Usa On Trial

Subtitled The International Tribunal of Indigenous Peoples and Oppressed Nations in the USA, this set of filmed highlights from the October 2-4 session, held in San Francisco last year, features a number of spokespeople for various ethnic, political, and social groups (Native Hawaiians, Native Americans, Blacks, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Gays and Lesbians). The "testimony" ranges from the occasionally thought-provoking to the far more frequent boilerplate revolutionary. The tone is set early on when the U.S. government is charged, rather anachronistically, with genocidal crimes dating back 500 years. It's the beginning of a litany that runs something like this: "the U.S. government wages genocidal war against (fill in the minority blank)." Words and their actual meanings are not a big issue here. Although there are a few specific (undocumented) charges, most of the talk is of the "us" and "them" variety, with the whitebread U.S. govt. playing the role of convenient scapegoat. While the U.S. government has unquestionably been guilty of human rights transgressions (as shown in any number of outstanding critical documentaries), USA on Trial has no real critique to offer and certainly no plan of action, unless you want to count the burbling of a professor in my own backyard (Washington State University) who chirps: "our pernicious government will topple" as if being in such close proximity to Haight and Ashbury has triggered a major 60's Poly Sci 101 flashback. The reasoning throughout, which often makes the San Andreas Fault look like a hairline crack, is best summed up by the contingent from Mexico: they want the United States to choke on a chicken bone, but they also want the border eradicated so that they can live and work in the U.S.. Simplistic rhetoric doesn't aid some of the very real concerns of the attendees here: the U.S. government, though certainly flawed, is not a totally evil institution; racism is not a black and white affair, it's also a red, yellow, and brown affair, and throughout history it's been mix and match (white hates black, black hates yellow, etc.). USA On Trial is a one-hour vent session, in which grown-ups get to safely fantasize about overthrowing the government. It doesn't even coherently outline the problems, let alone propose realistic solutions. Not recommended. (Available from: Mission Creek Video, P.O. Box 411271, San Francisco, CA 94141-1271; (415) 695-0931.)