Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

The following is a guest post by Correntewire’s the farmer.

Disney-ABC – Its Not About The “Overarching Moments”

It’s about a “charismatic Afghan leader” and the favor of Little Mermaids.

The actor playing Ahmed Shah Massoud (the heroic leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, and one of America’s strongest allies in that area) is also an inspired piece of casting. Actor Mido Hamada looks remarkably like Massoud, and is highly effective at playing the noble and charismatic leader. The producers
informed me that Hamada, who is quite handsome, has been the particular favorite of ladies at the advance screenings. ~ Govindini Murty, Human Events, August 22, 2006.

I’ll bet he is. And maybe he’ll marry The Little Mermaid at the end of the story too. I hope so because the Little Mermaid is pretty and because I like pretty happy endings as much as the next history action movie fan. After the docu-thriller-movie-mini-series-event is over – whenever that is – me and Michael Ledeen and David Horowitz and Peggy Noonan are gonna hop in Peg’s Nassau County Seclusion-3D Urban Camo-Pattern Hummer with UTV Floor Mount Kalashnikov Assault Weapon Rack and heated Sheepskin Rumble Seat and thunder on down the parkway to the local All-American drive through fast food slop-shoot for some Happy History Meals and our free ABC-Disney United Front Supreme Council for the Defense of the Motherland moveable mujahidin freedom fighter action hero figure sets which come free with each patriotic ABC/Disney Happy History Meal purchase.

You can bet your liberal ass on it.

And since this all happens in the composite historical past characterized as the past-future I will recount for you now what happened next/then:

First: Me and my friends went to the fast food window where our friend Republican 9/11 commission chairman Tom Kean works like a regular guy at night when he isn’t pumping gas at the Hess station with his buddy Khalid bin Mahfouz who is – supposedly – “married to one of Osama bin Laden’s sisters”. Or at least thats what some guy from Fortune Magazine told me:

Five Degrees Of Osama
By Nicholas Stein
February 3, 2003
(FORTUNE Magazine) – In December, President Bush named Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, chairman of an independent commission examining the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But FORTUNE has learned that Kean appears to have a bizarre link to the very terror network he’s investigating–al Qaeda.

Here’s how the dots connect: Kean is a director of petroleum giant Amerada Hess, which in 1998 formed a joint venture–known as Delta Hess–with Delta Oil, a Saudi Arabian company, to develop oil fields in Azerbaijan. One of Delta’s backers is Khalid bin Mahfouz, a shadowy Saudi patriarch married to one of Osama bin Laden’s sisters. Mahfouz, who is suspected of funding charities linked to al Qaeda, is even named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by families of Sept. 11 victims. True, Hess is hardly the only company to cross paths with Mahfouz: He has shown up in dealings with, among others, ultra-secretive investment firm Carlyle Group and BCCI, the lender toppled by fraud in 1992. Kean, who was unavailable for comment, may not have been aware of the Mahfouz connection.

But Hess spokesman Carl Tursi did reveal another interesting coincidence: Three weeks before Kean’s appointment, Hess severed its ties with Delta.

Whatever. I don’t know any of the bin Laden sisters and I mind my own business. And I didn’t drive all the way to Massapequa for a freakin’ seminar on character assasination and conspiracy theory from those socialist appeasers at Fortune Magazine. No, by God and creeping baby Jeziss I wanted my action heroes and my Freedom Fries and my All American Cheeseburger and my Corn Syrup Cola and I wanted it all in a nice neat cleanly folded bag with proper condiments and corporate endorsements packed approprietly therein with respect. All ready to go. And thanks to ABC-Disney and my regular buddy Tom working the drive through window at All american that is exactly what I got. Tom makes the fry machine run on time. That’s what I like about Tom.

So, as I was saying: we got our ABC-Disney Historical Happy Meal and Northern Alliance moveable action hero figures from Tom just like we wanted them. And Tom did us right.

Horowitz got the Junbish-i Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan (National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan) former communist leader Abdul Rashid Dostum action hero figure with Uzbek militiaman bodyguard and a redeemable coupon for full control of the city of Mazar-i Sharif. Cool, comrade.

Michael Ledeen got his hands on the Shia Party Hizb-i Wahdat-i Islami-yi Afghanistan (Islamic Unity Party of Afghanistan) commander Muhammad Muhaqqiq action hero figure with Hazara ethnic trader routes and considerable military and financial backing from Iran (which I think is what Ledeen was really looking for in the
first place.)

