FIRM - Discussions - August 14, 2001

FIRM Discussions
August 14, 2001 - October 18, 2001

Is a Non-Hollywood Global Film Industry Possible?
Films of the Sixties
Mark
4:42 pm tuesday august 14, 2001
Hi there,
I have not read your entire piece on Jewish involvement in film, but so far I have not seen any comment on the films of the 1960's, which could be said to represent the beginning of "the trashing of America," to use Michael Medved's phrase for it.
The "fourth era" of American film, or the "new American cinema," as Gerald Mast calls it in his book "A Short History of the Movies" (1976), was an important part of the social/cultural revolution of the sixties (which actually began in the mid- sixties and lasted until the mid-seventies). The new American art films of this period, Mast writes, "[are] the most important representatives of its fourth era." These films are characterized by "the off-beat, antihero protagonist; the sterile society that surrounds him; the explicit treatment of sexual conflicts and psychological perversities; . . . the slick but tawdry surfaces of contemporary reality; [and] the mixing of the comic and the serious," among other things. "The protagonists of the films are social misfits, deviates, or outlaws; the villains are the legal, respectable defenders of society.
The old bad guys have become the good guys; the old good guys are now the bad guys . . . despite this reversal of moral values, the American film is still essentially romantic. . . ." Mast continues, "The old story of John not being able to get Jane because her parents object to him has been replaced by the complication that he cannot get her because he has had an affair with her mother and because he detests the values of Jane's world. The 'swinging' married couple of Nick and Nora Charles has been replaced by the swinging Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice." This new American cinema was "a director's cinema . . . like the film industries of Europe and Japan, granting the proven director a higher measure of control over the scripting, cutting, and production decisions, allowing him more freedom in selecting his projects, and essentially valuing his contribution more than Hollywood ever did in its Studio Era. . . . the American director has become one of the film's stars . . . the new American auteur is a film author in the full sense of a Truffaut, Fellini, Bergman, Forman, or Kurosawa-the man who controls the responsibility for the entire project so that his own personal vision and visual style get recorded on film." The auteurs of the new American cinema are "all very young; all of them are in mid-career [circa 1976] . . . all of them have made a cluster of films that reveal both a high level of creativity and imagination as well as a consistency of style and vision."
Mast fails to mention another rather conspicuous characteristic of the auteur directors at the center of the new American cinema of the sixties: astonishingly, nine out of the ten he lists are Jewish. They are Peter Bogdonovich, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, William Freidkin, Mike Nichols, Arthur Penn, Sam Peckinpah, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and Stanley Kubrick.
I'm working on a longer, more detailed piece on this subject which I can post portions of if any one is interested.
Regards,
Mark

On Equal Representation
Mark
4:45 pm tuesday august 14, 2001
One other thing: I have to say I disagree with one of your main contentions, that different groups should be represented equally in the film industry.
This reminds me of women and blacks and just about everyone else these days complaining that America is unfair as long as different groups are not represented equally in all fields of endeavor. Nepotism probably plays a small role but I think most Jewish people who have succeeded in the film industry are where they are because they wanted it badly enough to make the necessary effort.
People in America with ambition and determination who are willing to work hard succeed, generally in proportion to their efforts. Hollywood is no exception. I agree that the large Jewish presence in TV and film making influences storylines, etc., but I don't know that there's much that can be done about it.
Regards,
Mark

Equal Representation
John Cones
5:17 pm tuesday august 14, 2001
Mark:
We're not saying there should be equal representation of all groups in the film industry. That would a very impractical and utopian ideal. What we are suggesting is that there should be a lot more diversity at all levels in the Hollywood-based U.S. film industry, particularly at the top, because that is where the important decisions regarding which films are produced and released are typically made. Further, it is my own contention that it is a practical impossibility for the members of any particular narrowly-defined group to occupy the top executive positions at the major studio/distributors over a 100 year period without a considerable amount of employment, racial, sexual, religious and other forms of discrimination occurring. Thus, it is my contention that many people have been arbitrarily denied opportunities in Hollywood over the years and nobody (other than FIRM) is doing anything about it. This is harmful to our nation's interests because it impacts the kinds of movies we see, and as the U.S. Supreme Court has stated, the motion picture is "a significant medium for the communication of ideas." I add that ideas are and have always been powerful motivators of human conduct, thus the ideas being consistently communicated through this significant communications medium, must come from a diverse group of executives, otherwise, it is harmful to our democracy and the so-called free marketplace of ideas we supposedly value.
John Cones

VOD Internet Distribution
James Jaeger
6:03 pm thursday august 16, 2001
Finally, after 5 years and 15 days of scratching their heads, the Hollywood-based MPAA studio/distributors(1) have realized that the business plan we announced on August 1, 1996 in the Main Line Times to download features over the Internet, may have merit.(2)
Unfortunately the venture capital firms and established companies we went to in 1996 were too short-sighted to see the possibilities either.
Just goes to show, that a) new ideas CAN come out of "left field" and b) the mainstream (corporate world) often moves slowly, if at all, because:
i. the cowards follow the herd;
ii. the herd blindly follows nothing or everything; and,
iii. not everything has vision.
James Jaeger
-----------------------------------------
(1)"HOLLYWOOD MOVES TO RENT MOVIES ONLINE by Rick Lyman
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 16 (2001) - Five major movie studios, including some of Hollywood's top players, unveiled plans today for a joint venture that would allow computer users to download rental copies of feature films over the Internet. . . .
The venture is also seen by many studio executives as a first step toward true video-on-demand (VOD), when consumers will be able to watch any movie they want, whenever they want. Initially, the films will be available for download only onto personal computers, or television monitors linked to an Internet connection, but eventually video-on-demand service is expected to include cable television and other delivery systems.
"I think anybody who is in the movie business wants to reach the day when you can watch any movie you want, any time you want," Mr. Landau said. "I personally believe that launching an Internet service like this is a necessary first step in that regard."
The studios that will be partners in the service are MGM, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers and Universal Pictures. Noticeably absent were Disney and 20th Century Fox, although sources close to Disney said that it intended to announce its own video-on-demand service within 10 days. Fox issued a statement late this afternoon saying that it, too, would announce plans soon for such a service.
Executives at Sony's Moviefly, an Internet movies-on-demand effort that will provide the technical backbone for the venture, had been saying since early this year that they intended to go online as soon as they could."
Studios traditionally release movies in a series of so-called windows, starting with theatrical release, followed by videocassette, DVD, pay- per-view, pay-cable networks and, eventually, broadcast networks. Executives at several studios said films would be released on this new system, initially at least, only when they entered their pay-per-view window, usually months after the theatrical release. The rental cost will be about the same as a pay-per-view film, the executives said."
(2) See http://www.mecfilms.com/plan as well as PAY-PER-VIEW.COM and The Home Video Network at www.pay-per-view.com and www.homevideo.net, respectively.

Dogma 2001: The New Rules for Internet C
info
2:18 am tuesday august 21, 2001
Ten rules for creating truly Internet cinema can be found at www.neocinema.com.

