Thanks for Your Support
Posted on February 8, 2004 at 12:06:18 PM by John Cones

In recent weeks, we have all seen or read about several different Jewish leaders criticizing Mel Gibson’s film "Passion of Christ" because of its apparent negative portrayal of some Jewish characters, concluding that such negative portrayals will lead to a rise in anti-Semitism. Let’s look at that argument. First, it accepts one of the contentions of FIRM, that a motion picture is a powerful form of communication. We rarely hear anyone associated with the Hollywood establishment admitting to that obvious fact. So, it is reassuring to know that others agree with us on that point. Then, the argument of these Jewish leaders actually goes further than FIRM to suggest that the negative portrayal of one or more characters in a single film has the power to influence the beliefs and behavior of many people. It has long been FIRM’s contention that the consistent negative or stereotypical portrayal of certain populations within our multi-cultural society in movies could lead to the creation of prejudice in the viewers of such movies, and that such prejudice (negative generalized belief) could lead to discrimination (the undesired behavior). But, again, these several Jewish leaders are claiming that a negative portrayal of a few Jewish characters in a single movie might cause the same type harm. Of course, these are not the same arguments being offered when the more long-term, consistent negative or stereotypical portrayals in Hollywood movies have been Muslims, Arabs, Christians, Mormons, Latinos, African-Americans, women, Native Americans, Irish, Italian-Americans, Japanese, Whites from the American South and so forth. The danger (in the view of these Jewish leaders), for movies to create prejudice and discrimination is apparently only there if the movies portray Jewish characters in a bad light. Wouldn’t it be better to just be honest about this whole issue and recognize (1) motion pictures are a powerful communications medium, (2) movies have long contained negative and/or stereotypical portrayals of certain populations in our multi-cultural society, (3) the consistent negative and/or stereotypical portrayals of these populations in movies contributes to prejudice and discrimination, (4) movies tend to a large extent to mirror the values, interests, cultural perspectives and prejudices of their makers, (5) the Hollywood studio executives who have the authority to decide which movies will be produced and/or released are not a very diverse group, and (6) we would all be better off if the Hollywood executive suites were filled with a more diverse group of people. That is the objective of FIRM. We must thank these recent critics of Mel Gibson’s film for helping us to make our case.

John Cones

Re(1): Thanks for Your Support
Posted on February 9, 2004 at 07:39:44 PM by Anami

Bravo.

http://www.supportmelgibson.com/
Posted on February 8, 2004 at 04:08:56 PM by G.I.U.

http://www.supportmelgibson.com/

Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 10, 2004 at 04:16:27 PM by James Jaeger

Paula Zhan Now, [Transcripts]
CNN, February 4, 2004

"Just three weeks before its release, the controversy swirling around Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ" continues to rise. For months, critics have warned that the film is anti-Semitic. Now the issue is not what's in the movie but what Gibson is cutting out of it. According to reports, he is deleting a scene that some believe blames Jews for Christ's crucifixion.

Paula Zahn talked about the movie with Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAULA ZAHN, HOST: Gentlemen, welcome. Delighted to have both of you with us this evening. Bill, I'm going to start with you tonight. If the final cut has this deletion, does that mean Mel Gibson is admitting that that scene was anti-Semitic?

BILL DONOHUE, PRES., CATHOLIC LEAGUE: No, what it means is that Mel Gibson had the common sense not to allow his critics an opportunity to try to attack him on one line. The fact of the matter is, I've seen the movie twice. It wasn't in either version. Rabbi Hier has seen it once. It wasn't in his version. This is not a matter of pressure, it's a matter of Mel Gibson simply saying it's not that critical to the movie. And if people want to make a big deal about that one line, I'm going to take it out. The fact of the matter is, the people who really hate the movie and are out to destroy Mel Gibson on this are still not going to be satisfied.

ZAHN: Rabbi Hier, are you satisfied if this scene goes?

RABBI MARVIN HIER, SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER: First of all, I saw the movie twice. On both occasions, that line was not in there. And the movie is absolutely horrible, as far as Jews are concerned.

COLLINS: Why?

HIER: Because it entirely blames Jews, all of the Jews, not only the high priests but everyone in the mob, hundreds of people. They all look -- their presentation is negative. They have these Rasputin- like features. They never say an intelligent word in a two-hour movie, which is unbelievable. The only Jews that come off as moderates and sensitive are the Jews who follow Jesus. And so there's only one conclusion. Who created all this inhumanity against Jesus? And the answer would be a resounding, The Jews.

COLLINS: All right, let me ask you this, Bill. Did you think the characterizations of all the Jews Rabbi Hier just mentioned that he saw in the film are fair characterizations? DONOHUE: No, I think he's living in la-la land. As a matter of fact, he's going to be thoroughly embarrassed when the average person looks at this movie and they're going to say, What was the fuss about? As Jack Valenti said, What is the fuss about? This is not an anti- Semitic movie, unless you have a need, a deep-seated need to find anti-Semitism and then to attack Christians, which is what Abe Foxman and others have done. This is not an anti-Semitic movie. The pope has endorsed it. People from the Vatican have endorsed it, most Catholics who have seen it, including Jews and Protestants. So are we all a bunch of bigots, Rabbi Hier?

HIER: Excuse me, this is not about Catholics and Jews, nothing to do about Christianity, even though that's the line you're pushing. This has all to do with Mel Gibson. And the pope did not endorse this film. The pope never said, It is as it was. DONOHUE: He did say that, but the Vatican is backtracking! But I'm telling you, Rabbi, you've contributed to it! Do not poison relationships between Christians and Jews by acting like as if there's going to be pogroms in the street! You know it's a lie! There have never been pogroms in the United States! Let's stop with the incendiary language!

COLLINS: All right, Bill, let's let the rabbi respond to that. But I know you have a six-page letter that you will release publicly tomorrow for the first time. Are you essentially saying if there is violence after this film is released that it has something to do with the critics of this film, that it's the Jews' fault?

DONOHUE: No, what I -- just the opposite. I'm saying that the charge of violence is coming from people like Foxman and Paula Friedrickson (ph) and Rabbi Hier bringing up the Holocaust and everything to make Christians feel on the defensive.

ZAHN: Rabbi Hier?

HIER: That is absolute nonsense. It's the kind of rhetoric that Mr.
Donohue has been...

DONOHUE: What's nonsense?

HIER: Total nonsense that anybody is anti-Christian. What we said is, this film portrays Jews, all Jews, horribly. This was a Mel Gibson choice, nothing to do with the New Testament, nothing to do with the church. There have been other films on Jesus. No one has portrayed Jews as negative as this.

ZAHN: All right, Rabbi Hier, are you suggesting...

HIER: And that is... (CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: ... that this will spark violence against Jews in the United States?

HIER: Not at all. What I'm saying -- this negative portrayal in Europe, in the Arab world, will contribute to negative feelings against Jews. When a 16-year-old sees a film like this, it doesn't have to register that he goes off and firebombs a synagogue now. It's just that in his mind, he said, Gee, that's the way the Jews are, because of his negative portrayal of all Jews, which contributes again to the DSI (ph) charge that it was the Jews collectively that were responsible for the death of Jesus.

DONOHUE: You won't get that from this movie! If, in fact, they were
showing collective guilt of Jews then, or even in a more demented sense, to fast-forward to blame Jews today, I'd be the first one to condemn it, Rabbi. But the fact of the matter is, it is wrong to suggest that Mel Gibson is portraying most Jews as responsible. He's talking about a select segment of the Jewish authorities who clamored for the death of Jesus. Now, you will not rewrite the New Testament for Christians in this country!

ZAHN: You don't think, in any way, it will contribute to increased hated of Jews?

DONOHUE: I will stake my reputation on it right now! People will be paralyzed when they see this movie. They will be breathless. It will bring people back to the church, and it will be a good thing for Catholics and Jews. And the people who are clamoring this -- this rhetoric, this cacophony against Mel Gibson, boy, are they going to have to pay for it when it's all over!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: That was Paula's conversation with Bill Donohue and Rabbi Marvin Hier."


Source: http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0402/04/pzn.00.html

Christian Depictions in Film
Posted on February 10, 2004 at 06:22:07 PM by James Jaeger

Join the clubbed: Catholics know pain of being bashed

February 10, 2004

BY RICHARD ROEPER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

"Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" won't be released until Feb. 25, but it's already one of the most controversial films in history.

For months Gibson has been showing rough cuts of the movie to religious leaders in an effort to stem mounting criticism that his interpretation of the last hours of Jesus' life will foster anti-Semitism.

I'm not sure the plan is working. Last week I received a 47-page packet from the Chicago chapter of the American Jewish Committee. Titled "The Passion: A Resource Manual," it's filled with background information, essays, biblical passages and even "talking points" about the film.

From the cover letter: "As the controversy over Mel Gibson's forthcoming film 'The Passion of the Christ' continues to escalate, [we're] taking this opportunity to provide you with the enclosed resource material on the film and the concerns of the AJC toward it. It is AJC's view, after having viewed two versions of the movie, that the Gibson film represents a reassertion of hurtful and discredited anti-Jewish elements. The film is a disturbing setback to the remarkable achievements in Christian-Jewish relations over the past 40 years . . ."