I got the Ittihad-i Islami Bara-yi Azadi Afghanistan (Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan) Abdul Rasul Sayyaf Muslim Brotherhood Arab foreign freedom fighter action figure with wealthy Saudi investor assistance set. Also comes with a Masters degree from Al-Azhar University and two suspicious looking, supposedly
Moroccan, assassins.

As you might expect, Peggy would get the handsome Jamiat-i Islami-yi Afghanistan (Islamic Party of Afghanistan) Sunni Moslem Ahmad Shah Massoud “Lion of Panjshir” action hero figure. Comes with a gilded handmade Ronald Reagan Legacy Project Islamic prayer mat signed by Oliver North and a valuable mail-order Stinger missile recovery options package. And some assorted guns and money and tanks from Iran and Russia too. And a signed 8×10 glossy of Charlie Wilson’s girlfriend Snowflake relaxing in a fishnet hammock.

I figured Peggy would score the Lion of Panjshir action hero figure set. Afterall, she already has the Little Mermaid figure – she keeps it in an aquarium at home with her talking dolphin – so i guess that will work out pretty good in the end for all parties concerned.

Anyway, if you want to get the whole Northern Alliance (United Front) moveable mujahidin action hero set you can just visit your local participating fast food All-american franchise each night following the ABC TV mini-series and get more action figures and then just keep coming back until you have all the action figures you want for your very own. Collect them all! The complete set!

Ledeen even went back and bought a second happy meal for his Airedale after the first night just so he could keep the Harakat-i Islami-yi Afghanistan (Islamic Movement of Afghanistan) Ayatollah Muhammad Asif Muhsini Shia party action hero clerical figure with the General Anwari commander and Jamiat allies accessories. Comes with redeemable coupons for future Iranian weapons caches too. Excellent!

I think Ledeen just went back for seconds so he could have two action hero jihadi figures with additional backing from Iran so that when he went over to play at Bill Kristols house he’d have more Iranian backed guys in the bag than Kristol. He’s pretty obsessed with that Iran stuff ya know. I don’t even think he really even cares if the Lion of Panjshir gets to marry the Little Mermaid in the end.

One time he even told me in confidence that he thought that there should be a ABC history mimi-series and Disney moveable action figure set of himself. I believed him too. His dad even invented the air conditioner for Walt Disney!

Bet you didn’t know that did you? Small world ain’t it?

He called his own action figure the “Benito 12 Avenger Freedom on the March Commando Unit” set. Complete with appropriatly fabricated perception managed intelligence reports, CIA burn orders, a stylish Italian secret decoder spy ring, and a Manucher Ghorbanifar Iranian arms dealer back-channel TOW missle slush fund which any entrepereuer can use to purchase a bed & breakfast in Costa Rica. Plus you get a free six month subscription to the National Review poitical science fiction magazine (for a limited time only).

At least that’s what I think he told me. Probably not exactly like that but genuinly something of like that. Afterall, this report is sort of a drama-docu historical timeline of actual docu-dramatic events that I myself have dramatically reported because I wrote them down so they must have happened in some real or theoretical or important context or another.

I think I’ll give away my supposedly Moroccan assassins that I got with my Rasul Sayyaf Muslim Brotherhood Arab foreign freedom fighter action figure set to Kristol so he can make them fight his Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad moveable action villian anti-hero figure that he won at the AIPAC Gefilte Fish Passover Brunch – whenever that was – and keeps to this very day in a cage on his desk at work as a constant reminder of things to do.

That should make Ledeen jealous too since he doesn’t have any supposedly Moroccan assassins as yet. As far as I know.

I don’t like Horowitz too much. He’s kind of a weird whiny little nerd who hangs around the college campus trying to screw anything that moves. And that ain’t right. So I usually don’t talk to him much and he used to be a communist Leninist race baiter too. As I recall he was the lead guitarist for Andy Warhol’s Underground Weather Factory for may critical years in the 60’s.

So you understand.