Hollywood Reporter Bias
John Cones
12:57 pm wednesday august 22, 2001
In its August 14-20 issue, The Hollywood Reporter ran the headline “Acting Gains for Minorities” on page 1. On the other hand, the story itself detailed a rather dismal overall record for minority hiring, even though small gains were being reported. The article states: “Despite promising gains made in the number of television and theatrical roles allotted to minority actors, Hollywood remains an over-whelmingly white town, with more than three-quarters of all roles going to white performers according to the Screen Actors Guild 2000 Employment Statistics Report . . . “ The article goes on to report that “Of the 53,134 roles signed to guild contracts last year, 22.9% went to performers of color, a 1.7% increase from the previous year and the highest percentage since the guild began collecting these statistics in 1992.” Of course, this really means that Hollywood’s minority hiring record has been pitiful for a very long time.
The Guild study indicates that “Black performers received 14.8% of all roles – up from 14.1% in 1999 – the largest representation to date. Roles cast for Latinos/Hispanics jumped a half a percentage point from 1999 to 4.9% which also is a new high. Native Americans received only 0.3% of the roles cast, up one-tenth of a percentage point from a year ago.” Nowhere in The Hollywood Reporter article is there an indication of how these percentages compare to the overall demographics in the U.S. generally, and both the Guild study and The Hollywood Reporter ignore one of the most important so-called minority populations, at least with respect to the film and television industries (i.e., Jewish men and women). The Guild report does go so far as to report that “Ageism and sexism still run rampant in Hollywood casting circles . . . “ But, apparently they are still afraid to tell the whole truth (i.e., the Hollywood control group has engaged in massive employment discrimination for 100 years and that control group is and has been for that same period dominated by politically liberal, not very religious, Jewish males of European heritage.
During the same week that The Hollywood Reporter’s headline said “Acting Gains for Minorities”, the NAACP was threatening to a boycott for Hollywood’s failure to treat minorities fairly, particularly in the executive ranks where the NAACP’s Kweisi Mfume reports “It is still unknown whether there is any identifiable African-American who has the authority to greenlight a new series or to make final decisions relevant to creative activities . . . “ My own studies show that there never has been an African-American, possibly only one Latino and no native Americans in any of the three top studio executive positions for the 100 year history of this industry (see The Hollywood Reporter, August 14-20, pages 1 & 54; and August 21- 27, page 130). Also note that the NAACP story was buried on page 130, as compared to the page one treatment of the more favorable headline. It’s time to stop talking about this dishonest and biased reporting and the human travesty and start the revolution! Nobody gives up power voluntarily, you have to take it from them!
John Cones

re: Equal Representation
Brian
2:45 pm friday august 24, 2001
John:
I have to disagree with you on this one, tho there are so many other things I agree with you on so much. The idea of “more diversity at all levels” in Hollywood, tho initially appealing, is vague and arbitrary, and ultimately degenerates into the idea of proportional representation. This is not the same as equal representation of all cultural groups in Hollywood, but rather representation based on how many of each culture live in the U.S., an idea that is coming up in the civil rights arena. With either more diversity or proportional representation we would still end up with the problem of how to decide which culture will hold the executive and producer positions, which culture will be represented as the director, which cultures will form what percentages of the actors, which cultures will form what percentages of the camera personnel and other technicians etc. This approach will reduce the deep and critical issue of culture to one of mathematics.
Not only that, diversity as currently conceived will perpetuate much of the suppression and distortion of culture and history that characterize Hollywood now. With for example the studio executive being of one culture, the producer being of another culture, the director being of another, and the actors and technicians being a mixed group, no single culture within the American panorama will have the right or means to express itself fully. This would misrepresent America, since along with having some kind of common identity we also bring with us our cultural legacies and special characteristics. We are all American, but we are also Anglo, African, German, Scandinavian, Polish, Jewish etc. No culture has been able to express itself through film since the beginning of the film era, either at all or without interference from small numbers of executives of one culture who, even if they wanted to, could not except in part fairly or truly represent other cultures due to the divergent perceptions caused by the lenses of their own history and cultural makeup. This is what has to change.
Why not instead allow *each* significant culture within America to have its own cultural institutions - from top to bottom, from production to distribution to theaters? That way everybody will feel represented and recognized, and each culture can express and develop itself along its own lines. This system will also be self-financing. Ideally this would be done at the expense of Hollywood, but that is another story. Cultural diversification and reassertion cannot occur however if every film and studio is forced to accept a diverse makeup, an approach that will place this kind of diversity above the cultures that make up that diversity, if you see what I mean. Cooperative productions between cultures could create friendship and blending without cultures losing themselves to dominance or suppression by members of a single culture like we have now or in the general morass of mathematical diversity. Other films could perhaps be of general American interest. This will not solve all problems created by Hollywood, since many filmmakers may continue to make cheap and degrading films rather than quality or art films no matter what their culture, but it will overcome the lack of diversity decisively.
This is a challenging goal. But so is changing the current makeup of Hollywood executives in view of the many attempts that have been made in the past. These people are powerful and clever and evidently do not hesitate to use immoral and illegal tactics. Overturning the Hollywood empire will be difficult no matter what replaces it. Moreover, I do not think we should settle for halfhearted goals or goals that are themselves confusing and that themselves significantly misrepresent the American cultural landscape. The goal of more diversity is dead-on and its attainment urgently needed, but I think how that goal is realized can take a different form than how civil rights activists currently conceive of it.
One last thing, how about changing the format of these dialogs from web-based to email list-based? It is easier to get email and interact than make the additional effort of going to the web to read each posting and then reply. Faster too for many people. Or, have both web and email, containing the same postings, so as to take advantage of both formats.
Brian
P.S. I could not get Mark's email address to work but am very interested in receiving portions of the manuscript you are working on.

re: Hollywood Reporter Bias
Brian
2:53 pm friday august 24, 2001
The last I heard African-Americans consituted 12-13 percent of the U.S. population. I do not know what the figure is now. According to these statistics there could be a slight overrepresentation of blacks in acting, tho it would be enough to say there is fair representation.
Brian

Truth Is Never Out There
James Jaeger
2:27 am monday august 27, 2001
A couple of interesting comments were made by Rick Rockwell and Darva Conger after their ordeal of "getting married" on a FOX TV show around February of 2000. Appearing on LARRY KING, first on 21 February and then on a re-broadcast 26 August 2001, here's how the two sum up their experience with the MPAA-infested news media (my term).
"I am guilty of rushing to judgement on Richard Jewell* because of what I saw on TV. See, I was a news junky. . . . Now I can't look at anything on TV the same way. I'll never read the newspaper the same. . . ." - Rick Rockwell
"The truth is never out there and the most negative thing is always broadcast. . . . We (Rick and I) are, for once, in full and complete agreement." - Darva Conger
"Now I can see the nuance . . . I can see when they change one word -- that's not going to be libel -- but they change it to try and skew the attitude." - Rick Rockwell
"Someone said once that freedom of the press only exists for one who has one. . . . That's why I created the website -- it's my own little press to get the truth out there." - Darva Conger
James Jaeger
--------------------------------------------------------
*The Olympic security guard who first discovered a pipebomb minutes before it exploded at (the 27 July 1996) summer's games in Atlanta, held a press conference to talk about the how the FBI and the media have made his life "a nightmare." Jewell had been accused of planting the bomb in July, but was cleared on Saturday when Justice Department officials released a letter saying he was no longer a target of their investigations.
RICHARD JEWELL: "For 88 days, I lived a nightmare. For 88 days, my mother lived a nightmare too. Mom, thanks for standing by me and believing in me. I love you. Today is a new and different day. Part of my nightmare has ended. The criminal investigation is over. Now I must face the other part of my nightmare."
BARBARA JEWELL: "The media has descended upon us like vultures upon prey. They have taken all privacy from us. They have taken our peace. They have rented an apartment which faces my home in order to keep their cameras trained upon us around the clock." -- Source

