FIRM Discussions December 25, 2001 - February 23, 2002
Hollywood's Role in Terrorism? re: Christians/Catholics Listen Up!
bruce
8:25 am tuesday december 25, 2001maybe since we have heard from our enemies replies now with new technologies available small productions can be shot on a digital format and completely finished without a major budget and since the video market is now bigger than the film theater
Perhaps we should consider producing for the video market
My only question is how do we get distributed???
the ultimate endrun
bruce
9:18 am tuesday december 25, 2001If a person was able to shoot a movie onto a digital format at minimum broadcast specifications then let us say the production was marketable! What would be the glitches in distribution and the returns on the investment. Why has it not been done yet. The Blair Witch Project etc. etc. all had the industries help contrary to popular myth.
re: rules
enemy of enemy
9:27 am tuesday december 25, 2001I did not know that all the great German and Austrian composers were Jewish I guess Bach and the boys were being supressed back then hey! well they sure have made up for it in Hollywood.
re: So Why Even Mention They're Jewish?
bruce
3:02 pm tuesday december 25, 2001I guess it is kind of like the pit bull issue where everyone justs says they are dogs. Well there are some gentle pit bulls out there but they are all capable of chewing someone up and they especially like to maul small children. When these same Jewish people have their children mauled by a pit bull they want to outlaw all pitbulls so we might say they are hypocrites. I have a problem with anyone that is in the United States who owes or feels allegiance to other than the country that actually nourished them. Perhaps these people have gained positions in the government and are promoting their foreign agendas.
Terrorism Analogy
John Cones
3:47 pm tuesday december 25, 2001After the horrible events of September 11, it did not seem all that difficult for most reasonable people here in the U.S. and around the world to understand that even though the terrorists held themselves out as Muslims, they did not represent the whole of Islam, and as our national leaders have made very clear, we are not fighting a battle against Islam, but against terrorists. The same is true of FIRM’s struggle to encourage the reform of Hollywood (through stimulating greater diversity at all levels). Our criticism of the business-related behavior of a small group of top level major studio executives, most of whom happen to be politically liberal, not very religious, Jewish males of European heritage (an undisputed fact) cannot in any way be taken to be directed toward Judaism or the Jewish community as a whole. The people on both sides of this question who continue to falsely suggest that it is our position that “Jews control Hollywood” are smart enough to know the difference between our position and their disinformation. I can only conclude that the Hollywood apologists who continue to make such false statements are merely acting as dishonest obstructionists, who recognize that we are right and they can only defend their position by using a smokescreen. Whereas, those who are trying to draw us into a larger debate about Jews generally, also are smart enough to know better and they simply refuse to separate film industry reform from the broader issues of concern to them, even though we have repeatedly stated that, at least at the FIRM site, it is not appropriate to associate such broader arguments with what FIRM is trying to do. As a consequence, do not be surprised to see deletions of some of these posts that misstate our position or mis-construe FIRM’s issues.
John Cones
re: Terrorism Analogy
bruce
8:31 pm tuesday december 25, 2001I would tend to believe that many talented people in the world wonder why they can not get ahead. When we see a guarder of the gate not allow us access it is quite easy to assume they are the problem. If our work is not marketable, well that is one thing, however when are works are stolen and used and become popular we tend to believe our works have value. The Constitution guarantees us the benefits of our works however in a corrupt court system this may or may not be granted. To say the guarder of the gate is a this or a that is not stopping to analyze the problem. Perhaps we should examine their motives and I believe their motives are for a grand lifestyle at someone elses expense. Who are the gate guards and why do they only let certain persons through to "paradise" ? I guess the definition of terror does not include someone having their works stolen and living in poverty. Define terrorist, as far as I am concerned the forementioned fall into the category.
talk about stereotyping
gimme a break
4:03 pm wednesday december 26, 2001Guess what folks? This is America! Essentially a free market country. Comparitievely good public education is available for anyone who wants to take advantage of it. (Even the worst inner city schools can teach anyone to read which is more than what is available throughout most of the world). Affirmative action is still law (in most places). Redlining lending practices have been outlawed for quite some time. Etc. Etc. There is no excuse in 2001 (almost 2002) to cling to antiquated notions.
If you feel that the media represents a biased point of view then why don't you try being a resourcefull as the people who did start the Hollywood industry and invest wisely, work hard, think inovatively and create the type of industry that suits your vision? If the free market supports it...then you've succeeded.
Nobody stole the entertainment industry. It was built by people who had the ingenuity to create a product which the market has supported. Beyond management and artists, a huge economy of technicians, builders, truck drivers, equipment manufacturers, theater staffs, video chain staffs, (the list goes on and on), and yes your average American investor (401k, IRA, etc. etc) benefit from the biz.
If you hate the current Hollywood system so much, then just boycott it. That's your right as an American too.
After all if the American public is not being fairly represented, then we should use our power as consumers to get what we want. Is that not happening? Maybe it's because people don't feel like they're being led around by the nose by a cabal of Jews. Maybe there really is no conspiracy and the message does fairly represent wider American views.
Should Africans, Hispanics, Asians, etc. be represented more predominently in non-token ways? Absolutely. So let's get those good African, Hispanic and Asian writers busy. Amy Tan, Maria Irene Fornes, August Wilson and many, many others have had much commercial success because the American plurality have enjoyed their work (the same way they enjoyed the work of Jerry Seinfeld). If the arts were valued among Anglo's as much as it is among other groups...maybe there would be more Anglos in the industry.
I don't see how this site is helping to reform the Hollywood system. Is the Coca-Cola Corporation (or any of the other giant parent companies which are publicly owned) supposed to withdraw it's share holdings in disgust?
Also...don't be surprised or bitter that certain industries have remained dominated by the people who started them in the first place. Many Texas oilmen (Enron execs, friends of the Prez, etc.) are still Anglos. Many construction and sanitation companies are owned by Italian-Americans. Many restaurants and night clubs are owned by Greek-Americans. African-Americans are very present among the ranks of high paid sports stars.
Should we be fair then and print alphabetical lists of Anglo members of congress? Scandanavian-American dairy farmers? Chinese restaurant owners?
re: talk about stereotyping
bruce
8:33 pm wednesday december 26, 2001well! I guess we should ask the South African farmers that founded the deserted land in the desert areas if it is theft when the people kill them and take over their farms. I don't hear much about that in the news. It seems people dying in shootings on the boarders of Isreal take bigger news. Didn't Howard Hughes have RKO studios. Let's see now what ever did happen to his holdings very mysterious where they went. I think the judges were paid off and his estate was hyjacked. It would be interesting to see which persons ended up with the stolen loot. I guess we could say the Mormons did it but I think we will see a bigger picture if the truth ever would come out. Hey! Evergreen Aviation is CIA and they have his airplane up in McMinville Oregon care to try to get it back. There is a lot of thieving going on and to say otherwise is just to cover up or be part and parcel to it.
I could agree with the opinions of some people if Hollywood was a completely private industry funded by private donations. Hollywood however receives federal grants, monies etc. Unfortunately as a private individual trying to make money in the arts I receive none of this which would be great if the other people in the industry were on the same playing field. How the hell can an individual even get his script read by someone who can produce it if they tell him to go to hell and insult him when he simply tries to meet them. I guess they are just arrogant jackasses. Well! they are taking my tax money for affirmitive hire etc. and using against me. This is just fine, but don's ask me to kiss their asses cause I just ain't that type. Maybe that is why there are so many homosexuals in Hollywood, because it fits in with their lifestyle.
re: talk about stereotyping
gimme a break
10:38 am thursday december 27, 2001It costs about $200 to incorporate a non-profit organization and a few hours of filling out paper work. Once you have done this there a lots and lots of grants you can apply for (both government and private...I'm sure the John Birch Society is looking for a film maker to wave their banner).
But, since you mentioned it, let's look at Government bailouts...just pick a topic S&L (Neil Bush et al)? Farmers paid not to grow crops? Airline industry (paid off and still laying off thousands)? Think former Enron Execs won't get off easy today and get a handout tomorrow? Think again.
If you haven't succeeded, maybe you haven't followed the right path. Or maybe you think that you are the only writer with a screenplay that hasn't been made. Congradulations...you have selected to follow a career in one of the most competitive industries.
Only one way to know for sure, let's try a little test. Change your last name to one that you think is more ethnically beneficial (you don't even have to do it legally, just a nice pen name). If under this name you find wild success, I'll happily retract any implications that I have made that maybe your current woes are your own responsibility.
Hollywood/Jews/Holocaust
jj-baker
10:41 am thursday december 27, 2001More from Jewish author Peter Novick. [The Holocaust in American Life, 1999, p. 207-208]:
"How did this European event [the Holocaust] come to loom so large in American consciousness? A good part of the answer is the fact -- not less of a fact because anti-Semites turn it into a grievance -- that Jews play an important and influential role in Hollywood, the television industry, and the newspaper, magazine, and book publishing worlds. Anyone who would explain the massive attention the Holocaust has received in these media in recent years without reference to that fact is being naive or disingenuous. This is not, of course, a a matter of any 'Jewish conspiracy' -- Jews in the media do not dance to the the tune of the 'elders of Zion.' It's not even a matter of Jews in the media per se, which is an old story, but of what sort of Jews. Beginning in the 1970s, a cohort of Jews who either didn't have much in the way of Jewish concerns or were diffident about voicing the concerns they did have came to be replaced by a cohort that included many for whom those concerns were more deeply felt and who were more up-front about them. In large part the movement of the Holocaust from the Jewish to the general public arena resulted from private and spontaneous decisions of Jews who happened to occupy strategic positions in the mass media ... If, as many Jewish organizations believed, Americans could be made more sympathetic to Israel, or to American Jews, through awareness of the Holocaust, efforts had to be made to spread that awareness throughout American society."
re: talk about stereotyping
gimme a break
10:54 am thursday december 27, 2001This has got to be the worst analogy that I have ever heard.
South African farmers colonized by the use of military force and maintained dominance with the use of force.
The only analogy applicable is the seizure by the US Government of the land on which Hollywood sits. Are you arguing that the Mexicans (who we stole the land from) or the Native American's (who the Mexicans stole the land from) are the ones getting the fuzzy end of this lollipop?
The Israel-Palestine debate is bunk as well. When you give your home back to the Native Americans then you'll have a moral leg to stand on. And when the Palestinians give their homes back to the Ottoman Turks who give it back to the Crusaders who give it back to the Arabs again who give it back to the Romans who give it back to the Greek Assyrians who give it back to the Persians who give it back to the Babylonians who give it back to the Israelites who give it back to the Canaanites, Jebusites, Moabites, Amonites, Edomites, etc. Then let's talk again.
But you know what? I should consider myself lucky to be talking to someone who knows what REALLY happened to Howard Hughes. I'll trade inside skinny with you...Jimmy Hoffa is in the end zone of Giants Stadium.
re: talk about stereotyping
jj-baker
10:58 am thursday december 27, 2001Do you blame Blacks for apartheid in South Africa? Do you blame Blacks for their place in the slavery system? Do you blame Native Americans for being overcome by European invaders?
The Hollywood system (MGM, Warner Bros, Universal, etc.) was founded on a system of extended familial nepotism -- and we document that elsewhere here and more in depth at our web site.
The S&L bailouts included a number of Jewish-owned banks -- Columbia Savings and Loan, etc. which you don't mention (although your discussion here is fairly pointless).
By the way, Jews have been changing their names to WASP-sounding ones for decades (more than any other ethnic group), because it was perceived to be "more ethnically beneficial"). Examples: Sumner Redstone (Rothstein), head of Viacom/CBS; Robert Maxwell (Ludvig Hoch); past owner of one of Britain's largest media empires; Lew Grade (Winoshafsky -- spelling?), one of Britain's largest media moguls, etc. etc. Now Jewish last names are kosher (Seinfeld, Streisand, etc.) No need to change. In fact, a Jewish name is a plus.
Want to do a "test?" Try and get a job in Hollywood with a name like Mohammed. When Walter Yetnikoff headed CBS Records, he forbid his employees from staying at Arab-owned hotels.
Oh, by the way, just about any comic (until recent history when Jewish names are a plus) had a fake WASP name for public consumption: Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Woody Allen, Rodney Dangerfield, Andrew Dice Clay, Moe Howard (et al) of the Three Stooges, etc. etc.
The point is that what your name is, ethnically, has always mean a hell of a lot. Publicly, few Americans recognized all these comics as Jews. But their (Jewish) agents, (Jewish) producers, (Jewish) joke writers, etc. etc. knew quite well.
re: talk about stereotyping
gimme a break
11:48 am thursday december 27, 2001Of course Africans aren't to be blamed for colonization. How ridiculous that you would read that into my reply! The point was that Hollywood wasn't colonized, it's an industry was built that didn't exist previously (unless you want to argue about the displacement of Vaudeville...but guess what...that's where most of the producers, directors, writers and actors came from).
If it was beneficial in the past for Jewish people to assume non- Jewish sounding names in order to gain acceptance in a society which would not have accepted them otherwise (talented or not) then why shouldn't Bruce change his name if the tables are now turned? If he's talented, he'll do well.
Ultimately the point is that these entertainers weren't hacks (or at least the movie going public didn't think so). American consumers get what they want because our dollars are spent on what we like. When we wanted Elvis...we got Elvis. When we wanted the Beatles...we got the Beatles. When we wanted Britney Spears...we got Britney Spears.
If Americans want Arab culture...we'll get that too. But guess what? So far there has been no demand. Even the Jewish entertainers of the past had to conform to American standards. Unless I'm mistaken this site is not maintained in Yiddish or Hebrew. Arab American communities have not assimilated very well into mainstream culture. If and when they do, then they'll have a shot at becoming part of the tapestry.
As a member of the regional theater community I so far haven't heard of a single fledgling Arab-American theater company. I live in a city with a small, but present Arab-American community (also with a small Jewish community). The Arab-American groups do not put on public music or dace performances. They do not have poetry readings. If they do, they do not have announcements on television, radio, newspapers, etc. September 11 had nothing to do with it. I've lived here for 5 years and not a peep. There are some middle eastern restaurants, groceries and mosques but no cultural outreach to the rest of the community.
The Jewish Community, on the other hand, presents arts events and public forums frequently. Take it or leave it. It's not a forced situation. They are sharing their experiences with whoever chooses to participate. So far the events I have attended have not been attempts at proselyzation, fund raising or propoganda in support of Israel. There's also lots of African- American, Greek, Indian, Armenian and Celtic cultural festivals and arts events.
I live in a city that probably represents the vast majority of America (mostly Anglo, large African-American community, small groups of other minorities). This is where entertainment dollars are spent. This is where the market is that determines demand.