I like Peggy though. Sometimes Peg comes over to my house and we play kickass all-American suburban garage band biker band records and play with my Southern Baptist Convention blow-mold Jesus action hero figure and Nativity scene which I leave laying around until about the middle of March becuae I just can’t let go sometimes of that Christmas warrior spirit. And then sometimes she roots through the bottom of my closet for my chocolate brown Nubucks which she likes to cuddle and fall asleep with on my Kevlar upholstered anti-terror sofa.

I’m not really sure what’s up with the shoe thing but I find charming in a kind of manly heterosexual heaving chest of conquest manner and – let me tell you my friend – if you haven’t been strirred by the sight of lovely Peggy N. curled up on a sofa in a short little tartan skirt clutching a pair of brown Nubuck shoes to her pearly bossom while some garage band roars like a wild suburban beast from the rafters well then you ain’t really lived in America as a real vital American.

Would I just make something like that up? I don’t think so.

So where was I. Oh yeah, the ABC-Disney heroic action thriller docudrama mini-series event and the glowing review in Human Events magazine by Govindini Murty. And by the way, what the hell kind of name is Govindini Murty anyway? I don’t like the sounds of that to tell you the truth.

But that doesn’t matter because Human Events magazine is a non-partisan publication and I respect their right to publish the opinions of people with suspicious sounding names.

As I said earlier: my historical pre-emptive recollections of the people and events and “overarching moments” I describe above, which follow the ABC-Disney documentary “the Path to 911,” are completely true and accurate as I see them in a composite pre-emptive retrospective documatary dramatic info-tainment context. Obviously I can’t tell you that everything I have recounted above will occur because it hasn’t been completely vetted yet.

But when and if it is vetted, well, then, I feel that I will be completely vetted and vindicated despite what our countries enemies would like to have people believe.

—- the farmer

UPDATE: Some are requesting that I or someone else re-cut and edit this post. My previous premptive recollection involving Peggy Noonan’s visits to my home may be slightly exaggerated (they are not slander) and/or intentionally mischaracterized as it comes to my intentional attention at this pivitol moment. To clarify: I have never actually left my Nativity scene standing as late as of March of any given year and I am very sorry for any confusion or misconceptions or religious sensitivities that I may have offended with respect to this journalistic oversight. It was a joke and a poor one at that.

I don’t really know a lot about what is being said at this time by critics and partisans. I just know that what I have said is what I have said and if partisans are saying something different that doesn’t dissuade me from telling the truth because I am non-partisan.

What more can be said?

—– tf

For Those Who Have Been Wondering

by digby

Text of the letter Clinton’s lawyer sent to Bob Iger of ABC

What’s Newt?

by tristero

Many moons ago, I pondered the question: Is Newt Gingrich an idiot or a moron? Today, he has forced the question anew.

Apparently, Gingrich’s odious endorsement of specious World War II analogies has backfired. Not missing a beat, he now has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which, in goosestep with Rice, he compares the mess Bush has created around the world with the American Civil War. The parallels are striking, Newt says. Lincoln, like Bush, had to face the option of the defeatists to stop the war, or stay an unworkable course, or change direction and bring “the full might of the industrial North to bear until the war was won.”

My mind boggled when I read that. Why? Because it sure sounds to me like Newt Gingrich, former representative of Georgia, actually compared the Confederate Army to al Qaeda, the leaders of the Confederacy to Iran’s mullahs, and Jefferson Davis to Saddam Hussein.

I suppose I should take this as good news, that white folks in the South, like Newt Gingrich, are finally coming to terms with the truth of the Civil War, that it really was about slavery and not “state’s rights,” and that the racist Confederacy was, in fact, a 19th century Axis of Evil comprised of people who hated American values and wished to destroy us. But for some reason, I don’t think so: I think Newt never fully thought through the implications of his ridiculous analogy or is hoping no one notices he just insulted one of the most rock solid of the Republican bases.

And so, once again, we are left to ponder exactly what Newt is. I still believe “moron” most closely describes him. But I’m open to other opinions.

[Updated to add link to Newt’s op-ed.]

That Liberal Media

by tristero

You can count on them to push a far left agenda:

Major media outlets offered intense coverage of conservative complaints about a 2003 miniseries on Ronald and Nancy Reagan, ultimately leading CBS to pull the show from its broadcast network. The media have thus far not provided the same level of coverage to an ABC miniseries about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that reportedly contains outright falsehoods and distortions.