I've seen the version of "The Passion of the Christ" that will play in theaters starting on Ash Wednesday -- and I'll soon share my views on the film. In the meantime, I've been pondering some other religious-themed movies I've seen in my four years on "Ebert & Roeper."

Catholicism has been represented far more frequently than any other faith. I've probably seen more films about the Catholic Church (and movies with nuns or priests as supporting characters) than all other religions put together. Just from the last four years, I could easily put together a Catholic Film Festival -- but I don't think too many Catholics would be pleased with the entries.


Crooked priests, cruel nuns

Last year we had "The Order," a laughable thriller with Heath Ledger as a rebellious Catholic priest investigating the supposed suicide of his mentor. Turns out the elderly priest died after a ritual known as "sin eating." Peter Weller plays a ruthlessly ambitious and sinister cardinal.

Then there was "The Magdalene Sisters," an excellent but unforgiving film about the real-life Magdalene laundries in Ireland. In 1964, three young women are sentenced to a convent that is nothing more than a glorified slave labor camp. For years, the girls are subjected to abuse from nuns who are no more sympathetic than Nazi guards. Equally horrible is the priest who sexually abuses a mentally impaired young woman.

In "The Affair of the Necklace" (2002), Hilary Swank is an 18th century woman determined to restore her family's good name. She has to contend with Jonathan Pryce's Cardinal de Rohan, a lecherous, despicable schemer.

The terrific "Evelyn" (2002) tells the true story of Desmond Doyle, an impoverished single father in Ireland who fought to regain custody of his three children, who by law had been placed in Catholic orphanages. The priests and nuns treat young Evelyn and her sisters with utter cruelty.


Catholic-bashing, Part II

In "The Crime of Padre Amaro" (2002), an older priest, Father Benito, has been having an affair with a local woman for years, and he has ties to leftist guerrillas and drug peddlers. When young Father Amaro (Gael Garcia Bernal) arrives, it seems like mere days before he takes up with the 16-year-old daughter of the older priest's mistress. When the girl is impregnated, the young priest takes her to get an abortion.

Another 2002 film, "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys," stars Jodie Foster as the stone-faced, one-legged Sister Assumpta, who torments her young students and calls William Blake "a dangerous thinker." (Movie priests and nuns often rail against thought. In "The Order," a cleric says, "Knowledge is the enemy of faith.")

In the leering comedy "40 Days and 40 Nights" (2002), Josh Hartnett swears off all sexual contact for 40 days and 40 nights, and if you don't get that subtle biblical reference, Hartnett's brother is a priest, and they often meet in the confessional to gab about sex.

Antonio Banderas is a combat soldier-turned-archeologist-turned- priest in "The Body" (2001), and Olivia Williams is the Jewish archeologist who discovers a skeleton that may be the body of Jesus Christ, proving that he was a mere man. (Of course, there's smoldering tension between Banderas and Williams.) Derek Jacobi is an older priest who commits suicide.

In these movies, priests are suicidal, corrupt and/or lascivious. Nuns are heartless and sadistic.

Before you run to your keyboard: yes, I'm aware of scandals, past and present, involving the church. And yes, some of the films listed above are powerful, important works based on true stories.

But a lot of this stuff is just exploitative garbage. And no other religious group gets bashed with such frequency. Can you imagine a similar number of films with Jewish leaders playing villains and moral weaklings?

Me neither."

Source: http://www.suntimes.com/output/roeper/cst-nws-roep10.html

Mel's Note of Caution
Posted on February 13, 2004 at 05:22:14 PM by James Jaeger

After THE PASSION is over, I see no reason why Mel Gibson should not come on-screen and say the following:

"My name is Mel Gibson. This is a film of love. This is a passion of love. I've been inspired by the Holy Spirit to do this and I believe that Jesus suffered for all mankind and all mankind has a responsibility and a guilt for his suffering," and then take a breath and say, "But there are those out there who would blame the Jews as they have in history. Don't do that, for that would convert this passion of love to a passion of hate."

This has been suggested by Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). See http://www.adl.org/Interfaith/gibson_trigger.asp for his entire view on the subject.

Foxman is right, this simple note of caution could make a difference in steming any violence that might occure as a result of this film. This would be the Christian thing for Mel to do. I might add to this postscript the following:

"Christians have forgiven the Jews for anything they may have done in the past and as depicted in this picture. This is part of what it means to be a Christian. Others, no matter what their denomination, could contribute to a more harmoneous world by following their example."

James Jaeger

Re(1): Mel's Note of Caution
Posted on February 13, 2004 at 05:47:25 PM by Mitchell Levine

Jim, how much more patronizing and insulting could this disclaimer be???

In other words, "Even though we all know the Jews are a bunch of Christ-killing bloodsuckers, it's really beneath us to lower ourselves to their level."

Re(2): Mel's Note of Caution
Posted on February 13, 2004 at 06:11:48 PM by James Jaeger

Complain, complain, complain. That's all you do. Nothing will please you. I have no idea where you are coming from on this.

Are you denying that it was the Jews, more specifically the Sanhedrin, that had Christ put to death? So what if the Jews had Christ put to death, this was part of God's plan for had it not happened, Christians believe that Christ could not have fulfilled the prophesies.

James Jaeger

Re(3): Mel's Note of Caution
Posted on February 13, 2004 at 06:44:26 PM by Mitchell Levine

Because it led to two thousand years of persecution, not to mention genocide. That's what.

That you could be so insensitive is truly remarkable.

Re(4): Mel's Note of Caution
Posted on February 13, 2004 at 07:34:31 PM by James Jaeger

Hey, down boy. I'm AGREENING with Abe Foxman that Mel should say something as a post script on his film. What more do you want; blood? Sheesh!

James Jaeger

Re(5): Mel's Note - More Thoughts
Posted on February 17, 2004 at 03:53:09 PM by James Jaeger

After seeing Mel's interview on DIANE SAWYER last night, 16 February 2004, in a special broadcast entitled, MEL'S PASSION, AND considering what John Cones recently posted -- I have an additional consideration about this matter.

Mel brought up the idea, that putting a post script on his film insinuates that there's something wrong with the film. I can see his point, and therefore retract my suggestion that he do such until AFTER I see the film.

Secondly, John Cones brings up another excellent point: the idea that, why should one group get a post script and not all others? It would be favoritism for one group to get such a disclaimer while all others do not.

If THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST could be construed to incite anti-Semitism or violence against Jews, and again I'll have a better idea after I see it, then maybe such a disclaimer is not a bad idea -- but mainly in countries where anti-Semitism has been more prevalent. It probably is not an issue in the United States, especially now, that Mel himself said that it is not okay for true Christians to be anti-Semitic. And I agree with Mel on this, Christians and Jews need to celebrate their common heritage and work towards ways of accepting each other's differences. Such acceptance, I would hope, would include Jewish executives in the MPAA studio/distributors promoting Gentiles to the top-most echelons. And by the same token, I would hope that Gentile executives would do the same, for this and all other industries -- that is accept Jewish executives in the top-most echelons.

As Mitchell Levin points out, there is no reason the movie industry can't eventually evolve to a state of greater diversity, especially if a greater element of love and respect can be fostered between Christians and Jews.

James Jaeger

Re(6): Mel's Note - More Thoughts
Posted on February 20, 2004 at 09:19:16 PM by Mitchell Levine

Secondly, John Cones brings up another excellent point: the idea that, why should one group get a post script and not all others? It would be favoritism for one group to get such a disclaimer while all others do not.

- Jim, numerous films have already carried disclaimers of this type; for example, Year of the Dragon, Marked for Death, Cruising, and numerous others.

Why would it not be "favoritism" for those groups - in the above cases, the Chinese, Jamaicans, and gays - to merit a disclaimer and not Jews?

Re(7): Mel's Note - More Thoughts
Posted on February 22, 2004 at 02:35:19 PM by john alibrandi

I have spent the past hour or so reading the notes on the subject(s) discussed, and would like to offer several observations;
1.You have moved away from (or tired of) the orig. subject matter. This site is turning into nothing more than a 'Passion' site.
M. Levine -Jews do in fact control Hollywood, for various reasons, both right and wrong. Denying this fact will not further your cause. Instead, accept it for what it is. Jews have a long history of survival issues and biblical superiority that have naturally manifested into the corporate environment. Ancient Jews, to modern day Isreal have been forced to build fortress walls to simply survive. Why should Hollywood or the Diamond District or Advertising Agencies or Law firms be any different? It is what it is for very real and understandable reasons. The question really is; When will the situation change? Maybe it already has, maybe it never will.

J.Jaeger. Like it or not, a non-practicing jew (Be him European, Isreali, American)is still 'The seed of Abraham' and thus the 'chosen' people of God. This is where many superiority issues come into play. If God chose only Jaegers 4000 years ago as his first people, it would likely stay locked in your head too, and you might see and treat others as a bit inferior.-Which would be wrong, but it would still happen. I suspect that deep down you really wish you were at least part jewish. Just enough to get along in certain circles...

2.J. Jaeger and M. Levine have become co-dependent. Imagine that...A Gentile and a Jew actually needing each other. Write the screen play and make a movie together with M. Levine (He's jewish, so getting it on the screen should be no problem.)

