Show the documentary!
The Koch’s certainly spend HUGE sums to have THEIR views not only heard, but pounded into people’s brains. The least PBS, as a public network, and KVIE, as a public station, could do, is air this simple, honest documentary, “Citizen Koch.” Let people see another point of view.
“Citizen Koch” was pulled from a national public television broadcast because of fear of upsetting David Koch, who has been a major donor to public television. But public television stations should answer to viewers like us, not to billionaires like the Koch brothers.
We citizens want and need to see this important documentary about how citizens like the Kochs influence our society.
We recommend you sign this petition, and join the call for a national broadcast of “Citizen Koch” on Independent Lens.
From the Sundance Festival website:
2012, 100 minutes, color, U.S.A., U.S. Documentary
The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 lifted a century-long ban on restricted corporate election spending, unleashing a new era of unbridled special-interest campaign finance. Citizen Koch examines the mushrooming struggle between money and democracy through the dramatic lens of the 2011 standoff in Wisconsin when Governor Scott Walker, bankrolled by out-of-state billionaires, stripped state employees of their union rights.
Among a million outraged Wisconsinites, we meet individuals struggling with their Republican political loyalties as they decide whether to join the grassroots-fueled recall of Walker, a GOP rising star and Tea Party favorite. Meanwhile, on a national level, former Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer watches his Republican presidential campaign fizzle as he refuses, on principle, donations of more than a hundred dollars and gets outspent and drowned out by Super PAC–funded opponents. Combining intimate vérité scenes and a big-picture–style investigative exposé, Citizen Koch probes behind the headlines to penetrate one of the core issues of our time: Who really has the power in America—private donors or the voting public? – C. L.
About the Directors
Carl Deal and Tia Lessin were nominated for an Academy Award in 2009 for Trouble the Water, winner of the documentary Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and the Gotham Independent Film Award for best documentary. They coproduced Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and Capitalism: A Love Story and have contributed to many other films. Their work has been generously supported by the Ford, MacArthur, and Bertha foundations, Cinereach, Creative Capital, and the Sundance Documentary Film Program.
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