Sorry for the lack of posts. I’m having way too much fun following the Disney-ABC 9/11 controversy this week.
You know, there’s a reason we call things “Mickey Mouse” when we see that they are full of made-up, pretend excuses for reality. While Disneyland is a nice fantasy place, fun to spend a day at, we don’t want to live there, as neat and clean as the streets are and as fun as it may be. Eventually, it’s tiring, and we want to go home. I remember when my eldest son was about 18 months old, we went to Disneyland. I had him on a restraint since he liked to run off, and I didn’t want him lost, and people looked at me like I was the cruelest mom in the world. Perhaps these days, almost 20 years later in a land where the leaders try to make us constantly afraid, they would understand.
My son was watching the electric light parade around 9:00, so tired and sleepy he could barely stay awake. He sat on my husband’s shoulders, raisining his head each time the music told him another float was coming by, and watched in amazement until it passed, then rested his head again. Float after float, for 15 minutes.
I feel like that is what America is like now, the threat of terror every time we start to relax, and another big show moving past for a few hours or days to entertain and try to terrify us, or dazzle us with the lights and noise. And then, we are expected to go back to sleep, to not notice the reality of what is around us, and not care that it’s all just a show.
And I want to go home. I desperately want the six year long GOP mockumentary of American life to end, so we can get back, after a bit of a rest, clean up the mess from Dubya’s Circus, end this parade of failure and distraction and get on with solving our problems.
It’s time to grow the fuck up, America. Quit living in the fantasy world Disney-ABC-GOP wants you to live in. Let’s not go back to sleep this time.
Let’s walk out on this show, and go home again.
UPDATE:
pic courtesy xenophile via Eschaton.
Jerry Politex makes this excellent point today:
In “Path to 9/11” we’re seeing one of the most blatant attempts in history to shape the facts to reflect a predetermined point of view, not just for the U.S., but for international consumption as well. As is so often the case in politics, we have to follow the money. Since there are no sponsors of the show (there are no commercials) one wonders how ABC is picking up the financial slack for presenting 5 hours of non-commercial TV on its commercial network. Not with distribution rights or unit sales, since ABC is freely providing both over the internet. Nothing has been said about the funding source in any of the many news and opinion reports published to date. Until we learn more about where the money for such an expensive undertaking is coming from, our experience of the workings of the Bush administration suggest that this Bush propaganda project is being carried out with corporation and government working hand-in-hand to change history for political ends. In other words, what we’re seeing is a classic case of fascism in action.
UPDATE UPDATE:
From the AP:
US network to re-edit ‘libellous’ 9/11 series
September 09, 2006
NEW YORK: The ABC television network in the US is frantically re-editing its $40 million mini-series about September 11 amid a blistering backlash over fictional scenes that lay the blame on the Clinton administration.
The docu-drama, The Path to 9/11, allegedly contains several historical inaccuracies, some of which have been described as libellous, and suggests Bill Clinton was too busy with the Monica Lewinsky scandal to fight terrorism.
Former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean, who headed the September 11 commission and was a paid consultant on the mini-series, said some controversial scenes in The Path to 9/11 were being removed or changed.
But Democrats continued to demand that ABC cancel the two-part series, which a spokesman for Mr Clinton called “despicable”. The first part of the program is scheduled to be broadcast tomorrow night.
Mr Clinton’s lawyer sent Mr Kean a chiding letter expressing “shock” that a man so dedicated to accuracy had worked on a movie “that has been widely criticised for its libellous historical inaccuracies”.
And in a letter to ABC, Bruce Lindsey, head of the Clinton Foundation, said: “The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate, and ABC has a duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama entirely.”
Of course, these scenes are already in the versions released to right-wing bloggers and media, so they will be spread around among the right wing and then it will be cleaimed they were “deleted” by the “liberal media”.
How convenient.
First to go was a made-up scene showing Mr Clinton’s national security adviser Sandy Berger hanging up on CIA operatives who were moments away from killing Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. “You will not see that in that way in the final edition,” Mr Kean said.
The CIA was never steps away from bin Laden, nor did Berger hang up on agents in the field, Mr Kean admitted.
So the righties will claim “Clinton could have killed bin Laden, but ABC won’t show you THIS scene.
Watch and wait, it’s coming.
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