[UPDATE] In comments, Anoymous Liberal writes that he posted the same point a day before Media Matters. Go here.

Lovely

by poputonian

Reuters: Evolution debate rears head again in Ohio

Americans who question evolution are testing a new tactic in Ohio, arguing that schools should be required to discuss all controversial issues from creation to stem cell research and global warming.

In what critics on Wednesday called a new attempt to bring religion into the classroom, the Ohio State Board of Education will consider a proposal next week that would oblige schools to teach critical thinking in all subjects.

The proposal, to be discussed on Monday by a school board subcommittee in Columbus, is the latest gambit by those who believe Darwin’s theory of evolution should be taught as only one disputed explanation for the origin of humankind.

School board President Sue Westendorf said the committee would debate but probably not vote on the proposal. It is designed to replace curriculum rescinded in February after a Pennsylvania court ruled that teaching the theory known as “intelligent design” in that state was unconstitutional.

The debate between those who accept the theory of evolution and those who believe in the Biblical account of creation has bubbled up periodically in U.S. schools since before the Scopes “monkey trial” in Tennessee 80 years ago.

The Pennsylvania decision handed down last December found that “intelligent design” — a theory that God must be behind evolution because life is too complex to be random — was a religious doctrine without any scientific merit.

Ohio teachers had been allowed to question evolution under a model lesson plan approved in 2004, but the school board canceled it in February after the Pennsylvania ruling.

The board, made up of religious conservatives and moderates, has been trying to replace the lesson plan ever since. Westendorf said the new proposal was aimed at broadening the disputed curriculum to require debate on topics beyond hot-button questions surrounding religion and science.

“This is about critical thinking in social studies, science, math — all of the entities, because there are controversial topics in all of those areas,” she said.

But critics said conservative Christians were simply trying to find a back-door way to teach that God created the earth.

“Ohio has always been the bellwether. Things are floated in Ohio to see if they work, and if they work, they’ll try to get them adopted elsewhere,” said Lawrence Krauss, a member of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, which opposes the teaching of religion in public schools.

John West, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, which promotes the teaching of intelligent design, said the proposed new policy was “good pedagogy and good for students” because it would teach them how to sift and analyze evidence.

“Students don’t like to be told that there are some questions they don’t have the right to raise.”

Eating The Elephant One Bite At A Time
by poputonian
People around the world are eating the elephant … one bite at a time. Sir James makes this observation today:

And Then There Was One…
What’s unraveling within the Labour Party could prove fateful for the Bush administration as well. It carries far more import than any of the longwinded speeches Bush has been making this week and eating up the clock on cable news. For without Blair planted beside him on the summit stage, translating and amplifying his vision into mellifluous oratory to meet the world-historical moment (his hair crackling with an urgent air of crisis), Bush will look denuded, orphaned, like an Everly Brother out there alone. Who else is there? Berlusconi is gone, and good riddance. Putin, into whose soul Bush once peered, has turned aside. Australia’s John Howard is too many time zones away. He desperately needs Blair, no matter how shabbily he has treated his junior partner (as evidenced by the “open mike” episode in St. Petersburg, where, as Anatole Kaletsky put in the Times UK, “Mr Blair went beyond the wildest parody in his sycophantic fawing to President Bush”). With Blair badly weakened or dropped down the trap door by his fed-up party, Bush will be even more diminished in his last two lame-duck years. Here is a scenario guaranteed to make neocons unhappy, courtesy of the Times’ Kaletsky:

“Mr Brown’s most important decision when he takes over as Prime Minister will be over foreign policy: to continue with the Blair policy, or to withdraw from Iraq and publicly break with President Bush. If Mr Brown has any sense he will do the latter, not only because US foreign policies have proved so disastrous, but also because a clean break with President Bush will symbolise the end of the Blair era, will allow the Labour Party to return to its internationalist traditions and will reconnect the Government with both middle-class and left-wing voters.

“But this clean break in foreign policy is exactly what Mr Blair can prevent as long as he remains in power. And it is over foreign policy, rather than over public services or taxes, that he will try hardest to ‘lock in’ his successor. Even a few weeks ago, Mr Blair might have been able to get foreign policy commitments out of Mr Brown in exchange for a public timetable for his departure. But now such a chess-style exchange is worthless, since Mr Blair is already finished. ‘Checkmate,’ says Gordon Brown.”