Hollywood's Spin on Columbine
James Jaeger
1:34 am tuesday august 28, 2001
It's not the MOVIES. . .
It's not the PARENTS. . .
IT'S THE BULLIES! . . . according to Hollywood mouth-piece, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTS, which was broadcast by the Arts & Entertainment Television Network on August 27, 2001.
Here's how the "investigations" into the violence in our nation's schools was *summed up* by host, Bill Kurtis:
". . . The dramatic increase in school shootings has not triggered a nation-wide reexamination of the problem of school bullying; the reaction of most schools has been reactive -- a massive step-up in security -- instead of being proactive, trying to stop the bullies before physical or psychological damage is done to their victims. So until our educational system comes up with comprehensive programs aimed at heading it off, we continue to run the risk of our children being (dramatic pause), bullied to death."
Of course, movies had nothing to do with any of it. Not once in the show was any responsibility for the violent behavior portrayed in either the bullies or their victims (who then went on to kill other children) linked to the endless violence- oriented movies Hollywood (lead by the MPAA studio/distributors), produces with abandon, movies which saturate the youth decade in, and decade out.
It’s important to note that The Walt Disney Company, an MPAA studio/distributor, owns 37.5% of the Arts & Entertainment Television Networks.* Walt Disney Studios, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company, produces violent feature motion pictures through Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, and Miramax, which are wholly-owned subsidiaries.
From Disney's point of view, the wonders of having a 37.5% interest in a well-insulated, multi-million dollar spin machine, such as Arts & Entertainment Network (with shows like INVESTIGATIVE REPORTS) will never cease?
James Jaeger
--------------------------------------------------------
*Arts & Entertainment Television Networks is a joint venture between, Disney owned ABC, Inc. (37.5%), the Hearst Corporation (37.5%) and GE-owned, National Broadcasting Company (25%).

Quality Screenplay, Definition of
James Jaeger
3:53 pm friday august 31, 2001
What is a quality screenplay? The answer to this question has eluded writers, producers, studio executives, investors, story editors, directors and the viewing public for decades . . . until now. For the first time in history, the exact definition of the term, "quality screenplay," and what it means to Hollywood has been unearthed, as follows:
Quality Screenplay. 1) 120 pages of narrative drama that reinforce the liberal, anti-religious, socialist agenda; 2) a document written by one of the "known-quantity" writers, as screened by the existing MPAA-signatory agents; 3) a vehicle for gun-play and violence which contains one of the 14 pre-approved stories for filler; 4) a blueprint that results in a mechanism to sell more popcorn and other substances with hydrogenated oil.
James Jaeger

Ideas Are Powerful!
John Cones
8:52 pm tuesday september 4, 2001
Isn’t it interesting that the poet Allen Ginsberg wrote in The New Yorker magazine in August of 1968 that “Whoever controls the language, the images, controls the race.” Ideas are powerful. The motion picture is a significant medium for the communication of ideas. Wake up America! Control of the medium must not continue in the hands of the few. Diversity at all levels in the film industry must be achieved.
John Cones

VOD Internet Distribution
James Jaeger
6:03 pm wednesday september 5, 2001
Finally, after 5 years and 15 days of scratching their heads, the Hollywood-based MPAA studio/distributors(1) have realized that the business plan we announced on August 1, 1996 in the Main Line Times to download features over the Internet, may have merit.(2) Unfortunately the venture capital firms and established companies we went to in 1996 were too short-sighted to see the possibilities either.
Just goes to show, that a) new ideas CAN come out of "left field" and b) the mainstream (corporate world) often moves slowly, if at all, because:
i. the cowards follow the herd;
ii. the herd blindly follows nothing or everything; and,
iii. not everything has vision.
James Jaeger
-----------------------------------------
(1)"HOLLYWOOD MOVES TO RENT MOVIES ONLINE by Rick Lyman
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 16 (2001) - Five major movie studios, including some of Hollywood's top players, unveiled plans today for a joint venture that would allow computer users to download rental copies of feature films over the Internet. . . .
The venture is also seen by many studio executives as a first step toward true video-on-demand (VOD), when consumers will be able to watch any movie they want, whenever they want. Initially, the films will be available for download only onto personal computers, or television monitors linked to an Internet connection, but eventually video-on-demand service is expected to include cable television and other delivery systems.
"I think anybody who is in the movie business wants to reach the day when you can watch any movie you want, any time you want," Mr. Landau said. "I personally believe that launching an Internet service like this is a necessary first step in that regard."
The studios that will be partners in the service are MGM, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers and Universal Pictures. Noticeably absent were Disney and 20th Century Fox, although sources close to Disney said that it intended to announce its own video-on-demand service within 10 days. Fox issued a statement late this afternoon saying that it, too, would announce plans soon for such a service.
Executives at Sony's Moviefly, an Internet movies-on-demand effort that will provide the technical backbone for the venture, had been saying since early this year that they intended to go online as soon as they could."
Studios traditionally release movies in a series of so-called windows, starting with theatrical release, followed by videocassette, DVD, pay- per-view, pay-cable networks and, eventually, broadcast networks. Executives at several studios said films would be released on this new system, initially at least, only when they entered their pay-per-view window, usually months after the theatrical release. The rental cost will be about the same as a pay-per-view film, the executives said."
(2) See http://www.mecfilms.com/plan as well as PAY-PER-VIEW.COM and The Home Video Network at www.pay-per-view.com and www.homevideo.net, respectively.