If most people aren't aware that many comics, writers and producers are Jewish...it's because we don't care. We see movies we like, we don't see movies we don't like. The last dozen or more movies I saw had no particular Jewish agenda. The last thing I saw that did was the TV show about the Warsaw Uprising. Why did I watch it? Because it's a good story (no matter who it's about). I'd watch a show about the Alamo too or even the Taliban prison uprising. It's good drama.
I don't care who makes Coca Cola...I drink it because I like it. I don't care who publishes Kurt Vonnegut novels...he's a good writer. I try to avoid brands that are known to use slave labor overseas, I don't eat veal and I try to recycle. If Hollywood is as odious to you...then just avoid it.
re: Terrorism Analogy
Gimme a break
12:04 pm thursday december 27, 2001I would love for a survivor of September 11 or the widow/widower or child of someone who died to respond to this.
I would love someone who was on the Achille Lauro, had family on board the flight over Lockerbie, was visiting Luxor, Egypt (must I go on with examples) to tell you what terrorism is.
It's safe to assume that that most people on this site are in the arts and entertainment business and have not struck gold yet (and maybe never will). But as a writer, theater director and actor, I find steady work and suppliment my income with a day job. This is the life I have chosen for myself. Not being rich does not make me a terror victim.
Everybody wants to be a member of the overpriveledged few. Why don't you blame AG Edwards for not making you privy to inside stock trading info? Why don't you blame your congressman for not throwing a pork barrell contract your way? Why don't you blame the Nobel foundation for not granting you the prize? Why don't you blame Publishers Clearinghouse for not picking your name?
How dare you claim victimhood, let alone terrorism, for not not being rich and famous!
Jobs/Jews/Hollywood
Daniel Noble
12:04 pm thursday december 27, 2001jj-baker here at jewishtribalreview.org.
I'm posting this commentary by "Daniel Noble" from the google.com arts.movies.production discussion forum [under the Dec. 26 title - "More Judeo-centrism"). It was in response to some of the debate elicited by some of the postings I have put up at that site:
"Nobody else has stepped in to claim a piece of the media pie because nobody else is allowed in. The doors only open to jews or whoever is independently successful.
In 1989 I encountered a group of young foreign tourist antisemites in the Hollywood McDonalds, who were trying to convince a group of young midwestern American tourists that: "Your film industry is COMPLETELY JEWISH!!!". This inspired a telling experiment that I did in late 1989. I sent 200 copies of a letter seeking any entry level opportunity, but used two different pseudonyms - one blatantly gentile on 100 copies and one blatantly jewish on the other 100 copies of the letter. Without revealing the actual names used, let's say they were "Christian Liam O'Grady" and "Brent Irving Friedman". Well, many offers of entry level opportunities started coming in under the jewish name, and ONLY under the jewish name. There were more than 20 positive responses. One major production company sent two scripts to see how I would cover them, to see if they could use me as a reader. A schlock company was ready to hire me as an assistent. Was I interested in pursuing television animation writing at Disney Television Animation? Two major name persons didn't offer opportunities but did sent notes of encouragement. And one of these persons, a female, surely must rank among Hollywood's fifty biggest names! I was stunned at the positive response! But the other 100 letters, identical except the gentile signature, generated not a single positive response!
I've been holding onto my response letters, and initially I investigated the possibility of self-publishing a small book or pamphlet chronicling the experiment, and once researched self publishing in the downtown L.A. library in the early Nineties. But then along came the web, which is cheaper and has a larger potential audience. I will eventually be scanning and posting every response in a tell-all website, which Hollywood isn't likely to appreciate, given the dozens of names that will then be exposed.
One of the reasons I have not done it yet is because I was considering repeating the experiment on a grander scale and utilizing more precise scientific accounting of the experiment and results. The first time was a bit sloppy - I didn't even keep track of which letter went where.
Anyhow, personally I went from being indifferent to jews to being angry at what has irrefutably proved to me that ethnic nepotism is massively prevalent. This cheats America out of having an American culture factory. One has to imagine a parallel: India-Indians, (who have the worlds biggest industry, something like 800 annual movies) imigrate into Israel, and set up India-town neighborhoods. They then proceed to make all of Israels movies and television shows for the Israelis, hiring a few token Israelis to work in subservient positions. What would the Israelis think of an Indian created national culture?
One more note: An inside source informed me that because jews have come under fire for creating tasteless programming from conservative sectors, a secret directive suggesting that Hollywood keep an eye out for talented tasteless gentile filmakers, like the Farrely brothers, as a way of deflecting such criticism.
re: Jobs/Jews/Hollywood
gimme a break
12:37 pm thursday december 27, 2001Wanna know why Farrely brothers films get made? Because people are willing to pay to see them. Enough people think that they're funny and are willing to part with the cost of admission to see the films.
When films get made that noone wants to see, they go straight to video and sit on the shelves. And they lose money. That's bad for business.
But there I go with my blatant liberalism again. Only Jewish business owners are interested in not losing money. Apparently the point of business should be to lose money. No wonder there's so much animosity towards those Hollywood, money making types.
Know who else sucks? The Japanese. How dare they make us use their high quality electronics and cars!!!
The answer is so clear now. Instead of bettering ourselves, we should just hate those who have succeeded.
Anyone wanna to by some Enron stock?
re: talk about stereotyping
bruce
2:23 pm thursday december 27, 2001ok now I am going to get a little personal and this you can check out. In March of1985 while I was in las vegas, one madonna and I am not sure of the last name but a singer or claiming to be one sicked the mob and I assume the police on me also. Her goon squad had taken some of my works. Under the circumstances I felt it would be foolish to go to the authorities. I have a letter from the FBI stating that they are completely aware of the situation etc but will not release the details. I have appealed all the way to the president etc. If you don't believe me I can provide copies of letters. Hey how is a person going to get ahead with organized crime running the system. Maybe I can break into delivering bottled water. Maybe I could get a loan and open a cement delivery company in New York and change my name to andromorphopoulis. Hey I realize the system works in less than a perfect fashion. When the government knows and allows an individual to be cheated and harrassed and does nothing about it then they are advancing organized crimes agenda and I assume they have official positions in the mob.
re: Jobs/Jews/Hollywood
bruce
2:29 pm thursday december 27, 2001so what are you saying that you will give me a job if I can prove not to you but to the viewing audience that they want to see my work or more like you will take my work give it to one of your buddies and i will get some token payoff or more like bumsrush I been there done that and my work made it but i did'nt so i feel the guy answering your letters are correct and your drivel smacks of some anti defamation league and why were they created if they did'nt need defending
re: Jobs/Jews/Hollywood
gimme a break
2:45 pm thursday december 27, 2001The people who make those decisions already have a pretty good idea of what will and what will not sell.
That's why they are sitting at the top of a huge industry.
For those that do not care about the commercial sale of their work but more about artistic quality, there are lots of avenues. Their work may not be seen on thousands of screens, but it's out there. If they are satisfied with it's quality then that's what's important.
If on the other hand you want to be a mogul in your own right, then it won't serve you to complain about what it takes to get there. Assimilate to the dominant culture of the business like everyone else in every industry in this country. Lots of people play golf who don't really like golf. Get my drift?
As for the JDL remark...no I'm not a member of the JDL. But yes, people who are singled out for hatred (doesn't matter if it's because of color, religion, idiology...whatever) do need to be defended from bigots. Before defending organizations, America was a pretty lousy place to be for anyone but Anglos. How was that any better than what you are complaining about?
Entry level positions? Who do you think reviews entry level position applications? The moguls of which you speak? Try again...it's recruiters in the Human Resources department. Are they all Jewish too? If everyone including middle management are all Jewish, then you have one hell of a discrimintory hiring practices suit on your hands.
Or do you think that all of the recruiters of entry level positions are under secret directives to give preferential treatment to Jews? Funny how none of them (must be hundreds) have kept it under wraps.
As for the foreign Jewish creation of American culture...please fill me in. I thought Jazz and Blues came from African American culture. I thought country and blue grass music came from Anglo culture. I thought that when Anglo and African influences came together we got rock and roll. I thought hip hop and R&B were African American offshoots. But I guess Duke Ellington, BB King, Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, Run DMC and Prince are really terribly opressed after all. Poor little exploited millionaires.
How about film? Is a pie in the face somehow an inside Jewish joke that isn't funny to anyone else? Were cowboys all Jewish? Romance certainly must be a cultural force that Jews are opressing American culture with. Or is it Science Fiction? How could you miss the secret Jewish agenda of Star Wars? Horror pictures? I guess I missed the Passover scene from Nightmare on Elm Street.
America is a pluralistic society and the culture is dictated by the members of that society. Don't like Snoop Dog? Fine...listen to Garth Brooks. Don't like Garth Brooks? Fine listen to Boston Pops. Unless I'm unaware that Klezmer music and Yiddish Theater are the only entertainment options you'd be pretty hard pressed to make the point that Jewish culture is the dominant composition of American culture.
If Jewish business men and artists had the foresight to get into the business of supplying cultural products for the pluralistic American society...you can hardly fault them. We all have to make, transport or sell something.
Thomas Edison had the forsight to develop electronic devices for the home in order to take advantage of the emerging availability of electricity. Good for him. GE, Phillips, RCA, etc were smart enough to get in on it. A good business move for them.
re: talk about stereotyping
jj-baker
3:39 pm thursday december 27, 2001Sorry. COMPLETE nonsense and apologia. I haven't got all day to document a refutation to each of your points (which I CAN), but I will address your oft-cited legend that the American viewing audience gets what it wants from the Jewish-dominated media realm. This is from WHEN VICTIMS RULE. A CRITIQUE OF JEWISH PRE- EMINENCE IN AMERICA at our web site (jewishtribalreview.org). There's tons more evidence, and it's posted there (but I can't do ALL the work for you here). For now:
A survey of Jewish Americans in 1989 noted that "nearly one in five respondents" elicited "skeptical responses" about the existence of God, while "in the general American population, over nine out of ten affirm a belief in God." [WERTHEIMER, J., 1993, p. 63]
The results of an earlier 1980s study about the mores of the entertainment television elite, the molders of popular culture, was published by three Jewish researchers in 1983. 104 prominent members of the Hollywood television world were formally interviewed, randomly selected from a list by Hollywood "insiders" of "key" people in the business, i.e., "Hollywood's most influential television writers, producers and executives." 93% of those interviewed were found to have had a "religious upbringing." Of these, 59% were raised "in the Jewish faith." (7% of the total survey were not raised in a religious milieu. In the context of Jewish pre-eminence in communist movements in the early and mid-20th century, [see discussions earlier] it is safe to assume that a very high percentage of these religiously unaffiliated were also Jewish). [LICHTER/LICHTER/ROTHMAN, 1983, p. 54-61]
75%, of the Hollywood elite categorized themselves to be to the left of center politically; only 14% to the right. 97% agreed with a statement that women "have a right to abortion," and only 20% agreed that "homosexuality is wrong." 51% disagreed with the statement that "adultery is wrong." Only 17% of the Hollywood elite "strongly agreed that extramarital affairs are wrong." 70% disagreed with the statement that "There is too much sex on television." 72% disagreed with the statement that "TV is too critical of traditional values."
Meanwhile, at the same time, in a 1982 nationwide poll, only 27% of the American public called themselves "liberal," 32% classified themselves as "conservative." As the three Jewish researchers noted, "The television elite's social liberalism is also evidenced by their views on sex and morality ... On such issues as abortion, homosexual rights, and extramarital sex, their views diverge sharply from traditional values ... Television creators emerge as upholders of the 'new liberalism' that surfaced among upper status cosmopolitan groups in the 1960s." [LICHTER/LICHTER/ROTHMAN, 1983, p. 54-61]
Rothman and Lichter noted Jewish influence in shaping popular culture, against the grain of dominant mores: "Within the intellectual and artistic communities, Jews were also far to the left of their non-Jewish colleagues in the 1930s and 1950s, and far more active in supporting communist or 'progressive' causes. As Jews moved into the professions, government service, the media, and academia, they served as a radical leaven for these groups and for the ever larger number of Americans coming into contact with them." [ROTHMAN/LICHTER, 1982, p. 331]
Jews have also been prominent in Hollywood as communist activists, a tradition decidedly against American popular opinion. As Neal Gabler noted in 1988: "One leading communist estimated that 50 per cent of the party's members were Jews during its heyday in the thirties and forties, and a large minority -- and sometimes a majority -- of the party leadership was Jewish. What was true of the national party was even truer in Hollywood, where Jews already formed a large part of the left- leaning artistic community." [Ring Lardner, Jr., for example, himself a CP member, estimated that two-thirds of the communists in Los Angeles were Jewish] [GABLER, N., 1988, p. 331]
Noting the predominance of a "small" group of Jews in the corrosion of America's traditional moral order and American Jewish "leadership" in this role, in 1999 politically conservative Rabbi Daniel Lappin lamented that "decent, ordinary Americans are forced to begin to question whether Jews are bad for this country. I realize how inflammatory this statement is ... I do know that I am not alone in this concern ... [LAPIN, D., 1999, p. 41] The spokesmen for groups like the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Veterans of America and Lesbian Task Force are all too often Jewish. Many of the member organizations of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice are Jewish. The membership of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a champion of ultra-liberal causes, is disproportionately high in Jews. The ACLU's leadership is almost reminiscent of a temple board meeting ... [LAPIN, D., p. 279] ... So many of the enthusiasts for the radical homosexual agenda, increased immorality, and expanded abortion rights are Jewish." [LAPIN, D., 1999, p. 293]
Whether you or I are left-wing, conservative, or whatever else, is not the point. The point is that we're supposed to be living in a democracy, and Hollywood's spewing of its own political agenda is NOT, in any semblance, an expression of democracy. It is an expression of concentrated power to influence social mores and values.
One other thing: you are slandering the Arab American community by inferring they do not have "poetry readings," and other expressions of culture. Because YOU "haven't heard about them" in the NY Times or LA Times or wherever else, you presume the community is culturally vacuous. That's racist, to say the least. If you honestly WANTED to find expressions of Arab culture in the Jewish-dominated entertainment world, you'd find it. But of course it's obscure. As is Polish, Ukranian, Indonesian, Guatemalan, etc. expressions of ethnicity. Jewish expressions are omnipresent and everywhere, visible to all, because they run the "show." Popular culture is largely a Jewish milieu, and if you doubt that go to our web site for the documentation with bibliographic sources. You are mistaking the lack of visibility of Arab cultural expression in the Jewish-dominated realm with a conviction that they don't have any. That's absurd. And that reflects your own intense biases. And the fact that Israel (and hence the Jewish people) have been for decades in virtual war with the Arab people in no small way accounts for the grotesque lack of Arab cultural visibility in America.
