Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

To the few who still think this country is better off now than it was eight years ago, just move along, or stamp an NH on the review. If the events of the past eight years haven't convinced you of the incompetence of our current President, George W. Bush, I doubt my review or this DVD will.

Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy isn't just about the pathetic presidency of George W. Bush. It shows how the family has used their influence through the years to insulate the President from the ramifications of his actions and inaction. Although the right-wing frequently lobs the label "elitist" at those on the left who seem to actually engage their brain on a regular basis, the label seems to fit more properly on the soon-to-be ex-President who didn't mind using family connections and influence to better his station in life, whether it was morally correct to do so or not.

One of the main focuses of Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy is the President's military service, or lack thereof depending on how you view it. The film shows the footage of Bush landing the plane on the aircraft carrier. You know the one - where "Mission Accomplished" was unfurled on a banner in the background.
Contrast that with the testimony of Bill White, a former fighter pilot, who sees through the scripted persona and public image to the weasel the man and his family truly is. White weighs in that a politician who didn't have the guts to go do that himself in Viet Nam put on "our" uniform and then proceeds to go out on "our" aircraft carrier and grandstand as if he's some type of hero is a disgrace to everyone else who did serve. White's testimony is perhaps the most damning on the DVD in that he dispels much of the rhetoric that surrounds the President and his supposed military service. Bill White went through the Guard himself and knows the procedure for getting an appointment and the requirements to keep one's appointment in the Guard and not be sent to one of the branches of the military which was seeing action at the time. White tells us just how well orchestrated Bush's draft-dodging was. Of course, this was all done courtesy of the connections the Bush family had in place.

You see, George W. Bush applied to go into the National Guard just 12 days before he was eligible to be drafted. There were 100,000 names in front of his. In addition, there is a test to take before you're deemed qualified for the Guard. Bush scored 25 out of 100. And yet he managed to get into the Guard ahead of all those other names.

What makes Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy a bit different from similar documentaries is that real people who were there during the events in question testify to things that happened, such as the assistant to the General who was in charge of Bush's National Guard records talking about the phone call they received to shred the records. I don't understand how the same people who vilified John Kerry can defend someone who was so obviously a draft dodger who used his political connections to get out of service. These are people who were in the military at the time testifying as to what happened, and according to the followers of our current President. they can't be believed. Yet people who are on payrolls of right-wing publications can write whatever they want with no facts to back them up and these same people take that as gospel. Do people just intentionally bury their heads in the sand because lies sound better to them than the truth? Or have we truly become a nation of people where "truth" has become something subjective rather than based on facts?

National Guard Service - or lack thereof - is not the only subject discussed nor is it the only area where the Bush family used their money and influence to benefit themselves. Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy also delves into the mess in Florida in 2000. I think a better job was done on this subject by other documentaries, but this one manages to cover the basics pretty thoroughly. With some 94,000 people erroneously purged from the voter roles after being tagged as felons when they weren't, that makes for an election that we would have asked to be declared invalid were it happening in a third world country.

Another contributor to the testimony here is Jim Hightower from Texas. He was an Agricultural Commissioner and now is a fairly well-known radio personality and is considered to be a Populist as well as a Progressive Democrat. Listening to him is refreshing and aggravating at the same time. He's an intelligent person who can detail just how many major corporations benefited by backing Bush in the elections.

They detail the outright lies told by Bush about his relationships with the likes of Ken Lay using video evidence to show him saying he may have met him once and then show both him and his father in a video for Enron. Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy does a good job making its case not through people who just talk or rant about something, but instead presents the contrasts in the public stories and what actually has happened through the use of documents and actual video evidence.

Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy also shows how Bush capitalized on his father's position in his younger years. When every other Joe off the street would have faltered raising capital for ventures that were questionable, George W. Bush had no trouble. He had backing for his company Arbusto, through a man by the name of James Bath. Where did Bath get the money to fund Arbusto? From a family named Binladen...

Finally, for those who say that was in the past and things have been different since he took office, there's the testimony of Stephen Push, a representative of the group Families of September 11th. He talks about the stonewalling they have had from our own government in attempting to get files pertaining to Saudi involvement in the 9/11 terror attacks. I guess all the money that helped float Arbusto all those years ago finally paid off for them.

Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy was put together by a BBC television crew. It does seem more like investigative journalism the likes we used to see by reporters that now seems to be shunned in an age of corporate journalism. Unfortunately, it does lose some of its impact when it tries to entertain rather than just present the facts and the testimony of people who seem to want to be heard as they weigh in on events that took place. There does seem to be a common thread among many of the participants of unraveling the fairy tale that's been foisted on the public. What this documentary does more than anything else is make me question just why none of this was looked into harder many years ago, when George W. Bush first began running for office in Texas. Where were our investigative reporters delving into his background when he was first running for Governor of Texas? Since I would like to believe that the majority of voters would be able to recognize the truth and make their choices based on it, this is information that should have come to light a long time ago.

There is one Bonus Feature on the DVD which is an Interview with Filmmaker & Author Greg Palast by KGNU & Free Speech Television in April of 2003. He's an American journalist who has been prevented from reporting his findings in this country, and has had to go to Europe and Asia to report on this country. Listening to him, he has a lot more faith in Americans than I do.

Many of the issues raised in Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy have been raised since George W. Bush first began running for President. The material is not all that new or revealing to anyone who's been paying attention the last eight years. What I did see was a film that really made me think harder about the state of our news and journalism in this country.

Personally, I think there's a special place in hell for all of these people.


Other "political" movie reviews:

An Inconvenient Truth ~ The Big One ~ Blue Gold: World Water Wars ~ Born on the Fourth of July ~ Bowling For Columbine ~ A Crude Awakening ~ Democracy University: Volume One ~ The End of Suburbia ~ Fahrenheit 9/11 ~ Farmingville ~ FLOW: For Love of Water ~ The Ground Truth ~ Giuliani Time ~ Hacking Democracy ~ Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train ~ The Hunting of the President ~ The Insider ~ Iraq For Sale ~ Jesus Camp ~ J.F.K. ~ JFK: The Case for Conspiracy ~ Lake of Fire ~ The Laramie Project ~ The Murder of JFK ~ No End In Sight ~ Outfoxed ~ Outrage ~ Religulous ~ Roger and Me ~ Senator Obama Goes to Africa ~ Teddy Roosevelt: An American Lion ~ Terrorstorm ~ This Divided State ~ Truman ~ Truman: The 33rd President ~ The Unforeseen ~ War Feels Like War ~ War Made Easy ~ What Would Jesus Buy? ~ With God On Our Side



© 2008 Patti Aliventi