by Tom Laughlin

  The outrage of the day is so mind boggling that is has prompted my wife and I (Delores Taylor, the star of the Billy Jack films) to take a drastic step. We announced this week on our website that we are making the never-before available film, Billy Jack Goes to Washington, available on home video. What's the connection, you might ask?
  The connection is that when Warren Rudman resigned from the Senate he said "The Senate is so corrupt it can't function anymore," and no film has ever come close to showing in detail how unbelievably corrupt the US Senate is behind closed doors as Billy Jack Goes to Washington, and among all of the literally heinous acts of deception and deceit and corruption that has flooded out from the White House and the US Capitol this year, none is more frightening and has a longer range destructive impact on the future of our children than Congress's actions on curbing violence in the entertainment media, incredibly modest and common sense requesting that guns have safety locks on them, and above all, the, hard as it is to believe, internal warfare going on between the parties over the discovery of the most massive act of treason in American history.
  The headline of the Los Angeles Times reads, "Critics Assail Contents of Report on China Spying … Republicans and Democrats Blame Each Other in Controversy." In less time than it took to produce the Cox Report, on a treasonous sellout that anyone who can look 25 years into the future can see endangers the life of our children and grandchildren, the Rosenbergs were arrested, tried, convicted and executed.
  Here is the terrifying point -- and it is terrifying. Instead of every American, every politician and especially everyone "inside the Beltway" clamoring to arrest the people who have been betraying this country for so long, and seeking every possible way to stop this leak of vital information and prevent it from ever happening again, the Republicans and Democrats are turning it into just another political football, a game to be played for political advantage instead of being totally focused on what's good for America, just like they did the Lewinsky affair.
  Since when did America get divided into two good ol' boy fraternities called the Republicans and Democrats, each party of which has, what, two million members? Since when did elected representatives abdicate their responsibility to do what's right for the country and the people they represent?
  Since America became a Plutocracy, a corporate Oligarchy, totally run for the benefit of the extremely wealthy multinational corporations -- and if you think that's an exaggeration, the accompanying article is a spin piece put out by computer executives shouting out that the curbs put on the open door Chinese spying would not help protect our national security, but would only hurt their sales, i.e. profits. Is there anyone dumb enough to bet against these computer giants getting those restrictions waived? 
  Is there anyone out there who is as angry as I am about the unrelenting con job, called spin control, the Washington powerbrokers put on their if not questionable, openly illegal, acts, and in days gone by delivering confidential national security information to another country did fall into the category of treason. Ask Pollard or the Rosenbergs. (And Pollard spied for America's satellite government in the Mid-East.)
  In Billy Jack Goes to Washington there are a number of scenes which will show you the skill with which the Washington politicians deceive and manipulate us. One is when Billy Jack, a newly appointed Senator tells the press he's voting no on a bill because that's the way his mentor and senior Senator, E.G. Marshall, has told him that's how he would be voting. Billy steps on the Senate floor to hear E.G. Marshall passionately delivering a speech urging immediate passage of the bill. When he's done Billy Jack rushes up to him and says, "Senator, I just told the press we're voting no."
  E.G. Marshall says, "We are voting no, Billy."
  Billy replies. "But I just heard you urging immediate passage of the bill."
  E.G. Marshall then says, "That's right, Billy. Half the people back home want us to vote no, half want us to vote yes. This way there's a little something for everybody."
  Billy Jack: "But this is an extremely important bill."
  EG: "Exactly. That's why it will be referred back to the Committee and a commission appointed to study it further. It will be buried and no one will even remember it."
  Sound far fetched? Remember the phony summit hearing on how to curb violence at the White House? Or the equally phony Senator Lieberman hearings on entertainment violence? What did they do when Senator Hollings proposed an extremely modest first step in protecting our children, the prohibition of showing violence during prime time hours and during children's programming. It failed by a vote of 59-40 -- and voting against it were many of those same Senators crying out that we have to do something to protect our children from media violence.
  Oh, yeah, guess what the Senate did agree to? To appoint a commission to study whether or not movies, TV and video games have an impact in creating violence in our young people. That's like asking if getting hit with a baseball bat in the face has a destructive impact.
  This is only one small example of what you will learn about in Billy Jack Goes to Washington as to how we the people have been totally stripped of all of our power and are constantly being played for the fool. Though China in twenty five years will become mighty nuclear arsenal, and though China constantly passes on nuclear secrets to other Third World countries, further destabilizing our world, the Republicans and Democrats, the Good Ol' Boys Club, play games with our lives, the future of this country, and get on television giving the same spin Billy Jack encountered in the movie. Only this time it's no movie.

return to politics page