Bushwhacked!

Words: The Editors

Photo: Still from Boom!

As part of this year's RESFEST, we've offered our own contribution to the political discourse of this complicated election year: a collection of viral political shorts we called "Bushwhacked!" which seek to expose the true character and policies of the man Americans have been forced to endure as their president for the past four years. With election day perilously close (and the polls ominously tight), we've taken advantage of the fact that much of the work is available online to put together this Bushwhacked! primer. We encourage you to forward this page around, particularly to young people who might need some incentive to go out to the polls on Tuesday. And be sure to vote yourselves, please. Lives depend on it.

With fingers crossed and hearts aflutter, Your friends at RES

BOOM!
DIRECTOR: Michael Moore
ANIMATION: Harold Moss
FEATURING: System of a Down
On February 15, 2003, more than ten million people demonstrated around the world to protest the impending US-led Iraq war, including countless guerilla filmmakers, who captured people's feelings from London to LA, Johannesburg to Tel Aviv. Celebrated documentarian Michael Moore wove their footage into a rousing statement of civil engagement, with an additional animated sequence by Harold Moss depicting the war's key players sitting astride plummeting missiles, Strangelove style. Boom is a video for the alt-metal combo System of a Down.
Watch in Real.
www.systemofadownonline.com/vid/boom.htm

BUSH FOR PEACE
BY: Jen Simmons and Sarah Christman
On March 17, 2003, President George W. Bush addressed the nation, claiming that weapons inspections in Iraq had failed, so America was forced to go to war. The networks dubbed the speech "Moment of Truth," a title which seems more erroneous with each passing day. Hoping to find out what a real moment of truth might sound like, Sarah Christman and Jen Simmons edited the Commander-in-Chief's remarks to articulate a radically different policy perspective.
Watch in High Speed or Low Speed Quicktime or High Speed or Low Speed Real.
www.bushforpeace.us

BUSHWHACKED 2
DIRECTOR: "David Smab"
Politicians talk a lot about their plans in their State of the Union addresses, but they never seem to say what's really on their mind. This skewering of George W. Bush re-edits the president's 2003 State of the Union speech to articulate a series of policy positions ranging from the laughably absurd to the terrifyingly real.
Watch in Quicktime.
www.warprecords.com/news/?offset=0&ti_id=573

CLOSER: THE FALL OF BAGHDAD
DIRECTOR: Stephen Marshall
During the War in Iraq the mainstream media was mostly content to broadcast government approved images of a bloodless, mechanized conflict marked by fetishized displays of military might and little human suffering. Closer weaves together multiple news sources to illustrate the media's construction of the war, while adding a news ticker that communicates the war's true cost.
Watch in high speed or low speed Quicktime.
www.gnn.tv/videos/video.php?id=18

THE HORRIBLY STUPID STUNT (WHICH HAS RESULTED IN HIS UNTIMELY DEATH)
DIRECTOR: The Yes Men
What would you do if you pulled off a prank so brilliant, people didn't even realize it was a prank? If you were a prankster worth your salt, you'd keep going and see how far you could take it. That's what the Yes Men did when the organizer of an legal conference in Salzberg, Austria mistook their WTO spoof site, gatt.org, for the real thing and invited them to attend. Despite their best prankster intentions, The Yes Men fit in quite well in the fast-paced world of global trade.
Watch in high speed or low speed Real.
www.konscious.com/kNcontent.html?/losthorribly.html

NOT WARRANTED
DIRECTOR: Heric Longe Abramo
Scored by a triumphant brass processional and employing a camouflage palette and dynamic armed forces iconography, this incisive motion graphics piece feels like a military propaganda film -- except it promotes the kinds of activities the military doesn't want you to think about, like "attacking peaceful people" and "killing innocent civilians."
Watch in high speed or low speed Quicktime.
www.longedesign.com/tv_popup_pages/choose_not_warranted.html

SLAM BUSH
DIRECTOR: Louis Fox
In a July speech to the National Urban League, President Bush questioned the African-American community's historic commitment to the Democratic Party. Slam Bush offers the hip-hop nation's eloquent response in the context of a mock debate. The spot is the centerpiece of the Slam Bush National Rhyme Contest, a challenge to rappers and slam poets nationwide to "debate" the president online and at local Slam Bush contests.
Watch in high speed or low speed Quicktime or high speed or low speed Windows Media.
www.slambush.net

TERROR, IRAQ, WEAPONS
DIRECTOR: Mike Nourse
One of the most important rules of thumb in a making a persuasive speech is "stay on message." Here, Mike Nourse dissects George W. Bush's message, chronologically cataloging the president's use of three favorite words in a 30-minute speech he gave in Cincinnati on October 7, 2002.
Watch in high speed or low speed Real.
www.konscious.com/kNcontent.html?/lostterror.html

WHAT BARRY SAYS
DIRECTOR: Simon Robson
Just because the US government has established a near stranglehold on the mainstream press doesn't mean it's been successful in manufacturing consent. What Barry Says is a fiercely polemical essay opposing American foreign policy and the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, accompanied by ominous, propagandistic motion graphics. London designer and animator Simon Robson conceived the project in response to his peers' apathy about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Watch in Quicktime.
www.knife-party.net

THE VOICE
DIRECTOR: Johan Söderberg
Commander-in-Chief or Brainwasher-in-Chief? This episode in Swedish cut-and-mix guerilla Johan Söderberg's ongoing Read My Lips series reimagines George W. Bush's March 2003 war speech as a not-so-subtle exercise in political mind control.
Watch.
www.atmo.se/zino.aspx?articleID=399