If there's anything you posted before that is important to you (and I didn't respond to because I can't spend forever at this) repost it in a digestible chunk, and I'll deconstruct it for you.
re: Jobs/Jews/Hollywood
jj-baker
4:07 pm thursday december 27, 2001You seem to reflect the ethics of the worst of the capitalist exploiter: if "people" out there want to buy snuff films, you're there to sell it to them. If "people" are willing to buy sugar- coated dog feces, you're there to sell it to them. If there's a market for videos of prison executions, you're there to sell it to them. "People" want to jump off cliffs? You'll sell them the ticket.
I hate to break the news to you, but money isn't everything (as you seem to frame it). Ethics/human decency/ and human dignity count for a lot too.
The Japanese aren't dominant in American popular culture. Nor the Amish, nor the Dutch. If they were, they'd be fair game for criticism.
"Success," as you apparently define it (money, fame, power, personal aggrandizement, control, materialism, etc.) is not the reason for living in some world views. Too many overseers in Hollywood, however, reflect -- and push -- your very same ideas about this. That's a very distinct value system, one that's been foisted on us all for decades now.
And that, too, is part of the problem.
re: talk about stereotyping
gimme a break
4:12 pm thursday december 27, 2001Actually, all of the minority groups in my community who do participate in cultural activities that are open to the public solicit our participation on a grass roots level. Put up a sign on a telephone poll, shop window, public access cable, NPR. Lots of choices. (The guy who selects arts announcements for our local NPR is an ordained Universal Life minister).
The fact that the Arab-American community has not chosen to offer cultural activity to the rest of us is not an indicator of any bias on my part. And you wonder why Islam is so misundertood in this country? They haven't made a voice for themselves. They let the shouts of the radicals be the dominant impression most Americans get.
I'm not anti-Arab or anti-Islam. Historically their contributions have a larger impact on Western society than American media has (just a baby at less than a hundred years old). Mathematics, medicine, epic poetry, architecture, design. They have chosen to be a withdrawn sector (of my community at least). That has not been forced upon them by anyone.
Believe me I find anti-Arab/anti-Muslim sentiment just as vile as I find anti-Jewish sentiment. When Jews are anti-muslim, I am pissed off at the individuals who are behind it. When muslims are anti-American I am equally pissed off at the individuals who are behind it.
re: Jobs/Jews/Hollywood
jj-baker
4:21 pm thursday december 27, 2001Jews dominate the money scene behind most of your examples. The jazz world was taken over by the money "wand" of the Jew. Most of the main jazz clubs (Cotton Club, etc.) were Jewish- owned. Most of the Black artists you name were run by Jewish agents and recorded by Jewish studios. It was common (a veritable institution) for such African-Americans to be cheated and exploited by their overseers, and we document this also at our web site. Who ripped off Chuck Berry? (The Jewish Chess brothers). Who ripped off Little Richard? (Art Rupe, at Specialty Records. Also Jewish).
Country music? Jews even came to prominence behind the scenes in the world of country music. The first important Jewish figure in Nashville was Paul Cohen, the AR man for Decca in 1945-58 (the Decca company in the United States was founded in Chicago by Jack Kapp in 1934). Cohen, who lived in New York and visited Nashville for a few weeks at a time, was "called by some 'the King of Nashville.'" [JONES, M., p. 73]
Margaret Jones notes that "As head of A&R for Decca's country division, Cohen was responsible for a blue chip roster of talent that included the top acts of the time: Ernest Tubb, Red Foley and Webb Pierce ... In 1952, Cohen signed the one and only female star of country to Decca, Kitty Wells, and by 1954 he had two other solo girl performers under contract: Goldie Hill and Wanda Jackson ... After Cohen signed Webb Pierce, Pierce became the hottest artist in country ... [JONES, M., p. 74] ... Nashville was Cohen's 'fishing hole,' and he galvanized the town, convincing Ernest Tubb to record there; soon all the other acts fell into line." [JONES, M., p. 73]
Jews, as our web site documents, are virtually omnipresent in the formation of popular culture. Rap music? We discuss the Jews who run much of the scene behind the scenes. Rock and roll? Jewish entrepreneurs/agents/managers are everywhere.
Boston Pops? Jewish dominance of the classical music is well known, and documented at our web site.
-- jewishtribalreview.org
re: Jobs/Jews/Hollywood
gimme a break
4:23 pm thursday december 27, 2001If people want to buy snuff films...well murder is against the law.
If they want to buy sugar coated dog feces...not against the law. Let 'em buy it. Who are they hurting? What ethical code are they breaking?
Executions and suicides? There's an ethical problem. Artistic representations of the afformentioned? No problem.
I am not taking the view that money/fame/power should be the goal at all.
I am responding to the criticism of the Hollywood system and the resentment of those who aren't achieving money/fame/power and are looking for a scapegoat.
I'm a director, writer, actor with a small theater company that does experimental work. There is little commercial potential. It doesn't mean that we aren't artistically successfull. We just have a limited audience and limited resources. To support myself, I still have to have a day job in an unrelated field. You don't see me crying about Broadway producers not picking up my work. I define my own goals and whether I succeed or not.
If I wanted to succeed by big money standards, I would conform to the culture responsible for fulfilling those goals. I chose not too.
As film makers, you do not need to seek the big money/fame trail in order to create work that reflects your views and satisfies your aesthetics.
It's not the ship on the water...it's the motion of the ocean. Media reflects our desires not the other way around.
Who cares who sells the stuff?
Your argument is that they dictated the culture. They didn't dictate the culture, they just oversaw selling it.
Why do you care who got the business? It wouldn't have been you anyway.
Does it matter what ethnic groups are behind the drug trade? Racketeering? Shady practices in the energy industry? No. We want these things solved, but it is individuals who are behind them not nations. The Arabs didn't attack us on September 11. Al-Quida attacked us on September 11.
If you want to condemn Chess Records, et al....go ahead. I'll condemn them too. Chuck Berry still made lots more money than his peers stuck in the black owned clubs of the chitlin belt.
Every business in this country is corrupt on some level (name one that isn't). If a lot of Jewish people happened to invest their time and work in the entertainment industry, then wouldn't it follow that those who are corrupt are Jewish?
The Captains of the 19th Century Industries (Rockefeller, Carnegie, Mellon, Astor, et al) were all Anglo. When one of them ruthlessly undercut their competitors and relied on shady business tactics it was all Anglos who were doing it.
Thou Shalt Not Steal is one of the Old Testament Commandments if I'm not mistaken. There is nothing about the religion (or any of the other mono-theistic religions) that condones corruption.
re: talk about stereotyping
jj-baker
4:40 pm thursday december 27, 2001How can you say that "all of the minority groups" in your community go through you? I beg your pardon. A little elitist, no? There are many, many, many forms of cultural expression that have nothing to do with homogenizing it in a big "multicultural 'Taste of Vietnam' festival" milieu. For those many Arab poets who speak Arabic, why would they come to you? And if you ARE Jewish, that would be a political barrier, whether you like it or not, irregardless of your political position.
I don't think you really grasp the notion of culture here, at least its genuine expression. An Arab poetry reading has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with YOU, unless you're an Arab. If someone wants to share with you some traditional rugs, traditional dance, or traditional food, etc. that's really quite something different. And it's more like a cultural flea market.
The whirling darvishes, for example, as they are displayed on stages as "cultural entertainment" to western audiences, are, in origin, a deeply religious experience, and not just an interesting dance for liberal Americans to dip down into once and a while.
Arabs "haven't made a voice for themselves?" You keep emphasizing the supposedly innate crippled quality of those who are disempowered. "Jews run Hollywood? Hey, what's your problem? Go buy a movie studio." "Arabs aren't visible in American culture. Aw, shucks. What's wrong with them? I guess they hide at home."
Please. The relationship between the empowered and powerless is a two-way street: the indigenous power structure versus virtually any ethnic community. The power elite -- whoever, whatever they are -- have a moral RESPONSIBILITY in all this too, and you, in all your postings at this forum, insist upon subverting all of our rights to a genuine cultural democracy by, as the old saying goes, "blaming the victim." An entrenched power elite (entrenched for decades) is no small thing. It is entrenched by virtue of its will to be entrenched; no one voted it there. And for you to completely deny its influence, power, and hegemony is gross dissimulation, at the very least.
re: Jobs/Jews/Hollywood
jj-baker
4:56 pm thursday december 27, 2001If you and your immediate family virtually run the town I live in, and I complain about that fact, this has nothing to do with "scapegoat." (By the way, that term "scapegoat" is of ancient Jewish origin. Jews used to symbolically load their sins up on a goat and drive it out into the desert -- to get lost and die). Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. Look it up. (We note it, with bibliographic citation, at our web site). I think the fact that this "scape goat" tradition is of Jewish origin is really rather relevant here. It actually says something about how the Jewish community always tries to deflect legitimate criticism heading its way. It's a very, very old tradition.)
"Resentment of those who haven't achieved money, fame" etc. apparently reflects YOUR insistent ideology. ANY other reason for protest against Jewish hegemony (the quest for social justice, an authentic democracy, Judeo-centrism throughout popular culture, etc.) still seems to elude you.
By the way, the theatre world too is dominantly Jewish (surprise!). The Schuberts, Joseph Papp, Broadway, etc. etc. etc. We have plenty of citations about this at our web site also.
Media does not "reflect our desires." Media has become not only our desires, but REALITY itself. I mean, come on. Most of what people know about Afghanistan they see on TV or read about in the newspapers. You don't know this? This is not news to most thinkers, and there is an immense amount of scholarship about how the mass media has FORMED -- even created -- culture. For most people (especially the young) mores and values are instilled by the mass media.
Herbert Marcuse (Jewish too) had some interesting thoughts about how/why even an impoverished African-American's personal identity/value/status, as, say, linked to a new Cadillac, had been merged with those of the quintessential rich white guy via the creation of social status icons through the mass media.
Too Americans, as Marcuse's argument went, see in their shiny automobiles their very IDENTITY. Where/how did this come from? The umbilical cord? It is part of the socialization process of mass culture. The mass media is a keystone of it. And Jews dominate this powerful forum.
re: talk about stereotyping
gimme a break
5:09 pm thursday december 27, 2001I wish you would make up your mind.
If your complaint is Jewish intrusion and domination of American culture throught the media then how are other groups supposed to have a voice in American culture unless they insinuate themselves into it as well?
Muslim cultural events are not there to serve me (nor did I imply that they should). But if they do not actively make themselves part of American culture it will always remain isolated and misunderstood. What are they waiting for...an engraved invitation? It doesn't work that way.
I absolutely support your right (and mine)to cultural democracy. In a democracy majority rules. The majority is not dissastisfied with what it has despite your insistence that it is or should be. If 9 out of 10 are still for God...then 9 out of 10 are still for God. NYPD Blue and The Jerry Springer show haven't changed that.
The chief complaint of this web site seems to be with the business of the business, not with a change of morality within the American public. Let me remind you that by some definitions of morality (Amish to use your example) your use of your computer is immoral. By others (some Islamic for example) a woman who speaks publicly is immoral. Should women not have the right to post to this site?
Are you a supporter of the Donald Wildmon/Jesse Helms ilk? I'll give you the same response George Carlin (an Irish Catholic) gave Cardinal O'Conner (another Irish Catholic), "There are two buttons on your TV. One changes the chanel. The other turns it off".
I expected nothing less than to be flamed on what is obviously a haven for reactionaries trying to justify their biggotry. All the same, respectfull intellectual discourse is the cornerstone of our democracy. Just doing my part to preserve the stars and stripes!
re: Jobs/Jews/Hollywood
bruce
5:09 pm thursday december 27, 2001it seems strange that you are making my point for me It is not any better and that is exactly what i am talking about. i must say thank you for seeing what i am seeing
Hey! I am talking about being robbed at pen point. I even had a court case which I did'nt win or lose but ended up losing my copyrights to a company called Proctor and Gambel soap company. Can you remember when everyone was going around saying "soft soaped" This was a music contract and they went on to rerecord the album under another artist and it became popular. So if my work is popular and they know it then I think we all better wake up, this isn't what America is suppose to be about.
re: Jobs/Jews/Hollywood
gimme a break
5:18 pm thursday december 27, 2001Now we are getting to the heart of the matter. If all the information we get is from the media...is that a failure of the media or a failure of our own capacity to inform ourselves and judge fairly based on our own experiences? Did Jews burn down the library in your town? BBC World News not broadcast in your area? No access to foreign press at all? Obviously you have internet access. So do most people, if not at home then through public libraries, work, schoo, etc.
Is it Barney's fault that he's raising kids or the parents fault that they are not.
Is it fair to blame the crutch for the broken leg?
By the way, last I heard the General Motors Corporation was not the brainchild of Jews. Also, just to keep you current, in addition to watermellon and fried chicken the choice vehicles these days include a variety of SUV's, BMW, Mercedes, Lexus. Any flashly expensive car will do for a night of pimpin' and mackin'.
Actually, I don't remember saying "soft soaped". I am aware of the product called soft soap. I believe it's been a staple product for a really long time. Perhaps you are a lot older than me (I'm around 30).
Adding the "ed" was a great innovation. How do they overlook your talent?
re: Jobs/Jews/Hollywood
jj-baker
5:25 pm thursday december 27, 2001"Does it matter which ethnic groups are behind the drug trade? Rackeering?" What do you think? Honestly. The so-called "Russian Mafia" -- the scourge of the international underworld right now -- is largely Jewish. Doubt that? Check out our web site or read Jewish author Robert Friedman's book The Red Mafiya.
Jews were the pioneers of the drug trade in America. See Rich Cohen's book Tough Jews. The current ecstasy drug trade is an Israeli monopoly. Meaningless? Jews dominate the pornography industry. They also dominated the turn of the century international "white slavery" (prostitution) trade. (See Edward Bristow's book Prostitution and Prejudice). Jews built the "smut" trade in America. (There's an entire book about that too, by a Jewish author whose name eludes me, but it's at our web site).
Israelis and Hassidic Jews are part of what one Israeli author called the "cocaine triangle." Yes, Colombians are a very important part of this, but the money-laundering ends of it, and much of the smuggling, is Jewish/Israeli. (Documentation at our web site).
The greatest Crime Syndicate in American history was headed by Meyer Lansky. This syndicate had an enormous amount to do in providing us all with the creation, and morality, of Las Vegas.
Jule Stein and Lew Wasserman founded MCA, which became known as the Octopus in Hollywood. And they had mob links, as did many of the Jewish builders of the Hollywood world. Morris Levin's Roulette Records, for example, was deeply linked to the criminal underworld. Columbia Pictures had underworld investors. "Layola and payola" are well-known foundations of "success" in the entertainment world. The "casting couch" in Hollywood has always been a major step up the "success" ladder (although nothing was/is ever guaranteed).
