“The Butler” and other Hollywood propaganda
The “Republicans are racist” propaganda program continues apace, along with other revisions of history. The Soviets would be so proud!
The latest entry appears to be “The Butler,” which misrepresents President Reagan…as, at best, insensitive to blacks, and at worst as racist. Eugene Allen, the actual White House butler on whom the film is supposedly based, kept signed photos of Ronald and Nancy Reagan in his living room (pictures of the other presidents he had served hung in the basement).
…[Allen] did not, as the movie portrays, resign to protest Reagan’s policies on civil rights or South Africa…The filmmakers also insert a horrific childhood “memory” for Allen — his mother being raped and his father shot by a white landlord. Didn’t happen.
Would it interest black moviegoers to know that under Ronald Reagan’s policies, median African American household incomes increased by 84 percent (compared with 68 percent for whites)?…[T]o smear Reagan — a man who deeply loathed bigotry in any form and actually improved the lives of all Americans including blacks — in an attempt to prop up the drooping Obama standard, is contemptible.
We can call it “contemptible” all we want, and of course it is. But that sort of historical rewrite is one of the most commonly-used tools of liberals and the left. The reason is quite simple: it is astoundingly effective.
If one considers the historical Eugene Allen and the facts of his actual life versus the film “The Butler,” and compare the numbers who will learn the former story versus the numbers who will watch the latter fantasy and consider it history, we all know which group will win out by a mile. Multiply that by many thousands of similar messages per year (or even per day; I can’t even begin to estimate) and you have the situation we face.
Propaganda is extraordinarily powerful. It exploits hearts, it shapes minds, and it affects history. Films are just one form of propaganda, but an exceptionally popular one that often reaches people who are disinclined to dig deeper and find the historical truth, and yet still vote.
As Churchill said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” Nowadays the only revision I’d make to that comment is that the lies travel even faster and further.
How are we to counter this? Yes, there’s the internet and conservative newspapers and TV and talk shows and even movies and books. But they are few and far-between compared to the absolute barrage of the opposite messages, plus of course what is delivered every day by the school system.
Back in the 40s, the House Un-American Activities Committee (often confused with Joe McCarthy’s Senate campaign against Communists in the State Department and other organs of government) turned its attention to the leftist influence in Hollywood and tried to counter it. The Committee was heavy-handed and there was a backlash against its efforts. But what is the best way to counter propaganda from within the entertainment world when that world is dominated by, and seems to attract, the left?
Making movies to counter the propaganda on the left has for the most part been remarkably unsuccessful these days, although I’m not sure why; it used to be far more popular. Perhaps it’s merely that there are not too many people trying to do it anymore (PJ founder Roger Simon is one of the few), and they most likely have trouble getting investors and distributors and good press; the prevailing tide is against it. It’s also not easy to do well, and for the most part people will not go to boring, didactic movies. So recent conservative entertainment is too often just preaching to the choir.
Back in the 1940s, conservative thought was more mainstream in Hollywood, and there was even a group known by the quaint title of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. This was a portion of their mission statement:
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.
The Alliance had a great many members, some of them very well-known such as Gary Cooper, Cecil B. DeMille, Walt Disney, Irene Dunne, Clark Gable, Ronald Reagan, Ginger Rogers, Robert Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, and John Wayne. There are some Hollywood personalities today who are on the right (Clint Eastwood comes to mind, of course). But it would be very difficult to assemble a list of luminaries of similar length and status.
The Wiki entry for the group says it disbanded in 1975. It doesn’t explain why, but going to the source it quotes we see that the apparent reason was that the House Un-American Activities Committee had been dissolved that year.
My guess is that if that was the reason, it was hardly the only one. The real reason was probably that many of the supporters and members of the Alliance were getting well on in years (or dead: for example Disney) and were not being replaced. The early 70s was a time of increasing leftism, anti-Vietnam War activism, and general disillusionment with the US, culminating in the election of Jimmy Carter.
The Alliance probably just wore out, and the left achieved greater dominance in Hollywood and elsewhere in American life. It may indeed be time for a new Alliance (if one could even be scraped up), because it’s late and getting later.
America has found the old truism that the barbarians outside the gates, aren’t particularly the greatest threats all in all.
Right… America had more to fear from its own children (the Boomers) than any Soviet threat.
Just remember Walter Duranty got a pulitzer for his phoney reporting from the USSR. Malcom Muggeridge was also in the USSR and reported honestly and he was ostrasized and couldn’t find work when he returned to the UK. People wanted to be lied to.
The Reagans were the only President and First Lady to invite the Allens as honored guests to a State dinner.
And putting in the false rape of the mother and the father being shot by a white landlord is DESPICABLE!!! ANd people are so stupid they think if they see it in a movie, it is true.
Obama is the worst President and resident of these United States. He foments all this crapola and thrives on lies.
“that sort of historical rewrite is one of the most commonly-used tools of liberals and the left”
I realize it’s mostly just habit, a rhetorical linkage, but we should be as careful with labeling opponents as they are careless in labeling us.
Opposition to my views may suggest a liberal; opposition to the truth suggests a Marxist, communists, a treacherous mind and motive.
The makers of the movie are not liberals nor is anyone in the movie who is more than an extra. Nor are those who would extol the movie. Liberals ought to take care lest they out themselves for what they are.
George Pal:
I disagree.
And I am very careful in my use of these terms: I meant liberals and the left.
There is a difference between the two, which I’ve written about many times. Liberals often are unwitting consumers of the rewrites, or careless perpetrators who just repeat the party line without doing their own independent research. Or sometimes they know it’s not true but assume it’s generally true, or usually true (such as the fiction in the movie about the butler’s family), so it’s okay to change the actual truth especially in a creative work of art (i.e. a movie). Also, the rationalization is that the work is fiction and not meant to be actual history, so that makes it okay as well.