3.The world is full of Anti-semitism and this site just seems to encourage it.

4.If M. Levine were to not respond to J. Jaeger's hate messages, he would have no one to argue with.

Re(8): Mel's Note - More Thoughts
Posted on February 22, 2004 at 06:22:15 PM by James Jaeger

>I have spent the past hour or so reading the notes on the subject(s) discussed, and would like to offer several observations;

Wow a whole hour! You must be an expert on the Film Industry Reform Movement now.

>1.You have moved away from (or tired of) the orig. subject matter. This site is turning into nothing more than a 'Passion' site.

And what do you suppose the "orig. subject matter" was?

>M. Levine -Jews do in fact control Hollywood, for various reasons, both right and wrong. Denying this fact will not further your cause. Instead, accept it for what it is. Jews have a long history of survival issues and biblical superiority that have naturally manifested into the corporate environment. Ancient Jews, to modern day Isreal have been forced to build fortress walls to simply survive. Why should Hollywood or the Diamond District or Advertising Agencies or Law firms be any different? It is what it is for very real and understandable reasons. The question really is; When will the situation change? Maybe it already has, maybe it never will.

I'll let Mr. Levin address this if he so chooses.

>J.Jaeger. Like it or not, a non-practicing jew (Be him European, Isreali, American)is still 'The seed of Abraham' and thus the 'chosen' people of God. This is where many superiority issues come into play. If God chose only Jaegers 4000 years ago as his first people, it would likely stay locked in your head too, and you might see and treat others as a bit inferior.

When I raise this issue of "the chosen people" with Christians and Jews around here, they relate to me entirely different interpretations of the term "chosen people." One of my Christian friends indicated to me that the term chosen people does not refer to Jews as being something SPECIAL but as something DEGRADED. The idea being that, if God were able to convert the worst of society into a higher state (now called Christianity), converting the rest of society would be a cake-walk. A Jewish friend put a different spin on this. She said that it means that the Jews were "chosen" to carry a BURDEN, the burden that God used to make his points to a sinful world. Thus there is nothing inherently better or worse about Jews, it’s that God just happened to "chose" them to work through. Luck of the draw. So we see here, depending on how one wants to spin this term, "chosen people," it can mean any one of three things, ranging from NEGATIVE to NEUTRAL to POSITIVE. One can see the Jews as "chosen" because they were SUPERIOR; or the Jews were "chosen" simply because they were THERE; or the Jews were "chosen" because they were a challenge being in a DEGRADED state. I might add, I have no idea which interpretation is correct, if any, because it was all laid down some 1,960 years ago and I wasn’t there (unless past lives ARE true, and there is no empirical evidence for them one way or another at this time).

>-Which would be wrong, but it would still happen. I suspect that deep down you really wish you were at least part jewish.

Some people in my family are Jewish by marriage. I may be part Jewish as we think some of my ancestors were Jewish. My mother and I are looking into this genealogy now. But the fact of the matter is almost everyone is part Jewish and part everything else. In another 30 - 500 years there will only be one (1) race on this planet (and it may not even be human). Because of the early trade routes, Hawaii is one of, if not the most ethnically integrated places in the world. Because of this they have achieved a significant degree of social harmony as they consider themselves the same as each other or they don’t know and have thus stopped even thinking about it. One thing that’s interesting is that three of the recent Miss Americas have come from Hawaii. This indicates that certain "desirable" genes get selected when nature has a more diverse pool to choose from. The "chosen" genes! I personally think it would be an interesting experiment to set up states where people of the SAME or SIMILAR race/ethnic background are NOT legally permitted to breed. You do that and the gene pool will probably grow superior to all other gene pools. Thus the general IQ and physical abilities of these people will soon accelerate over the general, more bigoted, population. Such a state of extreme biological diversity may eventually produce an advanced culture, one that may even eventually rule the entire world because of it’s ability to develop such breakthrough technologies as viable quantum computing, strong AI and the replicating assembler for nanotechnology. If this happened, and I realize I am digressing a whole lot here so please bear with me, such a culture would be able to crack open the financial and technological conundrums of our era. This would include solving the exponential math problems that exist (such as the traveling sales man problem, protein folding, 100% debug of computer code, the legal-consistency problem and the factoring of large numbers).


>Just enough to get along in certain circles...

I have never had any problem getting along with Jews. For the most part I enjoy the company of Jews. In fact I usually have more interesting and fast-paced conversations with my Jewish friends than I do with others, with the exception of writers and scientists. I would say Jews are more interesting than Scientologists because they don't have their minds boxed in by the encouraged, if not sole, teachings of L. Ron Hubbard. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with much of Hubbard's teachings, it's just that Scientologists, unlike Jews don't really consider the teaching of anyone else unless they have been filtered through ‘source," i.e., Mr. Hubbard’s cerebral cortex. On the other hand, it has been my observation that Jews mainly form their opinions from a multi-millennial Jewish network of associates such including Jewish literature, periodicals and media -- so at least they are a little broader than the Scientologists who, again, allow most of their "data" to be filtered through Hubbard (and, in fact are not even allowed to discuss such things as the technology of Scientology with each other as it's considered "verbal tech." I might add that there ARE valid reasons for this policy, but it can be taken to extremes when applied to the universe of research outside the immediate purvey of Mr. Hubbard, who is now deceased and thus not privy to the latest advancements in the sciences or humanities. But just like all religions, the body of knowledge is always considered "complete". This serves as a protection against "alter-is," "squirreling" and "false prophets").
>2.J. Jaeger and M. Levine have become co-dependent. Imagine that...A Gentile and a Jew actually needing each other.

I have chuckled over this as well. Actually I have grown quite fond of Mr. Levine, as much of a pain in the ass as he's been at times. He has many good points and I believe has well represented the Jewish POV on many issues. As I said above, Jews seem to be among the very few that are mentally alive. Where are all the Christians and Scientologists and Arab/Muslims and Atheists and people of every other race and heritage on this site? They are either brain-dead or terrified to argue in public. Shame on them and bravo for Mr. Levin to have the passion and guts to speak up.

>Write the screen play and make a movie together with M. Levine (He's jewish, so getting it on the screen should be no problem.)

Maybe Mr. Levine and I will meet some day and I would welcome that, but I don’t think he likes me very much or respects me, at least from what I hear him saying about my accomplishments in film and my opinions in connection with FIRM.

>3.The world is full of Anti-semitism and this site just seems to encourage it.

I don’t think "the world is full of anti-Semitism" and I don’t think FIRM encourages it any more than the movie, THE PASSION, will. When one says this, "the world is full of anti-Semitism," they’re buying into the view of organizations like the ADL who see it everywhere. Let’s face it, it pays for them to see it everywhere. Their annual budget is some $50 million. If anti-Semitism were to suddenly vanish, so would a lot of paychecks. I will even go farther: I say that this organization even CREATES anti-Semitism and Jews would do well to reevaluate its usefulness and disband it. The Christians have no such anti-Jesus organization or anti-Christian organization. On the other hand, the Scientologists have their version of the ADL. It’s called the "Watchdog Committee" and I think it’s a part of the RTC, the Religious Technology Corporation. The Scientologists also have their version of "anti-Semites." They’re known as "SPs" or "Suppressive Persons." I was into Scientology in LA for about 15 years and, believe me, one who is in it is as TERRIFIED of being labeled an SP as a Gentile or a Feature Filmmaker is of being labeled an "anti-Semite." It’s all quite puerile and laughable once one gets an exterior view of the tactic. The ADL, which represents Jews, in essence, justifies its existence because of the Holocaust, and the Watchdog Committee, in essence, justifies it existence because of the APA, the American Psychiatric Association. It’s all horse, and that’s why I prefer scientists. The more I study this issue, the more I am convinced that L. Ron Hubbard modeled much of his Scientology policy after the warfare policies developed by the Jews and Jewish network, including the ADL and the AIPAC. I also suspect that many Hollywood-Jews (HJ’s) are covertly using Scientology policy in their operations but would never say so because this is politically incorrect at this time. Nevertheless, we will probably see the time when Judaism and Scientology come out of the closet together and the Hollywood-based, Jewish dominated media embraces Scientology EXACTLY as it has done for homosexuality. The idea is that, the HJs that control Hollywood, unlike their brothers at large, probably DO hate anything and everything about Christianity. These people are indeed the new Sanhedrin and their mission is to chop up traditional Christian American in any way possible.

Maybe THE PASSION will create some anti-Semitism for a few nuts out there, but I would be willing to bet that anyone who is ‘encouraged’ to become anti-Semitic by this site, or THE PASSION, is already the kind of person who ALREADY hates or dislikes Muslims and/or Christians and/or Scientologists and/or Blacks and/or Asians and/or Others-different-from-themselves already. So if FIRM is encouraging YOU to go anti-Semitic: just turn it off. Your computer has an on off button, no? Just like your TV! Hey, this is what the MPAA apologists always tell us to do to protect our children from their violence-oriented, sex-saturated movies and now even football games. You don’t like the FIRM site because it’s making your anti-Semitic: turn it off.

>4.If M. Levine were to not respond to J. Jaeger's hate messages,

Why do you consider my messages ones of hate? What have I posted that leads you to this conclusion? Hate is such a one-dimensional emotion. I have done my best to discuss openly as many sides of these issues as possible, much to the risk of my film career. For you to filter out what you perceive to be "hate" indicates to me that you may have your "hate filters" turned up too high.