Yes!

“Iraq For Sale”

by tristero

I saw a preview of the new Robert Greeenwald film, Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers last night and it’s very good. It’s directed at any and all Americans who “support the troops,” especially those who support the war and assume that the Bush administration is doing everything possible to prevent the troops from suffering unnecessary harm.

And if you support the troops, for any reason, you should be furious at the incredible extent of the greed, corruption, and incompetence of the companies the Bush administration is contracting with over in Iraq. We’re talking KBR/Halliburton, CACI, Titan, and of course, Blackwater, all of which have placed their CEOs’ obscene compensation above the safety of American soldiers, of innocent Iraqi civilians, and even of their own employees.

How obscene, exactly, is the compensation of these CEOs? We’re talking around $40 million each for the most part. Paid for with your tax dollars, of course. And what do the troops get? They get lousy food and stand in line for hours for the privilege. They get an incompetent laundry service that charges you and me a C note per each soldier’s wash. They get translators that barely speak the languages or understand how to translate. They get torturers and psychopaths – drooling sadists accountable to no one who have been doing their level best to destroy any small vestiges of goodwill towards the US and its soldiers that might still exist beyond our borders. And the troops get rubbed in the face every day with the simple fact that they’ve been played for real suckers. That’s because the “private contractors” – the euphemism of choice for mercernaries these days – make about 6 times what the average soldier makes, often for doing the same job.

None of this is news to many of us, of course. But it may very well be news for lots of Americans, if this film gets seen by the kinds of people who are interviewed in it: middle-class men and women who were bamboozled by the Bush administration into a war whose only point appears to be the further enrichment of the already rich over the bodies of dead American patriots and dead Iraqis. Some liberals might object that the film finesses the larger point, that none of these Americans should be over there in the first place. In fact, it simply makes that point in language that Americans to the right of Colin Powell can understand. And it pulls no punches.

Several times people in the film bluntly accuse the men running KBR, Blackwater, et al of deliberately endangering the lives of soldiers and their own employees in pursuit of profit. The term “cold-blooded murderers” is too kind a word to describe these men. The same goes for high-placed officials in this, the worst of all American presidencies, who have blocked investigations into the war profiteers and in fact rehired them, not only for Iraq but also to slurp up funds for the cleanup after Katrina.

Even for those of us who already know all this, the film dramatizes the sheer extent of it in such a way as to make it infuriating all over again. A must see.

[UPDATE] I Arianna says that “Iraq For Sale” will make a good tool for Democrats in Red States as it paints Republicans as corrupt, cynical, and even murderous in their pursuit of profit. True enough, and that’s probably what Dems should do, but I wouldn’t quite put it that way. The film is less about Republicans and Republicanism per se as it is about the betrayal of American soldiers and American interests overseas by very specific companies and very specific politicians (all of whom are, well, Republican). Its specificity is what gives it its power; it’s not a rant against Republicanism except by implication, and so it comes across as being bipartisan.

Even more to the point, the film doesn’t give any indication that Democrats care deeply about this issue. Few major Democrats in the legislature appear willing to oppose the profiteers with the intensity it will take to bring them to justice (and many surely have committed serious crimes against Iraqis, American civilians, and American soldiers). Where’s Hillary, where’s Schumer, where’s Reid, where’s Pelosi? My recollection is that the most prominent Dems in the film are Dodd and Waxman, no slouches, but where are the so-called top leaders? I don’t remember any of them appearing (and please let me know if I’m wrong, that many of the majors are, in fact, been on top of this issue in a deeply serious way).

All Americans – even Republicans – should be appalled by the disgraceful behavior of the war profiteers. It’s simply a film anyone who supports the troops should see.

The American Scene

by digby

Atrios suggested earlier today that it might be time to start talking about the Mouse’s rather “ugly” past and I agree. Whenever they wingnuts go on about “liberal” Hollywood, I always have to laugh. It’s the oldest story in the book.

Here’s one of my favorites. Good old Uncle Walt testifying before the HUAC:

SMITH: What is your opinion of Mr. Pomerance and Mr. Howard as to whether or not they are or are not communists?

DISNEY: In my opinion they are communists. No one has any way of proving those things.

SMITH: Were you able to produce during the strike?