The left is quite different. The are much more aware of what is truth and what is lies, and have no problem lying about almost anything for strategic reasons. To them, 2 + 2 = 5 if it serves the Cause.
The scoundrels who made this Racialist sob story knew exactly what they were doing. They are betting most people are far and away too lazy and stupid to actually research the truth .
Add to this , the fabricated rape scene plays into the victim meme perfectly.
A devil’s mix of Leftist racist intent and liberal idiocy
Have the director or writer explained the reasons for changing such significant events in the actual butler’s life? Not surprising, but upsetting nonetheless.
I have been to the movies quite a bit this summer and there is reliably at least one racially divisive movie trailer each time (“42”, “The Butler”, and coming soon “Fruitvale Station”). This decades-long,constant drumbeat of racism has to be taking its toll, not unlike how 24/7 news station coverage has given people the impression that the incidences of child abductions has increased exponentially.
Slightly O/T: while driving this morning I heard a radio ad for Sprint smart phones that consisted of a conversation between two teens interspersing historical names & events with pop culture to demonstrate that having a smart phone makes your kid more historically aware (yeah, right). The kicker was when the young lady started a line with, “Yeah, but not only was Lincoln a great progressive leader…”. I almost crashed my car.
Just saw the movie in Omaha and I knew it was wrong about Reagan but I am sure I was the only one that knew the truth, but what really struck me was that the actor repeated the veto threat about the South Africa bill twice. Heavy handed indeed.
And it is Justice Warren; not Judge Warren.
And MLK wrote Letters from the Jail; not the Prison.
Horrible mistakes and inexcusable.
And Pres. Obama did very little to improve the economic lives of Blacks in his first term. RWR inherited a bigger mess and fixed it in three years for everyone.
ALL interested are urged to read David Mamet’s wonderful memoir/meditation,”The Secret Knowledge”, about his hugely talented mind & soul coming over from ‘the Dark Side’ as a result of the mugging by reality of 9-11. Now a proud Neocon. Tremendous insights into the thinking of both Left and Libs.
Robin Williams plays Dwight Eisenhower? Incredible. And Alan Rickman, who was responsible for the anti-Israel play My Name is Rachel Corrie, plays Reagan. That tops Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan in my book.
What we need is a writer of the caliber of Evelyn Waugh to satirize all this.
A bit off topic, but may fit in here. Martin Luther King’s dream, was that one day all Americans would be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. We have now reached the stage where, if you are black, your character cannot be analyzed. Case in point – Trayvon Martin. As described by the MSM he was an upright, adorable young man who was just walking home after buying some skittles and tea. I just received a video of a black pastor analyzing Martin’s character and those of others involved in the tragedy. It’s long (15 minutes) and has a lot of Christian references, so some may be put off. However, it does a shockingly blunt job of telling it like it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L9s900vZr_k
The writer and producer of The Butler would no doubt find this a bit rough for their ears.
It’s blood-boiling to see Reagan portrayed as someone opposed to racial equality. It’s like calling Churchill weak to German aggression. Everyone in the nation should look at: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/01/17/michael-reagan-ronald-reagan-friend-blacks-obama/
Those like Lizzy (and my son) who go to movies a lot are simply funding more crap from the Hollywood crap mill, so why be surprised at what they see in the theaters?
And as to Lincoln: Yes, he was a great progressive. He started the ball rolling toward the imperial presidency we have inherited.
How are we to counter this?
Merciless mockery.
Say, for instance, a Mystery Science Theater 3000 approach?
Only, in place of the bad science fiction put the tedious propaganda films and tv shows, and have a whip-smart comedian host (Gutfeld?) with a guest (and a couple of his friends perhaps) who’s own life is befouled in the story told by the propaganda?
So, in the case of The Butler, just as an example, the actual butler Mr Allen along-side the comedian-host of the show (call it, Political Science Theater 2000s ?), commenting and making fun of the propaganda as it unfolds.
But the trick is to be serious at the same time as good-humoredly ripping The Triffles to shreds.
“And as to Lincoln: Yes, he was a great progressive. He started the ball rolling toward the imperial presidency we have inherited.”
On the bullseye. Jackson, Lincoln, Teddy, Woodrow, FDR, LBJ, Nixon, Carter, and now – far the worst of them all – BHO. Why have a congress or courts if all they do is allow the executive to usurp more and more of their delegated authority.
Robert’s “its a tax” decision makes me think he was blackmailed by the BHO NSA. We live in a surveillance society. We are all enemies of the State. Conversely, the State is the enemy of all except the hard left; millions of liberals and RINOs have no inkling that they too are targets.
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Ronald Reagan was a supporter of FDR and the New Deal. As President of the Screen Actors’ Guild, he got a first hand view of Reds trying to take over the movie industry. The experience turned him into a conservative Republican.
Reagan appointed Colin Powell as National Security Advisor.
The only thing most of can do is to not pay for their product. They will not get my money.
…most of us…
“Reagan appointed Colin Powell as National Security Advisor.”
Who among us has not had lapses of judgement? RR had faults, but he was and remains the greatest president of my life so far, and I’m 65 and too young to remember Ike.
Neo-neocon,
No doubt there are unwitting, careless, and rationalizing liberals but their personal failings are no longer exonerative. By what accounting can they be held as liberals if they function solely as swarm or herd? There are some liberals worthy of the distinction for whom I have a great respect – Nat Hentoff comes most easily to mind. If the operative influence that galvanizes liberal thinking and actions is Party or Personality; if they are more moved by philosophical aesthetics than philosophy then they are unworthy of being called liberals – cows, ants, useful idiots, yes, but not liberals.
As I said, I understand the use of the term generally, and have no doubt you are careful in your use of it and meant to use it as you and a great many others quite properly understand it — as an affiliation. It’s just that I think the term imparts legitimacy where none is warranted. I would say and think as much about labeling someone ‘conservative’ if they had nothing more to advise them than nostalgia for Reagan, a crush on Sarah Palin, or merely a hatred of ‘liberals’.