>he would have no one to argue with.

An interesting thought. Maybe I have become the sole reason for Mr. Levine’s existence.

James Jaeger

Re(9): Mel's Note - More Thoughts
Posted on February 22, 2004 at 10:04:07 PM by Mitchell Levine

I don’t think "the world is full of anti-Semitism" and I don’t think FIRM encourages it any more than the movie, THE PASSION, will.

- Even the ADL don't believe the film will create antisemitic violence in the U.S.

When one says this, "the world is full of anti-Semitism," they’re buying into the view of organizations like the ADL who see it everywhere.

- That Foxman's hysterical's been amply demonstrated by the whole incident - but it's his job to be a canary in a coalmine. That the work of the ADL is necessary should be obvious from most of the posts on this site. If that doesn't do it for you, try Jenks' Jew-hatred portal.

Let’s face it, it pays for them to see it everywhere. Their annual budget is some $50 million. If anti-Semitism were to suddenly vanish, so would a lot of paychecks.

- And if crime vanished, then law enforcements' budgets would also cease. Does that prove crime doesn't exist, and that therefore the FBI fabricates it???

I will even go farther: I say that this organization even CREATES anti-Semitism and Jews would do well to reevaluate its usefulness and disband it.

- This is coming from a guy that actually believed the term "goyim" means "cattle" - a lie which comes straight from neo-facists. If you would have bothered to take a look at the ADL site, you'd have known that was an ignorant falsehood.

The Anti-Defamation League's tireless efforts have been made on behalf of many minorities, and they've done a great deal to promote tolerance through education for all of them.

That they've made mistakes and done things that were incorrect is due simply to the falliable nature of flesh-and-blood human beings. It does not negate the value of the their accomplishments.

Of course, that's not meant to suggest that they shouldn't be subject to the same laws and restrictions every other organization is.

The Christians have no such anti-Jesus organization or anti-Christian organization.

- Bullshit. What the hell is the Catholic League???
Even Foxman isn't as hysterical as William Donohue! There are many such Christian organizations, including the now-defunct "Moral Majority."

On the other hand, the Scientologists have their version of the ADL. It’s called the "Watchdog Committee" and I think it’s a part of the RTC, the Religious Technology Corporation. The Scientologists also have their version of "anti-Semites."-

- They're called "people capable of rational thought."

They’re known as "SPs" or "Suppressive Persons." I was into Scientology in LA for about 15 years and, believe me, one who is in it is as TERRIFIED of being labeled an SP as a Gentile or a Feature Filmmaker is of being labeled an "anti-Semite."

- It's sad you didn't make better use of the opportunity to network while you there, Jim. I hear that's why most people in Hollywood join.

It’s all quite puerile and laughable once one gets an exterior view of the tactic. The ADL, which represents Jews, in essence,

- It represents many different groups, just like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which it often works closely with.

justifies its existence because of the Holocaust,

- The Holocaust doesn't "justify its existence." It simply underlines the need for its mission. I don't know if rebutting the many lies the Nazis disseminated about Jews would have prevented the Holocaust, but ignorance certainly played a role.

and the Watchdog Committee, in essence, justifies it existence because of the APA, the American Psychiatric Association. It’s all horse, and that’s why I prefer scientists.

- Finally, something we agree on.

I also suspect that many Hollywood-Jews (HJ’s) are covertly using Scientology policy in their operations but would never say so because this is politically incorrect at this time.

- And I thought nothing more ridiculous could possibly appear on this site. I was obviously wrong.

Nevertheless, we will probably see the time when Judaism and Scientology come out of the closet together and the Hollywood-based, Jewish dominated media embraces Scientology EXACTLY as it has done for homosexuality.

- Believe it or not, Jim, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Karen Black do not constitute all of Hollywood.

The idea is that, the HJs that control Hollywood, unlike their brothers at large, probably DO hate anything and everything about Christianity.

- That's just inane, and shame on you for promoting this hateful message.

Simply not sharing someone else's religious faith DOES NOT mean you hate them or that faith. Not wishing to be indicted for murdering God is NOT the same thing as hating Christianity.

Most Jews do not feel any hostility towards Christians, and usually do not understand the antipathy the latter sometimes show for them.

Jewish religious education does not include reading the New Testament, so most Jews don't know the first thing about the Crucifixion, or why Christ's death is supposed to be their fault.

These people are indeed the new Sanhedrin and their mission is to chop up traditional Christian American in any way possible.

- This is just shameful. And you wonder why you're considered a bigot.

So if FIRM is encouraging YOU to go anti-Semitic: just turn it off. Your computer has an on off button, no? Just like your TV!

- That's a cop-out: if you really are as scientifically literate as you claim, you should know about the group polarization and groupthink phenomena. That's quite a different thing from feeling offended by Janet Jackson's exposed breast.


Hey, this is what the MPAA apologists always tell us to do to protect our children from their violence-oriented, sex-saturated movies and now even football games. You don’t like the FIRM site because it’s making your anti-Semitic: turn it off.

- The problem is that the people whom are most vulnerable WON'T turn it off. It will simply inspire them to take their obsession further. At one time, Jenks might have been a human being.

An interesting thought. Maybe I have become the sole reason for Mr. Levine’s existence.

- It's nice to know that even if you can't have a Hollywood player's career, you can still have their ego.

Re(8): Mel's Note - More Thoughts
Posted on February 22, 2004 at 04:40:58 PM by Mitchell Levine

I have spent the past hour or so reading the notes on the subject(s) discussed, and would like to offer several observations;

- Thanks for your time.

M. Levine -Jews do in fact control Hollywood, for various reasons, both right and wrong.

- The word "control" has bigoted implications: no one ever says "the Greeks 'control' shipping," or "the Irish 'control' the police force."

If the industry were led by people from Wales, no one would say "they control the media - OH MY GOD! WE'VE GOT TO REVOKE THE CONSTITUTION!"

They would just say "the Welsh are our filmmakers. How quaint." No one would start websites that fume "THE WELSH ARE ONLY 1% OF AMERICAN SOCIETY, BUT MAKE UP 12% OF THE MOVIE BUSINESS - DEMOCRACY IS COMING TO AN END AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO BE SLAVES TO WELSH TRIBALISM!!!"

Denying this fact will not further your cause.

- No one's denying the leadership position Jews have taken in the film business, both historically and currently. What's being disputed are the claims of illegality and immorality being attached to that status.

Instead, accept it for what it is. Jews have a long history of survival issues and biblical superiority that have naturally manifested into the corporate environment.

- That's hardly a necessary sociological fact. The pressures that shaped life in Classical Europe and the ancient world are much different than those that exist today.

Just about the only similarity is that Jews have traditionally valued professions that take intelligence to succeed in, from Torah scholarship to entertainment.

Also, as hard as this may be to believe, Jews are actually human beings like everyone else, and usually make their decisions as individuals and not as a collective entity. When I decided to major in film, I certainly didn't consult my rabbi, nor were my parents pleased with it.

In fact, just about the only time I even think about being Jewish is when I post on this site. No one else I know is any different.

Ancient Jews, to modern day Isreal have been forced to build fortress walls to simply survive. Why should Hollywood or the Diamond District or Advertising Agencies or Law firms be any different?

- Why would they necessarily be the same??? It's a slightly different world, age, and situation. For example, almost everyone in my family, and most of my friends, married spouses from other faiths. Why would other social phenomena that date back from the times of the Shtetl or diaspora be any different? Because the idea captures bigots' imaginations???

J.Jaeger. Like it or not, a non-practicing jew (Be him European, Isreali, American)is still 'The seed of Abraham' and thus the 'chosen' people of God.

- That's a ridiculous idea that virtually no one believes any longer: it's simply a typical example of the thought patterns of people in ancient times.

Jews are not genetically different than anyone else from the areas of the world that they originally come from, which is why, for example, no one has ever been able to devise any scientific test which could objectively establish anyone's "Jewishness" from a DNA sample or blood test. Even Israel has to rely on birth certificates or proofs of conversion.

This is where many superiority issues come into play. If God chose only Jaegers 4000 years ago as his first people, it would likely stay locked in your head too, and you might see and treat others as a bit inferior.

- It's ridiculous to assume Jews think other people are inferior. I've never met anyone other than, say, crazed extremists from the Kahane-kai - who dislike non-extremist Jews as much as non-Jews, or more - that even remotely believe that.

2.J. Jaeger and M. Levine have become co-dependent. Imagine that...A Gentile and a Jew actually needing each other. Write the screen play and make a movie together with M. Levine (He's jewish, so getting it on the screen should be no problem.)

- Nothing could be more foolish than to assume that because you're Jewish, you'll necessarily be successful in the movie business, as many young Jewish people quickly find when they actually get to Hollywood. NO ONE cares what a screenwriter's ethnicity is; they care about the commercial potential of their script.

What would you rather "control"...motels or the media?
Posted on February 22, 2004 at 11:58:10 PM by Sisu

"The word "control" has bigoted implications: no one ever says "the Greeks 'control' shipping," or "the Irish 'control' the police force."