Relevant Quotations
John Cones
12:44 pm tuesday september 11, 2001
I've been doing some work with quotations recently, and occasionally I run across a quote that appears to apply to issues relating to FIRM. The following is an example:
"It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions make it impossible to earn a living." Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) British mathematicians, philosopher
This is precisely one of the reasons why so few people are willing to criticize what is happening in Hollywood. They have a quite reasonable and realistic fear that if they express the truth, they will not be allowed to make a living in the industry.
John Cones

Media's Role in Terrorism?
James Jaeger
8:00 pm friday september 14, 2001
From our point of view and most of the world's point of view, America is a very generous and great country, but we also have some things that we need to straighten out in the way we handle this unprecedented terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, otherwise it may lead to our demise. Milt Bearden, who according to Dan Rather on CBS, is one of the most experienced CIA agents on Middle East issues and was, in fact, one of the field agents that helped run the Afghanistan War. He, and other CIA agents, actually trained up mujahidin forces and Osama bin Laden (full name, Osama bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden) in a combined effort to eject the Soviets from Afghanistan around 1989. Bearden said a very wise thing on CBS last night, something we need to listen to, even if we hold the CIA in a little contempt for not preventing the events of Tuesday, the 11th of September 2001. He said: "Osama Bin Laden is the metaphor for the entire problem of terrorism involving Muslims with perceived grievances against the U.S." Although he acknowledged that bin Laden is "evil" and that we need to go after who ever did this, he emphasized that we need to be very cautious saying, "steady as she goes."
Bearden stated, in certain terms, that he is not at all convinced that bin Laden is responsible for this terrorist act. He also said that there is a tendency to want to go in there and "put a mark" on the first person we know of, but then he added that people such as Bin Laden are ALL that we know about as there may be others that we are NOT aware of. He said the issues are VERY complex and the decision on how we handle this could be the most important decisions we will have had to make in the last 40 years. The key idea he tried to impart is that bin Laden is only the METAPHOR for this terrorist problem. We cannot possibly go after the entire nation of Islam, who might have anti-American feelings as embodied in the metaphor of bin Laden. When one of bin Laden's inner circle people was interviewed about a month ago by CBS, he said that his people are willing to die for their cause. He said that it only takes a few of them to take out the White House, or whatever, and they have many who are willing to do such suicide missions.
So why does bin Laden hate the United States? In his own words he says: "The American imposes himself on everyone. Americans accuse our children in Palestine of being terrorists -- those children, who have no weapons and have not even reached maturity. At the same time, Americans defend a country, the state of the Jews, that has a policy to destroy the future of these children. We are sure of our victory against the Americans and the Jews as promised by the Prophet: Judgment day shall not come until the Muslim fights the Jew, where the Jew will hide behind trees and stones, and the tree and the stone will speak and say, 'Muslim, behind me is a Jew. Come and kill him.' Your situation with Muslims in Palestine is shameful -- if there is any shame left in America. Houses were demolished over the heads of children. Also, by the testimony of relief workers in Iraq, the American-led sanctions resulted in the death of more than one million Iraqi children. All of this is done in the name of American interests. We believe that the biggest thieves in the world and the terrorists are the Americans. The only way for us to fend off these assaults is to use similar means. We do not worry about American opinion or the fact that they place prices on our heads. We as Muslims believe our fate is set. We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians; they are all targets in this fatwa. American history does not distinguish between civilians and military, not even women and children. They are the ones who used bombs against Nagasaki. Can these bombs distinguish between infants and military? America does not have a religion that will prevent it from destroying all people." (Source: ABC reporter John Miller recounts his May 1998 hour-long interview with Osama bin Laden at his camp on a mountaintop in southern Afghanistan. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/miller .html)
So I ask you, how is the United States going to be able to defend itself against people who have these views if there are potentially millions of others that may hold similar sentiment and who are willing to give their lives? I just don't think more war and violence is the answer.
Even though we may consider bin Laden's point of view despicable, it is important to at least hear what he is saying. We also need to consider the ramifications of the Arab-Israeli War as this must be a factor in this. . . something the news media is soft-peddling due their its vested interest in keeping you ignorant and whipping you into a frenzy. It has always been true that people of similar religious and national heritage (even if most of them consider bin Laden extremist) tend to stick together and tend to sympathize with each other's challenges and loyalties.
According to CIA data: "After World War II, the British withdrew from their mandate of Palestine, and the UN partitioned the area into Arab and Jewish states, an arrangement rejected by the Arabs. Subsequently, the Israelis defeated the Arabs in a series of wars without ending the deep tensions between the two sides." (See http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/is.html)
Thus as of the year 2000, the Muslim population of the world was about 1.2 billion, the Jewish population about 13 million and the Christian population about 1.1 billion. This means that about 20% of the world's population is Muslim, 18% is Christian and 2.1% is Jewish.
Of the 13 million Jews in the world, about 5.8 million live in the United States (the majority of 1.75 million living in New York City) and about 4.8 million live in Israel. This boils down to the fact that about 80% of the population in Israel is Jewish and about 20% (or 1.1 million) is mostly Arab Muslims. The population in the West Bank (a dry, land-locked area of about 5,860 square miles right smack in the middle of Israel) is about 2 million, of which Palestinian Arabs comprise 83% (1.7 million) and Jews comprise about 17% (340,000). The predominant religions in the West Bank are thus about 75% Muslim and 17% Jewish (with the balance being mostly Christians). So what you basically have is about 2 million Arab Muslims surrounded by about 4.8 million Jews who hate each other, and who have been fighting a war with each other since the United Nations had the "brilliant" idea of partitioning the country in this insane manner around 1947. And to make matters even more explosive, this nest of hate is surrounded by another 1 billion Muslims of which about 137.3 million live in Pakistan, a country that conducted their first nuclear weapons tests in 1998. Add to this the ominous fact that 84% of Afghanistan's 26.8 million people are Muslim and this is the place where, not only known terrorist bin Laden hangs out, but where he was trained by the CIA to fight Communism.

The United States has about 277 million people, of which 56% are Protestant, 28% are Roman Catholic, 2.1% are Jewish, 4% are other religions and 9.9% have no religious denomination. The point of all these statistics is this: Given the above factors (numbers, relationships and potentially explosive situations) connected with the Arab-Israeli Conflict, we in the United States would be wiser to resolve the attack of 11 September 2001 without adding further violence to the equation or antagonizing the Arab Muslim world any more than we have already done with anti-Arab movies and our uncritical support to Israel. Why is the media NOT talking about this? Because they are obviously part of the problem, as I will explain below in more detail. You can say this is "giving into to terrorism," but it's not. It's cooler heads prevail. I invite you to take a look at the Arab Muslims' point of view:

Bush came on TV and said that the reason we were attacked was because 'America is the world's brightest beacon of freedom.' Here's another point of view on WHY we were attacked by CFR member, Henry Sigman, as reported on Ted Koppel's CBS NIGHTLINE last night: Sigman said: "The U.S. is seen as a sort of an insensitive hegemony, with arrogance that seeks to impose it's own values on the rest of the world. It is seen as an uncritical supporter of the State of Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians and the combination of the two does not make for U.S. popularity in that part of the world."

Adding to this theme is Magnas Raisdorff, who appeared on NIGHTLINE while Ted Koppel, the show's host, was stranded in London. Raisdorff, a reporter in the London branch of CBS, and who is an expert on terrorism, agreed with Sigman, adding the following: "Many in the Arab world regard the U.S., not as an honest broker, but as protecting and shielding Israel over very important political, as well as religious, issues. Among these issues are:

o Israel's control over holy Islamic sites, like the "Dome of the Rock;"

o Presence of U.S. troops near Islamic religious places such as Mecca and Medina;

o The sanctions the U.S. has placed on Iraq are mostly depriving children of drugs and food they desperately need;

o And most importantly, Israel's attacks on prominent Palestinian militants are using equipment, like helicopter gun ships, provided by the U.S. -- more escalation of the tit-for-tat violence that has marred almost every single day of the last year in the Middle East. Thus the U.S. is unilaterally insuring and maintaining Israel's interests and therefore it is partial, and is therefore blocking Palestinian aspirations."

