Aaron Russo

Aaron Russo is an American entertainment businessman, film maker, Libertarian political figure, and tax protester.

Aaron Russo promoting his latest film, America: Freedom to Fascism in Cannes, France during the Cannes Film Festival 2006.

Entertainment Career

During his career in the entertainment industry, Russo was manager for Bette Midler from 1972 to 1979 [1] and The Manhattan Transfer, and the producer of the films The Rose and Trading Places. He also produced Wise Guys. Russo has stated that he was the first person to book Led Zeppelin in a United States venue, (the "Electric Circus," Chicago,1968, later named the "Kinetic Playground").

He was awarded an Emmy for a Bette Midler TV special, and a gold record for producing the Soundtrack to The Rose.

Russo also took one shot at directing with 1989's Rude Awakening.

Russo's films, which include Trading Places (starring Eddie Murphy) and The Rose (starring Bette Midler), have received six academy award nominations. Russo has personally won both an Emmy and a Tony award and his films have also won a number of Golden Globe awards.

Political career

Russo became political in the early 1990s when he produced and starred in a video entitled Mad As Hell in which he criticized NAFTA, The War on Drugs, the concept of a National Identity Card, and government regulation of alternative medicine.

Russo ran in the Republican primary for governor of Nevada in 1998, placing second with 26% of the vote. He then endorsed the Democratic candidate, Las Vegas mayor Jan Laverty Jones, who lost to Republican Kenny Guinn. Russo subsequently planned to run for governor in 2002 as an independent or a Libertarian, but he was temporarily sidelined by cancer.

In January 2004, he declared his candidacy for the President of the United States as an independent, then decided to run for Libertarian Party's nomination. While some considered Russo's style crude and even insulting [2], others argued his media experience would enable him to pose a serious threat to incumbent President George W. Bush, pulling enough votes from otherwise likely Bush voters to affect the outcome in battleground states, in the same way that Ralph Nader was considered to be in relation to Democrat John Kerry.[3][4][5]

At the Libertarian National Convention in May 2004, Russo received 258 votes, as opposed to 256 for Michael Badnarik and 246 for Gary Nolan, a majority being required to receive the presidential nomination. Russo went on to be defeated on the third and final ballot by nominee Badnarik by a vote of 423-344.

America: Freedom To Fascism

Russo directed, produced, and wrote America: Freedom to Fascism, a documentary that, among other claims, restates the arguments of tax protesters regarding the U.S. Federal income tax.

In a review, The New York Times notes that early in the film Mr. Russo, who has more than $2 million of tax liens filed against him by the Internal Revenue Service and various states, asserts that every president since Woodrow Wilson and every member of Congress has perpetrated a hoax to tax people’s wages and issue them dubious currency.

The documentary includes interviews with a host of people denying the legitimacy of the income-tax laws, including Irwin Schiff, now serving his third prison term for tax crimes. The Times notes that Schiff introduced into his criminal case the notes of his psychiatrist, who concluded that Mr. Schiff is delusional, believing he alone could properly interpret the tax code, as a way to avoid acknowledging reality.

Stances

• Supports the immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, and encourages the Iraqi people to become self-reliant.
• Supports the immediate repeal of the USA PATRIOT Act.
• Supports cutting both spending and taxes.
• Opposes the income tax.
• Supports medical marijuana.
• Supports weakening the influence and control of the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Reserve System over the economy.
• Strongly opposes gun control.
• Opposes globalization.
• Unlike many Libertarians, he does not support allowing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
• Demands that the IRS "in a public forum, reveal the law that requires Americans to pay" the federal income tax. See also tax protester arguments.
• Supports a gold standard.
• Opposes computerized voting.
• Demands an audit of the Fort Knox Bullion Depository.
• Believes abortion is a state and not a federal issue.

Sources

• Johnston, David Cay (2006-07-31). "Facts Refute Filmmaker’s Assertions on Income Tax in ‘America’". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/movies/31russ.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1. Retrieved 2006-07-31. 

External links

• Internet Movie Database page for Aaron Russo
• America: Freedom to Fascism
• Downloadable audio interview with Scott Horton
• Video and Transcript of Conscious Media Network interview