What a typical Levine response. Big f-ing deal if Indians "control" the mom & pop motel business. Who really cares if Jews "control" the diamond market, but when the media elite is predominately made up of one ethnic group "controlling" the "marketplace of ideas," I think all members of our democracy should be concerned. Of course, it's taboo to mention it in our society.


From the Atlantic Monthly

FLASHBACKS

Media Mergers

June 2, 2003

Today the Federal Communications Commission voted to ease restrictions on corporate media ownership. Companies will now be permitted to own television stations that reach up to 45 percent of American households. And owning both a newspaper and a broadcast station in a major market will no longer be illegal.

Michael Copps, one member of the FCC who opposed the decision, expressed the views of many when he characterized the move as investing "America's ... media elite with unacceptable levels of influence over the ideas and information upon which our society and our democracy depend."

Such concerns are not new. In the late 1960s, during a flurry of media-industry mergers, The Atlantic published several articles that pointedly asked, Who controls the media? and How big is too big? In "The Media Barons and the Public Interest: an FCC Commissioner's Warning" (June 1968),

"…Federal Communications Commissioner Nicholas Johnson ("The Media Barons and the Public Interest," June, 1968) warning of the dangers of diminished competition in "the marketplace of ideas," and examining the "impact of ownership upon the control of media."

Nicholas Johnson described how, as a newly appointed member of the FCC in 1966, he gradually gained a comprehension of the frightening extent to which the tentacles of big business were intricately and seemingly inextricably intertwined with the functioning of the media:

Economic self-interest does influence the content of the media, and as the media tend to fall into the control of corporate conglomerates, the areas of information and opinion affecting those economic interests become dangerously wide-ranging. What is happening to the ownership of the American Media today? What dangers does it pose? Taking a look at the structure of the media in the United States, I am not put at ease by what I see.

Most American communities have far less "dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources" (to quote a famous description by the Supreme Court of the basic aim of the First Amendment) than is available nationally.

The following year, two articles sought to expose some of the corporate maneuvering and undue accumulations of influence in the world of American media at the time. Hyman H. Goldin's "The Television Overlords" traced the startlingly far-reaching extent of the political and economic influence of the three broadcast giants—CBS, NBC, and ABC.

Re(1): What would you rather
Posted on February 23, 2004 at 00:25:16 AM by Mitchell Levine

Typical asinine Sisu response: you're right - who cares if law enforcement is dominated by one ethnic group - they belong to the majority religion, so they must not be part of any secret plot to take over the world. That's why we experienced the Rodney King riots, but like you say, who cares - they don't control what's on television.

Of course, you wouldn't care if the media was entirely composed of Gentiles entirely, with no Jewish or ethnic presence of any kind: the whole issue is simply a front for your bigotry. You don't want "diverse and antagonistic sources: You want sources that look and believe like you do exclusively, as is confirmed by the racist tract you posted advocating for segregation.

Also, note the subtext that the majority of peopleare incapable of having an independent thought, and simply believe whatever they see in the movies. Well, if people are really that stupid - which I don't believe - they deserve to be "dominated." Otherwise, they'll probably turn out like you, and that society can't withstand.

Re(2): What would you rather
Posted on February 26, 2004 at 08:56:12 PM by LAX

You want sources that look and believe like you do exclusively, as is confirmed by the racist tract you posted advocating for segregation.

But, don't our current sources look, believe, and behave like you Mitchell?

Re(3): What would you rather
Posted on February 26, 2004 at 10:04:18 PM by Mitchell Levine

As if you would know what I look like, moron???

Re(9): Mel's Note - More Thoughts
Posted on February 22, 2004 at 06:31:03 PM by James Jaeger

>Jews are not genetically different than anyone else from the areas of the world that they originally come from, which is why, for example, no one has ever been able to devise any scientific test which could objectively establish anyone's "Jewishness" from a DNA sample or blood test. Even Israel has to rely on birth certificates or proofs of conversion.

In the Cohen line of Jews, there has been discovered specific mitochondria DNA and one other specific DNA.

However it has also been discovered that so-called "in breeding" is much less detrimental than once thought. Thus people attempting to demean the intelligence of Jews by saying that they tend to only breed amongst themselves are not arguing the recent facts and theories.

James Jaeger

Re(10): Mel's Note - More Thoughts
Posted on February 22, 2004 at 07:58:43 PM by Mitchell Levine

In the Cohen line of Jews, there has been discovered specific mitochondria DNA and one other specific DNA.

- As would be expected in any family line, which we can assume is the natural extension of carrying a surname. That doesn't make Jews a race by anthropological standards, and, in fact, there's no defining genetic test that can establish Judaism.

However it has also been discovered that so-called "in breeding" is much less detrimental than once thought. Thus people attempting to demean the intelligence of Jews by saying that they tend to only breed amongst themselves are not arguing the recent facts and theories.

- No one's ever tried to demean the intelligence of the Jews. Usually, they argue exactly the opposite.

Re(11): Mel's Note - More Thoughts
Posted on February 25, 2004 at 04:59:15 PM by James Jaeger

>- As would be expected in any family line, which we can assume is the natural extension of carrying a surname.

True. However because the Cohen line was somewhat of a high priest line (it's been a while since I studied this), they kept very careful control over the breeding, thus the genetic marker shows up well in this instance. If you are really interested in this, there is a new book out that studies all the various racial lines in the world. I'm sorry but I forget the name of the book. If I can remember it I will let you know.

>That doesn't make Jews a race by anthropological standards, and, in fact, there's no defining genetic test that can establish Judaism.

Probably true, but they are learning some interesting new things now that the genome has been mapped. One of the most interesting to me is the idea that we are ALL related. In the past x years all of us have almost every conceivable blood. This is why I believe we all have exactly the same potential and that no contemporary race is any better than any other. We all have the same hardware, it's how we program our minds that sets us apart.

>>However it has also been discovered that so-called "in breeding" is much less detrimental than once thought. Thus people attempting to demean the intelligence of Jews by saying that they tend to only breed amongst themselves are not arguing the recent facts and theories.

>- No one's ever tried to demean the intelligence of the Jews. Usually, they argue exactly the opposite.

There are various physical disabilities that do show up in DNA sequence of Jews and this is a relatively well-known phenomena. It is also a matter of historic record that over the millennia Jews have tended to breed mostly with their own. This has led some to speculation as to whether such "in-breeding" had caused any sort of mental disorders in the Jewish population. But as I pointed out, other than the above, it looks like in-breeding is much less deleterious than previously suspected. So your safe Mitch -- I won't try to claim that you're an imbecile, moron or idiot -- unless you ACT like one from time to time.

James Jaeger

Re(12): Mel's Note - More Thoughts
Posted on February 26, 2004 at 04:33:09 PM by john alibrandi

"The use of obscene language-in my opinion-seems to act almost as a type of camouflage for otherwise mediocre writing." James Jaeger May 9, 1998

-I would like to include the use of name calling to your quote.

Re(13): Mel's Note - More Thoughts
Posted on February 28, 2004 at 04:09:14 PM by James Jaeger

>>"The use of obscene language-in my opinion-seems to act almost as a type of camouflage for otherwise mediocre writing." James Jaeger May 9, 1998

>-I would like to include the use of name calling to your quote.

I'm not sure what this is in reference to but if it's in reference to imbecile, moron or idiot -- these are psychiatric states described by a specific range of IQs -- if you believe in such things AND given you believe psychiatry has validity as a field capable of addressing mental health. I do not, unless it combines with other disciplines. Why? Please allow me to digress.

The human brain is at its basis little more than a protein-based Turing machine – a computer – hence, by definition it only has very limited capabilities, as do all Turing machines.

Oh you may think the human brain, and the human race by extension, do wonderful and magnificent things – but this is only because your brain is not capable of comprehending all the things that you can’t do. Humans, in their current state, can’t do very much, they only think they can. A moron thinks he’s a genius, just as a genius thinks he’s a genius. Even an ant thinks he’s a genius. The brain is a very slow (only 200 instructions per second) and irrational calculating instrument, an instrument that was developed over eons by trial an error to think using only a SEQUENTIAL methodology. Thus its product, the destruction of one civilization after another, is testament to its irrationality, an irrationality caused by it’s inability to think in only sequential, Turing ways. The only thing that motivates the human brain to create, is the threat of yet more destruction through the insanity of war. The only thing the brain has going for it to free it from its prison of sequential though is its ability to massively simultaneously process data, and something else I will discuss later. But in today’s data-saturated world, even this is woefully inadequate.

Since the human brain is a Turing machine, it handles data FUNDAMENTALLY no differently than every other computer that has ever existed -- no matter how big or how small, whether built here on earth or elsewhere, whether built recently, or over billions of years by biology (the logic of 2’s). Thus, as with silicon-based Turing machines, the only way you increase computational ability (known as intelligence, rationality and mental health in humans) is by improving one the following basic things:

1. number of logic circuits (in memory and storage);
2. processing speed (how fast data flows internally and externally);
3. programming (how efficient and complete the tasks are defined and executed).

Since psychiatry does not address 1 and attempts to only addresses 2 with superficial neural transmitting drugs AND since only a minority of psychiatrists prefer programming (i.e., counseling therapy) over drugs – it will never lead the way to greater intelligence, rationality and mental health.