I’m not a historian, only pretending to be one, but it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that what made America great once upon a time (the 1950s particularly) wasn’t what people usually think about. It wasn’t her liberties and openness–used to lethal effect against the nation by the Marxists now–but the fact that most of her people and even the leaders had the right opinions and ways of thinking.
Her erstwhile conservative, “redneck” values had been her most precious asset, which is why the saboteurs inside the gates have targeted those values for vilification, smearing them with the race card most of all. The demise of McCarthy and the HUAC breached the dam and steered America inexorably toward the political evisceration of her lifeblood, the redneck frame of mind that had been her safeguard against a European-style rise of unappointed philosopher-kings who decide what’s good for the public.
All pre-1960s American culture should be collected and archived in order to preserve the memory of America’s secret, the exact memory that the ruling class would like to throw down the hole, except for material that paints that bygone America in the worst light possible.
ziontruth @ 12:28 . . .
I haven’t seen the TV show “Duck Dynasty,” but from what I’ve read, this show may be the instrument that saves America.
Apparently the Rednecks are the good guys, and their values have been spreading throughout the land.
Let’s hope.
Promethea,
Intriguing. I’m a Zero TVer, so I’ll have to see about ordering “Duck Dynasty” from an online provider.
Thanks!
The Motion Picture Alliance has been tagged in that Wiki article by one of the busy little bastards of the Left as a “RIGHTWING” group. They’re worse than termites.
Meanwhile, the Department of Defense has a diversity training course (gaaaack) that calls the FOUNDING FATHERS violent “extremists,” and doesn’t mention our enemies, the Moslem jihadis, at all. Yes, friends, that’s our DoD! (see Ace of Spades blog).
Simultaneously, one who is arguably the greatest statesman of the twentieth century, Sir Winston Churchill, is now being SLANDERED by the BBC bastards. “Red Andy” Marr, one of their totalitarian “historians,” is making the case that Churchill was just a reactionary sot and not a great man, that no one really paid any attention to him, yadda yadda.
They’re chomping at the bit — they can’t WAIT until all the World War II veterans are dead and defenseless. To hell with them.
Here the English say goodbye to Sir Winston – scenes from his funeral in 1965:
http://tinyurl.com/qbja36l
Incredibly moving. What they faced and fought through together was in every heart and mind that day. God bless him; he was a very great man.
I agree with sdferr’s suggestion of merciless mockery and ridicule. But it has to be done in a creative and humorous way to lower the defenses of even the most thoroughly indoctrinated, while at the same time enraging the propagandist to the point of admitting they are liars for the people’s own good.
We’re not dealing with a sound ideology of great ideas in modern liberals that must be defeated. We’re dealing with a fashionable thought dynamic that’s been deployed and worked on over half the country who have a genuine fear of not being in step with what they are told is a fashionable way to believe. I think its a mile wide and an inch deep and will be brought down in a thundering crash once cracks begin to appear.
It’s also not easy to do well, and for the most part people will not go to boring, didactic movies.
The most effective counter propaganda op I saw was from Andrew Breitbart (editor role) and James O’Keefe (on ground cameras) combined.
The more interesting question is why, if such tactics are so successful, do Republicans not support it with money and influence. Perhaps because Democrats have told their fellow Republicans that if they do so, certain things will be leaked to the media?
There’s always leverage one can have over humans, whether they have skeletons in their closet or are afraid of deceptive propaganda.
The baby boomers more important than other generations. They, like any other generation, will be young, gullible, grow out of it, and obtain power or influence over the next generation.
Good or evil counts for a lot more.
Incredibly moving. What they faced and fought through together was in every heart and mind that day. God bless him; he was a very great man.
Yes, he was the right person at the right time. However, the English still kicked him and his party out in favor of socialism and “unity”, if not in war, then in peace.
So the Brits are just deconstructing a dead guy the British already knowingly wanted to get rid of, back in the day when he was still alive. This is just clean up for them.
I found these online….
For Liberals and now effectively all Democrats, 1984 was not a novel. It is a field manual.
war is peace
freedom is slavery
ignorance is strength
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy
And when memory failed and written records were falsified–when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested
For every tyrant there ever was, which includes tens of millions of Americans now, including our President and every elected member of the totalitarian “Party” they belong to, the “truth” is at the end of a bludgeon and you’d better get it pal.
One of the rationalizations and pseudo taunts people, who grew up after the Vietnam Democrat victory, used was that if the Vietnamese deserved and wanted their own country, they should have stood up and fought for it instead of relying on Americans to do it for them.
I want people to consider that line of thought vis a vis the Tet Offensive and the Fall of Saigon.
The truth of their sentiments can be seen in their reaction to conservatives “fighting back to retake their country”. What they call “right wing militias” or “Tea Party racist terrorists” that need to be IRSed and ATFed by the government’s WACO child killers.
Evil, as always, will have one standard for people they crush and another standard for themselves. They expect themselves to be free of whatever they demand of others.
The Columbine shooters expected to be able to shoot fish in a barrel, but when it came time for the Meta Golden Rule to be applied to them, they refused to fight the police or submit. The only one that gets to shoot defenseless kids and puppies is the One. The One being the big O, as in Obey.
The contrast against Evil is Good. Which obeys rules which does not inherently steal from, rape, or destroy other people. So they, by warrant of justice and fairness, are perfectly fine accepting the rules they dish out to others, unto themselves.
Look upon Ayers with his communist and anti-capitalist anti-US actions and brainwashing of youths (Obama). Look at his mansion and when he told reporters to get “off his private property or else”. The rules are very different for those kinds of people. Everybody else doesn’t need private property and luxuries but he… he is the One, and thus different.
Such is the nature of evil, which is why it cannot be stopped by people speaking with words. They cannot be convinced. They cannot be made to regret. They cannot be forced to atone. They cannot be made to obey the rules of the group, for monsters are outside the group.