DISNEY: Yes, I did, because there was a very few, very small majority that was on the outside, and all the other unions ignored all the lines because of the setup of the thing.

SMITH: What is your personal opinion of the Communist Party, Mr. Disney, as to whether or not it is a political party?

DISNEY: Well, I don’t believe it is a political party. I believe it is an un-American thing. The thing that I resent the most is that they are able to get into these unions, take them over, and represent to the world that a group of people that are in my plant, that I know are good, 100 percent Americans, are trapped by this group, and they are represented to the world as supporting all of those ideologies, and it is not so, and I feel that they really ought to be smoked out and shown up for what they are, so that all of the good, free causes in this country, all the liberalisms that really are American, can go out without the taint of communism. That is my sincere feeling on it.

SMITH: Do you feel that there is a threat of communism in the motion-picture industry?

DISNEY: Yes, there is, and there are many reasons why they would like to take it over or get in and control it, or disrupt it, but I don’t think they have gotten very far, and I think the industry is made up of good Americans, just like in my plant, good, solid Americans. My boys have been fighting it longer than I have. They are trying to get out from under it and they will in time if we can just show them up.

SMITH: There are presently pending before this committee two bills relative to outlawing the Communist Party. What thoughts have you as to whether or not those bills should be passed?

DISNEY: Well, I don’t know as I qualify to speak on that. I feel if the thing can be proven un-American that it ought to be outlawed. I think in some way it should be done without interfering with the rights of the people. I think that will be done. I have that faith. Without interfering, I mean, with the good, American rights that we all have now, and we want to preserve.

SMITH: Have you any suggestions to offer as to how the industry can be helped in fighting this menace?

DISNEY: Well, I think there is a good start toward it. I know that I have been handicapped out there in fighting it, because they have been hiding behind this labor setup, they get themselves closely tied up in the labor thing, so that if you try to get rid of them they make a labor case out of it. We must keep the American labor unions clean. We have got to fight for them.

SMITH: That is all of the questions I have, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN: Mr. Vail.

VAIL: No questions.

CHAIRMAN: Mr. McDowell.

MCDOWELL: No questions.

DISNEY: Sir?

MCDOWELL: I have no questions. You have been a good witness.

DISNEY: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN: Mr. Disney, you are the fourth producer we have had as a witness, and each one of those four producers said, generally speaking, the same thing, and that is that the communists have made inroads, have attempted inroads. I just want to point that out because there seems to be a very strong unanimity among the producers that have testified before us. In addition to producers, we have had actors and writers testify to the same. There is no doubt but what the movies are probably the greatest medium for entertainment in the United States and in the world. I think you, as a creator of entertainment, probably are one of the greatest examples in the profession. I want to congratulate you on the form of entertainment which you have given the American people and given the world and congratulate you for taking time out to come here and testify before this committee. He has been very helpful.

But that doesn’t really give the full flavor of old Walt’s contribution to the Hollywood witchhunt. He was a prime mover behind it:

The Motion Picture Alliance was formed in the early 1940s by some of Hollywood’s high-profile conservatives including director Sam Wood, Walt Disney, and Leo McCarey. When the House Un-American Activities Committee investigated the motion picture industry, the “friendly witnesses” came largely from the Alliance.

Here is their “statement of principles:”

We believe in, and like, the American way of life: the liberty and freedom which generations before us have fought to create and preserve; the freedom to speak, to think, to live, to worship, to work, and to govern ourselves as individuals, as free men; the right to succeed or fail as free men, according to the measure of our ability and our strength.

Believing in these things, we find ourselves in sharp revolt against a rising tide of communism, fascism, and kindred beliefs, that seek by subversive means to undermine and change this way of life; groups that have forfeited their right to exist in this country of ours, because they seek to achieve their change by means other than the vested procedure of the ballot and to deny the right of the majority opinion of the people to rule.

In our special field of motion pictures, we resent the growing impression that this industry is made of, and dominated by, Communists, radicals, and crackpots. We believe that we represent the vast majority of the people who serve this great medium of expression. But unfortunately it has been an unorganized majority. This has been almost inevitable. The very love of freedom, of the rights of the individual, make this great majority reluctant to organize. But now we must, or we shall meanly lose “the last, best hope on earth.”

