Soros Embraces Two Who Plotted to Kill Republicans

[marshabar1]

Soros-Funded Documentary Embraces Left-Wing Terrorists Who Plotted To Kill Republicans


by Matthew Vadum

Radical philanthropist George Soros is bankrolling a documentary that celebrates left-wing terrorists who plotted to napalm Republicans at the 2008 GOP convention in Minnesota. Even worse, you too are bankrolling the film through your taxes.

You can be sure that if right-wing terrorists were plotting to attack the Democratic National Convention, whoever foiled that conspiracy would be immortalized in film, literature and song as a savior of democracy.


“If you flip the equation around and it had been a group of conservatives threatening to use force to prevent those on the Left from meeting, everyone would expect the government to infiltrate them and they would also expect the FBI to stop them and charge them with crimes,” said Brandon Darby, who helped the FBI thwart the planned attack.

A trailer for the left-wing film Better This World suggests that it depicts David Guy McKay and Bradley Neil Crowder as idealistic activists who, according to the official blurb, “set out to prove the strength of their political convictions to themselves and their mentor.” (Note: There was a functioning trailer when I wrote this post a few days ago, but it no longer appears to be working. -MV) In fact McKay and Crowder are convicted domestic terrorists who manufactured instruments of death calculated to inflict maximum pain and bodily harm on people whose political views they disagreed with.

The movie attacks a true American hero, Brandon Darby, who undermined the conspiracy by alerting the FBI. Filmmakers Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega twist the facts to argue that Darby, a former revolutionary activist, manipulated McKay and Crowder into becoming would-be mass murderers.

It’s an easily disproved lie.

During sentencing, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis went out of his way to make a specific legal finding that McKay obstructed justice by falsely accusing Darby of inducing him to manufacture the incendiary devices.

McKay and Crowder had made homemade riot shields and were ready to use them in St. Paul to help demonstrators block streets near the Xcel Energy Center. The goal was to shut down the democratic process by preventing GOP delegates from participating in the convention. The shields were discovered and confiscated.

During a search of a St. Paul residence, police found gas masks, slingshots, helmets, knee pads and eight Molotov cocktails consisting of bottles filled with gasoline with attached wicks made from tampons. “They mixed gasoline with oil so it would stick to clothing and skin and burn longer,” Darby said.



Thanks to Darby’s cooperation with the FBI, the two aspiring bomb throwers are now languishing in prison. McKay entered a “guilty” plea and was sentenced in May 2009 to 48 months in prison plus three years of supervised release for possession of an unregistered “firearm,” illegal manufacture of a firearm and possession of a firearm with no serial number. A week before, Crowder cut a deal with prosecutors and was sentenced to 24 months in prison for possession of an unregistered firearm.

McKay received the stiffer sentence in part because he fabricated the tall tale about Darby’s involvement in the plot.

Of course, it should surprise no one that Hollywood loves this kind of story with its anti-American overtones. HBO gave a grant to the filmmakers to produce their pro-terrorist propaganda. So did the Soros-funded Sundance Institute. After Soros’s foundation, the Open Society Institute (OSI), gave Sundance’s Documentary Film Program $4.6 million in 2002, it gave the institute another $5 million in 2009.

bighollywood.breitbart.com/mvadum/2010/10/21/soros-funded-documentary-embraces-left-wing-terrorists-who-plotted-to-kill-republicans/

[Deleted]

No surprise to me. Homegrown terrorists are okay as long as they are liberal. But let some whacko shoot an abortion doc or something... let's see if any liberals jump in to defend Soros and this film. Heck.. all they wanted to do was stop Repubs from voting.. what could be wrong with that??

[mmhmm]

I can't seem to find this film on the Sundance Institutes website. They've got their films listed there, and there are some great films to watch. I'll keep watch to see if it shows up since I do visit the site when I'm looking for a little-known film to watch.

[djAdvocate]

Jun 27, 2011 16:37:29 GMT -5 mmhmm said:

I can't seem to find this film on the Sundance Institutes website. They've got their films listed there, and there are some great films to watch. I'll keep watch to see if it shows up since I do visit the site when I'm looking for a little-known film to watch.

i think you can look to the source on this one.

Breibart is somewhat less reliable than HuffPost.

[mmhmm]

Heh. I'll give anybody a chance, but it seemed a little strange to me that the purported "trailer" magically disappeared. That's what sent me looking for the film. It wasn't there. Maybe next time ...

