| |
Home
Links
Contact Us
Books
Order
Now
Archives
Imperial
Bush
A closer look at the Bush record -- from
the war in Iraq to the war on the environment
2004 Campaign
Will Americans
take the exit ramp off the Bush presidency in November?
Behind
Colin Powell's Legend
Colin Powell's sterling reputation in Washington hides his life-long role
as water-carrier for conservative ideologues.
The
2000 Campaign
Recounting the controversial presidential campaign
Media
Crisis
Is the national media a danger to democracy?
The Clinton Scandals
The story behind President Clinton's impeachment
Nazi Echo
Pinochet & Other Characters
The Dark Side of Rev. Moon
Rev. Sun Myung Moon and American politics
Contra Crack
Contra drug stories uncovered
Lost History
How the American historical record has been tainted by lies and cover-ups
The October Surprise
"X-Files"
The 1980 October Surprise scandal exposed
International
From free trade to the Kosovo crisis
Other Investigative Stories
Editorials
|
|
|
|
Readers React on 9/11
Exploitation
September 10, 2006 |
Editor's Note: Below are
readers' comments about ABC-TV's "The Path to 9/11" and other concerns
about the Republican partisan exploitation of the fifth anniversary. But
first an interesting blog entry by Max Blumenthal about the Path to the
Path to 9/11, which he posted on Friday:
Discover
the Secret Right-Wing Network Behind ABC's 9/11 Deception
Less than 72 hours before ABC's "The Path to 9/11" is scheduled to
air, the network is suddenly under siege. On Tuesday, ABC was forced
to concede that "The Path to 9/11" is "a dramatization, not a
documentary." The film deceptively invents scenes to depict former
President Bill Clinton's handling of the Al Qaeda threat.
Now, ABC claims to be is editing those false sequences to satisfy
critics so the show can go on -- even if it still remains a gross
distortion of history. And as it does so, ABC advances the illusion
that the deceptive nature of "The Path to 9/11" is an honest mistake
committed by a hardworking but admittedly fumbling team of
well-intentioned Hollywood professionals who wanted nothing less than
to entertain America. But this is another Big Lie.
In fact, "The Path to 9/11" is produced and promoted by a well-honed
propaganda operation consisting of a network of little-known
right-wingers working from within Hollywood to counter its supposedly
liberal bias. This is the network within the ABC network. Its
godfather is far right activist David Horowitz, who has worked for
more than a decade to establish a right-wing presence in Hollywood and
to discredit mainstream film and TV production. On this project, he is
working with a secretive evangelical religious right group founded by
The Path to 9/11's director David Cunningham that proclaims its goal
to "transform Hollywood" in line with its messianic vision.
Before The Path to 9/11 entered the production stage, Disney/ABC
contracted David Cunningham as the film's director. Cunningham is no
ordinary Hollywood journeyman. He is in fact the son of Loren
Cunningham, founder of the right-wing evangelical group
Youth With A Mission (YWAM). The young Cunningham helped found an
auxiliary of his father's group called The Film Institute (TFI),
which, according to its
mission statement, is "dedicated to a Godly transformation and
revolution TO and THROUGH the Film and Televisionindustry." As part of
TFI's long-term strategy, Cunningham helped place interns from Youth
With A Mission's
"global training network" in film industry jobs "so that they can
begin to impact and transform Hollywood from the inside out,"
according to a YWAM
report.
Last June, Cunningham's TFI announced it was producing its first film,
mysteriously titled "Untitled History Project." "TFI's first project
is a doozy," a
newsletter to YWAM members read. "Simply being referred to as: The
Untitled History Project, it is already being called the television
event of the decade and not one second has been put to film yet. Talk
about great expectations!" (A web edition of the newsletter was
mysteriously deleted yesterday but has been cached on Google at the
link above).