If the Tea Party fails to reclaim America from the Left, the Left will taunt them by saying that they weren’t competent, weren’t rational, weren’t real patriots, were extremists that deserved to fail. If the Tea Party succeeds, it’s because they stole the rightful power of the Left and murdered black kids while doing it.
The Left will not stop. They will determine when you are born, if you are born, and how much you get to pay them for the privilege of being allowed to live as a slave. The Leftist alliance will not stop, thus they must be stopped. That requires power and destructive force, not social rules and negotiations.
They’ve won with regards to “The Butler”. This movie will be trotted out to American History students around the country for the next few decades (as the Roots VHS tape was in my time), but instead of “look at how awful slavery was and how horrible white southerners are”, today’s students will learn “look how racist Ronald Reagan was”, even if by all accounts, the actual butler adored the Reagans above all other presidents he worked for.
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We (The USA) have never been good at generating pro-American propaganda. We’ve been good at winning on the battlefield, but winning the war of ideas and information is the key to ultimate victory. We are said to live in the Information Age – clearly the left saw this coming and took advantage of it in every form of media and entertainment.
And they multiplied its effectiveness by controlling not only the content of public education, but by effectively choking off access to private alternatives which may present different ideas.
The gradual re-education of America seems to have been the answer the left was looking for. Sudden changes inspire revolutions and hard opposition, but when it happens over a few generations, the loss of liberty and cultural standards go unnoticed, while the ignorant grow in numbers.
The most disturbing thing to me is how many young Americans feel they live in an unjust, terrible country. A good place to start turning things around is at your local school board. If parents pay more attention to curriculums and demand changes to what’s being poured into their kid’s heads, the next generation will have a different opinion about their country and protect it from self destructive ideas and actions.
As the risk of boring everyone here to tears with repetition:
In the 1930’s and thereafter members of America’s “Greatest Generation” (how I hate that term, but it does serve as a quick identifier) when presented with the Communist Program almost universally rejected it.
In response, ideologues on the Left decided both to re-package Communism into more palatable and more benign appearing forms, and also to change, to “fundamentally transform” and reshape the knowledge base, and the character of a new, future “audience” they were to present their newly disguised ideas to, so as to improve the chances of that future audience accepting and/or going along with the Communist/Leftist Program.
Pre-WWII Italian Communist Party member and theoretician Antonio Gramsci undoubtedly knew what he was talking about when he wrote in his books and voluminous prison notebooks that Communists/the Left were not likely to be successful in taking over bourgeois societies by force, but had a much better chance of successfully taking over i.e. of “fundamentally transforming” bourgeois societies if they relied on largely peaceful but more effective subversion of the old order and its gradual replacement with their new order.
If those on the Left relied on a patient, gradual, generation’s long, all spectrum campaign of unrelenting propaganda–some centrally directed to be sure, but most carried out by individual, inner directed Leftists working on their own, each in their particular sphere of life and society–gradually but eventually replacing traditional structures and values and the traditional “leadership hegemony” with new, Leftist ones.
This Propaganda was to be spread by books, newspapers and magazines, by powerful images, by classroom lectures and textbooks, by sermons, by the radio, by movies, and by the newly emerging, very powerful and penetrant technologies to come–by TV, by computers and the Internet, by video games. Leftist propaganda most often fed to us via a “conspiracy of shared values” among the various people on the Left in our societies–by K-12, College and University “educators,” by religious figures, by various experts, by artists and entertainers, public figures, celebrities, “opinion makers” and “thought leaders. ” Propaganda fed to us by those who educate us, instill in us our value systems and behavioral norms, our examples of speech and behavior, who entertain and inform us, and who eventually create within us our basic orientation, our mental image of the world around us, and our understanding of how it works: in short, our “Reality,” values, and world view–what we should know and believe, how we should behave, and what we should strive for.
Propagandists, who, in sum total–by one means or another–by their actions and statements, their “lifestyle,” a lecture, a book, a play, a TV show, or even a particular image or other piece of art–tell us what our “Reality” should be–“what really happened,” what is good and what is bad, who is sane and who is not, what is likely and what is unlikely, what is desirable and acceptable and what is not, who to trust and who not to trust, who to steer clear of and who to believe in, to emulate, and to follow; constructing inside our minds the template of “what every sensible and sensitive, well educated, sophisticated, aware, fair-minded, unprejudiced person knows,” enforced by social and economic pressure and, if need be, by government and law.
As we can see by the evidence all around us, this subversion and replacement strategy of the Left has been a huge success for gradually, over the last 70 or so years, virtually every aspect of our old traditional society and its knowledge base, world view, belief system, and behaviors has been subverted and increasingly “transformed,” hewing closer each day to the Left’s blueprints.
Talk to the people around you–especially to the younger people–and listen to them talk, and you will quite often see that what they think they “know” is wrong, that there are great gaps in what they know and are aware of, that they don’t have anywhere near the full and correct story, that, even though they may have a diploma certifying to their “education,” even a supposed “Liberal Education,” that “they don’t know what they don’t know.”
Moreover, it soon becomes clear that many of them have never studied, much less even heard of many, if not most of the essential historical, philosophical, political, and economic concepts, ideas, thinkers, writers, books and events that used to comprise a traditional Liberal Education –empty space where whole structures and key elements of knowledge used to be–and that what they have been taught and know has been greatly narrowed, restricted, dumbed down, severely pruned, reshaped, and often violently twisted into unrecognizable shapes–and deliberately so–and almost always to the benefit of the Left and its ideology and goals.
But, just try to convince them of that.
Thus, with corrupted and/or almost none of the traditional examples, knowledge, history, techniques, and standards which were formerly used by educated people to measure, analyze, compare, and evaluate statements, policies, proposals, and actions, they are much more easily deceived and led.
