The Police State Tries to Shut Down D’Souza’s “Police State”
Following the production and release of Dinesh D’Souza’s newest film Police State, his declaration about America rapidly declining into a failed authoritarian state looks less like a theory, and more like fact. The film was attacked on several levels to hobble its release and limit its reach, so fewer people would be able to see it.
It’s hard to believe, but the day so many Americans have dreaded is finally here. U.S. citizens are no longer able to express their God-given right to free speech and are being obstructed by the powerful at every turn, to keep the country from waking up to these abuses. Famed author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza’s latest movie, Police State, is being attacked on all sides by forces within the public and private sector to limit its impact.
Slow-Walking Into Tyranny
It started when the film’s first premiere—that included both in-person viewers and thousands of online remote audience members—was hit with a cyberattack.
”One of the features of making a movie called Police State is that—well—the defenders of the police state come after you,” D’Souza explained, during his podcast earlier this month. “They try to block the movie one way or the other.”
When we had our virtual premiere, this was October 27th, in the last couple of hours the whole website was kind of under a cyber-attack. They were trying to block people from gaining access to it at the last minute. . . At a critical moment we lost a bunch of viewers.
Dinesh said the source of the attack came from “India and Pakistan,” but added that, “someone was putting them up to it.” He went on to explain how over $100,000 in ad money for the movie was wired by his wife Debbie, before being seized by a department of the U.S. Treasury shortly thereafter.
We did have one interesting encounter with the U.S. government in which Debbie sent a wire—and this is for some ads that we bought on Salem Media. . . it’s around $100,000, a little over that—for an advertising program with Salem and guess what? That wire is intercepted by the Treasury Department. There’s a division of the Treasury Department called OFAC and when we look it up, it’s the Office of Foreign Asset Control. . . It’s an office of the U.S. treasury that’s supposed to monitor things like international sanctions, international narcotics, trafficking, international terrorism.
“Police states do this kind of thing, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t push back,” the Obama’s America: 2016 author continued.
He said his first step was to contact his attorney who appeared in the film, to draft a letter. D’Souza then shared the story with outlets like Newsweek, The Gateway Pundit and Townhall, prompting journalists to call OFAC, demanding to know what happened. The end result was the money was returned almost immediately.
D’Souza, who is also the brains behind America: Imagine the World Without Her and Trump Card, said when the money was returned, his attorney marveled at the speed with which the money was put back, calling it “very unusual for OFAC.”
“Normally they hang on to it for weeks if not months,” his lawyer told him. “They obviously do not want to give an explanation for why they took your money.”
Another blow to the movie’s distribution was when Amazon and Walmart refused to allow the selling of DVDs in their stores and on their websites.
“There’s nothing in Police State that’s been banned. It’s not a banned topic,” Dinesh declared. And he’s correct. There were no major fact checks made against the film. It relied upon personal accounts and in some cases, dashcam footage. As D’Souza put it, the movie is “irrefutable.” Why then, have major companies decided to block it? Because the narrative–though true–is inconvenient and shows how the private sector is just as complicit with tyranny as the federal government.
This led D’Souza to stress the need for a parallel economy that would foster a free-thinking marketplace:
It is all the more imperative that we create a parallel economy . . . Where we can buy stuff from people who are open minded. Who will sell products like this. . . You’re just not going to get them from Amazon, you’re not going to get them from Walmart. And how sad it is. Walmart actually started out as a conservative company. It really isn’t anymore. This is part of the Left’s infiltration.
Viewers who wish to see the film, but cannot find it in stores or online can go to: policestatefilm.net, where they can purchase the movie through the internet or order a DVD.
The Cast and Crew’s Reaction to the Film Being Censored
Restoration News interviewed several cast members and guests who attended the red-carpet gala premiere at Mar-a-Lago—an event supported by President Donald Trump—about their thoughts on this soft-censorship. They agreed it was an egregious overreach and abuse of power.