[djAdvocate]

Jun 27, 2011 19:00:00 GMT -5 mmhmm said:

Heh. I'll give anybody a chance, but it seemed a little strange to me that the purported "trailer" magically disappeared. That's what sent me looking for the film. It wasn't there. Maybe next time ...

....and maybe not!

[marshabar1]

The trailer didn't disappear. It's in the OP.

[mmhmm]

As was the statement that the functioning trailer wasn't working, marsha. That's what lead me to look on the Sundance site for the trailer. I don't often click on links to films on YouTube. I'll look for such film, if it's available, on other sites, as I did this time. Going to the purported site, I find no such film.

[Mad Dawg Wiccan]

Reply #6 is working for me.

[marshabar1]

Jun 27, 2011 19:54:33 GMT -5 mmhmm said:

As was the statement that the functioning trailer wasn't working, marsha. That's what lead me to look on the Sundance site for the trailer. I don't often click on links to films on YouTube. I'll look for such film, if it's available, on other sites, as I did this time. Going to the purported site, I find no such film.

Are you saying that when you click on the youtube in the OP it doesn't play? It does for me. You can search "Better This World" at youtube, maybe that will work?

[marshabar1]

Interesting. At the OP website lots of links are scrubbed.

Oh well, same old same old from the left.

A trailer for the left-wing film Better This World suggests that it depicts David Guy McKay and Bradley Neil Crowder as idealistic activists who, according to the official blurb, “set out to prove the strength of their political convictions to themselves and their mentor.” (Note: There was a functioning trailer when I wrote this post a few days ago, but it no longer appears to be working. -MV) In fact McKay and Crowder are convicted domestic terrorists who manufactured instruments of death calculated to inflict maximum pain and bodily harm on people whose political views they disagreed with.

The movie attacks a true American hero, Brandon Darby, who undermined the conspiracy by alerting the FBI. Filmmakers Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega twist the facts to argue that Darby, a former revolutionary activist, manipulated McKay and Crowder into becoming would-be mass murderers.

It’s an easily disproved lie.

During sentencing, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis went out of his way to make a specific legal finding that McKay obstructed justice by falsely accusing Darby of inducing him to manufacture the incendiary devices.

McKay and Crowder had made homemade riot shields and were ready to use them in St. Paul to help demonstrators block streets near the Xcel Energy Center. The goal was to shut down the democratic process by preventing GOP delegates from participating in the convention. The shields were discovered and confiscated.

During a search of a St. Paul residence, police found gas masks, slingshots, helmets, knee pads and eight Molotov cocktails consisting of bottles filled with gasoline with attached wicks made from tampons. “They mixed gasoline with oil so it would stick to clothing and skin and burn longer,” Darby said.

same link

I went directly to youtube and did find what is billed as the trailer. Links to the Sundance site from Breitbart are scrubbed.

[mmhmm]

Perhaps, marsha, the reason for the scrubbing might just be that the attribution of the film to Sundance was, indeed, false ... rather than being just another thing to blame on "the left".

[ameiko]

Sick individuals, especially Soros. And of course, the MSM is SILENT! Too busy claiming that the peaceful Tea Partiers are evil racists while sick lefties want to napalm the GOP! I didn't even hear about this until today but, as others have said, reverse the sides and it would have been headline news that the MSM would still be screaming at us.

Once again, the MSM fails us. To be fair, Fox and others have as well but at least with them we have a chance to hear what the left doesn't want you to know. No wonder Obama and his cronies wants to unConstitutionally shut them down.

[marshabar1]

Jun 27, 2011 20:31:24 GMT -5 mmhmm said:

Perhaps, marsha, the reason for the scrubbing might just be that the attribution of the film to Sundance was, indeed, false ... rather than being just another thing to blame on "the left".

Sure Breitbart wants Sundance to sue him. You hit the links, you go to the website, the page is gone. Scrubbed.

Oh they are just good little boys who wanted to help by burning Republicans alive.

Who can blame them?

[djAdvocate]

it was never proven that MacKay was targeting people or intended to do so.

in the United States, we presume innocence until such evidence can be brought beyond a reasonable doubt.

only in places like Cuba is hearsay admissible. but i guess that is what the war on terror did to us.

i find the characterization of Soros to also be hilarious, given that he ALSO bankrolled Carlysle Corp, run by GHW Bush- hardly a bastion of leftist rebellion. but i guess that is what happens when you run money against the big guns. they use you as wallpaper.