One can argue that the whole conservative propaganda apparatus that created the particular knowledge base, world view, and set of values the comprised and steered our traditional society was simply deliberately subverted, to be replaced by the Leftist version.
I happen to think that was a bad, indeed a disastrous thing.
What I find frustrating is the number of people who get their political philosophy from their favorite actor or musician. Why should their opinions be given more credence than those of your local plumber or dog groomer? When did that get started?
Nowadays every star has their own pet “cause” that they publicly espouse, and their fans obediently parrot the star’s pronouncements on the issue, and take their recommendations into the voting booth.
To illustrate my above comment, I have a twentysomething female co-worker who is a Lady Gaga fan. So, naturally, gay marriage is the Most Important Issue Evah.
In line with what Wolla Dalbo said about the gradual replacement of our traditional structures and values:
That bit in the mission statement of the Motion Picture Alliance about not letting movies become “an instrument for the dissemination of un-American ideas and beliefs” caught me eye, for it highlights a major problem, which is that American ideas and beliefs aren’t what they used to be, are they? At least if we’re to believe polls or talk to the young. And if that is really the case, then those today who would try to pervert the medium of film to disseminate un-American ideas and beliefs would be us, the conservatives.
Topsy-turvy world we live in now.
Off topic I suppose, but I just read somewhere that the DOD educational materials now warn of extremists as being people who speak of individual liberties and states rights. The DOD refers to the left wing Southern Poverty Law Center as a reference for how to identify “hate groups.” In a nutshell, people holding politically conservative viewpoints are slowly being OFFICIALLY categorized as “extremists.” They will even turn the, historically flag waving patriotic Mom and apple pie types, who join the military, against traditional values. The brainwashing and programming of 18 year old soldiers will be intensly continued – until even the military becomes an institution we no longer recognize.
As far as I’m concerned, I think the fat lady has sung. It’s over. The country has been lost. 2012 election was the nail in the coffin. Whether some GOP guy (probably a RINO big govt Repub like Christie) manages to beat Saint Hillary or not, makes no difference. The Ruling Class (GOP and the Marxists f/k/a Dems) is unified. They either control or have the full support of 90% of the media. Elections will be increasingly rigged with each subsequent election.
We few – we increasingly few – are going to be huddled together and hunkering down, for the long darkness.
Rickl-
I’ve always been amazed by the process (and hubris) by which someone (usually desperately clutching at youth by any means–artificial or natural–often several times married, and quite often addled by drugs, or drink, or sex–or all three) who can write a book or a play, read a script someone else wrote, can direct, can act, sing a song, play an instrument, or dance–usually without benefit of college (much less specialized, advanced subject training), and a lot of times not even of high school–suddenly, by virtue of their particular skill as an ”entertainer,”* becomes a deeply educated and wise scholar, expert, philosopher, or sage–so much more elevated, enlightened, and smarter than all we “little people” are.
Become a veritable Bodhisattva, come to Earth to use their superior learning, intellect, perspective, and crystal clear moral vision to guide all of us dumb schmucks. An entertainer who feels that it is their obligation to stand up and to spout off; to tell us what is good for us, what to think, how to vote, what to eat and drink, and how to run our lives.
– Incidentally, I might point out that up until a hundred years or so ago “entertainers” as a group were generally considered to be a shifty, low, and immoral bunch of people.
Why should their opinions be given more credence than those of your local plumber or dog groomer? When did that get started?
In a vacuum of authority, people generally submit to the leader with the most votes or popular support. Those without deep roots, are left drifting on the ocean storms, pulled up and thrown about by the wind storms. Essentially, people who are afraid, dependent on others, will go with what the majority tells them is right. They don’t care to think for themselves, because they are afraid to. Slaves are afraid to speak back against the overseer or master.
A meritocracy hails a society’s elite based upon achievements and talents. A popular democracy hails a society’s elite and worthy based upon numbers of adherents and followers, much like a cult. It’s one of many reasons the ancient philosophers never did like direct popular Athenian democracy. Neither did the Founding Fathers like it either.
Hollywood is a cesspit and growth pool for parasites and various viruses. Their entire modus operandi and reason for existence is to pretend to be somebody better or worse than they are. It’s to manufacture illusions to manipulate the masses. That is their “high and virtuous goal”? As if that would ever end well.
The Left has been in a war against the US since several decades ago. Even going back to the early 20th century and perhaps even 19th century. Meanwhile, people were too busy playing politics and the stock market to take them seriously. They always talked about “violence” and war being the “last resort”.
Well, here’s your last resort. Ever wonder why war was considered the last resort? It’s mostly because after European leaders tried to give as many Jews to the Nazis as they could find, they found that it didn’t work, so war became their last and only resort, after X amount of people had died. When war is the last resort, that mostly means you don’t have a good chance of victory, cause too much time has passed. Meanwhile, the people who were thinking long term, had already been engaged in a war and had destroyed most of the strength of their enemies, using wartime ROEs rather than peacetime ROEs.
Americans can ignore the Leftist alliance and the war in their home all they want. Nobody requires them to pay attention to it. However, the consequences will not be ignored so easily. In a war, only one side is required to start it. Only one side needs to remain standing for there to be a victor. That is it. Politics, financial stock trading and advice, bailouts, government platform policies, none of that will matter when faced with naked force.
Western society, after having lost their most virtuous and brave because the most sick cowards were in command of the armies (with the exception of Pershing), really lost its spine and its belief in its right to exist and expand. A society, a creature, that does not expand… merely dies. We’re merely seeing the natural state of things. Nature cannot be reversed by mere human desires. Time cannot be reversed by tyrants or freedom fighters.
Those who think the US is gone, should leave and be exiled. Much as the Iraqis left Iraq when the US invaded. There’s no point in having a country full of people who don’t believe in its existence or future. Leftists and Democrats always said they would leave the country if X was done, but they never really left, at least not permanently. That’s mostly because they have more belief in a Totalitarian America than some people do in a free America. Which is one deciding factor in whose side deserves victory or not: strength of belief.
