Facts on income tax in film "America: From Freedom to Fascism" disputed

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Facts Refute Filmmaker’s Assertions on Income Tax in ‘America’
By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
Published: July 31, 2006

Aaron Russo, the producer of films like “Trading Places” and “The Rose,” promotes his new film, “America: From Freedom to Fascism,” which opened Friday, as having had its international premiere before a packed audience “during the Cannes Film Festival.”

The film was not on the program at Cannes, however, not even for screenings made under the festival’s aegis without being in the awards competition. Mr. Russo, the film’s director, writer and producer, just set up an inflatable screen on a beach. Photographs posted at one of Mr. Russo’s Web sites depict an audience of fewer than 50 people spread out on a platform on the sand.

Hyping films with fanciful claims is nothing new in Hollywood. But examination of the assertions in Mr. Russo’s documentary, which purports to expose “two frauds” perpetrated by the federal government, taxing wages and creating the Federal Reserve to coin money, shows that they too collapse under the weight of fact.

Still, at free showings the film has drawn long lines of people eager to watch a documentary that feeds on the estrangement many Americans feel from their government, especially those who believe they played by the rules and yet see their finances strained or broken. Many of the reviews in major newspapers have accepted as having some factual basis the film’s main contention, that the government illegally extracts income taxes, even though every court that has ever ruled on these issues has upheld the constitutionality of the income tax....

***

Not mentioned in the film is that Mr. Russo has more than $2 million of tax liens filed against him by the Internal Revenue Service, California and New York for unpaid federal and state taxes. Mr. Russo declined to discuss the liens, saying they were not relevant to his film....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/movies/31russ.html

[Sammy Pepys]

1. Why this film was getting played up in DU by some...

...I will never understand.

[WoodrowFan]

5. Amazing, isn't it.

This BS comes from the hardest of the hard core right wing and has been rejected by every court that has ever looked at it. To believe Russo you'd have to believe that every single liberal Democratic politican for the past 90 years has been in on this plot.

[ixion]

2. well, I have to admit that I am no fan of income tax

especially when it is spent so poorly, on things like the destruction of the planet, illegal invasions and providing fodder for the corporate trough.

The four largest cheques I write for any given year are to the IRS. If I didn't have to write those cheques, I would have had my debts paid off long ago.

Just my two cents.

[treestar]

3. This is merely ad hominem

That there is a lien against the producer has zippo to do with the film's content.

If something is stated in the film itself that is inaccurate, they could point that out. But they don't. It is a logical fallacy to generalize about the film from the producer's personal tax issues.

Haven't seen the film and not making a judgment about the film itself, only pointing out that this attack on the film is pure bullshit.

[NYCGirl]

4. Did you read the entire article? It does talk about inaccuracies. NT

[WoodrowFan]

6. Not in this case

Since the film is an attack on taxes it's relevant that the person who made the film is himself a tax protestor. It goes to motive.

[ima_sinnic]

7. sounds like something Neal Boortz had a hand in

--that vile scumbag is always WHINING about taxes and trying to foist his scam "fair tax" on everybody. People like him have no concept of "the common good." I guess they think things like police and fire departments, highways, national parks, and (in a healthily functioning USA) emergency rescue/management should be paid for by private subscription and available only to the wealthy. Selfish pigs, I despise all greedheads who whine obsessively about taxes and think they shouldn't have to contribute anything to society,