Is it ethically right to ignore the ethnicity of what's going on here? Is is factually right to ignore it? The "whys" of this are debatable, but not the fact that it is people of Jewish heritage who are pre-eminent in all this. Are other ethnicities involved in all this stuff? Of course. But Jews are pre-emininent in it.
And again. This is NOT all. Jews dominate the mass media, the news world, the publishing world, the art world, the intellgentsia establishment, etc. etc. etc. In Russia, five Jewish oligarchs control 50-80% of the economy (this from a Jewish scholar, documented at our web site). Etc. Etc. Etc. The documentation about this kind of stuff goes on and on at our web site.
For you, or anyone, to declare that it is unethical, immoral, or not factual to state all this is absolute INSANITY. And it again refers the vicious loop: Jews dominate popular culture and are influential in making sure that none of this is of popular knowledge.
Rich misers like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Mellon, Astor, et al did not dominate popular culture. They did not control Hollywood. And again, even if they HAD, Jewish power throughout popular culture NOW is astounding -- from the CEO of McDonalds (Greenberg) to the new head of Microsoft (Steve Ballmer). Even the corpoation of the most pre-eminent "anti-Semitic" WASP business mogul in American history, Henry Ford, had Jewish Board members by the 1970s.
Per the Old Testament: We have meticulously documented an avalanche of profoundly disturbing material from that text (the Old Testament is called the Torah in Jewish lore: the origin of Jewish identity). The God of the Torah invokes genocide against the Canaanites (kill every man, woman, child, AND everything living thing). The Talmuc (probably THE most important Jewish religious text) doesn't say what Spielberg hypes in Schindler's List: "To save one life is to save the world entire." It says "To save one JEWISH life saves the world entire."
You know what the great anti-totatlitarian writer George Orwell said about the Old Testament (the origin of Jewish identity)? "If you want to understand anti-Semitism, read the Old Testament."
I read it. And cited from it profusely at our web site. You obviously haven't read that which you paraphrase.
-- jewishtribalreview.org
just along for the ride
bruce
5:30 pm thursday december 27, 2001I guess what is being said is that no matter how popular or interesting my screen plays are, no matter how many people want to listen to my music I must kiss up to the people in power so as to get ahead. I must also not believe in a god or if I do I must disavow any godly teachings that I have been taught. I must also be willing to do things that I feel are inappropriate as long as they are legal. All I must concern myself with is being caught and then being found innocent and my concience must become a stranger to my moral character. Sounds to me like I will have to make a pact with the devil. Okay, am I writing to a two headed monster or are there really two devils out there. You know a writer has traits that an expert writer picks up on. If I was not that then I would not be aware. I am that or am I actually watching a boxing match off to one send and cheering like some boozed up fan.
re: Jobs/Jews/Hollywood
jj-baker
5:52 pm thursday december 27, 2001Libraries? How is that so different, per Jewish influence?
Jewish book publishers founded Simon and Schuster, (Richard L. Simon; Max L. Schuster) Knopf (Alfred A. Knopf) Random House (Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer), Pantheon (founded by Kurt and Helen Wolf), Viking (Harold Guinzburg) Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, Grove Press (1947) - which controlled Evergreen Books and the Evergreen Review, Praeger (1950), Basic Books (1952) - Its founder, Arthur Rosenthal, later became Director of Harvard University Press, The Free Press (1947) - Its founder, Jeremiah Kaplan, joined Crowell-Collier, which had acquired MacMillan, as a Vice-President, Crown Publishers (1936), Academic Press, International Universities Press, Twayne Publishers (1948), World Publishing Company (1905), Frederick Ungar (1941), Harry Abrams (1950) - mostly art books, George Braziller (1955, Tudor- mostly music books.
"One year,' says famous Jewish novelist Judith Krantz in her autobiography, "when I cam back from Paris, I foolishly risked a certain jail sentence by bringing for, buttoned into my blouse, a copy of the utterly pornographic Rosy Crucifixion by Henry Miller, an erotic masterpiece that Jeremy rented out to his friendds as twenty-five cents a day. I'm not taking all the credit, but eventually he [Jeremy Tarcher] became the first and best publisher of New Age books in the United States." [KRANTZ, J., 2000, p. 147] Krantz notes that her novel Mistral "was quickly bought for France by Edition Stock, whose publisher, Jean Rosenthal, as it happened had translated my other novels into French."] [KRANTZ, J., 2000, p. 313]
In a continuing trajectory of percentage of ownership, by 1968 Roger Kahn noted that "Jews own perhaps half the major book publishing houses: Random House, Simon & Schuster, New American Library, Alfred Knopf, and Atheneum are a few that thrive under the leadership of Jews." [KAHN, R., p. 5] "Owners of new [early to mid-20th century publishing] concerns," notes Jay Gertzman, "most of them young Jewish men (Horace Liveright, Thomas Seltzer, Ben Huebsch, Max Schuster, Alfred Knopf) had begun to specialize in presenting European writers to an American audience curious about their sexual frankness and Marxist ideas. Established houses, such as Doran, Houghton, Appleton, and Doubleday, did not do so, and some of their executives resented their parvenu colleagues. Modernist writers especially owed their exposure to Jewish firms." [GERTZMAN, J., 2000, p. 114]
BBC News is dominated by Jewish overseers. Former Chairman of the BBC, Stuart Young, was also Chairman of the Institute of Jewish Affairs. Allen Yantob has headed BBC2 for years. By 1998 too, BBC's studios were, quite literally, rented out to a Jewish bar mitzvah ceremony. "More normally home to A Question of Sport and the Mrs. Merton Show," noted the London Independent, "Studio A will now be made kosher so that food can be served to a party of several hundred." [MCCANN, p. 10]
The "foreign press," short of the Islamic world, is dominated by Jewish entrepreneurs and overseers. (See documenation about the Mass Media at our web site)
We also document Jewish predominance in the Internet computer realm -- from the founder of Intel (Andrew Grove) to the founder of InfoSeek, Terry Semel (CEO of Yahoo! who is also Jewish), the current head of Microsoft (Steve Ballmer -- Jewish mother), the head of Great Britian's largest server -- FreeServe, president of AskJeeves, and on and on and on. This is just the beginning (documentation at our web site).
Again. The issue is this. Such overwhelmingly social, cultural, and political hegemony is detremental to everyone. Even a child could understand that a predominance of one ethnic group in so many realms of popular culture is healthy for no one.
Look. It is axiomatic today in the social sciences that a "white" researcher/writer of any minority is going to be inherently biased, and the research to some degree flawed. So why are we to presume that Jewish cultural dominance reflects an absolute, perfect objectivity in examining all others -- an objectivity that is impossible by any rational measure.
Time for change. Time for a genuine democracy at the helm of public information.
Jews are only 2.5% of the American population and they can't (at least yet) dominate EVERY single corporation. General Motors may well have Jewish Board Members (as I say, Ford had them by the 1970s).
re: Jobs/Jews/Hollywood
gimme a break
5:54 pm thursday december 27, 2001There's really very little point in arguing with a brick wall. I have read the old testament. And the new testament. I haven't gotten to the Koran yet or the Talmud...but they're on the short list.
The old testament has interesting allegories for morality within the world in which it was written. Is it historically accurate? I doubt it. Does it capture the universal human trend to ignore what is good for us and opt to do what feels good (the buhddists say desire is the root of unhappiness)? Absolutely. I think that you would make a splendid Old Testament figure. What do you say? Should we cast you as the Propoganda Minister for the Canaanite genocide campaign? Just replace the word "Jew" in your rhetoric with Canaanite. You'll barely have to study your line at all. I bet Hollywood would be proud to produce that film...don't you think?
re: just along for the ride
gimme a break
6:01 pm thursday december 27, 2001Bruce-
The damnedist thing about it is that one must subjegate oneself to get ahead in any field. Hollywood is one of many.
How many church officials have had to espouse beliefs that they did not embrace in order to get to the pulpit? How many business men (of any background) had to sell products that they knew were of poor quality? How many advertisers had to be misleading? We don't have to like it and we don't have to do it. But if we chose not to, who are we to complain that it has to be done?
And here's the kicker. With all it's faults, when you really examine history, we are living in probably the most equitable society that has ever existed. You can romanticize the past all you want, but most of human civiliazation was a lot like what's going on in Afghanistan today. I don't think any of us can compare our troubles with theirs.
re: talk about stereotyping
jj-baker
6:30 pm thursday december 27, 2001You conclude: "Just doing my part to preserve the stars and stripes!"
I don't remember the exact saying, but I'll paraphrase: "The first (or is it last?) act of a scoundrel is patriotism." Looks like a veil, a mask, to me.
You say: "reactionaries ... bigotry ..." You have finally resorted to what most tend to do when confronted with an avalanche of facts that trouble them and which they cannot retort: slander and defamation. I'd be happy to debate you in a free forum continuously (as we both have time), but you, faced with citation upon citation, are starting to clam up and spit out slurs. Are you now reduced to only slurs and insults?
Per the tone of your own queries: Are you a supporter of Meir Kahane? Baruch Goldstein? Irv Rubin? As the (Jewish) Talmud notes: "The truth is heavy so few care to carry it."
Again, the Amish -- whatever their morality -- do not run Hollywood. The Amish view of computers is irrelevant to this discussion. If the Amish ran Hollywood, I'd be arguing for the same principle -- democracy and a broad based forum for public opinion. Are you going to bring in penis gourds from New Guinea next? Yes, per your rationale and logic, we can wear penis gourds or not. It's a free society, isn't it? We can also sell them, and try to create a market for them.
What does a Muslim woman's "right' to post at this site have anything at all to do with what we've been talking about? That just came in with an asteroid out of deep space.
You mention NYPD Blue and Jerry Springer. NYPD is a creation (I believe) of Steven Bochco, who is Jewish. Jerry Springer, that master of decadence, is also Jewish. He was once caught, as mayor of Cincinatti, writing a check to a prostitute.
Per "making up my mind." As I have stated, social activism is a two-way street. The oppressed (say, here, Muslims-Arabs, who are rendered virtually invisible in the mass media, save for their depiction as "terrorists") and the oppresser (the apparatus of the "status quo.") Both obviously play a role in the quest for social justice -- in this case we are merely talking about some sort of cultural visibility for Arabs/Muslims in Jewish-dominated popular culture.
But when virtually the full weight of Hollywood is steeled against Islamic/Arab entrance, it does not matter what the muted ethnicity community does. Because it has not the resources to gain entrance.
re: Jobs/Jews/Hollywood
jj-baker
6:38 pm thursday december 27, 2001Please explain this Old Testament "allegory" about -- in your words -- the "universal human trend" to "opt for what feels good":
"Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very far from you, which are not cities here. But in the cities of the people that the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save nothing alive that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as the Lord has commanded." [Deuteronomy 20:14-18]
YOU must be the quintessential Old Testament figure because you position yourself to defend such material.
Be forewarned: there's a lot more from where this came from.
re: just along for the ride
bruce
6:42 pm thursday december 27, 2001Maybe I am mistaken but weren't those Afghanistan terrorists that hit the trade towers and how about all the airplanes falling from the skies like gut shot ducks. I am sure those people can compare their troubles to the people in Afghanistan. And I suppose there were a lot of Hollywood types that had sold their soles to the Devil on those airplanes. When you think about it the terrorists and the Americans died and intermingled their blood in the aftermath and in the ancient struggle that I don't see ending anytime soon. Their is just something that bugs me about selling defective products to people who work their guts out to buy crap. Let the buyer beware and all that but do you get pissed off when someone sells you a load of garbage that is suppose to be an as represented product. And if I don't get the chance to see my work with my true name on it then I am just a bunch of crap like to the. people I don't like. I personally don't care if they are Jews, Catholics, Afghanis or whatever, when they pull this crap they are scum of the Earth. So I guess in the end you believe in God or you don't and the bottom line will be there is a God or there isn't. Perhaps Hollywood and America in general is just a noncarrying Godless, ripoff society that we are bragging is better than any other piece of garbage society. Romance the past hell, the founding fathers of this country came to get away from the church and the usuary money lenders that were putting them in prison and stealing their works. If I am not totally mistaken these may be the same people running Hollywood in this day and age. I thought that every company was looking for honest, loyal employees. If I understand correctly they are looking for theives, liars, murderers and favor giver-takers. If I am an honest person then I am assuming I can kiss off ever getting hired no matter how great my works. Number one why pay for something you can steal as long as you can pay off the powers that be when you get caught. I guess I am caught in a moral dilemma. Didn't Jesus say "A rich man has as much chance of going to heaven as a camel has of passing through the eye of a needle" I am not trying to get rich I am just trying to be recognized for my work and be able to make a living but I guess that is just an unresonable request under this system which is suppose to be the greatest on Earth etc etc.
re: just along for the ride
jj-baker
6:49 pm thursday december 27, 2001Is that your philosophy : personal "subjegation" to get ahead? An intriguing morality. In other words, "do whatever it takes?"
What "church officials" are you talking about? Please note names. You'd sell products of "poor quality" to get ahead? Sounds like you BELONG in Hollywood. You DEFEND misleading advertising?!
If the criteria to "get ahead" is to be corrupt, the moral person declines. Period. For you, it's an open question.
Again, you exemplify racism, chauvinism, and ethnocentrism. Afghanistan is in dire straits because of decades-long wars, mostly brought by outsiders. The "culture" of the people of Afghanistan is probably far better than whatever yours is. As someone who has had the opportunity to visit the Third World, I can inform you that those cultures offer a lot more than inane Seinfeld sitcoms, Jerry Springer obscenities, gross materialism, being a stranger to your next door neighbor, and the rest of the junk that you herald in your homage to Hollywood.
re: just along for the ride
jj-baker
6:56 pm thursday december 27, 2001Hey Bruce,
The famous biblical quote you cite about the rich man and the needle just about says it all. I think that phrase is important in this debate. Judaism is a this-world religion. The Messiah is expected to come back to THIS world. Poverty is not exalted in Judaism, although it is (at least was) in Christianity. Christ emphasized the "next" world (as Islam emphasizes Paradise). The Jewish faith encourages business, personal aggrandizement, etc. etc. etc. "Get it while you can." In the Middle Ages, Jews got into a lot of trouble ("anti-Semitism") when they engaged in usury (lending for interest) when both Christianity and Islam forbade the practice as immoral (exploitation of those in need).
Some History
bruce
8:16 pm thursday december 27, 2001well! I guess if the money lenders in the England that the founding fathers of the United States escaped from were Jewish and if the religious groups they were running from were the ancient religion of Catholosism (founded thousands of years prior to Christianity then an honest person in this day and age might as well build an underground bunker.
