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (market), May 22, 2006. Running time: 107 MIN.

Full Review - America: Freedom To Fascism
Law-abiding Americans who hand off a solid chunk of their salaries to the IRS might be interested in what filmmaker Aaron Russo has to say on the subject of income tax. According to Russo, a Hollywood producer responsible for such films as THE ROSE and TRADING PLACES, the land of the free hasn't been all that free since 1913, when the first of two frauds changed the United States forever. A handful of powerful bankers ?- including J.P. Morgan, Paul Warburg and John D. Rockefeller ?- pressured the U.S. government into passing the 16th Amendment, the so-called "income tax amendment," even though it was never legally ratified by a sufficient number of states. Why? Because these same interests engineered "fraud" No. 2, the passing of the Federal Reserve Act, later that same year: It granted a handful of powerful, privately owned banks the power to issue money and control its value. The income tax enforced by the amendment was slated to finance the resulting national debt owed these banks; in short, the tax on citizens' labor wouldn't wind up in the coffers of the U.S. government, earmarked to subsidize public services and infrastructure maintenance, but in the back pockets of a handful of capitalists. Russo, who at first seems genuinely wary of antitax activists' claims that a direct, unapportioned tax on citizens' wages and labor (as opposed to, say, a corporation's profits and gains) is unconstitutional and therefore illegal, sets for himself what initially seems a fairly straightforward task: Finding the law that requires ordinary Americans to file a 1040. But the deeper Russo digs, the less he finds, leading him to suspect what others before him (including a number of former IRS employees) came to realize: That the elusive law used by the IRS to seize Americans' lawfully gained properties and even throw them in prison simply doesn't exist, and pressuring the IRS to produce the law they use to prosecute nonfilers is at best an exercise in futility and at worst a trigger for intimidating threats of "enforcement actions." Russo is a clearly a healthy minded skeptic who tries to get both sides of the story. In addition to interviewing tax experts, attorneys and a former IRS criminal investigator, he attempts to speak with representatives from the IRS itself: Few return his calls, and Homeland Security shows up when Russo attempts to film outside the IRS offices in Washington. In the end, the unavoidable question remains: Even armed with the galling knowledge presented in Russo's film, who in his or her right mind is going to take on the IRS? --Ken Fox

It's not getting 16,000 views a day with a perfect 5 star rating from 8,000+ respondents for nothing. Almost a million people have watched it, and that's the rating... think about it.