Most of the moral and ethical philosophy required to rebuild society from the ground up, I have found in one specific format. But since it’s in a foreign language, not most Americans can access it easily. But precisely because it is in a foreign language, it will be much easier to smuggle it in and deflect the eyes of the Authorities from what it really is.
If all the pre 1950s American culture and wisdom is lost or destroyed by the Left, there are sources outside the country that have preserved such values and concepts.
My lefty liberal parents LOVED “The Butler” and my mother commented on how historically interesting it was, and how much she learned from the movie. Arrrrgh.
Look how easily the Tea Partiers were painted as unreconstructed racists and extremists. Really, that drives me to despair – because I was there, early on, and I know it to be untrue. But the meme was perpetuated on, and on, and on, in the mainstream media – the same mainstream which abused Sarah Palin.
My little brother – whom I am probably closer to of all my sibs – he believes casually that the Tea Party is a bunch of reactionary freaks, but tells me that oh, he loves me anyway. This is what the propaganda machine has done – they have sufficiently ‘otherized’ libertarians, Tea Partiers and conservatives generally – and I think they are about to do the same number on military veterans and Second Amendment stalwarts. I just don’t know what we can do against the mighty establishment media organs, save withhold our monetary support of them.
This was my last blast at Salon.com, before I walked away. At least they haven’t taken it down – yet.
http://open.salon.com/blog/sgt_mom/2011/08/03/terrorism_tea_party_hobbits
(I bailed very shortly thereafter, and found an internet blogging home at Chicagoboyz. In spite of not being a boyz and never having been to Chicago.)
““The Butler,” which misrepresents President Reagan . . .”
And, you’re right Neo, the Butler is just the latest lie.
Ronald Reagan was VERY tolerant and fair-minded; not just with blacks, but with anyone who was different. (and even more so when you consider that he was a product of his time and generation.) Part of that may be his time spent in Hollywood; But, I would think that it was his “conservative” (i.e. read that as “respectful”) upbringing that played a major role in the quality of his character.
Just two examples dealing with gays for it was many gay leftists who considered him to be “evil.” (It is kind of funny, when Bush used that same term when referring to terrorists he was called the village idiot!):
First example: how many of Neo’s readers know that Reagan opposed a ban on gay school teachers in California – in 1978. Most certainly he was considering a run for the presidency at that time; So, he wasn’t opposing this ban on gay teachers for political brownie points. (for those too young to remember, Reagan courted conservative voters; not liberals when he was elected in 1980) I believe that he was opposing it for the sake of common decency. (He even wrote in an op-ed that “Whatever else it is, homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual’s sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child’s teachers do not really influence this.”)
Can the same be said of Democratic politicians – That they oppose discriminatory measures simply for decency? and not just for votes?
Second example: How many of Neo’s readers know that the first openly gay couple to spend a night together in the White House was during Ronald and Nancy’s stay at 1600 Penn Ave?
Can the same be said of Carter, Clinton, or Obama? How many openly gay couples have any of those presidents invited to stay in their private quarters in the White House?
These two examples I won’t ask of those on the left because they will simply refuse to believe it. They will just assume it is a lie; because that is what they do – lie.
Reagan was a decent man, and yet, the left (and their toads) besmirched Reagan the man and his character, both while he was in office, and after he was no longer President.
Shame on them!
“as to Lincoln: Yes, he was a great progressive. He started the ball rolling toward the imperial presidency we have inherited.” Don Carlos
Poppycock. It’s not just the left that engages in historical revisionism. Lincoln reacted to the southern states unilaterally seceding and attacking the United States. That is a fact.
He suspended Habeus Corpus because of the seditious ‘Copperhead’ democrat’s activities, which directly threatened the Union’s ability to conduct war. Copperheads wanted to allow the southern states to secede.
Lincoln’s motivation and all that he did was solely to save the union; “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure…and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Had Lincoln acquiesced to the Copperheads, had he not fought the war to win it, we would live today under either Nazism or Communism because there would have been no US with the resources to oppose those totalitarian movements.
What I find frustrating is the number of people who get their political philosophy from their favorite actor or musician.”
Idolization. Celebrities have the fame and live lives that appear to ‘have it all’ and, their fans aspire to that life and fantasize as to how great it would be to be their idols.
“My lefty liberal parents LOVED “The Butler”” Julia NYC
White guilt and atonement through idolizing the ‘authenticity’ of black experience.
Reagan said the ten most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.” (think Obamacare)
He knew whereof he spoke.
He also said, “If it moves the government will tax it. If it continues to move, they will regulate it and if it stops moving they will subsidize it.”
“The best social program is a job.”
The job of government is to protect the people, not run their lives.”
Ronald Reagan.
This decent American is being slandered/libeled or whatever you call it in the Butler.
Well, many blacks in the US think Lincoln was a Democrat and that Democrats fought against slavery in the 19th and 20th centuries.
It’s not like they are rewriting history now. Their power comes because this is just what they have always done.
Democrats were able to keep the South voting for Jim Crow just by telling them that Republicans were going to steal their property like they did in the War of Northern Aggression. The best way to keep a civilian population under control is 1. fabricate an external enemy and 2. make them fear a domestic threat.
“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival.
There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”
–Winston Churchill
Re: Celebrities’ Causes and their fan base:
Too many people conflate wealth with intelligence, when nothing could be further from the truth. Have you seen any multimillion dollar lottery winner queried by the likes of Tingles Matthews about their political opinion on some nasty Republican position/action? Nah, me neither. Also, as shown by my mayor, Bloomingidiot, wealth does not magically convey common sense, either.
