Voting Day in the U.S.A. and Greg Palast’s The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (2016)

November 8, 2016 | By

BestDemocracyCanBuy_poster

Today’s voting day in the United States, and Greg Palast’s 2016 doc, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (2016), is a jaunty, sometimes spastic narrative on voter suppression, and is finishing its run at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema today.

The Rolling Stones and BBC journalist has made it a professional / personal cause to keep hammering away until the actions of manipulative billionaires are exposed, harnessed, and halted. Is the doc left-wing propaganda or hard yet cheeky investigative journalism with graphics designed to tease ADD audiences?

The issue of voter suppression isn’t a light claim, and there is one aspect that has a parallel in Canada – namely the former Harper regime’s efforts to revise the Canada Elections Act and change the variety of legal documents voters would require to place their ballot at polling stations. Vouching would’ve been banished, and the poor, the shut-ins, and anyone lacking formal government I.D. would’ve been affected, and yet Harper & Co.’s claims of heavy voter fraud had been debunked by government agencies and journalists.

Presently, to get on the registered voter’s list in Canada, you bring photo I.D. and a phone bill with your current address to a polling station. A rep matches or adds your name to ensure you are who you are and are voting once, in your home turf. You get a pencil and mark an “X” and place it in a box. This is something you can do on the day of, or on advance voting days that give people more than one chance to cast their ballot.

It’s a right that shouldn’t be denied, circumvented, muddied, nor become convoluted for anyone who chooses to vote right, left, centre, protest, or wacky.

Coming very shortly: reviews of two underrated WWII suspense-dramas – Richard Marquand’s Eye of the Needle from Twilight Time, and Sean Ellis’ Anthropoid from Universal.

 

 

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

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