The following month, on July 28, the New York Post
reported that ABC was filming a mini-series "under a shroud of
secrecy" about the 9/11 attacks. "At the moment, ABC officials are
calling the miniseries 'Untitled Commission Report' and producers
refer to it as the 'Untitled History Project,'" the Post noted.
Early on, Cunningham had recruited a young Iranian-American
screenwriter named Cyrus Nowrasteh to
write the script of his secretive "Untitled" film. Not only is
Nowrasteh an outspoken conservative, he is also a fervent member of
the emerging network of right-wing people burrowing into the film
industry with ulterior sectarian political and religious agendas, like
Cunningham.
Nowrasteh's conservatism was on display when he appeared as a featured
speaker at the Liberty Film Festival (LFF), an annual event founded in
2004 to premier and promote conservative-themed films supposedly too
"politically incorrect" to gain acceptance at mainstream film
festivals. This June, while The Path to 9/11 was being filmed, LFF
founders Govindini Murty and Jason Apuzzo -- both friends of Nowrasteh
--
announced they were "partnering" with right-wing activist David
Horowitz. Indeed, the 2006 LFF is
listed as "A Program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center."
Since the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1992, Horowitz has labored
to create a network of politically active conservatives in Hollywood.
His Hollywood nest centers around his
Wednesday Morning Club, a weekly meet-and-greet session for Left
Coast conservatives that has been graced with speeches by
the likes of Newt Gingrich, Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher
Hitchens. The group's headquarters are at the offices of Horowitz's
Center for the Study of Popular Culture, a "think tank" bankrolled for
years with millions by right-wing sugardaddies like eccentric far
right billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. (Scaife financed the
Arkansas Project, a $2.3 million dirty tricks operation that
included paying sources for negative stories about Bill Clinton that
turned out to be false.)
With the LFF now under Horowitz's control, his political machine began
drumming up support for Cunningham and Nowrasteh's "Untitled" project,
which finally was revealed in late summer as "The Path to 9/11."
Horowitz's PR blitz began with an August 16
interview with Nowrasteh on his FrontPageMag webzine. In the
interview, Nowrasteh foreshadowed the film's assault on Clinton's
record on fighting terror. "The 9/11 report details the Clinton's
administration's response -- or lack of response -- to Al Qaeda and
how this emboldened Bin Laden to keep attacking American interests,"
Nowrasteh told FrontPageMag's Jamie Glazov. "There simply was no
response. Nothing."
A week later, ABC hosted LFF co-founder Murty and several other
conservative operatives at an advance screening of The Path to 9/11.
(While ABC provided 900 DVDs of the film to conservatives, Clinton
administration officials and objective reviewers from mainstream
outlets
were denied them.) Murty returned with a
glowing review for FrontPageMag that emphasized the film's
partisan nature. "'The Path to 9/11' is one of the best, most
intelligent, most pro-American miniseries I've ever seen on TV, and
conservatives should support it and promote it as vigorously as
possible," Murty wrote. As a result of the special access granted by
ABC, Murty's article was the first published review of The Path to
9/11, preceding those by the New York Times and LA Times by more than
a week.
Murty followed her review with a
blast email to conservative websites such as Liberty Post and Free
Republic on September 1 urging their readers to throw their weight
behind ABC's mini-series. "Please do everything you can to spread the
word about this excellent miniseries," Murty wrote, "so that 'The Path
to 9/11' gets the highest ratings possible when it airs on September
10 & 11! If this show gets huge ratings, then ABC will be more likely
to produce pro-American movies and TV shows in the future!"
Murty's efforts were supported by Appuzo, who handles LFF's
heavily-trafficked blog, Libertas. Appuzo was instrumental in
marketing The Path to 9/11 to conservatives, writing in a blog
post on September 2, "Make no mistake about what this film does,
among other things: it places the question of the Clinton
Administration's culpability for the 9/11 attacks front and center...
Bravo to Cyrus Nowrasteh and David Cunningham for creating this
gritty, stylish and gripping piece of entertainment."