[mmhmm]

Sure Breitbart wants Sundance to sue him. You hit the links, you go to the website, the page is gone. Scrubbed.

I'd say the scrubbing of the page indicates Breitbart DOESN'T want Sundance to sue him. Makes sense to me.

[djAdvocate]

Jun 27, 2011 21:59:22 GMT -5 @marshabar1 said:

Jun 27, 2011 20:31:24 GMT -5 mmhmm said:

Perhaps, marsha, the reason for the scrubbing might just be that the attribution of the film to Sundance was, indeed, false ... rather than being just another thing to blame on "the left".

Sure Breitbart wants Sundance to sue him. You hit the links, you go to the website, the page is gone. Scrubbed.

Oh they are just good little boys who wanted to help by burning Republicans alive.

Who can blame them?

Republicans were not targeted, Marsha. they targeted POLICE CRUISERS. there is no evidence that they targeted any people, let alone Republicans.

[lakhota]

Republicans were not targeted, Marsha. they targeted POLICE CRUISERS. there is no evidence that they targeted any people, let alone Republicans.

Please, don't confuse the issue with facts and sanity.

[marshabar1]

You're saying Breitbart hacked into the Sundance website and scrubbed pages? I doubt he'd risk everything to hack into somebody's website to get rid of something he has already exposed on their website through linking to it and writing descriptively about it. I'm not sure you understand. If you post an article here from the Huffington Post for example. And then you are sorry you posted the article because you think it might not be true, you would hack into the Huffington Post website to erase it from their newspaper so that no one else in the world could read it??

I'd think if you didn't want it in your post you would simply modify your post to get rid of it.

But the link doesn't work. Because Sundance doesn't want it to be seen. For some reason.

Perhaps because the documentary feels so sympathetic toward the poor boys who were just trying to help by burning some nasty vermin Republicans alive with napalm. You know?

That's not what Breitbart did. He wants the link to work so that people can see it.

[cereb]

Moe marshabar hysteria! Film at eleven!

[mmhmm]

Jun 27, 2011 22:17:26 GMT -5 @marshabar1 said:

You're saying Breitbart hacked into the Sundance website and scrubbed pages? I doubt he'd risk everything to hack into somebody's website to get rid of something he has already exposed on their website through linking to it and writing descriptively about it. I'm not sure you understand. If you post an article here from the Huffington Post for example. And then you are sorry you posted the article because you think it might not be true, you would hack into the Huffington Post website to erase it from their newspaper so that no one else in the world could read it??

I'd think if you didn't want it in your post you would simply modify your post to get rid of it.

But the link doesn't work. Because Sundance doesn't want it to be seen. For some reason.

Perhaps because the documentary feels so sympathetic toward the poor boys who were just trying to help by burning some nasty vermin Republicans alive with napalm. You know?

That's not what Breitbart did. He wants the link to work so that people can see it.

The link doesn't work because the material isn't there. You don't know it's been removed. You don't know it was ever there. There's no indication it was. As I said, I go there fairly often and I've never seen it. You're making an assumption, marsha, that may not be correct. While I can't guarantee Sundance didn't remove the material themselves, you can't guarantee it was ever there. Neither of us knows.

[lakhota]

Better This World

A Loteria Films presentation in co-production with the Independent Television Service and in association with Picturebox/Motto Pictures/Passion Pictures/the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley/American Documentary/POV. Produced by Katie Galloway, Kelly Duane de la Vega, Mike Nicholson. Executive producers, Julie Goldman, John Battsek, Nicole Stott. Co-producers, David Layton. Directed, written by Katie Galloway, Kelly Duane de la Vega.

With: Brad Crowder, David McKay, Brandon Darby, E.K. Wilson, Tim Gossfeld, Christopher Langert, Jeffrey Paulsen, Twila Crowder, Michael McKay, James Clark, Emily, Diana Welch, Tracey Hayes, Scott Crow, Andrew Mohring, John Wedick, Jeff DeGree. Voices: John Maringouin, J. Kevin Smith, Zach Stauffer.
A case of solid journalism that happens to be cinematically interesting, "Better This World" traces the curlicues and conspiracies surrounding the trials of two protestors arrested during the 2008 Republican National Convention. Filmmakers Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega sympathize with the protestors, but they also consider the facts of the case by listening to the key players. Result is a docu thriller with twists that will catch many by surprise. Sept. 6 airing on PBS' "POV" makes Stateside theatrical chances slim, but global biz and fest play should be terrific.