I am going to be denied employment! Unless I want to give my works away, the general public will never be able to judge if they would rather see my works or some monopoly writers works because we have been denied freedom of choice. I wonder if the Jewish and other control groups took over the media in Germany prior to the much touted holocaust.
I wonder if the German people were losing their homes to money lenders prior to the holocaust. Why is it all holocaust movies show some poor old Jew walking down the road with a bag of belongings. These writers never show the leading up to the holocaust. If I was writing about the holocaust I would at least make an attempt to show why or the false reason why the German people felt cheated by the Jews.
Anyway it just makes me think that I am living in a system where I would have been more successful as a ditch digger. Unfortunately I was suppose to be a brilliant little kid trained by quite a few Jewish teachers. These same teachers would whisper in the Jewish students ears something I never did hear, but I believe I know what they were saying. I never did have an Anglo teacher whisper anything in my ear about these Jewish students, so it was a oneway deal.
So, I have spent over 6 years in higher education, learning 2 occupations, one aviation the other film making. As a WASP which one do you think I have never been paid for? I am looking ahead to forced 60 year retirement. This is great. Do I expect anyone in Hollywood or anyone that has used my works to help me. No not really what I have been expecting is a bullet to the back of the head if I start dragging them into court or the spotlight.
Well! Welkome to Amerika Comrades
re: Some History
jj-baker
8:51 pm thursday december 27, 2001You ask: "I wonder if the Jewish and other control groups took over the media in Germany prior to the much touted holocaust."
The following quotes are about Germany, all, but one, by Jewish scholars:
"Jews were also the most influential critics of drama, art, music, and books as well as the owners of the most important art galleries and theatres." [GOLDBERG, p. 26] In the Berlin of 1930, 80% of the theatre directors were Jewish and they authored 75% of the produced plays. [MACDONALD, p. 125] Many prominent actors, actresses, and moviemakers were Jewish. Some Jewish scholars, like Walter Laquer, have even went so far as to claim that without Jewish influence the culture of the pre-Nazi Weimar Republic "would not have existed." [TRAVERSO, p. 12] "Jews," says Laqueur, "were prominent among Expressionist poets, among the novelists of the 1920's, among the theatrical producers and, for a while, among the leading figures of cinema." [LAQUER, p. 73] "Jewish names,"notes Nachum Gidal, "were numerous among the pioneers of film and the film industry," [GIDAL, p. 370] including Paul Davidson and Herman Fellner who founded the first German film company." [GIDAL, p. 370]
"In twentieth century Germany where the Jews formed less than one percent of the nation's population," observes Istvan Deak, "Jews were responsible for a great part of German culture. The owners of three of Germany's greatest newspaper houses; the editors of the Vossiche Zeitung and Berliner Tagleblatt; most book publishers; the owners and editors of the Neue Rundschau and other distinguished literary magazines; the owners of Germany's greatest art galleries were all Jews. Jews played a major part in theatre and in the film industry as producers, directors, and actors. Many of Germany's best composers, musicians, artists, sculptors, and architects were Jews. Their participation in literary criticism and in literature were enormous: practically all the great critics and many novelists, poets, dramatists, and essayists of the Weimer Republic were Jews ... If cultural contributions by Jews were far out of proportion to their numerical strength, their participation in left-wing intellectual activities were even more disproportionate." [DEAK, p. 28]
A German Jew, Moritz Goldstein, had poured fuel on the issue of Jewish dominance by writing a much-discussed article in 1913 in which he wrote that Jews essentially ran German culture, from an almost complete monopoly of Berlin newspapers and dominance of German theatre, music, and literature. [LAQUER, p. 74] "German cultural life seems to be passing increasingly into Jewish hands," Goldstein wrote, " ... We Jews are administering the spiritual property of a nation which denies us our right and our ability to do so." [GRUNFELD, F., 1996, p. 21]
"In 1933," says Anthony Heilbut, "[Jews] were only five hundred thousand of Germany's sixty-four million people, and one-third of these lived in Berlin. Jews had infiltrated many areas of German life, particularly the media, through the newspapers they owned and edited, as well as the movies they wrote and produced." [HEILBUT, p. 25]
With the rise of German fascism, in 1933 a retired United States Department official, Edward House, told a new ambassador to Berlin: "You should try to ameliorate Jewish suffering. [The Nazis] are clearly wrong and even terrible, but the Jews should not be allowed to dominate economic or intellectual life in Berlin as they have for a long time." [GROSE, p. 97-98 Anthony Heilbut notes a joke that was a favorite of Albert Einstein's, "in which an émigré asks a friend if he is homesick for Berlin, and the other replies: 'What for? I'm not Jewish.'" [HEILBUT, p. 46]
re: Some History
bruce
9:30 pm thursday december 27, 2001Well! I guess that answered that question, now if I can just keep my goose bumps from rising and if I can get the hair on the back of my neck smoothed back down I will be ok. Ha ha he he ho ho.
The problem appears to be, we have identified the problem, but I haven't heard any solutions other than slipping on the jack boots and lighting the fires in the ovens. Unfortunately the forces of revenge have a habit of consuming the revenge seekers along with the parties that have caused the situation to escalate to the point that it has become.
I am sitting here and I have seen on the television almost all black negroes, jews, women, every minority possible, but in one hour I have only seen wasp's as subjects in the news. Where is the great aclu, where is the great federal government of ours that was all to happy to bus children across town. What can we do about this complete and utter denial of access to the media by wasps?
I actually don't know other than to just sit here and wait for the Jew bankers to deplete my savings, then run me out of my home like the money lenders did to the German people back in the 1930's. I don't think this is a very good time in history to be going into debt. Is anyone out there aware of any movie companies that hire people on merit and that are not totally prejudice against the anglo races. After all the Anglos or the House of Isreal was more than likely the builders of those ugly pyramids in Egypt. All of a sudden the Jews that are mixed with Sementic blood want to suppress the dna tests on the ancient bodies that are being discovered.
If the Tribes of Benjamin, Levite and Judah were mixed with sementic blood by King Nebaccanezur then is that why they say we are anti-sementic instead of anti-Jewish? I tend to think that they know the truth and are hiding it. I was also coached by a Jewish friend of mine, who I thought highly of, but he warned me of the treachery of the established Jewry. We must never forget that there is a large difference between someone who is simply a Jew and a person who believes in Zionism and World Jewry.
re: Some History
jj-baker
10:04 pm thursday december 27, 2001I don't have any answers to anything, except that obviously we need public discussion about Jewish hegemony in Hollywood (and throughout popular culture). Reasoned, moral, non-violent, ethical people can act reasonably and morally in lobbying for an authentic informational democracy in this country.
The Jewish community forbids any looking into its past (critically) because it, in their view, the results are apt to justify what is known as "anti-Semitism" (in other words, people throughout history have had some very sound gripes about the Jewish community). A foundation of Jewish identity is automatic defense against anyone who looks at their community critically. In the Jewish communal view, the fact that the Nazis massacred so many Jews (although Nazi atrocities against other ethnic groups are rarely mentioned) codifies the communal notion that anyone who dares to criticize Jews is fundamentally evil, violent, and irrational at heart. This is a very, very strong conviction (and it has some ancient religious roots), and emotions tend to rule any attempt at reasoned discourse about the "causes" of anti- Jewish hostility in history.
What to do about this defensive Great Wall that bars honest dialogue and exchange? I don't know. I just think that in the long run enforced silence is good for no one, including Jews.
Deletions
John Cones
12:20 pm friday december 28, 2001 As stated in an earlier posting, messages placed here in this discussion forum that go beyond the subject matter of film industry reform are subject to being deleted. Thanks for your worthwhile contributions.John Cones
Recycled Arguments
John Cones
2:13 pm friday december 28, 2001It is amazing how illogical so many people are when confronted with the truth. For several years now we have been seeing the same old, tired and irrelevant arguments: (1) other industries are dominated by narrowly defined groups and probably discriminate against others, therefore it’s ok for a small group to do the same in Hollywood, (2) the Hollywood control group gained their dominance by hard work and deserve to be there, (3) the fact that the original Hollywood moguls were Jewish and made some films designed to attract a Christian audience proves that the FIRM definition of the Hollywood control is off-base (not the exact words used) and (4) since I know a lot of wonderful Jewish people it is not possible that a few of them can be doing anything wrong and (5) you are using your own bad experiences to make generalizations about Jews across the board. Once again, none of these arguments are valid.
(1) Assuming that other industries lack diversity at the top as in Hollywood (a fact that you must agree with or you would not be making this particular argument), we agree that is wrong, but we work in the film industry and therefore our reform efforts are quite naturally directed toward the industry in which we work. If others want to reform the oil or other industries, that’s great! But merely because some people who recognize similar problems in other industries do not have the courage to speak out is no reason for us to be silent about the lack of diversity at the top in the film industry.
(2) Our studies document several hundred business practices regularly and consistently engaged in by the Hollywood control group over a period of approximately 100 years than can only be described as unfair, unethical, unconscionable, anti- competitive, anti-predatory and/or illegal, including nepotism, blacklisting and other forms of discrimination. No one can reasonably ignore this massive history of wrongdoing in Hollywood and pretend that the dominance of this industry by a single narrowly-defined group, continued through four or five generations is something that is a natural, well-deserved phenomenon. Such persons are simply uninformed. See the FIRM Bibliography.
(3) The FIRM definition of the Hollywood control group (i.e., a small group of major studio executives a majority of whom are politically liberal, not very religious, Jewish males of European heritage) was arrived at by conducting a published study of the backgrounds of the top three executives at the major studios. It was only then that we made the connection between the patterns of bias in motion picture content and the common backgrounds of the studio executives, not the other way around. It is interesting that not a single contributor to this discussion has ever undertaken to reproduce that study to determine whether the definition still holds. We only get repeated confirmation from those who argue “So what?”, or “It’s ok because other industries are the same” or “FIRM is just prejudice”. When is one of the Hollywood apologists going to wake up and realize that the way to confront facts is conduct your own study and determine to your own satisfaction what the facts are. The reason, I suppose is that you know what the facts are (i.e., FIRM’s definition of the Hollywood control group is correct) and you just want to do everything you can to distract attention from that fact.
(4) We all know a lot of wonderful Jewish people, and that is irrelevant to what FIRM is all about. FIRM never has, is not now, nor ever will in the future, make statements about Jews in general. Thus, any argument that I know a lot of wonderful Jewish people, therefore those people who make up the so-called Hollywood control group cannot possibly being doing anything wrong is remarkably naive and irrelevant. Any argument that starts off suggesting that FIRM “rants against Jews” or that we “blame them as a religious group” are either dishonest or made out of ignorance of what we have said.
(5) Once again, most of what FIRM advocates is based on numerous published studies of what is really going on in Hollywood. Some of that is confirmed by our own personal experiences and the experiences of thousands of others who have provided information to us from time to time. The studies, however, came first and unless and until any one of you conducts your own studies and make them available for review and criticism, I can only assume that you are not really interested in adding to our knowledge or understanding of the truth, but simply are interested in covering up the truth with silly argument. Happy Holidays!
John Cones
re: the ultimate endrun
James Jaeger
3:15 am thursday january 3, 2002Features shot on digital format are not all they were cranked up to be. 35mm negative still is the best origination medium, and this is expensive. Digital NLE, as a post production medium, is superior to all analog cutting, including chopping with a Rivas or cutting on a video on- or off-line system.
Broadband is not yet universal on the Net. As soon as the fiber optic networks are done, we will see true broadband emerge thus TCP/IP downloading (or true streaming) of a 120-minute feature will become the de facto distribution standard. All this will be happening around 2007 - 2010.
BLAIR WITCH was an anomaly, launched by a false advertising campaign and run through basically conventional distribution channels with lots of hype money beyond the intial production budget. Don't look to this as any model.
James James
The Rise of David Geffen
Sal
1:54 am thursday january 10, 2002As Tom King notes in The Operator. David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood, Geffens' rise to power via his Jewish networking includes that facts that:
First he got a job in the mailroom at the William Morris (Jewish-founder) agency. He told the Jewish man who hired him, Howard Portnoy, that he was (Jewish music producer) Phil Spectre's cousin. He also lied and said he had graduated from UCLA. [p. 46-47] Expecting a letter from UCLA to the company to evidence that Geffen was not a graduate, Geffen came in early to the mail room to intercept it. He had his brother, a lawyer, write a bogus UCLA confirmation from his law office instead. [p. 47] Geffen was much like the Hollywood hustler in Budd Schulberg's novel What Makes Sammy Run, "a backstabbing [Jewish] huckster who employed appalling tricks to run to the top in Hollywood." [p. 48] In the mail room, Geffen met "Barry Diller, a Jewish kid from Beverly Hills who years later became one of Geffen's best friends, when the two were among the most powerful moguls in all of Hollywood." [p. 50] At a night club, he "struck up a conversation with Herb Gart, a manager who had recently come to New York with comedian Bill Cosby." [p. 50] "He next set his sights on romancing Nat Letkowitz, the celebrated head of Morris's New York office." [p. 51] "Enlisting Letkowitz's support was a brilliant move. Geffen had realized the value of having a 'rabbi' inlife, someone powerful to help him get what he wanted." [p. 52] Geffen worked in the mailroom for six months until "he was stopped by Scott Shukat [also Jewish], who offered him a job as secretary to Ben Griefer [also Jewish], one of the office's most respected television agents ... Brooklyn born and raised in Queens, Shukat ... too, had lied on his employment application at the Morris office, listing his stage name, Scott Logan, Jr. But when he arrived at the office on the first day and saw the executives' names on the company directory in the lobby -- Letkowitz, Kalcheim, Griefer, Weiss, and so on -- he hustled back to the personnel office and told them his given Jewish name." [p. 52-53]
"To cover some of the long-distance calls, Geffen called the local switchboard at CBS and claimed to be Jerry Rubin, a CBS executive he had met." [p. 53] "Geffen began to mentor other secretaries and trainees. Jeff Wald [also Jewish], who supported his petty salary by peddling marijuana in the mailroom, immediately latched onto Geffen." [p. 54] "But by far the most important alliance Geffen made was with Elliot Roberts [also Jewish], a dope smoking clown who had grown up across the street from Wald. In the years to come, Roberts hitched his star to Geffen's and played a critically important role in David's life ... Born Elliot Rabinowitz ... he was not as swift as Geffen, [but] he was nevertheless a hustler." [p. 54] "Nat Lefkowitz placated Ben Griefer [also Jewish] by giving him a new secretary and then promoting Geffen to assistant to a crusty agent named Harry Kalcheim [also Jewish]." [p. 59] "With Marty Litke [also Jewish], also now a pal, Geffen signed Carmen Matthews ... Nat Lefkowitz soon promoted [Geffen] to agent." [p. 60] "At the meetings, Geffen often prattled on about a fellow he had met at the University of Texas named Ronny Pearlman [also Jewish], who he claimed would be the hottest writer the TV business had ever seen. He also talked up a hippie named Lorne Michaels [also Jewish, and later head of Saturday Night Live] and soon got him a gig writing for a situation comedy." [p. 61] "Geffen first turned to Herb Gart [also Jewish] .. who was now handling a group called the Youngbloods." [p. 66] Geffen got a hot stock tip "at a lawyer's office" about "Allen Klein [also Jewish], the manager of the Rolling Stones who was going to take over Cameo-Parkway Records." [p. 67] "Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Barry Diller [also Jewish] had quit the Morris office to become assistant to Leonard Goldberg, the head of West Coast programming at ABC ... Before long, Diller was running the department by himself." [p. 68] "Laura Nigro [Nyro] was born in the Bronx in 1947, the daughter of a Jewish mother and an Italian-Catholic father ... [She was managed by] Artie Mogul [also Jewish]l, a hustler who had once signed Bob Dylan [of course also Jewish] to an early publishing deal . [p. 73] "He did not interfere with her songs, but he did insist that she change her name, fearing people might pronounce it 'Negro.'" [p. 73] "Geffen next plotted to make a new label deal for his client. He went to see Jerry Schoenbaum [also Jewish], the head of Verve-Folkways." [p. 80] "CBS Records head Clive Davis [also Jewish] was one of the slickest and most intimidating figures in the business ... Geffen, meanwhile, had gotten all the use he could squeeze out of Nat Lefkowitz and was searching for a more powerful rabbi." [p. 81] "Clive Davis, meanwhile, had developed an extraordinary affection for David Geffen." [p. 86] The above information is only Part 1 and Part 2 (to page 87 in a book nearly 600 pages long such found at www.jewishtribalreview.org).
