Patriot Hero Aaron Russo Passes Away

Bitstream · Aug 24, 2007

Patriot Hero Aaron Russo Passes Away

Prison Planet
Friday, August 24, 2007

We were saddened to hear of the passing of activist, film maker, freedom fighter and all round maverick Aaron Russo today, who died today after a long battle with cancer at the age of 64.

Aaron will be remembered fondly for all his achievements, not least of which the excellent America: From Freedom to Fascism, his final movie which exposed the fraudulent basis of the IRS and the Federal Reserve.

Aaron was a real patriot who loved his country and risked his whole career to stand for the truth. He was an example to us all.

Aaron Russo was the Samuel Adams of our day, a stalwart defender of liberty, his passing is greatly mourned but his fiery spirit lives on in all of his great work and in his wife, his children and his film America From Freedom to Fascism.

Our deep condolences go out to Aaron's family and friends at this difficult time.

God Speed Aaron, we salute you.

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Below is a video interview that Alex Jones conducted with Aaron after the two were able to meet for the first time in January of this year.

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cstfx · Aug 25, 2007

wrong forum

Pa(b)st Prime · Aug 25, 2007

Quote from cstfx:

wrong forum
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Unless he died from being short gamma.....

DynamicHedge · Aug 25, 2007

Aaron Russo mentioned in one of his interviews, that in the past he was very actively trading in the financial markets.
Later, he produced the famous comedy-movie "Trading Places", here's an explanation of the climax scene of Aaron Russos' "Trading Places":

With the authentic orange crop report indicating a good harvest of fresh oranges, frozen concentrated orange juice (FCOJ) would be less important to food producers and so would be likely to drop in price once traders heard the news. However, by way of a fraudulent report, the Duke brothers are led to believe that the orange harvest would be less successful, necessitating greater demand for stockpiled FCOJ in orange products in the coming year, thereby driving the price up. By capitalizing on this knowledge (and the Duke brothers' missteps), the protagonists are able to profit by manipulating the futures market as follows: ..
Winthorpe and Valentine first "sell" FCOJ futures at roughly $1.45 per unit, a price inflated by the Dukes themselves (the Duke Brothers' buying leads other traders to believe that the Dukes are trying to corner the market, causing a buying frenzy). Then, when the price falls first as a result Winthorpe and Valentine's eager selling, then to a much greater degree upon the release of the real crop report indicating a good harvest, Winthorpe and Valentine buy futures at roughly $0.29 per unit. Thus, for every future unit they had previously sold at $1.45, they purchase a matching amount for only $0.29, resulting in a profit of over $1.20 per unit. In the futures market, the value of the contracts you can purchase is limited by the balance of your margin account with the clearinghouse. With a typical requirement of 4%, you can purchase roughly 25 times the balance of your margin account. Though it is not stated in the movie exactly how much they make, if they invested roughly $500,000 from a combination of Winthorpe/Valentine's investment, the Duke's money from buying the "fake" report from a fake Clarence Beeks (Paul Gleason) and Coleman's and Ophelia's savings, they would have turned it into over $10 million. It is strongly implied that they purchased additional futures on margin and made dozens (or hundreds) of millions more, since a lesser amount would not bankrupt the Dukes.
At the same time, the Duke brothers purchase enormous quantities of FCOJ futures, even at relatively high prices, because they incorrectly expect that the crop report (falsely suggesting a greater need for stockpiled orange juice) will create a demand at even higher prices, securing them a profit. When it turns out that the leaked report they were given was fraudulent and the true report is revealed, the price begins to plummet before they are able to sell off their contracts. So, they are left with an obligation to buy millions of units of FCOJ at a price more than a dollar per unit higher than they can sell them for, bankrupting them. The Dukes too, are trading on margin, in order to magnify their profits (or losses, as it turns out). The first words that the exchange representative says to them after their disastrous trading session are "Margin call, gentlemen," requiring them to deposit more money with the exchange to cover their open lossmaking position. Randolph whines, "You know perfectly well that we don't have $394 million in cash!" Since their open position is hundreds of millions of dollars in the red, leaving no further margin to deposit, they are effectively ruined.
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darp · Aug 25, 2007

Aaron was a character. The first time I met him blew up at me because I said something in defense of Gingrich, who Aaron thought was anti gun rights.

Later noticed that Aaron has done some excellent work on fighting news censorship, which I consider the biggest problem America has today. Did not know he was sick, but Hollywood has lost a lot of diversity with his passing. God bless him.

BTW he had a scene in which Lou Rukysier(sp) was stealing hubcaps on Wall Street.

Businessman · Aug 25, 2007

Great video. He mentions the Gold and Silver trading he did and how the IRS backdated law to screw traders retrospectively.

rickty · Aug 25, 2007

You can freely view Russo's movie "America: Freedom to Fascism", which he mentions in the interview, here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173

Very compelling.

piezoe · Aug 25, 2007

Wrong forum but thanks anyway. Russo is a kook, God bless him. We definitely need more like him. His conspiracy hypotheses are improbable, but manipulation of events and their use to further ones political or power agenda is common, and unfortunately mostly ignored by mainstream media (i.e., network TV). The interview is filled with truths, half truths, misconceptions, and misinterpretations. It's nevertheless an interesting point of view, and his first hand accounts of what happened in Chicago are very compelling. His ideas vis a vis democracy vs. constitutional republic equally interesting and worthy of further thought. He didn't evidence a correct understanding of the mechanism of inflation's effect on the American working class, but his conclusions were not that far off.

Unfortunately Russo neglected to mention the two banking calamities that resulted from the absence of a central bank -- the first one before the first central bank's creation in the 19th century, the second, after that original central bank's dismantlement. Only then, after these two banking failures was the present Federal Reserve system created by congress. There must be some central regulation of a country's banking and money supply, otherwise chaos will result. The Federal Reserve is supposed to be isolated from political influence, hence it was created as a private corporation. The problem in our case might be that the Central bank is not free from political influence (the Fed Chairman is a political appointee is he not?). Perhaps rather than eliminating the Federal Reserve System there should be some reform of its structure and oversight. Perhaps the Central bank should create a level playing field by opening its meetings to public scrutiny and announcing policy changes in advance, as in other countries. Perhaps the principles of capitalism when exercised by the Central Bank have not been kind to the average citizen. Thanks again.