Then Jim Ruden, reporting for CBS NIGHTLINE, also in London, cut in to summarize Raisdorff's report saying: "And THAT is why what happened yesterday, happened (referring to the attacks), NOT because 'America is the world's brightest beacon.'"

Right after Ruden finished stating the above, the camera cut back to a stunned Ted Koppel, who, remember, is stranded in London having to broadcast this edition of NIGHTLINE from there (a more objective environment than back in the U.S.). After four seconds (and I actually counted the seconds on a video tape replay), the stunned Ted Koppel, quipped: "I'd like to broaden the perspective a little bit." Meaning, he wanted to further obfuscate the real issues, so as to not displease the people that cut his pay checks each week (i.e., the network executives that are controlled, directly or indirectly, by the MPAA studio/distributors). So Koppel, a major U.S. media mouth-piece, immediately put his 'old friend,' Walter Slocombe (former Undersecretary of Defense in the Clinton Administration) on camera and encouraged more hawkish talk, so as to continue with the media's propaganda campaign to whip Americans into a war frenzy along the authorized U.S. media PR-strategy. The point is this: it is common knowledge that the U.S. media is run, or influenced heavily by the New York- and Hollywood-based MPAA studio/distributors, which includes Ted Koppel's NIGHTLINE (when not broadcasting out of London where a more balanced view is extant). It is further common knowledge that these same MPAA studio/distributors are influenced, owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by a narrowly-defined group of liberal, not very religious, Jewish males of European heritage. While one should pause to recognize that the Jews involved in the media are NOT necessarily representative of Jews in general, it is obvious that they ARE "pushing buttons" that effect Jews in general (as well as American) and THIS is important to note. Many of the Jews involved in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, hate the Arabs and vice versa. After all, they have been fighting this War for decades. On the other hand, Arab Muslims are hardly "in control" of the U.S. motion picture industry or the media, as are certain liberal, not very religious, Jews (many of whom, no doubt, have loyalties and sympathy with their counterparts in Israel and the West Bank). Thus, there is a serious conflict of interest in the reporting of the "news" to Americans at this time.

For decades, the media, and especially Hollywood-based motion picture output (which gets shipped out all over the world, including the Arab-Muslim World), have endlessly depicted Arabs in negative and stereotypical ways that are a) antagonistic, if not infuriating, to Arabs and Muslims and b) have the effect of biasing the American public against Arabs and Muslims. Is this okay? Is it okay for a narrowly-defined group to be able to use the most powerful mass communications machine ever devised to influence the opinions and emotions of people in a Democratic nation? Is it okay that liberal, not very religious Jews, who are working in the media, be allowed to impose their "spin" of world events (and terrorist attacks) as well as news relating to the Arab-Israeli Conflict on the American People? Certainly the Arabs and Muslims don't think so. And I bet, many of the people in the London-based BBC and Canadian-based broadcasting industry, not to mention the Hispanic- and Asian-Americans communities, don't think so either. All these groups are disenfranchised with respect to the movies and the media. So, it could be said that, by not paying enough attention to issues in connection with the movie industry and the media, the American People have allowed ONE narrowly-defined group of people to gain control over the most powerful propaganda machine ever devised and this group is hurting ANOTHER group -- the vast majority of which are peace-loving Muslims.

So, as you watch "Attack on America" on your TV, realize that you are getting a view of the issues with a very definite "spin" on them. You are getting reports on the events of 11 September from the point of view of what is acceptable to the media control group, which again, as research indicates is comprised predominantly of liberal, not very religious Jewish males of European heritage. (See research at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/bginfo.htm for details on the most extensive study ever done on this issue.)

No one, including myself, is saying that the terrorists who are responsible for the horrible destruction of lives and property last Tuesday should not be sought out and brought to justice. This needs to be done, but we must proceed cautiously and try to gain a better understanding of the over-all picture that is going on before we start throwing any more cruise missiles or power around. I know everyone wants to hang these terrorists right now, but that is a lynching of justice if we act without thinking the thoughts through carefully and prudently and it could be a VERY dangerous thing to do. As my statistics above show, there are MANY Arab Muslims in the world and there is no assurance that all of them, especially those in Pakastan, will accept further US abuse of the their Muslim brothers. Remember, there are many more Muslims than there are Christian or Jewish Americans and these people stick together. At the same time, they are just as peace-loving as we Americans (including most Jews and Christians), but they are, if antagonized further by American MOVIES/MEDIA or our biased foreign POLICY towards Israel, capable of causing great further damage to the United States. Again, even though the vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving and in no way condone terrorist attacks, some of them are FED UP with us and they are in guerrilla war mode, something I do not believe we can win -- just like we could not win in Vietnam. If you consider that there are 1.1 billion people in the Muslim world and 99 percent of them would never attack America, this still leaves one percent, or a potential 1.1 MILLION terrorists who may be willing to die for their beliefs. Think what they could do when you consider what less than 50 did to the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. In my view, those attacks were "just" a shot across the bow of the Good Ship USA. And that shot was delivered to a) get our attention, and b) see how we will handle some of the things they have been anguishing over and tolerating for decades. We are not the only ones who have lost many loved ones. We need to remedy this thing, not just throw missiles around in endless mindless retaliation. This is not giving into terrorism. This is rising to the occasion with intelligence and concern. This is displaying the highest principles of Christianity and what it means to be an American. The Jewish-influenced media is going to try and whip you into a frenzy so that you will do their deed of assaulting their Arab Muslim enemies. These are not America's enemies. These are Israel's enemies. We need to get out of Israel and withdraw all U.S. support for both the Israelis and the Arabs there UNTIL they resolve their differences. We also need to stop being reliant on Arab oil, because, even though the vast majority of them are basically a peace-loving group, some of them consider us the terrorists. The Jewish-influenced U.S. media does NOT give you this perspective, as does the London media, because many of them are anti-Arab. Therefore DON'T base your decisions on what we must do from data you get from the U.S. media. Watch the media that comes in from other countries, such as the BBC and Canada, to get a more balanced, sane, view.

Various Islamic extremists consider the "United Nations a slave of the international state-sponsored terrorism." That's what their protest banners say when translated. In other words, it is clear that THESE PEOPLE CONSIDER YOU AND I TERRORISTS. And in fact, to some degree, our actions HAVE been the exact same actions as terrorists, because we HAVE bombed their innocent women and children and WE ARE uncritically supporting THEIR enemies, Jews in Israel. From THEIR point of view, they are accurate, we are terrorists to some degree. They love THEIR people just as much as we love ours. They love their children just as much as we love ours. They are human just like we are human. They bleed exactly the same and have exactly the same DNA as we have. The religion of Islam (worshiped by Muslims) even has more similarities, by far to Judeo-Christian religion, than it has differences. There is fundamentally NO difference between Americans, Arabs, and Jews, but some of them consider America is an enemy (and an enemy of Islam) because we continuously bomb them and support their enemies. Osama bin Laden is therefore the hero of the Moslem world, because he symbolizes the stand against anyone, or any nation, who is antagonistic to Arab Muslims or their religious beliefs. Thus they consider that the U.S. is "trying to destroy their Islamic way of life". All of this was reported, to his credit, by Dan Rather and Ed Bradley on late night CBS (at about 11:45 PM on 12 September 2001).

