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Washington, You're Fired
Wisdom of Patriot Act Questioned by
Consciousness-Raising Documentary
DVD Review by Kam Williams
If
you’ve seen Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, you might remember the
comical scene where John Conyers (D-MI) freely admits that neither he
nor probably any other members of Congress had actually bothered to read
the Patriot Act before allowing it to become the law of the land. Well,
Washington, You're Fired is a rabble-rousing call to arms
that retraces the bill’s legislative history
to expose the 11th-hour shenanigans employed by the Bush
Administration to get it passed.
For,
according to filmmaker William Lewis, narrator of this incendiary
documentary, we the people were abandoned by our representatives who
irresponsibly gave away an array of our supposedly inalienable rights
because they were being pressured in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist
attack. Lewis says that the 800+ page bill that they voted on had been
replaced at the last minute by a version written by Viet Dinh, a
Harvard-educated lawyer working at the direction of Attorney General
John Ashcroft.
Because the members of Congress had capitulated to intimidation rather
than take the time to assess the Patriot Act point-by-point, Mr. Lewis
says that they violated their Constitutional oaths and thus deserve to
be kicked out of office for selling the electorate down the river. If
even half of what he alleges is true over the course of this
consciousness-raising expose’, then maybe it is high time we heed his
advice and throw the bums out, and replace both Republicans and
Democrats alike with ordinary folks willing to restore the panoply of
rights lost in the wake of 9/11.
Watch
out, Congress, if this grass roots movement does develop traction,
you’re fired!
Unrated
Running time: 77 minutes
Studio: Bridge Stone Media Group
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Lloyd Kam Williams
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 Lloyd
Kam Williams is a syndicated film and book critic who
writes for 100+ publications around the U.S. and Canada. He is a member of
the African-American Film Critics Association, the New York Film Critics
Online, the NAACP Image Awards Nominating Committee, and Rotten Tomatoes. In
addition to a BA in Black Studies from Cornell, he has an MA in English from
Brown, an MBA from The Wharton School, and a JD from Boston University. Kam
lives in Princeton, NJ with his wife and son.
IMDiversity.com is committed to presenting diverse points of view.
However, the viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of
the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or
employees at IMD.
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