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A Snowmobile For George

A Snowmobile for George is a rambunctious road trip that collects the stories of fishermen, cowboys and firemen who have had to face the consequences of environmental deregulation by the Bush Administration. Started by a question about the filmmaker's own used two-stroke snowmobile engine, this trip steadily reveals the political strategy and rationale behind a massive sell-off of public resources.

But if close ties between corporations and the Bush White House don't surprise you, the film's approach may. A Snowmobile for George begins modestly as a one-man, one-machine road film that simply asks why rules to clean up a smoky off-road machine got shelved. With no presumption of guilt or blame, filmmaker Todd Darling tows his family snowmobile across the United States and persists in asking that question. The film's humble point of departure gives little hint as to its ultimate destination. What starts off as a personal quest gradually morphs as this journey takes the viewer to the sites of more serious environmental change.

These sites include a fish die-off on the Klamath River on the California-Oregon border, coal bed methane extraction (fracking) on a ranch in Wyoming, 2-stroke snowmobiles in Yellowstone, and the respiratory problems faced by firemen who worked at Ground Zero. The common thread among these stories is deregulation - the notion that common citizens benefit when 'the government gets off their back.' But the film uncovers how the Administration worked efficiently to match up the goals of select industries with the political demands of the White House at the expense of the little guy.

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