Sabotage?
James Jaeger
4:51 pm thursday january 31, 2002As some of you are probably aware, both this FIRM Discussion Forum and John Cones' investor finance forum have not been working properly for at least the past 2 weeks.
This would not be strange in and of itself were it not for the fact that one of MEC's new boards at another location IS working fine.
Thus, we suspect sabotage -- and an investigation is underway.
If sabotage of these boards has been committed by Hollywood apologists, we will track down the person, or persons, responsible sooner or later. Computers leave data trails.
Anyone having any information on this situation should report it to FIRM_investigations@homevideo.net. Your name will be kept confidential.
James Jaeger
Does the Hollywood-based Motion Picture Industry Discriminate More Than Other Industries?
FIRM Discussion Restored
James Jaeger
2:00 am tuesday february 5, 2002As of today, this Discussion Forum has been restored. We are sorry about any inconvenience.
If you notice any further problems, please email me.
James Jaeger
Hypocrisy at misc.writing.screenplays NG
Jake Haines
2:55 am tuesday february 5, 2002I ran across this a couple days ago, from JEWISH LIFE IN TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICA, BY MILTON PLESUR, NELSON-HALL, CHICAGO, 1982, p. 88 :
"In order to dramatize the plight of qualified Jews who could not find jobs in public utility companies, Samuel Leibowitz, a famous trial lawyer from New York City, threatened to organize a one-night-a-week boycott of gas, electric, and telephone companies if they did not halt their discriminatory hiring practices. Other prominent Jews conducted investigations of various companies and published the results. One such study revealed prejudicial behavior by a number of employment companies."
QUESTION: Why is John Cones considered to be a "racist" "anti- Semite" etc. when guys like Samuel Leibowitz were doing pretty much what Cones is doing (although they were more powerful and pushed things to public threats and mass action)? The Jewish community -- as a collective -- has been doing exactly what Cones has been doing for a long, long time -- except that their resources to push for social action were/are fantastic. And Cones is powerless and obscure.
What's at stake here is a double morality system. It's OK for Jews to lobby for equitable hiring practices (and DEMAND, DEMAND, DEMAND), but guys like Cones are deemed scum for merely asking -- not PUSHING -- for the same thing: equal hiring treatment and a fair distribution of ethnic representation in the Hollywood world.
IT'S THE MEDIA, STUPID
James Jaeger
6:01 am friday february 8, 2002This well-worth-reading-book, released in 2000, was written by John Nichols and Robert McChesney. Ralph Nader wrote an intro; so did Barbara Ehrenreich and Senator Paul Wellstone. IT'S THE MEDIA, STUPID is almost John Cone's observations verbatim, but a) expanded to cover all media, not just the feature film industry and b) without mention of the J-word (why aren't we surprised).
The book starts out by stating that just in the past decade ownership of the media has consolidated into the hands of less than 10 transnational corporations. The largest of these do between $8 and $30 billion in revenues a year and are as follows:
1) DISNEY
2) AOL-TIME WARNER
3) NEWS CORP.
4) VIACOM
5) SEGRAM/Universal
6) SONY
7) LIBERTY (AT&T)
8) BERTELSMANN
9) GENERAL ELECTRIC (NBC)The second tier of less diversified media corporations, doing between $2.5 and $8 billion in annual sales, are as follows:
1) Comcast
2) Hearst
3) New York Times
4) Washington Post
5) Cox
6) Advance
7) Tribune Co.
8) GannettThe book's central thesis is that a free marketplace of ideas can't exist with a media devoid of diversity and only interested in crass commercialism. Such commercialism creates an environment where good journalism suffocates, especially journalism which is critical of the media itself. Because such a media will NOT discuss issues relating to itself, there can be no reform: the powers-that-be refuse to make media an issue. This creates a bottleneck for all other issues that need to be freely discussed. Issues need to flow to and from the public so well-informed decisions can be made and a democratic society can breath. Thus the authors emphasize that making the media an ISSUE is the ONLY WAY to break open free discourse on ALL OTHER ISSUES of vital concern.
The authors' also emphasize that the media DESERVES to be made an issue because: THE PEOPLE OWN THE AIRWAVES, not 17 multi- national corporations. Thus government action is needed and justified.
Although some allies exist in Congress (such as Senator Paul Wellstone, Representative Bernie Sanders and Representative John Conyers) the authors emphasize that the Democratic and Republican parties WILL NOT be the parties to make MEDIA AN ISSUE because they are too dependent on the media to get their candidates elected. The book also emphasizes that media reform won't come from the conservative right because "...conservative critics (of the media) in the end, are handcuffed by their allegiance to maintenance of corporate and commercial rule, so they are incapable of providing real explanations for, and real solutions to, the problem they describe" (which is the "liberal media" they have been yapping about since time immemorial). Thus, more than likely, media reform will have to be launched by a coalition amongst the New Party, the Green Party, the Labor Party, the Democratic Socialists of America, Americans for Democratic Action and U.S. Action.
In summary, the authors' bottom line is: "Media reform is inexorably intertwined with broader democratic reform. . . . Media reform will be a fundamental building block of a broad crusade for democratic renewal in America."
James Jaeger
-------------------------------------------
Book available through www.sevenstories.com
COLLATERAL DAMAGE
John Cones
8:22 am saturday february 9, 2002In recent weeks the producer, director and lead actor of the major studio release “Collateral Damage” have been appearing on various media outlets promoting their film. Many interviewers have asked the question, based on complaints from the Columbian community, relating to the negative portrayals of Columbians in the movie. The filmmakers’ pat answer goes something along the lines that “Sure, each movie has to have a bad guy . . . ” and that’s as far as the discussion goes. These press representatives have not done their homework. The issue is not whether any single movie portrays any given population group in a negative or stereotypical manner, but whether such negative and/or stereotypical portrayals fall in a broader pattern of bias. In other words, it is much more damaging when Columbians are portrayed negatively in a film, if it occurs within the broader context that Latinos have generally and for years been consistently portrayed in a negative or stereotypical manner in Hollywood movies. Further, it is even worse, to discover that this clear and factual bias (among other similar biases in Hollywood films) is perpetrated on an unsuspecting movie going public (through so-called “entertainment” that also happens to be a significant medium for the communication of powerful ideas) by a group of film executives and filmmakers who count in their ranks, few, if any Latinos. And, even though Latinos have been struggling for years to climb into the ranks of the movie decision makers, they have been arbitrarily denied such power and opportunity by the Hollywood insiders who have protected their control of Hollywood for 100 years (i.e., through discrimination). Thus, when one population in a diverse society consistently uses a powerful communications medium to consistently portray another population in that same diverse society in a negative or stereotypical manner, as has been occurring with Hollywood movies, that conduct can only be accurately described as “propaganda”. And, the press has utterly failed in its duty to call this problem to the attention of an unsuspecting public. Further, the very interest groups that represent the Hollywood disenfranchised and those groups that are being negatively and stereo-typically portrayed have failed to see and publicize the bigger picture (i.e., to do their own followup studies picking up where my books “Patterns of Bias in Motion Picture Content”, “Motion Picture Biographies– The Hollywood Spin on Historical Figures” and “A Study in Motion Picture Propaganda: Hollywood’s Preferred Movie Messages”, along with the essay “Hollywood’s Threat to Democracy”, have left off. Wake up America!
John Cones
Who Really Controls Hollywood - Mistake
Correct This
4:40 pm sunday february 10, 2002FYI.....There is a mistake that needs to be fixed in the section "Who Really Controls Hollywood" by John Cones, Disney section. It listed former CFO of Disney, Richard D. Nanula, as a white male, when in fact he is a black male.
Who Really Controls Hollywood - Mistake Correction
James Jaeger
7:09 am tuesday february 12, 2002 Thanks; after we verify this we will correct it. Can you give us your source? Was Mr. Nanula hired while Walt was running the company?James Jaeger
Holly-Ron
James Jaeger
5:46 am wednesday february 13, 2002New York Times Wrote:
>WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 — After being subjected to a bipartisan oral barrage from 21 senators, Kenneth L. Lay, the former chairman of Enron (news/quote), asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination today and pleaded with members of the Senate Commerce Committee not to rush to judgment about his responsibility for the largest corporate bankruptcy case in American history. Mr. Lay, who sat scowling and impassive through more than an hour of harsh senatorial criticism, was likened to Charles Ponzi and compared unfavorably to a carnival barker. He was accused of running a conspiracy and gouging the energy consumers of California.
And the MPAA studio/distributors do no less?
>He was scornfully called "Kenny Boy" by a senior senator and accused of using millions of dollars generated by Enron's inflated stock to try to buy a "cash-and-carry government."
And the MPAA studio/distributors do no less?
>Mr. Lay's discomfort may be worsened later this week when Sherron S. Watkins, an Enron executive who raised alarms about the company last summer, is expected to appear before a Congressional committee to discuss additional warnings she brought to Mr. Lay about questionable accounting practices.
And the MPAA studio/distributors don't have "questionaable accounting practices"?
James Jaeger
Hollywood Bigotry
John Cones
10:23 am wednesday february 13, 2002For many years, the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild have conducted surveys to determine the percentage of jobs going to African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and others within their respective membership. The results of such surveys are publicized in the film industry trades and commented upon by various film industry leaders. No one seems to think there is anything inappropriate about either conducting such studies or publicizing and discussing them in a public forum. Yet, when someone comes along and points out that it would be even more relevant to conduct a similar study examining the backgrounds of the top level studio executives, those individuals who have the power to determine which movies are actually produced and/or released by the major studio/distributors and who gets to work on those movies in the key positions, the Hollywood apologists unreasonably cry foul! That is a clear example of Hollywood bigotry.
John Cones
Individual Decisions and the Future
John Cones
9:16 am thursday february 14, 2002If you doubt that a single person making a single decision can influence the future, think again, because that’s almost all that ever does influence the future. All of history is the accumulation of single decisions. Rosa Parks decided to sit down on that public bus in the section reserved for white people, and she decided not to get up again, even if that meant being spat on and going to jail . . . and the word is a whole lot better for it. Rachel Carson decided . . . to keep working on her book Silent Spring, even though she was being ridiculed as a hysterical female, and on top of all that, she was dying of cancer. But she did it anyway. She kept researching and writing, and she published her book, which led to the banning of DDT, and the beginning of the environmental movement . . . it’s almost impossible to imagine how awful the world would be right now if she hadn’t put herself on the line for the sake of the future. Barbara Kingsolver, writer; Onward! Twenty-Five Years of Advice, Exhortation, and Inspiration from America’s Best Commencement Speeches (ed. Peter J. Smith), Scribner, 2000, 226
John Cones
Hollywood's Logical Fallacy
John Cones
12:45 pm friday february 15, 2002I recently read a book by Antony Flew which provided a description and label for the fallacious thinking of the Hollywood apologists who are all too fond of falsely dismissing the factual information developed by FIRM as “anti-Semitic”. In logical terms, such a tactic is referred to as the fallacy of pseudorefuting description. As Mr. Flew points out this fallacy in thinking is “ . . . commonly committed by peremptorily dismissing hopefully explanatory accounts of human events as conspiracy theories. . . . or . . . as racist, and dismissing those beliefs from further consideration on that account alone. The fallacy of pseudorefuting description (which in the context of the film industry reform discussion has been even more precisely labeled as the anti-Semitic sword is essentially obscurantist. Again, as Mr. Flew states: “ . . . the effect, and too often the object, of committing this fallacy is to dismiss blindly and with no evidencing reasons given whatever is so described.” Thus, by falsely labeling our efforts to reveal the facts about what is really going on in Hollywood, the Hollywood apologists are committing a logical fallacy, they are trying to blindly dismiss without providing any evidencing reasons of their own the factual statements being made by FIRM. They are engaging in the fallacy of the pseudorefuting description or more specifically in this case the anti-Semitic sword. (see Antony Flew, How to Think Straight – An Introduction to Critical Reasoning, Prometheus Books, 1998, 74, 75 & 77)
John Cones
Twin Spins on SAG-ATA Talks
Jack Rooney
7:24 am monday february 18, 2002Although, in general, the labor code in California is good law designed to protect Talent from shyster producers who would exploit them unfairly, I think the public should know what this "Section 1700.30" of the California Labor Code is and what it does. Section 1700.30 of the California Labor Code was originally designed to prevent companies like Disney and Paramount from starting their own casting agencies and circumventing union tyranny by shutting out or bypassing the union talent pool. So the forces within government operating as the lap dogs of the unions simply wrote a law and inserted it into the code that makes it illegal for studios to use their own personnel departments to establish Talent Agencies to do casting for the movies they make. This turned control of acting jobs in California over to the unions, SAG. Consequently, Section 1700.30 created a separate, union controlled sector of the industry, the "Talent Agency" industry, which generally operates under control of the unions via the "Signatory Agent System", through "franchises" doled out by the union to its privileged group of cronies called "signatory agents", agents who have signed an agreement with the SAG labor union to promote only the interests of union actors.