When a group of leading Senate Democrats sent a letter to ABC CEO
Robert Iger urging him to cancel The Path to 9/11 because of its
glaring factual errors and distortions, Apuzzo launched a retaliatory
campaign to paint the Democrats as foes of free speech. "Here at
LIBERTAS we urge the public to make noise over this, and to demand
that Democrats back down,"
he wrote on September 7th. "What is at stake is nothing short of
the 1st Amendment."
At FrontPageMag, Horowitz singled out Nowrasteh as the victim. "The
attacks by former president Bill Clinton, former Clinton
Administration officials and Democratic US senators on Cyrus
Nowrasteh's ABC mini-series "The Path to 9/11" are easily the gravest
and most brazen and damaging governmental attacks on the civil
liberties of ordinary Americans since 9/11," Horowitz
declared.
Now, as discussion grows over the false character of The Path to 9/11,
the right-wing network that brought it to fruition is ratcheting up
its PR efforts. Murty will appear tonight on CNN's Glenn Beck show and
The Situation Room, according to
Libertas in order to respond to "the major disinformation campaign
now being run by Democrats to block the truth about what actually
happened during the Clinton years."
While this network claims its success and postures as the true
victims, the ABC network suffers a PR catastrophe. It's almost as
though it was complacent about an attack on its reputation by a band
of political terrorists.
--
I think this documentary should not
be shown because it is not accurate and gives false information
about the realities of 9/11. I will think very poorly of any Network
that perpetuates such lies.
I also want you to know that I was
two blocks away from the World Trade Center on 9/11.
Friends died. Personal Friends. I
saw things that day I will never forget. Horrible things.
What you are doing by
perpetuating a lie about this day and the deaths of so many
Americans and my friends is something I will never forget of
forgive. Trust me, I am not alone in this Belief!
Sean Lewis
--
This quote from Front Page suggests
someone with lots and lots of clout was behind this:
FP: Tell us how you came
to write and produce this miniseries.
Nowrasteh: Early last year (2005) I was approached by
ABC and asked if I'd be interested in writing/producing a
miniseries based on the 9/11 Commission Report. I met with
executive producer Marc Platt and Governor Kean, Chairman of
the 9/11 Commission, who agreed to serve as a consultant on
the project. I was provided an incredible amount of research
materials and high-level advisors from the FBI, CIA, Secret
Service, Diiplomatic Security, etc......more"
Would
it be unfair to speculate that this could be a WH/RNC
initiated project through Disney?
They
have been buying commentary both in Iraq and in the US, most
recently in Miami, so why wouldn't they initiate a project for
the 9-11 anniversary?
bob
reynolds
--
As you know, ABC/Disney has decided to ingrain right wing
propaganda into the nation's psyche - admitting they will
knowingly lie to the American public - joining in the right's
mind controlling efforts by enacting the strategy outlined
in Orwell's words from 1984:
"He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls
the past, controls the future."
So, in an attempt to toss a grappling hook onto a tad of reality
- I have gathered some of the ways Bush blew 911 in one place
for your reference and perusal - and to refresh your memories.
Not a complete list by any means, but it does show how the Bush
administration failed - particularly with regard to Hart Rudman
and the bills congress presented to the administration in March
of 2001, efforts which actually begged
Bush to act - and he didn't.
here's a couple that keep my head shaking:
In May of 2001, while announcing he was telling Hart Rudman and
the congressional proposals to pound sand, Bush actually said
the threat was: "not immediate."
After Bush was dragged kicking and screaming for a year and a
half into working with congress to create a Homeland Security
Department, when Bush finally agreed in June of 2002, Joe
Allbaugh issued a statement from his FEMA office saying:
"I congratulate the President for his bold and
innovative proposal. ... President Bush is an agent for change
and this is a great step in the right direction."
later,
phillip
Back
to Home Page |