As Americans, we have no new plan to offer. We want no new plan, we want only to defend against its enemies that which is our priceless heritage; that freedom which has given man, in this country, the fullest life and the richest expression the world has ever known; that system which, in the present emergency, has fathered an effort that, more than any other single factor, will make possible the winning of this war.

As members of the motion-picture industry, we must face and accept an especial responsibility. Motion pictures are inescapably one of the world’s greatest forces for influencing public thought and opinion, both at home and abroad. In this fact lies solemn obligation. We refuse to permit the effort of Communist, Fascist, and other totalitarian-minded groups to pervert this powerful medium into an instrument for the dissemination of un-American ideas and beliefs. We pledge ourselves to fight, with every means at our organized command, any effort of any group or individual, to divert the loyalty of the screen from the free America that give it birth. And to dedicate our work, in the fullest possible measure, to the presentation of the American scene, its standards and its freedoms, its beliefs and its ideals, as we know them and believe in them.

Yes, they were just as thick and incoherent then as they are now.

But old Walt got his way, at least for a while. They succeeded in ruining a lot of people’s lives for the crime of being accused of having once been associated, however peripherally, with the communist party — and, not incidentally, having the temerity to organize unions in Hollywood.

Apparently, Walt Disney’s creepy rightwing spirit remains at the heart of the Disney empire as even today they go out of their way to cater to the religious right, help Republicans win elections and airbrush reality. Where once they tainted liberals as being communist sympathisers, they now blame them for 9/11.

The more things change…

Here’s a link to the story of that strike that old Walt was so exercized about. It’s interesting reading.

Update:

h/t to commenter The Obvious Guy

.

They Care

by digby

There is much discussion today about the result of a medical study that shows 70% of people who worked in the WTC center rubble have lung problems. I’m not surprised. I recall writing a post about this back in 2003, when it was first revealed that the administration “edited” the EPA’s health recommendations:

There are so many political and policy atrocities associated with the modern GOP and this administration that it becomes hard to feel anything more than a sort of resigned acceptance and hope that the historians will place them in their proper place in history beside other failed radical experiments.

But, every once in a while something comes to light that begets an emotional charge of such white hot anger and outrage that I find I’m shocked and awed once again at the sheer lack of decency and any claim to honor these people have, particularly after having to listen to their phony pretensions of patriotism and virtue.

Two such cases came up just recently and I wondered once again how low they can possibly go. Pretty low, apparently.

First, I simply cannot wrap my arms around the fact that the White House “sexed down” the EPA assessment of the air quality around ground zero. That they would knowingly place the people involved in the rescue and clean-up operation in long term health danger is simply so disgusting that I find it hard to imagine that any public safety worker in this country could ever vote for the Republicans again.

Remember, the people most likely to be affected by the bad air quality around the WTC after the attacks were cops, firefighters, municipal workers, rescue units and military personnel. The heroes of 9/11, the ones Bush so shamelessly exploited day after day after day — the ones that Peggy Noonan and K-Lo and Coulter got all misty and moist over.

Thanks guys. And by the way, Fuck You.

Would it have been too much trouble for the party of personal responsibility to give unspun information to citizens of the site of the most deadly terrorist attack in the nation’s history so they could decide for themselves how to mitigate the risk of serious long term consequences? The workers would have gone to work anyway, guaranteed, but they might have used more sophisticated equipment and might have discouraged people with respiratory problems from going into the area until it was completely cleared. Gosh, maybe they would have had themselves medically monitored more closely. That would have been terrible.

The only people who likely would have held back are those who work in the Stock Exchange, and there we find the real reason for the lie. Because a bunch of rich traders might have stayed home rather than expose themselves to long term lung damage, Bush and his cronies decided to throw them to the wolves, too.

Good thing you got those tax cuts boys. You’re going to need them to pay for your health costs.

Vote Republican. They care.

They sure do:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg cast doubt on the study’s claims, saying, “I don’t believe that you can say specifically a particular problem came from this particular event.”

Smoking doesn’t cause cancer and evolution and global warming are hoaxes, too, right Mike?

.

Who Lost Osama?

by digby

As the right tries to spin 9/11 as being the fault of the Democrats, I can’t help but wonder how they can do it when something like this is right out there for everyone to see:

Let’s hear no more about who caused 9/11. Even after 9/11, George W. Bush said right on television that he didn’t worry about bin Laden.

.