Grass-roots movement helps 'Uncovered' reveal Bush's Iraq policy
Call it living room democracy.
When filmmaker Robert Greenwald made "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War," an "anti-administration documentary" as dubbed by the Los Angeles Times, he knew he'd have trouble getting it distributed through mainstream channels.
Fortuitously, he received some help from MoveOn.org, a political-action and electronic-advocacy Website as well as one of the film's financiers.
MoveOn sent a DVD copy of the film to 30,000 members who donated money to one of its campaigns. The site also arranged informal viewing parties - as many as 2,500 according to one count - in member's homes across the nation. Almost 950 of those house parties connected to a brief conference call after the film with Greenwald. MoveOn boasts 1.7 million members.
The parties "showed there's strength in numbers even for people who feel politically powerless," wrote Des Moines Register columnist Rekha Basu, who attended a viewing in Des Moines. "No matter what the issue, the ability to sidestep the usual channels and instantly connect communities with something in common is a monumental step forward for grass-roots activism."
"Uncovered" plays in Juneau at 7 and 8:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 22, at the Goldtown Nickelodeon. Admission is free.
Greenwald is the co-founder of Artists United to Win Without War, a group he started with M.A.S.H. star Mike Farrell (B.J. Hunnicut). Greenwald is also known for "Unprecedented," an anti-administration documentary about Florida's role in the 2000 national election.
"Uncovered" includes footage of Bush and his staff debating their reasons to attack Iraq and interviews with ex-CIA chief Stansfield Turner, weapons inspector David Albright, former senior intelligence analyst Karen Kwiatkowski, Milt Bearden of the CIA and John Dean, former counsel to Richard Nixon.
Greenwald made the movie with financial help from MoveOn.org, The Nation Institute and the Center For American Progress, a liberal think tank.
"Through Greenwald delivers no smoking guns, by assembling such a no-nonsense cast of level-headed critics, he does make a compelling case for the way the Bush Administration relied on distorted, unfounded, and even concocted evidence to convince Congress and the American people of the necessity for going to war," wrote Sarah Ferguson in the Village Voice.
"It's one thing for a President to lie about his sex life," said Al Franken, on truthuncovered.com. "It's another to lie about why we are sending our young men and women into battle."
"I don't see how anyone, Republican or Democrat, could even think about voting for Bush after watching this documentary," said singer/composer Moby, on the same site.