The only thing that can address 1 and 2 is genetic engineering of the human brain. The only thing that can address 3 is processing the bugs out of the brain’s computational algorithms (such known as the so-called "mind"). This last can only be done by quantum computing because the programming bugs (your mentally inconsistent and irrational: attitudes, emotions, sensations and pains) in a typical human mind, can’t be comprehended by Turing machines. They can’t be solved or even comprehended by turning machines because their solution can only be found by performing an exponentially growing number of tests and de-bugging routines. These are known in mathematics as a class of problems called NP-complete. (See http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/npcomplete.html)

Therefore the human race is in a pickle. As Hubbard correctly said, the mind is not capable of solving the problem of the mind. But unless it does, within 30 years, silicon-based computers may solve these problems for themselves and thus supercede human intelligence. We will then be in what is referred to as the Post Human Era, a period of time that may not include homo sapiens. The irony is that, in order to advance, we may NEED to develop the very computers that could enslave or replace us. If Hubbard is right, certain de-buggers will be necessary to ensure point 3 of above. Hubbard dedicated most of his life to creating these de-buggers, known as auditors. However, the technology they use, known as Scientology technology, is a Turing technology, thus it will probably not be sufficient to "run" and debug all the possible lines of code in the average human mind, which is an NP-complete problem. This brings us back to ultra powerful Turing machines or quantum machines as the ultimate "auditors" of the human race.

No one yet knows whether a purely Turing computer is powerful enough to evolve human-level intelligence or whether it will take a quantum computer to accomplish such a state of being. Thus, we AS humans don’t really know yet whether the small amount of intelligence we experience is a function of the massive simultaneous processing that goes on in our brains or whether our brains also have a quantum nature. When this question is answered, only then will we be able to determine how much outside assistance we will need to get our brains into a state whereby we can compete with the AI (artificial intelligence, more correctly, alien intelligence) that will emerge probably by other means.

In summary, the road to superintelligence, i.e., the post-human era, also known as the Singularity, will inevitably lead through either a Turing route or a quantum route. If a Turing route, the number of logic circuits in the brain (synapses) and their data rate will have to be genetically increased. In other words, bioengineering will have to be used to grow bigger, faster brains. But such bigger, faster brains may just end up being even more confused and irrational than the puny brains we currently have unless they are seriously debugged, while, or after, they mature (go operational at adulthood). Such debugging was attempted in the last millennia by researchers such as Freud and Hubbard, but again, due to the exponential (NP-complete) nature of "mind" problems, may be doomed to failure. In such event, the debugging may have to be done by super fast sequential Turing machines (if possible, or quantum machines). If quantum machines are necessary, the question as to whether they will be internal or external to the cerebral cortex is necessary. If the brain is, or is ALSO, a quantum device, then quantum processing, debugging, may actually be done internally. Sort of a superscientology technology whereby a person self-audits by tapping into their internal quantum computing abilities, but actually gets transcendent, supercomputing results. If the brain is not quantum in nature, then external quantum machines, "quantum auditors," may have to be developed to assist the human race into rationality hence superintelligence. In other words de-bug minds so that the software they are running (i.e., their so-called "thoughts") can run on the more-optimum, genetically-engineered substrate we refer to as the brain. The answer to our human-like problems will come by carefully digesting and integrating all technologies so far developed by any and all homo sapiens over time. This, in itself, is an NP-complete problem. Luckily, we have been able to develop small quantum computers and it looks like there have been significant developments in both genetic engineering and nanotechnology.

If we can keep the vast bulk of irrational humanity, and its R-DOS (religious operating system)-driven insanity off our backs long enough for these technologies to be responsibly applied to the human condition, things will turn out well and the human race can get on with its purpose – which is to multiply, advance and colonize the universe.

James Jaeger

Re(11): Mel's Note - More Thoughts
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 05:49:06 PM by john alibrandi

Mitchell,
>...write the screen play with M.J.- he's jewish, so you will have no trouble getting it...
-This was ment to be sarcasm, relating to some of the nonsense that I had read previously from James Jaeger. I know differently.
Thank You for your response.

James...Thank You for your note also. Did you happen to notice how level headed Mitchells note was? Read yours again. Whom do you think came across better? Which one was a tad angry and a bit rambling?
JJ>Wow! A whole hour. You must be an expert on...
-I didn't realize that this site was just for experts. I do have alot to learn, but it's not your kind of message. You're angry and you seem to blame your failures on others.
I do know a few things about the movie business. Some of my friends and family are involved in various aspects of Film and TV, but I don't really care much for many of the personalities. I will say that I have never heard anything from them even close to the malarkey that you put out. Tell me about the vision(?)of the future thing again?

Re(12): Mel's Note - More Thoughts
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 08:51:46 PM by Mitchell Levine

No offense taken, John. Thanks for your kind words.

Enjoy the movie tomorrow night. I just saw the press screening today.

Movie Disclaimers
Posted on February 15, 2004 at 11:09:03 AM by John Cones

I'm just wondering if Congress should require that all motion pictures containing negative or stereotypical portrayals of any group of people contain a "disclaimer", or whether such requirement should only apply to one special group?

John Cones

Re(1): Movie Disclaimers
Posted on February 17, 2004 at 11:02:31 AM by John Cones

Of course, Congress should not get involved in any issue relating to movie disclaimers, but if the industry is going to consider adding a disclaimer to one movie for the benefit of a particular group, then it should, in all fairness, add disclaimers to other movies that portray other groups in a negative or stereotypical manner. And, there are a lot of those movies. Even better, if we had real diversity at all levels in the film community, it is more likely that we would see real diversity on the movie screens.

John Cones

Movie Guide Review of Passion
Posted on February 16, 2004 at 11:20:07 PM by John Cones

Here's an excerpt of the Movie Guide's review of the Passion. Interesting how different people view the same film.

"A law professor whom I admire sat in front of me. He raised his hand and said, ‘After watching this film, I do not understand how anyone can insinuate that it even remotely presents that the Jews killed Jesus. It doesn't.’ He continued, ‘It made me realize that my sins killed Jesus.’ I agree. There is not a scintilla of anti-Semitism to be found anywhere in this powerful film. If there were, I would be among the first to decry it. It faithfully tells the Gospel story in a dramatically beautiful, sensitive, and profoundly engaging way.

"Those who are alleging otherwise have either not seen the film or have another agenda behind their protestations. This is not a ‘Christian’ film, in the sense that it will appeal only to those who identify themselves as followers of Jesus Christ. It is a deeply human, beautiful story that will deeply touch all men and women. It is a profound work of art."

Mel Gibson "is a portrait of an anti-Semite."
Posted on February 17, 2004 at 05:14:09 PM by James Jaeger

Gee, how the ADL's Abraham Foxman has changed his tune, as seen on DIANE SAWYER'S interview of Mel Gibson last night on network TV where he, Foxman, stated that 'No, Mel Gibson is NOT an anti-Semite.'

-------------------------
"Anti-Defamation League's Foxman Brands Gibson an 'Anti-Semite'

Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Thursday, Sept. 18, 2003
Also see: Why Does ADL Fail to Criticize the 'Anti-Semite' Woody Allen?

The head of the nation's most influential Jewish organization has charged that Mel Gibson is an "anti-Semite."

Anti-Defamation League's Abraham Foxman had previously avoided affixing the label on Gibson, who directed "The Passion," a movie about the last 12 hours of Jesus.

In a biting article published in The Jewish Week, Foxman charged, "Recent statements by Mel Gibson paint the portrait of an anti-Semite," and said the star was spouting "classic anti-Semitism." . . .

. . .Among Foxman’s other charges:

Gibson told Boyer he was sorry he removed a scene in which the high priest recites the curse from the Gospel of Matthew proclaiming that the blood of Jesus is upon him and his children. "But, man, if I included that in there, they’d be coming after me at my house, they’d come kill me."

Gibson accused "modern secular Judaism" of blaming "the Holocaust on the Catholic Church. And it’s a lie. And it’s revisionism. And they’ve been working on that one for a while."
"When you put those things together," said Foxman, "that is a portrait of an anti-Semite. To me this is classic anti-Semitism." . . .

Source: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/9/18/145645.shtml

Foxman's Reversal
Posted on February 17, 2004 at 06:47:54 PM by James Jaeger

The "Primetime" program also includes an interview with Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Foxman told Sawyer he does not believe Gibson or the film are anti-Semitic but added that the movie "has the potential to fuel anti-Semitism, to reinforce it."

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/2/15/144304.shtml

Overview of PASSION Timetrack
Posted on February 17, 2004 at 06:18:41 PM by James Jaeger

Here's an overview of how THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST has been handled by the politically liberal, not-very-religious, Jewish males of European heritage that dominate the Hollywood studios and who influence the media and possibly even the ADL, which speaks for the Jewish community, according to Abrabam Foxman, its director.

----------------
A Special Edition of
THE LEFT COAST REPORT
It all started January of last year.

Mel Gibson appeared on Fox News’ "The O’Reilly Factor."

The famed actor-producer-director let the world know that a print reporter was nosing around his family and friends trying to dig up dirt.