Again, I repeat, America is a VERY generous and great country, but we also have some things that we need to straighten out in the way we handle our superpower status, otherwise it will lead to our demise. We cannot let this recent terrorist attack escalate into any bigger problem because if it does, not only could the U.S. be totally wiped out by Muslims who are fed up with our uncritical support of Israel, but the entire world could be put in jeopardy. These terrorists who flew jumbo jets into the World Trade Towers are quite capable of destroying every oil well in the Middle East the United States depends on. Since we have been negligent in developing alternative non-fossil fuels, we are in trouble if we lose this oil as we will not have enough to operate the domestic and industrial infrastructure of the United States. None of this is to mention the fact that if all the oil wells were destroyed, the plum of smoke that would develop could eventually encompass the entire world, blacken the sky and plunge us into "nuclear winter." All life on earth could be wiped out. None of this is to mention the threat of biological or nuclear weapons being thrown around by Arab Muslim brothers. Again, as I write this, it is very uncertain how ALL of the people in Pakistan will react to the United States request for cooperation. These people are part of the Muslim world. They have the atomic bomb. They may NOT all side with the U.S. in attacking their Arab Muslim brothers. And what if their government DOES, but a small rouge group of them don't and get the bomb or chemical weapons? Cooler heads MUST prevail in all of this. Don't let the media whip you into a frenzy. Remember Kennedy's cooler head in the face of the Cuban Missile Crises? It may have saved us from nuclear catastrophe.

It is clear, we MUST do everything we can to understand what we have done to pull-in these terrorist attacks on NYC and DC and STOP doing it. Then we must find, and bring to justice, the people that are responsible for these terrorist attacks (and make sure THEY also stop doing it), but we MUST temper this justice with amends for the "terrorism" WE, in the U.S., have perpetrated on their people as well. There are always two sides to every story. (See http://www.internationalANSWER.org)

No real justice can be delivered by a country that is not totally ethical and just themselves. As an associate at Matrixx Entertaionment succinctly put it: "At this point, the U.S. is going to have to choose. We can choose to remain allied with Israel and remain a target, in which case we will have to adopt an Israel-style police state to ensure our security; in short, we must give up our freedoms to protect Israel. And still there will be no guarantees that this will NEVER AGAIN recur. Or we can sever our alliance with Israel and adopt a neutral stance, in which case the U.S. will no longer be a target for Arab terrorists. I vote for the latter. It offers the best hope that such attacks will NEVER AGAIN recur. . . the preservation of Israel is being bought with ever more American blood and treasure. Countries/humans must agree with the Human Rights and deal exclusively with other countries/humans respecting the Human Rights. Ignoring this is putting oneself at stake, at the mercy of others. As long as it is not considered by Nations from all over the world, we cannot expect more peace on the Planet . . . and Free Trade as well. This is a WORLDWIDE issue. This said: yes, the "guilty ones" must pay. But if the worldwide attitude doesn't change, History will repeat itself A-G-A-I-N . . . OVER AND OVER . . ."

And lastly, we must stop purchasing so much oil from the Arab nations and become self-reliant, preferably on FUSION energy -- which is on the verge of fruition.
What is nuclear fusion? Here is what it is according to the Max-Plank Institute:
"The goal of fusion research is to derive energy from fusion of atomic nuclei. Nuclear fusion is an important natural process: Many chemical elements originate from hydrogen through fusion; fusion is the energy source of the sun and stars. Under terrestrial conditions it is the two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium, that fuse most readily. In the process a helium nucleus is produced, this being accompanied by release of a neutron and large quantities of useful energy: One gram of fuel could generate 90,000 kilowatt-hours of energy in a power plant - the combustion heat of 11 tonnes of coal.
Fusion fuels are cheap and uniformly distributed on earth. Seawater contains deuterium in almost inexhaustible quantities. Tritium, a radioactive gas with a short half-life of 12.3 years, hardly occurs in nature. It can, however, be formed in a power plant from lithium, which is likewise abundantly available. Since, moreover, a fusion power plant will have ecologically favourable properties, fusion could make an enduring contribution to future energy supply." If only we would take the remaining steps towards a clean-energy world with fusion, we could delete some of the primary conflicts and sources of terrorism from the World's problems.

More Violent Movies From Hollywood?
James Jaeger
6:11 pm wednesday september 19, 2001
After the senseless destruction of human life and property in last week's terrorist attack on New York and the Pentagon, maybe Hollywood won't find violence (gun-play and explosions) so "entertaining" any longer. Gee, I wonder how apologist Hollywood writers and the MPAA studio executives will be able to survive . . . now that their bread-n-butter subject is not so politically correct these days?
James Jaeger

Jewish Influence in Media
Sharon
9:10 pm thursday september 20, 2001
You are correct about the Jewish influence in the media and movie industry. It is subliminal but there and those who cannot see it are having delusions. Yet it is again the same pro-jewish attitude generated by the atrocity Holocaust that is favoring the manipulation. Despite the unspeakable horror, after WW2, Jews were given a sinless status and anyone who talks about them negatively is seen as an anti-semite or nazi.... this opinion is so strong that almost everyone buys it. Their martyrdom has clearly become their strength.... and here is for sure one of the major causes of the conflict (as in the recent terrorist attacks).

I Agree! The DOJ Needs To Investigate Hollywood
Edward H.
0:04 am monday october 1, 2001
It's time, folks. We need the Dept. of Justice to give the same scrubbing to Hollywood that they gave Bill Gates and Microsoft.
THE TIME HAS COME for all Christians, Catholics, Gentiles, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims, Arabs, Germans, Irish, British, Russians, Greeks, and Orthodox Jews to address these questions:

Is Hollywood practicing religious bigotry?

Is Hollywood purposefully and methodically shutting out Christians and other minority groups in agenting, producing, and distributing?

Is Hollywood defaming certain groups?

As someone who has worked in Hollywood for the past 12 years, I can definitely say 'YES' to all of the above. There is a thin veil of evil in Hollywood that only the smartest grasp and fortunately, I see some do (as in the previous posts).
Please, take a moment and enlighten people to this site and continue to BOYCOTT Hollywood movies.
Edward H.

