From an article titled, "$$$ dictates 'State of the Union,' documentary says." written by Vinette K. Pryce for The New York Amsterdam News.

The producers of the documentary " State of the Union: The Color of Freedom is Green" scattered $100, $20, $10 and $5 bills inside the Magic Johnson Theatre as if they were confetti.  Of course they were fake.  Their intent, though, was to call attention to the driving force behind power in America.

At the premiere of the documentary, by filmmaker D J Kadagian, a conscientious group of viewers watched and listened as Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, the pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church; Kathleen Cleaver, activist and widow of Black Panther Party leader Eldridge Cleaver; and Allen Dwight Callahan, associate professor of New Testament at Harvard Divinity School, opined on how money influences politics.

"You know money will make you sell your mother... it will make you kill your children... it'll make you do almost anything," the preacher said.

In the documentary, Butts spares little to explain his thoughts.  Throughout the revealing film, Butts provides an enlightening overview of greed and power, and details how money plays an integral role in deciding who wins and who loses in America.

"There's two ways to be inferior within American order.  One is to be poor and the other is to be nonwhite. So if you happen to be poor, you happen to be nonwhite - you are by definition inferior," Cleaver explained.

Adamant about that definition, Cleaver sustains an argument throughout the feature to support her claim.  Alternating opinions with snippets from performances by Richard Pryor, poetic enlightenment from Gil Scott-Heron and music from Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter and Jae ROT, punctuate the philosophies lavished by the three distinguished names.

"Nobody's willing to acknowledge that we don't have a working democracy anymore," Callahan stated.  "We have a political oligarchy that makes decisions almost autonomously.  And a lot of those decisions are driven by money, and if you don't have money, you don't participate in the democracy."

Callahan's poignant statement compliments those of his colleagues.  The three perspectives eloquently explain the World Trade Center collapse as well as other issues related to government.

Both Callahan and Butts discussed their viewpoint after the premiere recently.  Responding to questions from the audience, the two further emphasized how money dictates power in America.