I’m more and more in favor of the Buckley theory of using the phone book from which to randomly draw Congressional members. Anything would be better than the hereditary mandarin class we now have and who no longer represent us but represent themselves and exempt themselves from the laws which they force on us. That includes the Kennedys, the Bushes, the Carnahans, the Cuomos, the Clintons, Pelosi (her father was mayor of Baltimore), the Murkowskis, ad nauseum.
Like him or not, I agree with Fred Thompson’s view of public service: He stated when he decided not to run for reelection in 2002 (winning the special election in ’94 to finish out the Gore-acle’s Senate term and winning his own term outright in 2006) his unwillingness to have the Senate become a long-term career. How novel, right? We now have a political class that is so slimy and short of character that they can’t even quit politics once they are caught in some disgusting act (see Dick Pic Tweeter Weiner or Whoremonger Spitz or Swallowz).
When you live in an American Idol society with an American Idol precedent, it is no wonder celebrity has more sway than intelligence. And with our public education system pretty much down the tubes, that will not change. If you can’t think critically, you can’t separate the truth from the bullshit. On top of that, schools are not encouraging critical thinking at all, or they wouldn’t be indoctrinating students in the ‘islam is the religion of peace and Ol’ Moe was a great man’ or ‘anthropogenic global warming is going to kill us all’ crapola.
I so wish I could read the History of these ‘interesting times’ from one hundred years in the future.
The first and one of the best arguments for capitalism that I ever heard was in the very entertaining Hollywood move Sabrina, which I saw on TV as a child:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWVMCi0-Bvs&list=TLX3l903-ckP0
The only problem with virtue in politics is that it tends to get rid of the virtuous, promoting a majority rule by those who seek permanent transformation and permanent majority status.
Michael Z Williamson’s fictional proposal to have politicians give up all their assets and wealth to the state, in return for power for life in a democracy, sounds far better. If some people want ambition and power, there’s no reason to let them make billionaires off their insider Senate trading at the same time. What’s the point of that, except corruption?
The other problem with virtue in politics can be found in the example of Themistocles. He was responsible for the successful strategy that defeated Xerxes’ hordes, both on the political front as well as the military front.
But what did Athens did to him afterwards? He got his just rewards: exile or death.
That is what Democracies do to people. That is what they have done to people in this America.
And yet people have forgotten all the things, all the evil, Americans have done in the name of America. As such, they have forgotten that such evils came primarily from one source: Leftist Americans.
Now .. now …
As you know the writ was (repeatedly) suspended by Lincoln, and even Seward, whereas the Constitution in a section addressing the powers of Congress [Art I, Sec 9 para2] says
Lincoln’s defenders have pled exigent circumstances in the first case as Congress was not in session, but the fact is that railroads and telegraphy existed by the time of the initial disturbances and an emergency session of congress could have easily been convened.
Furthermore the writ was suspended at times in areas and jurisdictions neither invaded nor in a state of rebellion, and where the courts were in regular session. Later, it was applied nationwide, and only “ratified” by Congress 6 months later.
Geoffrey, you seem like a decent fellow, but your emotional commitments may have carried you away on this one, and the quote following.
The attack on Sumter was of course an outrage and act of boneheaded vainglory intended to bring push to shove, and even now it makes clear and unemotional thinking about these matters difficult.
See Ex Parte Milligan
That is almost certainly a reach. Though you might be accidentally paying a backhanded compliment to the prowess of the southern male on the battle field. Or maybe just the importance of the Mississippi.
In the opinion of a number of writers, NPR contributor and ex-Republican Kevin Phillips for example in “The Cousin’s Wars”, he, like a number of others estimates that slavery would have ended by 1875 or 1890 at latest. [Though it is not difficult to imagine a kind of quasi-legal contarct peonage lasting into the 1950s or even a little longer.]
Had the seven original seceded unimpeded, some if not all probably would have been back in the union in some capacity within a decade or two. Certainly as you should also know, it was the opinion of commentators in these states at the time of secession, Arkansas in particular, that after a cooling off period, re-union would take place much sooner than that.
Certainly it is difficult to imagine an independent or federated Gulf State remaining neutral during the world wars.
Sorry. Misplaced apostrophe: “The Cousins’ Wars …”
http://www.amazon.com/The-Cousins-Wars-Religion-Anglo-America/dp/0465013708
It is hilarious how unhinged the right is becoming over the race issue. I saw the movie yesterday. It is excellent. Remember, it is NOT a documentary. It doesn’t claim to be.
Additionaly, the movie does not make Reagan look bad. It makes him look quite good. It does bring up his opposition to sanctions against South Africa. If you are unhappy with that you have a problem with the facts. He was opposed to sanctions. (A policy I disagreed with and I think most intelligent Americans would now disagree with in retrospect.) The movie points out that Reagan was the president that insisted the Black service staff in the white house be paid equally to the white service staff and be given the opportunity for advancement. That is a rather big point in Reagan’s favor that was probably not known by most Americans including me. The movie has Reagan and the butler with a special relationship that culminated in an invitation to the white house dinner. To say that the movie attempted to make Reagan look bad is to cherry pick the facts; something I have come to expect from the political right. (That will be my only cheap shot, I promise.)
The movie does the same thing for every president both Democratic and Republican. Brings up the things they did that were helpful to the Blacks and their stuggle for equality as well as their failings on the issue.
Again, the movie is not a documentary. It tells the story of the human rights struggle of African-Americans through a semi-fictional character. It should be a story of great pride to ALL Americans. We went from a nation where the murder and rape of Blacks was acceptable to a nation with a Black president. This is the truth even if the specific Blacks who were raped and murdered in the movie were raped and murdered in “real” life or not. This is true even if you don’t particularly like President Obama. We have made great strides slowly and painfully. And that is the message of the movie.
Somehow I have the feeling that many of the people complaining about the movie haven’t even seen it. I recommend the movie to everyone. In no way is it liberal propoganda.
And by the way, I haven’t even gotten into the excellent job the movie did delving into family conflicts and relationships brought about by the civil rights movement.