By making it illegal for a "Talent Agency" to have an equity interest in the production, studios are prohibited as a matter of law from running a talent agency and casting their own films through an agency they own. Sounds good in theory, probably not a good idea to have the very people who are the typical exploiters of talent run the talent pool, but the way "Talent Agency" is defined, the studios can not really generate a rouser or talent pool of talent from which they select actors, but must instead go through the union Talent Agent or outside source Agency.
The fact that the "signatory agents" are now in closed, secret meeting pleading with the SAG union gods to grant them permission to do what the law says they can not do is sufficient prima fascia evidence that 1700.30 is nothing but a control mechanism designed by the union powers-that-be long ago and installed and enforced by the government that patronizes them to restrain trade and prevent Talent from applying for acting jobs on their own and under terms and conditions that are acceptable to them as individual, independent performing artists. Section 1700.30 of the California Labor Code may be unconstitutional and illegal on the grounds that it's primary purpose and also effect is to restrain trade and fix prices. It may violate US federal anti-trust law. Section 1700.39 is a reiteration of the same principle expressed in 1700.30: "No talent agency shall divide fees with an employer, an agent or other employee of an employer." Producers can not also run Talent Agencies and Talent Agencies can not be Producers. So in order to get an acting job in California, it was long believed and widely held you must be under contract with an agency, and in order to get a good acting job, you must be under contract to a handful of "union blessed agencies".
So what is the beef now between the agencies and the union? Simply this: Section 1700.44(b) "Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, failure of any person to obtain a license from the Labor Commissioner pursuant to this chapter shall not be considered a criminal act under any law of this state." It is this section that may make the system safe from anti-trust regulators. But it also has a disastrous effect on the union controlled talent agency system. There is no law that says one must obtain a license from the state to represent talent. A few very smart people in casting know this, and this has led to a whole barrage of non-licensed "agents", "talent managers", "talent representatives" and even Lawyers who can legally represent talent. It is perfectly legitimate for these independent agents to approach the studios and negotiate diverse terms and conditions and cut any deal they can get for the talent they represent. And this is a big problem for the union signatory agents. Even Talent itself can represent Talent, represent oneself, but it is difficult thing to do because of the present structure of the industry brought about by decades of union manipulation and control and the longstanding mindset based on custom which says talent should use agents, even though, legally, there is no such requirement under the law. Also, I seriously doubt the proscriptive sanctions against producers operating talent agencies are enforceable anywhere in the world except California - there is no national, federal or international law.
The signatory agencies are taking a beating. Non-signatory agencies, non-union agencies are rising in competition with them and kicking their bootie. Producers outside the boundaries of California are beginning to engage talent on terms and conditions which they negotiate between themselves and talent, or anyone talent appoints to represent them, which are mutually agreeable to the parties involved in the agreement. And these terms and conditions, for the services of talent, can be as diverse and creative as the market conditions will bear. It's called free enterprise, its called open market, its called competition. But, hey, unionist signatory agent, your competition didn't set this system up, you did. So don't complain when it backfires.
--
Jack Rooney
Http://home.att.net/~JackRooneyCALIFORNIA CODES
LABOR CODE | F.I.R.M. Home | Mission | Background Info |
SECTION 1700.23-1700.47 1700.23. Every talent agency shall submit to the Labor Commissioner a form or forms of contract to be utilized by such talent agency in entering into written contracts with artists for the employment of the services of such talent agency by such artists, and secure the approval of the Labor Commissioner thereof. Such approval shall not be withheld as to any proposed form of contract unless such proposed form of contract is unfair, unjust and oppressive to the artist. Each such form of contract, except under the conditions specified in Section 1700.45, shall contain an agreement by the talent agency to refer any controversy between the artist and the talent agency relating to the terms of the contract to the Labor Commissioner for adjustment. There shall be printed on the face of the contract in prominent type the following: "This talent agency is licensed by the Labor Commissioner of the State of California."
1700.24. Every talent agency shall file with the Labor Commissioner a schedule of fees to be charged and collected in the conduct of that occupation, and shall also keep a copy of the schedule posted in a conspicuous place in the office of the talent agency. Changes in the schedule may be made from time to time, but no fee or change of fee shall become effective until seven days after the date of filing thereof with the Labor Commissioner and until posted for not less than seven days in a conspicuous place in the office of the talent agency.
1700.25.
(a) A licensee who receives any payment of funds on behalf of an artist shall immediately deposit that amount in a trust fund account maintained by him or her in a bank or other recognized depository. The funds, less the licensee's commission, shall be disbursed to the artist within 30 days after receipt. However, notwithstanding the preceding sentence, the licensee may retain the funds beyond 30 days of receipt in either of the following circumstances:
(1) To the extent necessary to offset an obligation of the artist to the talent agency that is then due and owing.
(2) When the funds are the subject of a controversy pending before the Labor Commissioner under Section 1700.44 concerning a fee alleged to be owed by the artist to the licensee.
(b) A separate record shall be maintained of all funds received on behalf of an artist and the record shall further indicate the disposition of the funds.
(c) If disputed by the artist and the dispute is referred to the Labor Commissioner, the failure of a licensee to disburse funds to an artist within 30 days of receipt shall constitute a "controversy" within the meaning of Section 1700.44.
(d) Any funds specified in subdivision (a) that are the subject of a controversy pending before the Labor Commissioner under Section 1700.44 shall be retained in the trust fund account specified in subdivision (a) and shall not be used by the licensee for any purpose until the controversy is determined by the Labor Commissioner or settled by the parties.
(e) If the Labor Commissioner finds, in proceedings under Section 1700.44, that the licensee's failure to disburse funds to an artist within the time required by subdivision (a) was a willful violation, the Labor Commissioner may, in addition to other relief under Section 1700.44, order the following:
(1) Award reasonable attorney's fees to the prevailing artist.
(2) Award interest to the prevailing artist on the funds wrongfully withheld at the rate of 10 percent per annum during the period of the violation.
(f) Nothing in subdivision (c), (d), or (e) shall be deemed to supersede Section 1700.45 or to affect the enforceability of a contractual arbitration provision meeting the criteria of Section 1700.45.
1700.26. Every talent agency shall keep records in a form approved by the Labor Commissioner, in which shall be entered all of the following:
(1) The name and address of each artist employing the talent agency.
(2) The amount of fee received from the artist.
(3) The employments secured by the artist during the term of the contract between the artist and the talent agency, and the amount of compensation received by the artists pursuant thereto.
(4) Any other information which the Labor Commissioner requires. No talent agency, its agent or employees, shall make any false entry in any records.
1700.27. All books, records, and other papers kept pursuant to this chapter by any talent agency shall be open at all reasonable hours to the inspection of the Labor Commissioner and his agents. Every talent agency shall furnish to the Labor Commissioner upon request a true copy of such books, records, and papers or any portion thereof, and shall make such reports as the Labor Commissioner prescribes.
1700.28. Every talent agency shall post in a conspicuous place in the office of such talent agency a printed copy of this chapter and of such other statutes as may be specified by the Labor Commissioner. Such copies shall also contain the name and address of the officer charged with the enforcement of this chapter. The Labor Commissioner shall furnish to talent agencies printed copies of any statute required to be posted under the provisions of this section.
1700.29. The Labor Commissioner may, in accordance with the provisions of Chapter 4 (commencing at Section 11370), Part 1, Division 3, Title 2 of the Government Code, adopt, amend, and repeal such rules and regulations as are reasonably necessary for the purpose of enforcing and administering this chapter and as are not inconsistent with this chapter.
1700.30. No talent agency shall sell, transfer, or give away to any person other than a director, officer, manager, employee, or shareholder of the talent agency any interest in or the right to participate in the profits of the talent agency without the written consent of the Labor Commissioner.
1700.31. No talent agency shall knowingly issue a contract for employment containing any term or condition which, if complied with, would be in violation of law, or attempt to fill an order for help to be employed in violation of law.
1700.32. No talent agency shall publish or cause to be published any false, fraudulent, or misleading information, representation, notice, or advertisement. All advertisements of a talent agency by means of cards, circulars, or signs, and in newspapers and other publications, and all letterheads, receipts, and blanks shall be printed and contain the licensed name and address of the talent agency and the words "talent agency." No talent agency shall give any false information or make any false promises or representations concerning an engagement or employment to any applicant who applies for an engagement or employment.
1700.33. No talent agency shall send or cause to be sent, any artist to any place where the health, safety, or welfare of the artist could be adversely affected, the character of which place the talent agency could have ascertained upon reasonable inquiry.
1700.34. No talent agency shall send any minor to any saloon or place where intoxicating liquors are sold to be consumed on the premises.
1700.35. No talent agency shall knowingly permit any persons of bad character, prostitutes, gamblers, intoxicated persons, or procurers to frequent, or be employed in, the place of business of the talent agency.
1700.36. No talent agency shall accept any application for employment made by or on behalf of any minor, as defined by subdivision (c) of Section 1286, or shall place or assist in placing any such minor in any employment whatever in violation of Part 4 (commencing with Section 1171).
1700.37. A minor cannot disaffirm a contract, otherwise valid, entered into during minority, either during the actual minority of the minor entering into such contract or at any time thereafter, with a duly licensed talent agency as defined in Section 1700.4 to secure him engagements to render artistic or creative services in motion pictures, television, the production of phonograph records, the legitimate or living stage, or otherwise in the entertainment field including, but without being limited to, services as an actor, actress, dancer, musician, comedian, singer, or other performer or entertainer, or as a writer, director, producer, production executive, choreographer, composer, conductor or designer, the blank form of which has been approved by the Labor Commissioner pursuant to Section 1700.23, where such contract has been approved by the superior court of the county where such minor resides or is employed.Such approval may be given by the superior court on the petition of either party to the contract after such reasonable notice to the other party thereto as may be fixed by said court, with opportunity to such other party to appear and be heard.
1700.38. No talent agency shall knowingly secure employment for an artist in any place where a strike, lockout, or other labor trouble exists, without notifying the artist of such conditions.
1700.39. No talent agency shall divide fees with an employer, an agent or other employee of an employer.
1700.40.
(a) No talent agency shall collect a registration fee. In the event that a talent agency shall collect from an artist a fee or expenses for obtaining employment for the artist, and the artist shall fail to procure the employment, or the artist shall fail to be paid for the employment, the talent agency shall, upon demand therefor, repay to the artist the fee and expenses so collected. Unless repayment thereof is made within 48 hours after demand therefor, the talent agency shall pay to the artist an additional sum equal to the amount of the fee.
(b) No talent agency may refer an artist to any person, firm, or corporation in which the talent agency has a direct or indirect financial interest for other services to be rendered to the artist, including, but not limited to, photography, audition tapes, demonstration reels or similar materials, business management, personal management, coaching, dramatic school, casting or talent brochures, agency-client directories, or other printing.
(c) No talent agency may accept any referral fee or similar compensation from any person, association, or corporation providing services of any type expressly set forth in subdivision (b) to an artist under contract with the talent agency.
1700.41. In cases where an artist is sent by a talent agency beyond the limits of the city in which the office of such talent agency is located upon the representation of such talent agency that employment of a particular type will there be available for the artist and the artist does not find such employment available, such talent agency shall reimburse the artist for any actual expenses incurred in going to and returning from the place where the artist has been so sent unless the artist has been otherwise so reimbursed.
1700.44.
(a) In cases of controversy arising under this chapter, the parties involved shall refer the matters in dispute to the Labor Commissioner, who shall hear and determine the same, subject to an appeal within 10 days after determination, to the superior court where the same shall be heard de novo. To stay any award for money, the party aggrieved shall execute a bond approved by the superior court in a sum not exceeding twice the amount of the judgment. In all other cases the bond shall be in a sum of not less than one thousand dollars ($1,000) and approved by the superior court. The Labor Commissioner may certify without a hearing that there is no controversy within the meaning of this section if he or she has by investigation established that there is no dispute as to the amount of the fee due. Service of the certification shall be made upon all parties concerned by registered or certified mail with return receipt requested and the certification shall become conclusive 10 days after the date of mailing if no objection has been filed with the Labor Commissioner during that period.
(b) Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, failure of any person to obtain a license from the Labor Commissioner pursuant to this chapter shall not be considered a criminal act under any law of this state.
(c) No action or proceeding shall be brought pursuant to this chapter with respect to any violation which is alleged to have occurred more than one year prior to commencement of the action or proceeding.
(d) It is not unlawful for a person or corporation which is not licensed pursuant to this chapter to act in conjunction with, and at the request of, a licensed talent agency in the negotiation of an employment contract.
1700.45. Notwithstanding Section 1700.44, a provision in a contract providing for the decision by arbitration of any controversy under the contract or as to its existence, validity, construction, performance, nonperformance, breach, operation, continuance, or termination, shall be valid:
(a) If the provision is contained in a contract between a talent agency and a person for whom the talent agency under the contract undertakes to endeavor to secure employment, or
(b) If the provision is inserted in the contract pursuant to any rule, regulation, or contract of a bona fide labor union regulating the relations of its members to a talent agency, and
(c) If the contract provides for reasonable notice to the Labor Commissioner of the time and place of all arbitration hearings, and
(d) If the contract provides that the Labor Commissioner or his or her authorized representative has the right to attend all arbitration hearings. Except as otherwise provided in this section, any arbitration shall be governed by the provisions of Title 9 (commencing with Section 1280) of Part 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure. If there is an arbitration provision in a contract, the contract need not provide that the talent agency agrees to refer any controversy between the applicant and the talent agency regarding the terms of the contract to the Labor Commissioner for adjustment, and Section 1700.44 shall not apply to controversies pertaining to the contract.
A provision in a contract providing for the decision by arbitration of any controversy arising under this chapter which does not meet the requirements of this section is not made valid by Section 1281 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
1700.47. It shall be unlawful for any licensee to refuse to represent any artist on account of that artist's race, color, creed, sex, national origin, religion, or handicap.
---------------------------------------
"Drama Queen" dramaqueen1@rogers.com wrote in message posted at news:3C6C0140.61698634@rogers.com...Hollywood Reporter East, February 14, 2002
NEW TWIST SPINS SAG-ATA TALKSBy Peter Kiefer
Negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild and the Association of Talent Agents received a third-party twist on Wednesday when the counsel for the state Senate Select Committee on the Regulation of Talent Agents issued a second opinion on the agents' financial interest proposal.
