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Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Indiegogo Campaign for 'Under The Influence', A Documentary About Money In Politics and The People's Grassroot Response

It was a morning in Seoul, South Korea. I looked at my iPhone and the notification says that the hashtag '#EndCorruption' is trending on Twitter. It led me a series of tweets which links to the Indiegogo campaign page for fundraising the documentary Under The Influence.



The conception of documentary begins with a filmmaker named Terry Bennett and his son, Sy, who had a cancer and 9 months to live, following Doris “Granny D” Haddock, an old woman who protested against corporate money in politics by walking from California to Washington D.C.. Granny D made herself a big news by walking 10 miles a day for 14 months back in 1999, during the time John McCain and then-Senator Russ Feingold was planning to propose a campaign finance regulation. She became interested in campaign finance reform and raised an awareness by becoming a real-life Forrest Gump. She have had enough with corporate influence in political process so much. and said "We’re losing our democracy, and nothing’s being done about it.”

Granny D even ran for a Senate seat in 2004, at the age of 94. She lost but still remain active in politics until her death in 2010, and pass the torch to all of us.

After his son's death, Terry Bennett met Sam Oliver and the two realized they had a mutual passion for the subject and took to the road, following the same footsteps Granny D took. They interviewed many people and activists, including Cenk Uygur of Wolf-PAC and Ben Cohen of Stamp Stampede. They finished with interviews, but they had little money to edit footage together. The filmmakers asked the people of Indiegogo page to fund-raise a money for the editing in order to complete it.

There has been many documentaries recently about corporate influence in politics like Citizen Koch and Pay 2 Play. These movies might prove that 2010s will be the decade when the people fight back at the rigorous establishment formed by corny capitalism. Starting at the wealthiest country in world, the United States of America. 


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