Better This World

It was a pleasure to attend the World Premiere of Better This World at Austin's SXSW Film Festival. This film tells the Kafkaesque story of how two young idealistic political activists from Texas – Brad Crowder and David McKay - were charged with domestic terrorism while protesting at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, MN. Better This World raises serious questions about the abuse of civil liberties in the post-9/11 "War on Terror." The two key issues that emerge are 1) The use of government informants to entrap people into committing criminal acts and the 2) The widespread practice of using plea bargaining to entice the criminally accused into admitting guilt and accepting a lighter sentence rather than risk a much longer sentence at trial. The use of informants is an issue that is rarely discussed, but seems to be increasingly common in recent years. The issue of plea bargaining has recently been spotlighted in several films about the events in Tulia, TX and the feature film American Violet.

Both practices raise serious questions about how far the police and prosecutors will bend the rules in order to make their cases. The film is well-made and compelling examination of how the justice system acted to tear apart the lives of two young men who never hurt anyone and seemed at worst to be guilty of poor judgment. There will always be a balance between protecting civil liberties and seeking to secure justice and protect public safety. In this case and too many others in recent years, it seems as if we've failed to protect the rights of the criminally accused. As Ben Franklin told us centuries ago, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty." If we sacrifice our civil liberties, we sacrifice our democracy. Films like Better This World force us to ask difficult questions about how our democracy functions.

Better This World is scheduled for broadcast on PBS's POV in the fall. It deserves to be widely seen as we seek "a more perfect union."

David McKay and Bradley Crowder are friends from Midland, Texas. They start following Brandon Darby who started Common Cause after Katrina. Brandon is angered by the brutality and the callousness of the authorities during the crisis and frustrated by the scrutiny of Homeland Security. Under Brandon's militant leadership, they plan actions against the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. Much of this documentary comes from McKay and Crowder after they got arrested. Shockingly, Brandon Darby is revealed to be the FBI informant.

It is very possible that Darby entrapped these guys into the scheme. It's even more possible that the government is ruthless in its prosecution. Nevertheless, it's not so simple to root for these guys. At the end of the day, they were involved. This is more of a warning to all those would-be revolutionaries. It is interesting that Brandon Darby has gone full Breitbart which only shows the thin barrier between anarchist Marxist revolutionaries and conspiracy-obsessed right-wingers. The two extreme ends of the political spectrum are a lot closer than most people think.