The opinion, signed by Deputy Legislative Counsel Christopher Dawson, found that the California Labor Commissioner "could not grant blanket waivers" of the conflict provisions contained in the Talent Agencies Act. The opinion continued: "The labor commissioner does not have the authority to provide a blanket waiver of the requirements of Section 1700.30 of the Labor Code, although the Labor Commissioner, pursuant to that section, may consent in writing on a case-by-case basis, to the sale transfer, or gift of any interest in or right to participate in profits of a talent agency."
For the past month negotiators for both sides have been working on the language for a new franchise. One of the sticking points has been the ATA's financial interest proposal, which would allow agents to become vested partners in companies with ties to production. SAG previously had refused to budge on the issue, citing an inherent conflict of interest. SAG has also maintained that the labor commissioner cannot lawfully consent to a blanket waiver for ATA's proposal.
ATA executive director Karen Stuart was not fazed by the opinion. "This legal opinion is nothing new. Every proposal that we ever made has always made it clear that, to the extent a talent agency sells or transfers profits of the talent agency, it would require the labor commissioner's approval and that is all this opinion says," said Stuart.
When contacted, SAG treasurer Kent McCord said, "I support what was stated here and welcome it and believe it reiterates why the statute exists, which is the protection of the talent community."
NewsGroup Manipulation (It's the Media, Stupid)
James Jaeger
9:28 am tuesday february 19, 2002
This was originally posted over at misc.writing.screenplays
Who is manipulating the posts on misc.writing.screenplays?I posted "It's the Media, Stupid" on 2/8/02 at misc.writing.screenplays, rec.arts.movies.production and alt.movies.independent. This post remains on the later two NGs at this date, 2/19/02, yet it has been deleted from misc.writing.screenplays.
Recognizing that misc.writing.screenplays has considerably more traffic than either rec.arts.movies.production or alt.movies.independent, it would be logical that my post, "It's the Media, Stupid," would roll off the MWS NG server more quickly than the two later NGs, however, if this is so, why do my posts, "Hollywood's Days Numbered," posted on 1/20/02, and "Two Forks...," posted on 12/5/01, both STILL REMAIN on misc.writing.screenplays to this date? These were posted months before "It's the Media, Stupid" was posted yet they have not "rolled off" whereas the more current post has. This is proof of some sort of selective archiving, manipulation and/or censorship in a public forum.
Those of you who are for the doctrine of 'Freedom of Speech' and journalistic integrity should be concerned about this. This book I have tried to tell you about, "It's the Media, Stupid," is a very HOT issue, one that you can be assured the media conglomerates do NOT want widely promoted or known -- something you certainly won't see on the news. How many other issues like this (and the WTO issue) are being ignored, shrouded or spun as "extremist"? Many of you have seen how John Cones and I (and anyone who would support us) have been treated over the years by the various apologists on this NG, so why would it surprise that such types are manipulating these NGs, censoring posts and crashing discussion forums (as was done to the FIRM site last month) in an attempt to suppress vital issues? It shouldn't.
Consider this: you might not agree with my stand on FIRM, and that's certainly your right, but some day you might have a stand on some issue that you feel is important. If I don't get to express my feelings about film reform NOW, in all probability, you won't get to express your feelings LATER -- unless we all work to preserve the Constitutional guarantees given to us many years ago.
So here's the "censored" or "manipulated" post again:
James Jaeger
--------------------------------------
IT'S THE MEDIA, STUPIDThis well-worth-reading-book, released in 2000, was written by John Nichols and Robert McChesney. Ralph Nader wrote an intro; so did Barbara Ehrenreich and Senator Paul Wellstone. IT'S THE MEDIA, STUPID is almost John Cone's observations verbatim, but a) expanded to cover all media, not just the feature film industry and b) without mention of the J-word (why aren't we surprised).
The book starts out by stating that just in the past decade ownership of the media has consolidated into the hands of less than 10 transnational corporations. The largest of these do between $8 and $30 billion in revenues a year and are as follows:
1) DISNEY
2) AOL-TIME WARNER
3) NEWS CORP.
4) VIACOM
5) SEGRAM/Universal
6) SONY
7) LIBERTY (AT&T)
8) BERTELSMANN
9) GENERAL ELECTRIC (NBC)The second tier of less diversified media corporations, doing between $2.5 and $8 billion in annual sales, are as follows:
1) Comcast
2) Hearst
3) New York Times
4) Washington Post
5) Cox
6) Advance
7) Tribune Co.
8) GannettThe book's central thesis is that a free marketplace of ideas can't exist with a media devoid of diversity and only interested in crass commercialism. Such commercialism creates an environment where good journalism suffocates, especially journalism which is critical of the media itself. Because such a media will NOT discuss issues relating to itself, there can be no reform: the powers-that-be refuse to make media an issue. This creates a bottleneck for all other issues that need to be freely discussed. Issues need to flow to and from the public so well-informed decisions can be made and a democratic society can breath. Thus the authors emphasize that making the media an ISSUE is the ONLY WAY to break open free discourse on ALL OTHER ISSUES of vital concern.
The authors' also emphasize that the media DESERVES to be made an issue because: THE PEOPLE OWN THE AIRWAVES, not 17 multi- national corporations. Thus government action is needed and justified.
Although some allies exist in Congress (such as Senator Paul Wellstone, Representative Bernie Sanders and Representative John Conyers) the authors emphasize that the Democratic and Republican parties WILL NOT be the parties to make MEDIA AN ISSUE because they are too dependent on the media to get their candidates elected. The book also emphasizes that media reform won't come from the conservative right because "...conservative critics (of the media) in the end, are handcuffed by their allegiance to maintenance of corporate and commercial rule, so they are incapable of providing real explanations for, and real solutions to, the problem they describe" (which is the "liberal media" they have been yapping about since time immemorial). Thus, more than likely, media reform will have to be launched by a coalition amongst the New Party, the Green Party, the Labor Party, the Democratic Socialists of America, Americans for Democratic Action and U.S. Action.
In summary, the authors' bottom line is: "Media reform is inexorably intertwined with broader democratic reform. . . . Media reform will be a fundamental building block of a broad crusade for democratic renewal in America."
James Jaeger
-------------------------------------------
Book available through Barns & Noble, Amazon.com and www.sevenstories.com
Communist Control of the Performing Arts
Jack Rooney
7:51 am wednesday february 20, 2002"The objective of economic organization is to unite the workers at the point of production so as to render them capable of taking control of the entire productive process and democratically administering and operating it in society's collective interests.
The Socialist Industrial Union program, as the SLP program is known, developed by Daniel De Leon (1852-1914), is a continuation of Karl Marx's ideas on a workers' government. In all essentials--political and economic classwide organization, the breakup of the state, workers' democracy, the seizure of social power by the organized producers and their socialist reorganization of the economy--the SIU program of the SLP conforms to the democratic premises underlying Marx's concept of socialism." http://www.slp.org/facts.htm
"Fight For Communism Welcome to the Progressive Labor Party HomePage http://www.plp.org/ Blowback: The Logic of Capitalism Is to Create Their Own Monsters....Fight to Smash Capitalism: Source of All Terrors to the Working Class"
"THE STRUGGLE TO FORM UNIONS WITH SOCIALIST GOALS "De Leon was instrumental in the formation, in 1895, of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. The short-lived S.T. & L.A. was the first labor union in the U.S. to declare the necessity of replacing capitalism by social ownership of the industries. It's open recognition of the class struggle placed the union in opposition to those so-called labor unions which endorsed capitalist ownership of industry, including the American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.). and the Knights of Labor (K. of L.)" http://csf.colorado.edu/cgi- bin/mfs/24/csf/web/psn/marx/Other/DeLeon/bio.htm
"The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes and Moving Picture Machine Operators of the United States and Canada- -as it is now known--is today primarily organized along craft lines. That is, the local unions are, in general, organized as industrial craft unions, with projectionists belonging to one local, stagehands to another, television broadcast employees to yet another, and so forth.
This structure, as a traditional craft-style union, took the IA out of the influence of the most fraternal and socialistic Knights of Labor. For ever after, the IA would pursue its work based on this principle. And the union would be faced with a continuous struggle with industrial unions for work within the blossoming entertainment industry." http://www.iatse.lm.com/mhist2.html
Leon Trotsky, right hand man to one of the most infamous Marxist communists the world has ever known, Joseph Stalin, writes: "It is quite self-evident that the radicalization of the working class in the United States has passed through only its initial phases, almost exclusively, in the sphere of the trade union movement (the CIO). The prewar period, and then the war itself, may temporarily interrupt this process of radicalization, especially if a considerable number of workers are absorbed into war industry. Yet this process of radicalization can not be of a long duration. The second stage of radicalization will assume a more sharply expressive character. The problem of forming an independent labor party will be put on the order of the day. Our transitional demands will gain great popularity." http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944-fas.htm
"We will build a broad movement of American workers by organizing workers into unions. We will recruit and train the next generation of organizers, mass the resources needed to organize and create the strategies to win organizing campaigns and union contracts. We will create a broad understanding of the need to organize among our members, our leadership and among unorganized workers. We will lead the labor movement in these efforts. We will build a strong political voice for workers in our nation." AFL-CIO mission statement: http://www.aflcio.org/about/mission.htm
Unions Affiliated with the AFL-CIO:
- Actors and Artistes of America, Associated (4As)
- Actors' Equity Association (AEA)
- American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)
- American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA)
- American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA)
- Hebrew Actors' Union Inc.
- Italian Actors Union
- Screen Actors Guild (SAG)
Source: http://www.aflcio.org/unionand/unions.htm
----------------
Now, I ask you this one question, dear union actor, director, writer friends: How much longer will you continue to serve the political agenda of your communist masters?For a more in-depth expose of the problem of unionized art in the entertainment industry, go here: http://home.att.net/~cyberfilms/Journel3X.html
--
Jack Rooney
Http://home.att.net/~JackRooney
Re: Communist Control of the Performing Arts
James Jaeger
8:14 am wednesday february 20, 2002Not being in SAG, I'm not an expert on how this union functions, but my feeling is that this union, as well as the other unions and guilds (IA, DGA, editor's guild) are not representing the people, but instead are acting as sort of an extended "screening process" for the studios and whatever other entities are signatory. Would you say this is a fair characterization of the unions? As a screening process can you confirm my observations/experience in LA with the Editor's Guild, whereby it was a catch-22 when I tried to get in (i.e., the union said I couldn't get a job on a signatory production (which all of the MPAA studio-financed pictures are) unless I was in the union but I couldn't get into the union unless I had worked a certain amount of time on a signatory production. I distinctly remember having a meeting with the head of the editor's guild one day at their office there on Sunset Blvd. around 1981.
I was told that they "couldn't let me in when all the members on the current roster weren't even working." By then I had had a lot of experience editing so it wasn't that I didn't know what I was doing. Seems to me that the function of a union is to protect workers from the predatory practices of management's not screen or qualify workers. Shouldn't these unions let everyone who wants join them (for the collective bargaining benefit) and then ALL the union members COMPETE for the jobs -- you know as if we lived in a free enterprise society?!
James Jaeger
Re: Communist Control of the Performing Arts
Jack Rooney
8:18 pm wednesday february 23, 2002Yes, the guilds involved in the performing arts are a part of an elaborate pyramid scheme established by the communist backed labor unions masquerading under pseudo-legitimized disguise of the CIO, the International Brotherhood renamed but founded by Karl Marx. The platform of the CIO is identical to the platform of Marxism.
The unions in the performing arts are designed specifically to keep a small entrenched group of elitists gainfully employed and in control of the art form(s) so kick-backs masked as union dues can be funneled off into the CIO political agenda, which is specifically the control of capitalism and, ultimately, the economies of all nations, through organized labor. This problem of union control of the arts is most apparent in the Director's Guild, DGA, Writer's Guild, WGA, Screen Actor's Guild, SAG, and others, and entertainment industry is simply a characteristic microcosm of the world CIO, Marxist communist political agenda.
Control of the media and the arts is a part of this ultimate communist goal; Joseph Stalin would have been green with envy. Only official party approved artists, those who espouse the Marxist materialist dogma of the party, could perform on the gilded stage in Moscow. This is precisely what is going on here today. Concepts like rights, freedoms, liberties, freedom of speech and expression, artistic rights, or even equal rights mean nothing to a Marxist materialist; they are merely fanciful products of the imaginations of those who wishfully think they can free themselves by believing in such ideas from the cause and effect processes of the material world. God is dead. Religion is "the opium of the people" There is no soul. Freedom is an illusion, a myth. Of course, in such a world, there is also no morality, no right and wrong. So trampling your "rights" is merely a part of the modus operandi emergent from the Marxist materialist world view, since he does not believe in such things as justice or truth or rights, anyway.
The acting, directing, writing industries, and the larger composite industry in which they exists, called "the entertainment industry" is made up of a number of small but powerful special interest groups SAG/AFTRA/DGA/MPAA/AMPTP/ and other similar groups who have emerged to control the industry over a period of about 70 years. All operate either directly or indirectly under control of the CIO. These groups maintain their power and control of the industry through collusion, bribery, blackmail, intimidation, racketeering, syndicalism, harassment, nepotism, discrimination, and a long list of other forceful and quite illegal means. By incorporating these imposing terrorist tactics into their modus operandi, designed and specifically encouraged by their party leader masterminds to disarm their competition and their detractors and opponents, these groups have gained illicit control of the industry, including control of the available acting, writing, directing, etc., jobs within the industry, and thereby control the film and television and music product manufactured by the artists, and, ultimately, control of the money - 80 billion US thereabouts annually.
What you are observing in the catch 22 scenario you describe ( you can't get in unless you are in, that is, you can not sell a screenplay unless you are in the union and you can not be in the union unless you sell a screenplay, you can not join the editor's guild unless you have edited a union film and you can not edit a union film unless you are in the editor's union) is the effect of this corrupt and quite dangerous political movement, the effect of the actions of criminals of the highest order who have infested the industry itself, and the various guilds and unions who provide services to the industry and operate in collusion with them and in large part are them - mobsters at their finest, racketeers with law degrees and MBAs and fine business suits and plush offices, which serves to give them the appearance of legitimacy and respectability - often called "white collar criminals". They are extremely dangerous and extremely destructive to the foundation of culture and society, the arts.
It is absolutely astounding to me that the masses are so completely blind to what is actually going on. If you can control the arts, the expressive media for communicating ideas, you can control their minds. And they (CIO communist collectivists) did it all right under our noses and with the aid of organized labor who are the dupes in an insidious plan that goes far beyond anything the common worker could begin to understand in its entirety.
read this expose:
http://home.att.net/~cyberfilms/Journel3X.htmlJack Rooney
Http://home.att.net/~JackRooney
| Dialogs | Discussion Forum & Archives | Press Releases |
| Research | Help F.I.R.M. | Bookstore |