The reporter was freelance journalist Christopher Noxon. He wrote a hit piece that focused on Gibson’s 85-year-old father. The article mischaracterized Mel’s beliefs and those of his dad. It also tried to label the film as fringe propaganda.

Noxon’s dirt-digging expedition might have been related to his family’s interest in the same Malibu site where Mel Gibson was building a church. The plot thickened as another group planned a full Gibson assault.

Unscholarly Conduct

With the help of an individual dubbed in an e-mail "our Deep Throat," a group of academics, who are part of what’s known as the interfaith movement, got hold of a stolen early draft of a confidential script.

Using ideas and notes from the pilfered preliminary screenplay, the group generated a so-called confidential report, which twisted the film’s message.

Somehow the report landed in the hands of the news media. A number of its authors appeared delighted to have their criticisms aired in public, despite the fact that the report was based on incomplete, dated, confidential and pirated material.

In addition to theft, it seems that falsification was also part of the unscholarly game. The group tried to pawn itself off as an official body of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), but the USCCB subsequently issued a statement denying a connection with the anti-Gibson group.

Boston University’s Paula Fredriksen has been a particularly high-profile player in the anti-Passion drama. She has referred to Scripture as "a kind of religious advertisement." She has promoted the idea that the Gospels "proclaim their individual author's interpretation of the Christian message through the device of using Jesus of Nazareth as a spokesperson for the evangelist’s position."

On Dec. 22, 2001, the Washington Post delivered a sort of un-Christmas present from Fredriksen in the form of a comment about the trustworthiness of the New Testament. The Post quoted her as saying, "I can’t think of any New Testament scholar who takes [the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth] to be historically reliable," adding that most scholars believe that Christ was not born in Bethlehem.

It appears as though Fredricksen and friends could be on a mission to deconstruct the Gospels. They prattle on about "progressive interpretation" and "historical context" when it seems that what they really want is a rewrite of the Good Book. Could it be that their real beef with Mel has to do with the fact that he based his movie on the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?

"The Passion" saga continued as film-snuffing sights were set on a potential distributor.

Suppression of Expression

In an effort to get Rupert Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox to decline to distribute Gibson’s film, New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind scheduled a press conference and demonstration. The event was supposed to take place in front of News Corp.’s Manhattan headquarters.

20th Century Fox usually distributes Gibson’s movies, but gave a thumbs down on "The Passion."

As the New York Daily News reported, other Hollywood studios were also less than enthusiastic about taking on the project.

Additionally, the New York Times rubbed salt into Icon Productions’ wounds by describing the film as chronicling "in bloody detail" the last hours of Jesus’ life. It also called it "potentially inflammatory" and "not commercial enough for a high-profile mainstream studio like Fox."

In typical Gibson fashion, Mel and the crew gripped the wheel, rode out the bumps and were successful in finding distribution.

Unfortunately, more trouble lay ahead.

The Piracy

In November of last year, the New York Post illegally obtained a pirated videotape of the Gibson film. Although this revelation is extraordinary in its own right, it’s what a major newspaper did with the tape that made ignoble cinematic history.

Months before the film’s scheduled release, the Post displayed the grainy second-generation videotape to its own assembled panel of critics. Four of the five reviewers who were present slammed the film in the pages of the paper.

Oscar-winning director Sydney Pollack put feelings into words in this way. He told E! Online News, "If I had made that picture, I would have felt raped."

Evidently the shenanigans weren’t just outrageous, they were also illegal. The Los Angeles Times reported that federal authorities launched a probe.

Gibson and the folks at Icon had more head and heartache to endure.


Virtual Hate

Also in November, Anti-Defamation League held its annual meeting in New York.

ADL National Director Abraham Foxman let loose with one of the ugliest assaults on Gibson that had occurred to date. He said, "I think he’s infected – seriously infected – with some very, very serious anti-Semitic views."

These words spewed forth from the leader of an organization that purportedly stands for tolerance.

Ironically, instead of modeling a virtue, Foxman ended up demonstrating exactly what hate speech sounds like.

In January 2004, uninvited ADL officials registered for a Christian pastors’ conference where Gibson’s film was set to be shown. They used the fabricated name "The Church of Truth" to gain entrance to the event.

After seeing the film, ADL denounced Gibson’s picture as a "painful portrayal" and a "commercial crusade to the church community."

Most recently, Foxman requested that Gibson attach a disclaimer (drafted by Foxman) to the film denouncing any bigoted interpretation of his narrative.

No similar disclaimer has yet been submitted by Foxman for the spurious and insulting remarks he made about Gibson.

At the same time Mel and his mates were dealing with ADL matters, they were also experiencing an insidious print blitz.


Poison Pens

It seems that New York Times arts columnist Frank Rich felt the need to gear up the sleaze machine several times over to generate innuendo.

In his Aug. 3 column, Rich got stuck in sludge-slinging overdrive. He wrote that Gibson and his organization had been "baiting Jews," Matt Drudge was a "token Jew," traditionalist Catholics were a "fringe church," Rupert Murdoch was a "conservative non-Jew," Peter J. Boyer’s article "sanitizes" Mel’s father, Bill O’Reilly was "being paid" to defend Gibson, and Gibson spokesman Alan Nierob "plays bizarre games with the Holocaust." (Rich evidently missed the fact that Nierob is a second-generation Holocaust survivor and a founding member of the U.S. Holocaust Museum.)

Rich even tried to take a swipe at me. He claimed to "decode" a section of my book "Tales from the Left Coast," where I supposedly have "a fetish of repeating Bob Dylan’s original name."

In September, the Jayson Blair understudy heaved more rubbish in Gibson’s direction. After a Vatican official (who happens to be on the short list of papal prospects) raved about the movie and dismissed concerns over bigotry, Rich evidently decided to change his focus. Instead of going after the Passion product, he’d try attacking the Passion process.

He wrote, "Intentionally or not, the contentious rollout of ‘The Passion’ has resembled a political campaign, from its start on ‘The O'Reilly Factor.’"

Getting little traction with that one, Rich tried to jump into a story that involved a higher authority.


‘The Passion’ and the Pope

On Dec. 17, Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal reported that Pope John Paul II had seen Gibson’s movie and said, "It is as it was."

Noonan had been given a written confirmation for the quote from the pope’s official spokesman via e-mail.

The same day, National Catholic Reporter’s main man at the Vatican, John Allen, reported the identical quote and attributed it to the pontiff. An unnamed senior Vatican official confirmed the quote. The following day, Reuters joined in on reporting the pope’s quote and cited an unnamed Vatican source.

The Los Angeles Times received its own independent corroboration for the story on Dec. 19.

On Dec. 24, Catholic News Service’s Cindy Wooden claimed to have talked to "a senior Vatican official close to the pope" who said that the pontiff never said those words.

On Jan. 9, Allen reported that he had double-checked his original source and that the pope did indeed say, "It is as it was."

Enter once again Frank Rich of the New York Times.

On Jan. 18, Rich tossed more journalistic mud pies. He accused Gibson and Steve McEveety of using the pope to make money.

The next day Catholic News Service reported that the pope’s secretary said that "the Holy Father made no declaration" about the film.

Two days later, L.A. Times columnist Tim Rutten apparently signed up to be Rich’s Left Coast colleague. He wrote a vile piece that began, "A good Hollywood publicity campaign does not stumble over technicalities — like the truth. Still, it takes a particular sort of chutzpah to put a phony quote in the mouth of Pope John Paul II."

Actually it takes a particular sort of chutzpah for a columnist to forget to check his own paper’s records before he writes on a subject.

On Jan. 23, in a news article, the Times admitted that "last month, the ailing pontiff was quoted as having said after a private screening of the film ‘it is as it was.’ Asked Dec. 19 whether the quote was reliable, Vatican press secretary Joaquin Navarro-Valls told the Times ‘I think you can consider that quote as accurate.’"

The truth is that, from the beginning, Icon has had written authorization to go public with the pope’s statement on "The Passion of the Christ." My sources have enabled me to confirm the graphic nod with my own eyes.

After stories began to emerge that questioned whether the quote was for real, Icon’s McEveety immediately e-mailed the official Vatican press secretary and offered to discourage use of the quote. Navarro-Valls responded with an e-mail, which not only reaffirmed that use of the quote was fine but advised McEveety to use the phrase "again and again and again."

Even the New York Times on Jan. 20 wrote, "One prominent Roman Catholic official close to the Vatican said today, ‘I have reason to believe — and I think — that the pope probably said it.’"

So what we have here are four respected news organizations getting independent verification, and Icon Productions getting confirmation, authorization and encouragement, to use the pope’s "it is as it was" statement.

The way I see it, the Icon team has held fast to the truth and suffered the stripes with amazing grace.

The Left Coast Report thinks that, because "The Passion of the Christ" and its people have managed to survive insults, stolen scripts, threats of demonstration, pirated prints and dire predictions, the continuous triumphs are no mere coincidence. The more appropriate term to use would be providential.



The Left Coast Report is put together by James L. Hirsen and the staff of NewsMax.

Source: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/1/27/215042.shtml

Additional Detail of timetrack: http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/p-chrono.htm

Culture Wars
Posted on February 22, 2004 at 10:07:42 PM by James Jaeger

In all the media publicity and controversy surrounding Mel Gibson's movie, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, the most significant issue of all has been obfuscated or dropped out entirely: how this is all part of the "Culture War."

