Day: September 7, 2006

ABC released their statement, saying:

“It is a dramatization, drawn from a variety of sources including the 9/11 Commission Report, other published materials, and personal interviews. As such, for dramatic and narrative purposes, the movie contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue, and time compression. No one has seen the final version of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible.“

Well, if by “no one” you mean the 900 right-wing media outlets and bloggers which got a copy of the movie. I guess it’s only “premature and irresponsible” if you’re criticizing their propaganda. Raving in support of it is A-OK with the House of Mouse.

Plus, ABC is assuring right-wing bloggers that ‘The Message of the Clinton Admin Failures Remains Fully Intact.’

So that’s it. Time to boycott ABC and Disney. Hit ’em in the wallets, which is one of the two things (the other being the Bible) that matters to NeoCons.

Talk a look at CBS’ quick and complete cave-in to conservative protests over The Reagans miniseries in 2003, and compare it to the current situation. This pretty much tells you just how much merit there is to the constant whining NeoCon complaints about the so-called “Liberal Media.”

Bleah. Nothing short of a full-on revolution is going to un-fuck this country….and we all know that’s never going to happen.

EDIT: It’s not all bad news, though: Scholastic is pulling their support of the program, and will no longer be disseminating the propaganda to schools:

Educational media giant Scholastic, Inc. announced it’s dropping its original classroom companion guides to a controversial new docudrama, and replacing them with materials stressing critical thinking and media literacy.

“After a thorough review of the original guide that we offered online to about 25,000 high school teachers, we determined that the materials did not meet our high standards for dealing with controversial issues,” said Dick Robinson, Chairman, President and CEO of Scholastic, in a press release.

More on the ABC Propaganda story, as it’s developing:

An FBI Agent who was working as a consultant on the film quit halfway through production because the writers and producers were “making things up.” Click the link to see author James Bamford discuss this on MSNBC:

Transcript:

BAMFORD: “It’s made-up. This is fiction. This is not real. One of my friends actually was a consultant to this production — an FBI agent who worked on 9/11. He quit halfway through because he thought they were making things up.”

Bill Clinton has demanded that the network pull the program, unless changes are made to accurately reflect the true events.

Pressure is being put on Scholastic, regarding the outrageous propaganda being sent to schools:

Just got off the phone with Ms. Kyle Good, VP of Corporate Communications at Scholastic. They have pulled the material and are meeting shortly to discuss what to do. They know there are many materials already out there and are discussing what to do or how to deal with it.
Please call their offices right now.

Scholastic Investor Relations
212-343-6741

Corporate Communications
(Kyle Good’s office)
212-343-4563

news@scholastic.com

and:

Breaking News: ABC is going to make a statement shortly on whether it will pull the mini-series, according to MSNBC.

Don’t let them get away with playing politics with history, folks.

ABC is marking the 5th Anniversary of 9/11 by re-writing history.

On Sunday and Monday, they’re showing “The Path to 9/11”, a “docudrama” that they claim is based on the findings of the 9-11 Commission Report.

However, the film completely contradicts the Report on several important points — most notably by going to significant lengths to pin the blame of 9/11 on the Clinton administration, fabricating entire scenes which portrayed the administration as having the opportunity to stop Bin Laden, but doing nothing because they were so distracted by the Lewinsky scandal. This is in direct contradiction to the report, which talked about the fact that Clinton was the only President to directly attack Al Qaeda, and, if you’ll recall, at the time Republicans criticized him for trying to “wag the dog” and distract from the Lewinsky scandal.

It blames every failure on the Clinton administration and the Democrats, while portraying the people who were actually in office at the time, Bush and his administration as saviors, on top of the crisis and leaping to our defense.

Former 9/11 commisioners like Richard Ben Veniste are hitting news shows talking about how innaccurate this show is, but Tom Kean, the former chair, accepted a position as a paid consultant on the show, and ABC is using that to tout its veracity.

Just in case you think I’m being paranoid: ABC arranged for conservative partisans to view the program prior to air date (and they’ve been on talk radio and news shows, talking it up), yet Democratic activists have been stiff-armed. Even former President Bill Clinton’s request for a DVD has gone unheeded by ABC.

It gets worse: ABC is providing “teaching materials” via Scholastic, so that the program can be used in schools. In the materials, we get such information as:

“Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, the United States began a global “War on Terror” to stop terrorist groups and state-sponsored terrorism. President Bush has led the United States into Afghanistan and Iraq and reorganized the national government in an attempt to combat terrorist activity.”

….Directly linking the invasion of Iraq to 9/11.

“”The dictatorial government of Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003, following an invasion led by the United States. The U.S. government believed that Hussein had been developing weapons of mass destruction that he planned to use against American and other targets.”

….No mention that those WMD did not, in fact, exist.

The best way for the NeoCons to get what they want is to poison the minds of the next generation. The NeoCon movement was galvanized when they saw what happened in the early 70s — an educated population protesting and nearly breaking out into open revolution, were able to bring an end to a war, and, with the help of journalists, eventually bring down a corrupt administration. Over the past three decades, a concerted effort has been made to dumb down the population, and marginalize the media, so that will never happen again. Open your eyes and you can see it happening, right in front of you.

If this makes you as disgusted as it makes me, tell ABC to tell the truth.

Of course, I doubt anything will come of the outcry. Remember when CBS did their miniseries about the Reagans, and conservatives complained that it wasn’t respectful enough, and got it pulled off the air? Do you really think that will happen in this case? Of course not.