Here We Go Again: More Violence
James Jaeger
4:46 pm sunday october 7, 2001
Here we go again, more violence, more Rothschild Formula(1), more cruise missiles in Afghanistan, more B-2 bombers, more B-52 bombers. More credit-card war. More interest payments for the bankers supporting ALL sides of this conflict.
NOW we can definitely EXPECT another terrorist attack on the U.S. Way to go Bush & Company: bomb first, figure out how to remedy the source of terrorism last, or never.
Already they have SPENT the surplus. Next will come more monetizing of T-bonds, T-bills and T-Notes for the Federal Reserve Notes to wage this "America's New War." You will pay for this with a prolonged recession and super high food bills and cost of living starting in 12 to 18 months.
Terrorism will not go away, it will get worse. The debt will grow. You will pay in more ways than you yet know. Our country is being run and influenced by irresponsible and shortsighted people, some filled with religious hate. It is time both the Democrats and Republicans are replaced by the Libertarian party. It is time the Federal Reserve System, the covert but true source of terrorism and totalitarianism, be abolished. It is time the Hollywood-based U.S. film industry and its media mouth pieces be addressed because such media (at the highest level) is controlled by white males of Jewish-European heritage who are mostly liberal and not very religious(2). This “traditional Hollywood management” will never acknowledge that they have any sort of political agenda nor that they have indoctrinated the American People and their government to see many important issues exclusively from their biased point of view, a point of view which is often influenced by their deep hatred of Muslims and the Islamic religion in general. It is my observation that most of the Jews in general I have corresponded or spoken with these past several weeks are supporting a black and white, war-like attitude (of “kill the bastards”) being drummed out by the Jewish-influenced media. Thus, what this boils down to is the possibility that we in essence have the Jewish community (some 13 million) using the Christian community (some 1.1 billion) to hammer the Muslin community (some 1.2 billion). This is a recipe for disaster to the degree we don’t know how many Muslims support the Taliban and/or Osama bin Laden and/or terrorist activities in general against the Judeo/Christian World.
Wake up, more violence is NOT the answer. Look at the big picture. Don’t get your news exclusively from the MPAA studio- owned, controlled or influenced media (such as CNN, Fox News, the WB, ABC News, Investigative Reports, A&E Network, History Channel)(3). Cooler, un-brainwashed, heads prevail.
James Jaeger
----------------------------------------
(1) See "The Creature From Jekyll Island" for details on the Rothschild Formula. Available at Amazon.com, Barns & Noble or http://realityzone.com/creature.html
(2) See Chapter 4 in "What's Really Going on in Hollywood!", the full text of this book by entertainment-securities attorney, John W. Cones, is available on-line for free at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/whats.htm
(3) Bill Maher, who has had his ABC-hosted show, "Politically Incorrect," CENSORED in 16 markets, says that there are tens of millions, if not HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of Muslims that SUPPORT Osama bin Laden and his activities and these people DO NOT consider his activities terrorist. This datum is being UNDER EVALUATED by the MPAA-media, of which ABC is owned by DISNEY, one of the seven MPAA studio/distributors run at the executive level by politically liberal, not very religious white Jewish males of European heritage. (See http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/control.htm#execlist for the specific names and their specs over the past 90 years. This list is the control group, comprising the three top positions (chairman of the board, president and president of production) for the seven MPAA studio/distributors (Columbia/Tristar, Paramount, Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, MGM and Fox).