Playing out against the high drama of the GOP gathering in St. Paul, Minn., compounded by the U.S. policy of targeting terrorists as a top priority, "Better This World" delivers the kind of case study, rich in national and personal dimensions, that would have made the New Journalists of the '60s and '70s swoon. In a sense, the film represents the next generation of that movement in subject and style: The street-based opponents of the GOP vividly recall Vietnam-era protesters, and the film integrates facts and re-enactments, as well as some clearly prearranged scenes, to tell its story.

The saga centers on longtime pals Brad Crowder and David McKay, both in their early 20s and from Midland, Texas, who became increasingly active in oppositional politics before 2008. While Crowder grew up in a rodeo family, McKay developed as a self-described artist-athlete, but their shared outrage at the U.S. invasion of Iraq triggered their activism in high school.

Enter one of the more memorable figures in recent American docs: Brandon Darby, a grassroots activist with a legend as an uncompromising, kick-ass leftist, who successfully secured aid and support for displaced New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina through a group called Common Ground Relief (which he co-founded with Scott Crow). Film clips reveal Darby as a handsome figure with sharp eyes and a tough-minded sensibility.

Early in the film, the talking heads of FBI agents such as Christopher Langert abound, suggesting the Feds already had the "revolution" surrounded. In preparation for the anti-GOP demos, Darby met in Austin with McKay, Crowder and James Clark, who provides an eyewitness account of how aggressive their leader was, treating his new recruits with the kind of militant machismo more associated with Latin American anti-imperialist fighters than with American protesters.

This project took a serious turn, however, with the idea that protesters should go to St. Paul armed with bulletproof shields and even firebombs (Darby's suggestion, according to some accounts, though Crowder contradicted this notion under oath). In St. Paul, they faced, in the words of one activist, "a pervasive sense of occupation, like a police state." Clearly outmanned and outgunned, McKay and Crowder seemed to at least take up Darby's idea of bombing, but soon after dissolved the plan.

Near the midpoint, pic takes a dramatic narrative turn that skews the viewer's entire perception of what has transpired, suggesting that McKay and Crowder walked into a trap. Soon arrested, the two found themselves pitted against each other as their separate cases played out -- merely act one in a legal epic that threatened to destroy their friendship.

Galloway and Duane de la Vega have assembled a visually pleasing array of material, including a panoply of graphics (enlarging text from wiretaps and court testimony), found footage and video shot during the sometimes violent protests, plus some clever opticals (surveillance camera p.o.v. shots) that heighten the thriller mood. Tension is further raised by Greg O'Toole's ace editing and Paul Brill's engrossing score. Several re-enactment actors are listed in end credits.

Camera (color, DV), David Layton; editor, Greg O'Toole; music, Paul Brill; sound (stereo), Layton, Brian Lundy; sound designers, Leroy Clark, Shane Watson; re-recording mixer, Clark; associate producers, Josh Turiel, J. Kevin Smith. Reviewed on DVD, Los Angeles, March 10, 2011. (In SXSW Film Festival -- competing; San Francisco Film Festival) Running time: 98 MIN.

www.variety.com/review/VE1117944805/

[cereb]

This is just more hate and dishonesty. What else is new. it's a freaking documentary, and suddenly the financier is wrapping his arms around terrorists.


Warped minds come up with this crap. Sick minds embrace it as the truth.

[lakhota]

“BETTER THIS WORLD” DIRECTORS KELLY DUANE DE LA VEGA & KATIE GALLOWAY

When two young activists from Midland Texas were arrested with Molotov cocktails at the 2008 Republican convention, their story became a media sensation, but documentarians Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega couldn’t escape the feeling that there was more to this story than the good-kids-turned-domestic-terrorists version the media was reporting. So, they did what any skilled documentarians do: they took a leap of faith, jumped a plane and started talking to people involved with the case. The result is Better This World, a documentary that explores what happens when idealistic, angry young activists stop being polite and start getting mixed up with the FBI. I spoke with Galloway and Duane de la Vega as they were putting the finishing touches on their film, just in time for its premiere at SXSW.