And please remember, fictional stories loosely based on history are an excellent way to convey basic ideas. That’s what this movie did.
Tom:
Of course it’s not a documentary. It’s fictionalized history loosely based on real history and real people, which (just as Oliver Stone’s movies are) is propaganda used by the left to turn public opinion in a particular direction that fits their narrative of history. In the service of that goal, it distorts history in one direction only, and it takes full advantage of the fact that many many naive watchers get their history from the movies and know next to nothing about actual history.
As I wrote in my post [emphasis added]:
And by the way, if it was not meant to be historically accurate, the makers would do well to give all the protagonists fictional names. Why call the president “Reagan” if it doesn’t stick to who Reagan really was? (Not that changing the names would really matter, because viewers would know who it was intended to be; but at least it would help).
Here’s what Reagan’s son Michael thought of the movie:
@neo-neocon Where I disgree with you is that it distorts history to fit the liberal narrative of history. Every president in the movie looked both good and bad. That doesn’t seem like propaganda. The story of the civil rights movement is not propaganda. And I say it again, as presented in the movie, the final results of that struggle should be viewed as a point of pride of all Americans. Maybe I need to correct myself. Maybe it is propaganda; pro-American propoganda. But liberal popoganda, certainly not.
Tom:
In the movie, the left is congratulating itself on the vast progress that’s been made in civil rights, and using historical figures to do so at those figures’ expense. Read the Michael Reagan piece; Ronald Reagan does NOT look good in the movie, compared to the real Reagan. It would not fit the liberal narrative to present him as a champion of non-racist thought and behavior, would it? And it can’t depict the real White House butler as having a much more stable and happy life, as he really did. He must be a victim of violence and horror at the hands of whites.
@neo-necon – It is hard to imagine that you or Michael Reagan have actually seen the movie if you think it didn’t make Reagan look quite good. The only negative about Reagan in the movie was his opposition to sanctions against South Africa. You do realize that is true, don’t you? Like every other historical figure in the struggle there was both bad and good; in Reagan’s case quite a bit of good. If this had been anti-Reagan liberal propaganda it would have pointed out his anti-affirmative action stance. Right or wrong in that stance you do realize that is what liberals objected to most about Reagan. That is not in the movie at all. And the Butler did have a relatively stable life in the movie. Probably much more stable than the typical Black throughout much of that era. Not a perfect life by any stretch. In fact, that is among my favorite themes of the movie. The internal family struggles for those who wanted to participate in the civil rights movement and those who thought it would be too dangerous. I had never thought of that aspeect of the repercussions of the Civil Rights movement. Fascinating to think that not all Blacks were happy with the non-violent campaign because their friends and family were putting themselves in harms way. And again, you do realize that the participants were in harms way, don’t you?
And I don’t believe you could be more wrong in saying the movie is congratulating liberals on the vast progress. It is congratulating the entire nation. And we should be congratulated. Things are not perfect but we have made vast progress.
Liberal propaganda? Far from it. I guess I will suggest that you go watch the movie again. Maybe I have opened your eyes a bit. Give it a shot. (I am sure I will see the movie again and I will keep in mind the things you have said)
In any case, it has been a pleasure discussing this with you.
Tom:”Where I disagree with you is that it distorts history to fit the Liberal narrative of history.”
N-Neo: Please file Tom’s other planet pseudo-nimble sillyness under: You CANNOT POSSIBLY Make This S*** Up.
@neoConScum – Wow. Your comment really added a lot to an otherwise pleasant discussion. The equivalent would have been if my original comment had been that the original post was moronic, paranoid, fascist, right wing #*&! Please note that instead of that I gave examples, in a rational manner, of where I disagreed. Then neo necon rationally answered my post. Then I did the same again, etc. Try that sometime. It is amazing how productive rational discussion can be.
Tom’s first sentence in this thread: “It is hilarious how unhinged the right is becoming over the race issue.”
And then: “…an otherwise pleasant discussion”
“I gave examples, in a rational manner”
This reminds me of a classic post I read once at Althouse, “Why are you wingnuts so insulting?”
Sgt. Mom – loved your blog post on the Tea Party.
A bit of good news — box-office receipts for the movie were down 30% this week over last week. Maybe the word’s actually getting out there about its outrageous liberal bias.
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” I had remembered that as a quote from Mark Twain, and I see the interwebz has it both ways. But somebody went to the trouble of saying that it was found on page 35 of Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Book of Quotations, so I figure that probably right.
Thanks, FOAF – I had fun putting it together, after biting my tongue so hard it practically bled! (Most of the Tea Party pics were ones that I took myself at various Tea Party events in San Antonio and Boerne.)
That doesn’t seem like propaganda.
Obama didn’t look like a horrible person to Democrats either. Nor does he now.
Without love, it cannot be seen. Without hate, the truth cannot be discerned.
It is hilarious how unhinged the right is becoming over the race issue.
Amongst the Left, if you have the Love of Dear Leader, this isn’t an insult, but praise to the Almighty One. It’s normal. It’s socially acceptable. It’s perfectly non offensive.
The idea that other people with different beliefs on faith are sane, rational, socialized members of the human race… is the weird, strange, anti social view to the Leftist alliance.
Once again, without love it cannot be seen. Without hate, it cannot be discerned. They literally cannot see what they cannot see, nor do they know about the things they don’t know.
The thing about lies is, once heard, even if you know it’s a lie, it’s in your memory logged in as “information”; corrupt info, but still there informing you.
Just finished another book about Stalin, who was adept at misdirection, lies, and hiding of motives. Turns out, all those paranoid anti-communists weren’t paranoid enough. Stalin has emerged to me as the chief curse of the 20th century.
Forest Whitaker is on my probably something I’ll never want to see list. I couldn’t figure it out until I heard him promoting vegetarianism for PETA. I generally don’t support organizations that needlessly kill animals like PETA and especially those who support it.
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