Hollywood: Dramatizing the Third Reich?
James Jaeger
10:48 pm monday october 8, 2001
What happened in Nazi Germany was a disgusting chapter in human history and none of what I have ever said should be misconstrued to mean that I take any of it lightly. There is however a very well-known phenomenon in psychoanalysis called transference (in Scientology it's call valence-shifting) whereby the victim of a crime occasionally dramatizes all or part of the deeds of the perpetrator of that crime. We have also seen aspects of this phenomenon whereby long-term hostages become sympathetic with their captors, and sometimes even affectionate. As applied to Hollywood, I believe Hollywood is dramatizing aspects of the Third Reich and to some degree has actually become a cinematic Fourth Reich.
It's well-established and well-known that about 60% to 80% of Hollywood's control group is still controlled by white males of Jewish-European heritage (see http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/control.htm#execlist). Therefore, most of the people in this control group have family members, friends and/or associates who suffered or were killed in the Holocaust. It is my thesis that this control group has consciously or subconsciously configured the environment of Hollywood in a way which dramatizes certain Nazi traits and conditions -- and this has happened through the malady of mass transference.
Notable evidence of this is how the studios, with their walls, gates, guards and siege-mentality, are reminiscent in appearance of the Nazi concentration camps (complete with a water tower in at least one studio). And look at the Nazi-efficient administrative control over every aspect of Hollywood-life, replete with its dossiers on "difficult" directors and producers, "coverage" on screenwriters, "A-, B- and C-lists" on talent, a "go-between" for delivering scripts and Selznick-type memos, "creative accounting" for manipulating outside investors and net profit participants, and a never changing "club" of Begelman-type top brass that gets recycled throughout the Hollywood Reich no matter what their crimes on the outside world so long as they push the apologist-line, follow the studio- policy and cover the executive-ass for each other as they piss way endless millions on lousy productions and thwart erstwhile "enemies" whether on Wall Street or Elm Street; or any outsider who approaches the walls of the empire. (Read INDECENT EXPOSURE for details on how Hollywood top brass handle embezzlement amongst their own. Gee, why hasn't this been made into a movie?).
And look at the endless discrimination (through nepotism, cronyism, favoritism, blacklisting and mass exoduses) that is needed to ensure the walls aren't breached (mentally or physically), to ensure the dictatorship keeps its power, maintains its way of life, perks and obscene salaries as it protects the interests and political, economic agenda of its control group. (see http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/whats.htm). We also see this in Hollywood's Gestapo management style with respect to how talent and outsiders are exploited and quickly dispatched after they have been milked for all they're worth and how its two (2) "industry magazines," endless "gossip columns," "entertainment magazines" and "hard copy magazines" invade the civil liberties of actors and artists to warn us of their drug use, sexuality and "politically incorrect" views while its "history channels" and "learning channels" and "art channels" manipulate and propagandize the Christian public as they re-write the very history of the World to conform with the view of a handful of liberal, not very religious, white Jewish males of European heritage. And of course anyone who dissents to all this is quickly slandered as an "anti-Semite" who is "troubling" and should be blacklisted and offered no movie deals until they get back in line.
In the meantime, those insiders who DO get the movie deals are busy putting out Hollywood's barrage of cruel and violent motion pictures, incessantly exporting them to "bomb" the World with liberal, anti-religious propaganda -- insulting not only conservatives, Arabs, Christians and Muslims, but Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other disenfranchised. Or bombing the world free of any non-conforming political, economic or religious views that might be at variance with the views of the Hollywood Gestapo's ruse agenda to "just make money."
Lastly we see this urge to re-build war-torn Europe (if not re- create America and all of civilization) in an image more acceptable to the Hollywood Reich's sensibilities -- an image to the exclusion of all other "inferior" images (possibly images suggested by independent filmmakers, Arabs, Palestinians or women). An accidental dramatization of Hitler's quest for purity and uniformity? I think not. Look how Hollywood even pushes the blond and the blue-eyed in all its on-screen talent and TV shows hosted by women? If this isn't a dramatization of Hitler's quest for the "pure" Aryan image, I don't know what is.
Many of the plots, scenes and images depicted in MPAA studio/distributor motion pictures which have been greenlighted by these dramatizing Hollywood officers (and their subordinate producers, directors and writers), are equal to, or in excess of, the plots, scenes and images that went on in Nazi Germany. After all, to a Jewish executive, producer, director or screenwriter who had his entire family wiped out by the Nazis in a cruel and despicable fashion, nothing HE could put up on the screen could be, in his mind, worse, for, as Jack Valenti, head of the MPAA, so often says, 'it's just entertainment folks!' So, I guess when we see bodies being endlessly riddled with machine gun fire, acid thrown in faces and towering infernos -- it's all "just" entertainment, at least compared to what Hitler and his boys did. So this gives Hollywood license to justify putting up on the screen any horrible image its concentration-camp writers can come up with, because "we're just giving the public what they want . . . and even if we're not, it's our right to free speech." Hey, last time I looked, it was PEOPLE that were given these rights, not CORPORATIONS with their W2 employees (executives and/or writers) hiding behind the corporate veil living off proceeds of movie distribution while they post disclaimers at the end of their movie propaganda saying that "we are not responsible for the content of this show and it does not reflect our views." If this is true, why has DISNEY censored Bill Maher in 16 markets for exercising his right to free speech? Apparently, what these corporations put out IS their view, or is supposed to be their view, but yet they don't want to take any responsibility for any negative effects their views create.
Even having said all the above, I actually understand and sympathize with the desires of these executives and Hollywood's desire, as a whole, to externalize such intense emotions about the Holocaust (as I was privy to some of this intensity because a number of people who work with Matrixx Entertainment helped out with Steven Spielberg's SHOAH projects). Nevertheless, I feel it is time for change. I think the World gets it. I think the executives and filmmakers in Hollywood have done a good job making us all understand, as best we will ever be able, what happened in Nazi Germany and why it must never happen again. But now, I think it's being over done. I think Hollywood is now doing more damage to this cause than it is doing good. People are becoming insensitive to the very violence some of the more prudent Hollywood Jewish studio executives and Jewish directors, such as Steven Spielberg, want to steer us away from. Thus, to the degree Hollywood continues down this didactic path of over- saturating the public with images of the Holocaust, dramatizing excessively violent and cruel depictions in the movies, and manifests this transference (this valence shift) which abets discrimination of the disenfranchised in the highest green- lighting ranks of the studios -- it is generating the very mental-illness sane members of the civilization so much want to avoid.
No sane individual can deny that the mental-sickness that overtook Nazi Germany, a mass sickness, a mass transference itself, was not real. No one can deny that humans are actually capable of such atrocities. So my warning to Hollywood is: please, now that you HAVE gotten out the message (with such accurate films as SHINDLER'S LIST), don't over-do it. Don't fill the World with more invective than necessary to make a point. Don't show our children such cruelty, such violence and ugliness so often. We adults know it exists. We know what humans are capable of, thanks to the work of various caring Jewish executives and filmmakers. And I say thanks for enlightening us. Really. Many of us simply did not get it. Now we do. So let's not over-do it. Let's keep a handful of great films on this subject circulating in the theaters and on TV so each new generation also GETS IT, but doesn't become insensitive to it. Let's keep the artifacts of the Holocaust Museum and the testimonials of the SHOAH participants on prominent display -- but at the same time, let's STOP dramatizing it endlessly in what is supposed to be our entertainment. I don't find it entertaining.
So is it possible to stop, to "forget" yet remember enough to avoid such happening again? I don't know, but I believe it IS possible to move on. Is it possible for those that run Hollywood to move on too, to put down their fears and embrace all others instead of avoiding all others? Is it possible for the control group to diversify and thus allow others to vent their frustrations and display their cinematic dreams, hopes and visions? I think it is. And in doing so, I believe less cruel, original movies will eventually emerge, movies that don't harden our children or turn them into Nazi terrorists. For in the last analysis, the most basic reason some kid or some group resorts to COLUMBINE or the WORLD TRADE CENTER is because of their sense of overwhelming rejection, impotency and/or futility.
If Hollywood, with its attitude and business practices, were championing a world which diminished rejection, impotency and futility, I bet it would stop dramatizing Nazi Germany itself and it would achieve goals of tolerance, love and diversity even in its control group. In a world where love, tolerance and diversity reign everywhere, how could there BE another Holocaust? How could there BE more terrorism? How could there possibly be more insanity and sickness?
Hollywood could lead the way. And the only proof that it was sincere in leading the way to such tolerance love and diversity would be for it to admit into its highest ranks a more diverse, tolerant and loving management team. And by highest ranks I mean the chairman of the board, the president and the president of production of each of the seven MPAA studio/distributors (Columbia/Tristar, Paramount, Warner Bros., Disney, Universal, MGM and Fox). And if this happened, I believe Hollywood would never again dramatize all that is negative in human civilization, but would spend much more effort dramatizing all that is right in human civilization and where all its participants, whether Muslim or Christian, liberal or conservative, Black or White, male or female, can go from here.
James Jaeger

re: Media's Role in Terrorism?
Louis
4:54 pm tuesday october 16, 2001
You, JJ, are also a fucking moron. There should be intelligence tests for people like you to pass, before they can post on the internet.
Quote: "Even though we may consider bin Laden's point of view despicable, it is important to at least hear what he is saying."
Really?? You are as much of a loon as bin Laden. I wouldn't be surprised if it was you or Cones that has sent illegal things in the mail.

Hollywood and Terrorism
John Cones
8:07 pm thursday october 18, 2001
We’ve had a momentous month or so here lately with everything that has happened. With the crashing of hijacked planes into the buildings in New York and Washington, D.C. many speculated as to the motives of the terrorists. Based on the opinions of many so-called experts appearing on the various news networks, the consensus appears to include the following: (1) Osama Bin Laden’s dissatisfaction with the U.S. military’s presence in the Islamic Holy Lands; (2) the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which at least from the Arab/Islamic perspective, the U.S. appears to be more supportive of Israel and (3) a broad cultural conflict between Eastern and Western civilizations and values as those values have been expressed in areas of significant Arab/Islamic population partly through American film and television.
FIRM is a narrowly focused website, thus it would not be appropriate to express an opinion relating to motivations 1 & 2. However, this FIRM website has for several years now pointed to the fact (first observed by Arab/Islamic interests and reported through various news outlets) that Hollywood movies have consistently portrayed Arabs and Muslims in a negative and/or stereotypical manner (along with other traditionally disenfranchised groups in Hollywood). We have pointed out further that rarely, if ever, have persons of Arab heritage or Islamic background succeeded in rising to positions with greenlight authority in Hollywood. In addition, we have noted that movies are a powerful communications medium and they tend, to a large extent, to mirror the values, interests, cultural perspectives and prejudices of their makers. Thus to the extent that Arabs and Muslims are discriminated against in Hollywood and such persons are arbitrarily denied positions of authority in the Hollywood-based U.S. film industry, the above- noted bias in film content is likely to continue.
This, of course, may be one of the reasons why the Hollywood studios were named as targets of possible followup terrorist attacks. We at FIRM, do not condone, encourage or approve of terrorism. We don’t approve of the violence appearing all too often in Hollywood movies, much less real life violence. But, it is important to note that quite often, desperate people do desperate things. So, people who have long-standing grievances against powerful and arrogant interests such as those that have controlled Hollywood for nearly 100 years may eventually resort to violence, partly because Hollywood does not listen to reason and because disenfranchised individuals often believe they have no other means for getting the attention of the powerful and arrogant.
John Cones

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