Actor Nick Searcy of Cast Away and Justified fame, who plays a corrupt federal agent in the film, said:
Totalitarian countries crush dissent. The Joe Biden Crime Family has weaponized every institution in America in order to destroy anyone who dares challenge them. Having made a film, Capitol Punishment, that was suppressed by Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other corrupted online platforms, nothing the criminals currently in charge of our country does surprises me. They will lie, cheat, steal, imprison, and even murder their opponents without conscience.
Former Rep. and Georgia lawmaker Vernon Jones was also at the premiere. Jones told Restoration News it was a case of “Joe Biden and the deep state [being] in bed together, covering for each other’s crimes.”
Pro-life advocate Frank Pavone—who was controversially defrocked from the Catholic priesthood for speaking out about his beliefs—was at the gala as well, and echoed Jones’ sentiments saying, “I would not be surprised at this point at anything the Biden administration does to interfere with the success of this film. It simply proves the film’s point.”
One whistleblower featured in the project, Ryan Hartwig, who left his job as a content moderator at Facebook told Restoration News:
I was shocked and actually didn’t find out about this until [recently] when I watched Dinesh’s Twitter video about what happened. . . It’s shocking that a government entity designed to stop terrorist funding would prioritize an American filmmaker. As a Facebook content moderator, I deleted terrorist content and Dinesh is not a terrorist. But it seems that the government is redefining that list of terrorists to include peaceful Americans who produce films with opposing viewpoints.
A second whistleblower, former FBI Agent Kyle Seraphin, sat for an in-depth interview with Restoration News and spoke about the wire transfer aspect of the story.
“This wasn’t just a regular guy sending money through a regular business transaction . . . This is the guy who you know is actively attacking the way the federal government is acting,” Seraphin said. “It appears to be more evidence that . . . you try to do something, and the government comes to shut you down. It’s literally a government actor seizing funds for productions of an anti-government sort of sentiment film. I mean, I don’t see any clearer coincidence that would be very hard to dismiss.”
He also agreed the United States is entering a “slow death phase” adding that, “It’s not the overwhelming, seizing government takeover. We’re not going to see the goose stepping coming down Main Street. What we’re seeing is a slow death. An incremental increase in surveillance. . . They’ve now shut down our freedom. They shut down our basic trust in the government.”
“It’s a long fight,” the former federal agent added. “My buddy George Hill said we’re 50 years from experiencing something like [where we were at] 20 years ago. So, we’re in the 75-year range before we reach the other end of things. I think he’s right unfortunately.”
Defeating Censorship
The most important element of this particular fight is to disseminate the film Police State to anyone you know who will view it, and listen to its message. Host a watch party, purchase it and send it to your friends. Buy it online as a gift for your loved ones. Post clips from the film on social media to keep the discussion alive. If the movie is simply taken to be entertainment and enough time passes, the country will have missed its window to act, and things may spin out of reach by then.
The second step is to be more active in the public square than before and begin doing business with companies that share the nation’s founding principles. Michael Seifert has created a business known as “Public Sq.” which allows online users to see where companies are spending their money and what causes they support, so consumers can find ones that aligns with their own beliefs. D’Souza was right about creating an alternative economy. In addition to creating a conservative Hollywood, a more honest and local banking system, academic institutions, and an ethical news media—commerce cannot be left behind.
The last step is knowing your enemy and realizing the stakes of this epic fight. The fastest way to lose a battle is to underestimate the lengths your opponent will go to, in order to win. As D’Souza told this reporter, if the Left loses, their fate is prison. Their fate is to be pulled out of their mansions and locked behind bars. Much like a wounded animal, they will do almost anything to survive and are most dangerous when attacked. We must be like the Founders of this great nation. Wise, uncompromising and fearless, while having a strong focus on the divine.
Thomas Jefferson said it best with a quote that now adorns the very monument which bears his name in Washington, DC: “For I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Live these words in hopes of creating a better future, and may God be with us all.