2012 Nov 29 - 7:00pm
We're Not BrokeAn exposé into the secret world of corporate tax dodgingThursday, November 29 in Cambridge [please download distribute & flyer]NOTE: A special, extra screening for the xmas holidays; the distributor/producers have made DVDs available for sale. The PERFECT XMAS gift! WE’RE NOT BROKE is an exposé into the secret world of corporate tax dodging. By booking profits offshore that should really be accounted for in America, multinational corporations like Exxon, Google and Bank of America are cheating our country out of an estimated $100 billion a year. All the while, America is in the grip of a tremendous recession, the likes of which have not been seen since the Great Depression. Lawmakers’ common cry of “We’re Broke!” echoes in Washington, D.C. and across the mainstream media as our elected officials slash budgets, lay off schoolteachers, police, and firefighters—crumbling the country’s social fabric and leaving many people scrambling to survive. While corporate tax avoidance has been accelerating for the past decade, and astronomical amounts of money have been lost to the U.S. Treasury, it has gone mostly unnoticed by the media and the general public. That changed in early 2011, when a small group of Americans, inspired by protests in the United Kingdom, formed a fledgling grassroots movement called US Uncut. Their goal seemed simple: Call out corporate tax dodgers and make them pay their fair share. WE’RE NOT BROKE interweaves the stories of seven US Uncut activists from across the nation: Carl Gibson, a 24-year-old college graduate from Jackson, Mississippi who can’t find gainful employment; Joanne Gifford, a California mom and unemployed high school teacher; Jim Coleman, the owner of a Chicago heating and air conditioning company who is watching his profession vanish with the sinking economy; Musician Chris Priest, 24, who laments the days when his postman grandfather could singlehandedly support a family of eight; Kira Elliot, 29, a personal trainer and Mary Kay rep. who sees her middle class clients disappear as they tighten their belts; Bobbie Arrington, a 35-year-old social worker and graduate student who’s dealing with cuts to the hospital where she sees clients; and Ryan Clayton, a charismatic 30-year-old media analyst from Washington, D.C. who, once he learned that he paid more taxes than multibillion-dollar corporations, began planning what he was sure was a coming revolution. WE’RE NOT BROKE follows the US Uncut activists to the streets as they use creative activism to protest Bank of America, Apple and FedEx. All the while, U.S. corporations continue making record profits, and then pocket billions of dollars that should rightfully go back to the American public. The tactics, their CEOs argue, are legal. But the laws are passed using shady practices that move in concert with big campaign contributions and millions in lobbying expenses. President Obama, while having campaigned on the promise of closing offshore tax loopholes, has done nothing of the kind. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle continue to coddle corporations while slashing public services that affect everyone else. Over the summer of 2011, Microsoft and Apple led a massive lobbying effort they called The Win America Campaign to get congress to give them a “tax holiday” on over a trillion dollars in profits they claimed to have earned overseas. At the same time, sparks from the US Uncut movement that began in the winter of 2011 helped flame growing feelings of injustice among America’s middle class. And in late September 2011, many US Uncut members joined Occupy Wall Street, a new movement that echoed their calls for an economically just America, and a government un-tethered from corporate greed. |
| When/where doors open 6:40; film starts promptly 7pm 243 Broadway, Cambridge - corner of Broadway and Windsor, entrance on Windsor rule19.org/videos Please join us for a stimulating night out; bring your friends! free film, free refreshments, & free door prizes. [donations are accepted] "You can't legislate good will - that comes through education." ~ Malcolm X UPandOUT film series - see rule19.org/videos Why should YOU care? It's YOUR money that pays for US/Israeli wars - on Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Palestine, Libya. Syria, Iran, So America, etc etc - for billionaire bailouts, for ever more ubiquitous US prisons, for the loss of liberty and civil rights... |
"WE’RE NOT BROKE ranks no. 1 of top 5 documentary films getting buzz at Sundance." — Christian Science Monitor “The truly infuriating doc about how US corporations cycle their profits out of the country, hiding them routinely in offshore accounts or in their Irish subsidiaries, so as to avoid paying any US taxes whatsoever – and doing so in collusion with their hired hands in Congress…The news is bittersweet and the lessons are timely.” — Namoi Wolf, The Guardian "If you suspected corporations were getting away with tax-murder, you were right—but what’s great about ‘We’re Not Broke’ is how thoroughly it enumerates the crimes, like a prosecution setting out its case. Some of the facts assembled are truly mind-bending.” — Charles Lyons, Indiewire “Kicking assets and taking names, ‘We’re Not Broke’ gets in the face of deficit hawks and budget cutters with a well-researched, brightly presented and provocative argument that the U.S. isn’t overtaxed and profligate, but rather a paradise for corporate tax cheats.” — John Anderson, Variety “A masterfully compelling film—crisp, urgent, and thoughtful…Hayes and Bruce have provided a great public service by firing out a devastating opening salvo. It’s a clarion call for change.” — Michael Dunaway, Paste Magazine “…essential viewing for those who want to understand just how we ended up in this mess in the first place.” — Noah Nelson, Huffington Post “We’re Not Broke’ names and shames a number of major US corporations which it says don’t pay their fair share of US taxes, including some based on the Island.” — Marina Mello, Royal Gazette Newspaper, Bermuda “Watch this movie and it will indicate why I support the spirit of OWS. If not every action.” Twitter @alecbaldwin "The filmmakers deftly touch on the idea that taxes are seen only as a burden, an oppression, rather than the price individuals and companies pay for the right to live, work, be educated, and do business in this country (rights which serve some populations more effectively than others)" — Gretchen Sisson, Bitch Magazine “We’re Not Broke” visually and expertly explains how ‘offshore’ banking enables the richest 1 percent and several thousand transnational corporations to avoid regulation, taxes, and accountability. . . .Unlike other documentaries about corporate abuses, ‘We’re Not Broke’ inspires viewers to see themselves as agents of change.” — Chuck Collins, IPS “In ‘We’re Not Broke,’ Hayes and Bruce, reveal shocking information about the number of U.S. companies such as Google, Chevron, Citigroup, Bank of America and GE who have made profits in the billions and managed to not pay a dime in U.S. taxes. . . For taking on such an intricate topic, they’ve done a fine job with ‘We’re Not Broke’ and have created a space where Americans can consider the effects that big business tax evasion has on life in this country.” — Jeanette D. Moses, SLUG Magazine “US multinationals make billions of dollars in profit but can pay no federal tax due to ‘legal but immoral’ tax arrangements, according to a scathing film at the Sundance film festival.” — Agence France-Presse “This remarkable work is a chilling exposé that reveals the lack of income tax paid by multi-billion dollar U.S. based corporations and the growing discontent from citizens who are paying their fair share.” — Tammy McLeod, Agrigirl’s Blog “We’re Not Broke is different from other films because it not only presents the problem; it presents what normal citizens can do to about that problem.” — Rachel Westrate, The Park City High School Prospector |
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