Filmmaker: How did you decide to pursue this particular story?

Galloway: I was just sitting on a plane, and I came upon this story about an FBI informant who was going to be the star witness in a case against two young men from Midland Texas who were caught building Molotov cocktails at the Republican convention in 2008 and charged with domestic terrorism… The defense in the case of David McKay was entrapment, and the question was whether they would have been doing this if there had not been this government agent. Kelly and I had been talking about working on something together, and when we got together with our stack of ideas, she said that this one was the one. We got on a plane two days later and started filming on the eve of David McKay’s domestic trial.

Duane de la Vega: After reading the blurb, we decided to take a small financial gamble and go out there and interview all the characters and decide whether they were strong enough. Almost immediately after meeting them, we knew that the characters were strong, and the story got more and more complex. We felt confident after that first trip that there was a rich story we could tell.

Filmmaker: A lot of your other films were filmed in real time with things unfolding on camera in a traditional cinema verite sort of way. In contrast, a lot of this story took place in the past. What strategies did you use to make the past come alive onscreen?

Duane de la Vega: We took a couple of approaches. There was an incredible amount of surveillance footage of our main characters in action. We also relied on recreations that we did through the stories of as many characters and as many different perspectives as we can, including through eyes of the FBI and the prosecutors. So we tried to create very rounded recreations. We also pulled court testimony and communication between the informant and the handler. We were able to use that to create his perspective. We wove all that together and integrated it with our present day.

Galloway: We also had access to some phone calls that came as part of the court’s discovery proceedings. We were able to bring the past alive through those phone calls that happened in the moment. There’s a way that even though we’re telling a story that took place in the past, those moments still feel very alive and very present.

Filmmaker: The word terrorist is such a buzz word. Did you worry about making a film about what most people would consider incredibly unsympathetic?

Duane de la Vega: What we did is we tried to show the humanity of every major character. We let the newscasters and the prosecutors and the FBI frame them as domestic terrorists, but we allow the audience to get to know them and to get to know their childhood. Ultimately, they are who they are because they’re likable. We just give them their humanity and allow the audience to make a judgement on whether to relate to them or not. We want people to see the human beings behind the headlines.

Galloway: I didn’t come to the story thinking that they would be unlikable. I previously covered the story of the drug war and the world of informants (a documentary Snitch that aired on PBS’ Frontline), so I knew that there is always a lot more to the story than the headlines and that things aren’t as black and white as they seem… We didn’t get to meet Brad and his family for quite a while, but we spent quite a bit of time with David, and we got to like him. We didn’t agree with him, but we knew the story was more complex than just what he had done.

Filmmaker: You’re dealing with a complicated, controversial story. How did you go about fact-checking it?

Duane de la Vega: We are very dedicated to telling the story as truthfully as we can. That said, we allow our characters to have opinion and perspective, so our characters will say something that is an interpretation of fact, but our actual film is fact-checked.

Galloway: We don’t throw up our hands and say that whatever anyone says is fine. The framing of events can be something we don’t agree with our characters about, but we check our facts to make sure our framing of events is correct. We are journalists, and we do fact check.

Filmmaker: Are you going into SXSW with a distributor in place?

Duane de la Vega: We are going to be on PBS on POV in 2011, so we have domestic already in place, and we will be going to festivals through the spring and the summer up until we air on POV.

Filmmaker: Did you raise funds as you went along?

Duane de la Vega: We were essentially fundraising as we went. We lived on a shoestring for much of the time. Katie had a fellowship from UC Berkley’s school of journalism that gave us an office and some traveling money. We slowly pieced together our funding through some grants, including Sundance and the Berkley Film Foundation. Early on Film Independent gave us a FIND HBO grant that was really helpful, so we had a few smaller size grants that helped us through and then we got ITVS last summer which was when we were able to go full blast into completion.

www.filmmakermagazine.com/news/2011/03/better-this-world-directors-kelly-duane-de-la-vega-katie-galloway/

[pappyjohn99]

We let the newscasters and the prosecutors and the FBI frame them as domestic terrorists, but we allow the audience to get to know them and to get to know their childhood. Ultimately, they are who they are because they’re likable.

Such likable little guys, building cute little napalm bombs. What mother wouldn't be proud?