Product Details

• Actors: Barbara Bush, George Bush, Prescott Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton
• Directors: Steven Grandison
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: The Disinformation Company
• DVD Release Date: September 28, 2004
• Run Time: 61 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0002T7YWQ
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #41,301 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Bush Family Fortunes - The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

In Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, journalist Greg Palast argues persuasively that George W. Bush was allowed into the Air National Guard ahead of other applicants due to his political connections; paints a damning portrait of how over 90,000 Florida voters, predominantly black, were prevented from voting in the 2000 election; discusses the number of government contracts handed out to large corporate donors to Bush's campaign--and that's just the first half-hour. Palast doesn't have the cinematic savvy of Michael Moore, but Bush Family Fortunes acts as a valuable corollary to Fahrenheit 9/11, exploring certain facets of the same argument--specifically, that the Bush family is detrimentally tied to both the Saudi Arabian ruling elite and the American oil industry, with whom they trade influence and money for mutual benefit. Palast's investigations will stir the blood of any Democrat and may raise doubts in some Republicans. -- Bret Fetzer

Product Description

Greg palast has been following the bush family around for years as an investigative reporter for the bbc. This is some of the information he has found as recorded in his book the best democracy money can buy. Studio: Wea-des Moines Video Release Date: 09/28/2004 Run time: 62 minutes

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

264 of 288 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Meet The Man Who Saw Bush's Guard Records Shredded!, August 24, 2004

By	Alice June Milligan - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

And tells about it on camera, loud and clear! Anyone who views this DVD knows why the American TV networks didn't air it: too much truth, too much documentation, too much honesty. I live in Asia and have friends living in Europe. This program was shown on TV on those two continents, but not in N. America.
Why? Because it also tells exactly how the 2000 election was stolen - gives the names of the people involved, the companies involved, and lets us know that the contracts for this infamy were given out months in advance. What's keeping them from doing it again? This DVD should be viewed by all Americans.

91 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Liberal propoganda or not?, October 4, 2004

By	Richard Melvin (Atlanta, GA. USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I find it ironic that the previous reviewer(s) label Greg Palast as a liberal propogandist because this reveals they did not read his book, 'The Best Democracy Money Can Buy'. Palast is an old-fashioned muckraking journalist who will report the mis-deeds of those with conservative, liberal and moderate persuasions. To give some background, in his book he exposes misdeeds by the Bushs, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Pat Robertson, the World Bank, environmentalists, major corporations......and if this is giving you the perception that the ball part of Palast's 'ball point pen' is a wrecking ball, you are correct. Investigative reporting has no credability if it is biased in any way shape and form and Palast is relentless to find the truth, no matter how offensive it is. Palast even exposes himself: the one-time he took the money and ran from an investigative report. This is totally indicative of the truthfulness and uncompromising nature of his reportage in both the book and DVD. This documentary could have easily been called 'Lewinsky, the snorting Koch brothers, and the reason why Bill Clinton should have been impeached'.

But the subject matter at hand is the all-American Bush family and Palast, as usual, gives no quarter. He reports on the 2000 stolen election; how the Iraq invasion was actually planned in the year 2001; how W. jumped ahead of 'thousands' of applicants to get into the Texan National Air Guard with a score of 25 on his entrance exam. This score places W. at one point above the "too-dumb-to-fly-status". Etc, etc, etc. For those who think the Bush family is being wronged just consider some of the historic offences accumulated by the Bush clan.

In 1918, Prescott Bush and two friends crept into the cemetery near Fort Sill and pried open the grave of Geronimo and removed the head. It was cleaned and sent to New Haven where it was used in some ritualistic manner by later Bushs.

Excuse me. Isn't this called grave robbing?

George Walker, GW's great-grandfather and Prescott Bush were both in business with the Nazis. GW made money of of I.G. Farben, the loving company who made Zyklon B gas used you know where. Ole GW hired John Foster Dullas to hide the funds they were making from Nazi investments and the funds they were sending to Nazi Germany, rather than divest. Hmmmmm......

Prescott Bush managed the Silesian-American Corporation along with his father-in-law George Herbert Walker. This company was vital in supplying coal to the Nazi war industry and was seized as a Nazi-front on November 17, 1942 by the US government. The largest company Bush's UBC helped finance was the German Steel Trust, responsible for between one-third and one-half of Nazi iron and explosives. I suppose it is just another case of unwarrented government regulation. How dare the feds prevent the Bushs from making money from the Nazis. Long live the free market!!!

The Bush family misdeeds include Neal Bush, Jeb Bush, Jonathon Bush, Jeb son's George, Jeb's son John, Laura Bush, Jeanna Bush....................so it's just another episode of 'All In The Family'. My only question is, who represents 'dingbat' and 'meathead'? Oh Ahrrchie.....

As for the film BFF, its production values are not on the exalted level as 'Fahrenheit 9/11' but, or perhaps because of this, the revealed facts seem stark and more damaging that those in F.911.

My only caveat has nothing to do with Palasts reportage but with one of its featured interviewees. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett, the man in BFF who stated he watched parts of Bush's National Guard records being shredded, is the person who gave Dan Rather the 'newly found' (questionable) papers that stated Bush was given preferential treatment to avoid going to Vietnam. Rather had to apologize to Bush on natioinal television over the flap. OK. But as any active news junkie knows, Dr. Yoshi Tsurumi, one of W's Harvard business professors from the early 70's stated Bush told him, "he admitted to me that to avoid the Vietnam draft, he had his dad -- he said 'Dad's friends' -- skip him through the long waiting list to get him into the Texas National Guard." So Palast could dump Burkett and substitute Tsurumi to draw the same conclusion.

The point to this lengthy review is to encourage those with reservations about Bush Family Fortunes to watch this DVD and then read his book 'The Best Money Democracy Can Buy' to give the documentary its proper context. As Eugene O'Neal once stated, 'the truth is never bad'. Yes, this is true, but the truth can be awfully embarrassing to the Bushs.

Watch this documentary.

182 of 202 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good Special, September 14, 2004

By	J. Henson "smaftymac.com" (Washington, The State) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Living in our modern world I was able to snag a copy off of the internet, it was shown on BBC 3 and what Greg Palast calls the electronic Berlin Wall is and was still in effect Americans weren't lucky enough to get a peek; until now.

Greg Palast exposes the charmed life of George Dubya Bush through his dealings with the Texas air national guard through the theft of the White House in 2000 and does so with snarky commentary AND documented proof.

I recommend this to everyone, no matter what your political leanings are it's important to know both sides of the story.