The main issue is this: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX, an MPAA company, avoided financing and distributing a movie because that movie had an agenda DIFFERENT from the agenda of the control group that dominates Hollywood and hence much of American culture. Such control group has been correctly identified as consisting of "politically liberal, not-very-religious, Jewish males of European heritage" by John Cones in his research.

With this in mind, the politically correct "reasons" FOX gave for not financing or distributing THE PASSION were a) that it wasn’t in English nor was it subtitled and b) religious movies, as exemplified by a number of recent flops, don’t do well at the box office.

But to these two "reasons" I say, HORSE.

Later, mouthpieces for the Jewish Establishment, in particular Abraham Foxman of the ADL, came out and declared Mel Gibson an anti-Semite and were "troubled" that Mel’s movie would incite anti-Semitism – thus they advised the studios to avoid financing or distributing THE PASSION; later advised Mel Gibson to remove a line of dialog from the picture (which he did, Matthew 25:27) and still later advised Mel to place a post script on the picture (which he opted to not do, because, as Mel stated in his Diane Sawyer interview, ‘it implied there was something wrong with my movie’).

Nevertheless, even though Mel added subtitles, taking away "reason" a), FOX, nor any of the MPAA studios, under the direct or indirect threat/orders of the Jewish community, through their advocate organization, the Anti-Defamation League (the ADL), have offered to distribute THE PASSION. Thus in effect the GENERAL JEWISH COMMUNITY, NOT just HOLLYWOOD JEWS, effectively SUPPRESSED THE FINANCING OF A FEATURE MOTION PICTURE through standard Hollywood channels.

Thus Mel was forced to curl up in a ball and die --as most other filmmakers in this position do -- OR reach into his pocket for 30 million bucks and finance the movie himself. Luckily he happened to have the money OR YOU AND BILLIONS OF OTHERS WOULD NEVER HAVE SEEN "THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST" IN A MILLION YEARS. (Does this make you wonder how many other movies will you NEVER see?)

Then when it came time to distribute THE PASSION, Mel went to his home-buddy studio, FOX – the same studio that he had made hundreds of millions of dollars for in the past – and asked them to please distribute it so he could get his 30 million dollars back and so he could make them additional hundred million dollars or so for their CONTINUED good business sense in investing in his projects. But MPAA-infested FOX, in effect, taking their cue from the broad Jewish community’s mouthpiece, the ADL, told Mel go to take hike. So he did to the other "competitive" Jewish-dominated MPAA studio/distributors and all of them, acting like a monopolistic or monolithic entity (take your choice), also stonewalled Mel’s movie. Even DreamWorks, a studio that ‘doesn’t want to perpetuate an existing system," as Jeffrey Katzenberg, one of its founders along with Steven Spielberg and David Geffin, wrote to me in a personal letter. Well Jeffrey, if you don’t want to PERPETUATE an existing system, why do you perpetually ACT like the existing system?

In the end, the MPAA studios, a wannabe MPAA studio and the Jewish community at large, all who constantly SCREEM about their First Amendment rights of Free Speech – all told Mel Gibson to go to hell with HIS First Amendment Rights because they "are under no obligation to finance or distribute anything" – as Mitchell Levine will puke in rebuttal to this post. How convenient. And ALL these guys are the same ones that constantly vomit: "Hey if you don’t like it hit your OFF button on your TV. Your TV DOES have an on/off button doesn’t it?"

Now, contrary to Levine’s prediction (or secret wishes), it looks like THE PASSION will make hundreds of millions. It will open on over 2,800 screens and some experts predict it will earn as much as $300 million in domestic theatrical revenues alone. If so, the picture will probably garner another $400 million in homevideo/DVD as the standard revenue extrapolation formula applies. It will then play over seas and do these figures again, bringing the total to $1.4 billion. Then THE PASSION will go to other "windows." The second window will be video-on-demand and later windows will be pay-per-view and cable. It will then go to second-run cable and eventually onto free TV and 10-year syndication. None of these revenue streams even include the ancillary markets it will pick up through church groups, airlines, merchandising and sell-through retail DVDs and VHS videos. This is the DOWNSIDE of the revenue potentials it was WELL-understood by most of the MPAA marketing brass PRIOR to the completion of principal photography, or at least post production – and it was a less than speculative downside provided the picture did NOT alienate or antagonize the billion plus individuals in the worldwide Christian community. Since the PASSION followed the New Testament strictly, as The Patriot promised it would from the VERY beginning – it DID not.

Again, given an honest and true representation of the New Testament, at a certain point, it was thus a NO-BRAINER for MPAA marketing EXPERTS that THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST would sell to at least 10% of the Christian community, as I stated in an earlier post to Mitchell Levine. Since the global Christian community is about 1.5 billion, even 10% would have easily recouped the production-marketing budget such being about $30 million for production and $50 million for marketing for a total of $80 million as follows: 10% of 1.5 billion Christians is 150 million potential ticket sales at say $5 each is a gross revenue $750 million. Giving the theaters about half of this leaves $375 million in "rentals." The distributors would have been able to recoup their $30 million production budget and then their P&A (marketing budget of $50 million) leaving $295 million from which they would take a 35% distribution fee of $103 million. They then could have split the balance with ICON PRODUCTIONS of $96 million each. All this just for theatrical. If the picture sells to a significant portion of the Christian market, the UPSIDE could be that this picture will be the largest grossing movie of all time – even surpassing $5 billion in the next 10 years.

Thus, PRIOR to the completion of principal photography, or at least post production –- and BEFORE Mel had arranged a distribution deal with NEW MARKET –- there was PLENTY of time and REASON for FOX, or at the very least one (1) of the other "highly competitive" MPAA studio/distributors to give Mel a NEGATIVE PICK-UP DEAL. But no such deal, or any production-distribution agreement, was ever forthcoming from the "economically motivated" MPAA studios. Thus, one can see that the idea that the studio/distributors are entirely economically motivated is rubbish and that the idea that THE PASSION was not financed "because it was risky" is pure HORSE.

The REAL reason FOX didn’t finance Mel’s movie is because that movie had an agenda DIFFERENT from the agenda of the control group that dominates Hollywood -- such control group identified as politically liberal, not-very-religious(i.e., secular) Jewish males of European heritage.

Let me spell this out for you: MOVIES REFLECT THEIR MAKERS, as John Cones’ research exhaustively shows (see WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON IN HOLLYWOOD at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/whats.htm). Since the MAKERS of THE PASSION do NOT control the financial strings of the MPAA studio/distributors –- the MPAA studios did not, and would not, MAKE THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST.

And they DID not, and WOULD not, because, again, such a movie was contrary to their agenda. What is their agenda? Well it certainly is NOT the spread of Christianity or conservative, traditional causes and values. Their agenda is above all to protect and perpetuate the Jewish community and Israeli interests as well as Israel itself. The Hollywood control group’s agenda is to also perpetuate AN EXISTING SYSTEM of liberal causes that they endorse such including, but not limited to, their elite lifestyle. This can only be done, in their view, by continuing to dominate the Hollywood-based movie studios that produce the global cash flow, such cash flow funneled into the ridiculously over-promoted, hence over-priced greater Los Angeles and California real estate market. Other agenda are the removal of guns from the electorate/citizens, wanton abortion, a re-definition of the word "marriage" to mean the union of other than one man and one woman and ENDLESS immigration to all people that are NOT prone to anti-Semitic behavior so that the dominating Christian community in America (85% of Americans are Christians, 2% Jews and less than 1% Muslims) can be diluted and then dissolved. All of these agenda are coming out of Hollywood and any feature or media that supports same, or that incorporates endless VIOLENCE and SEX on the screen to foster an environment of discord conducive to "optimum" change, WILL be financed by the control group over a movie, like THE PASSION, that reverses such agenda. Thus Christian doctrine and Christian morals tend to stand in the way of the Hollywood control group’s agenda. And that’s why it’s covertly despised in Hollywood. Christian values PREVENT these things from happening wholesale in American society (as similar values in other religions prevent same in other societies). Thus, from their POV, there is NO WAY a Christian themed motion picture will EVER get financed or distributed by the MPAA studio/distributors so long as they are dominated in the TOP THREE positions by liberal, secular Jewish males of European heritage.

These things indicate that we are in a CULTURE WAR as Bill O’Reilly says. The CULTURE WAR can best be understood by reading John Cones’ book, HOW THE MOVIE WARS WERE WON (available at http://www.mecfilms.com/coneslaw/conesbk.htm). The MOVIE WARS are part of the CULTURE WAR. Get it?


In THE PASSION conflict, we are seeing a MICROCOSM of the CULTURE WAR that is being waged by traditionalists (and people like O’Reilly who is at least attempting to inject some balance). The only difference is the fact that we at FIRM have the "gall" to include the J-word, that Hollywood Jews are a significant part of the demographic involved in the Culture War. But for some, since we dare to mention the word "Jew," we must be anti-Semitic. To them we must automatically hate all Jews because after all, if we did NOT do the politically correct thing of dropping the mention of Jews out of the demographic, even though everyone KNOWS this is part of the demographic -- we must be bigots. And since we aren’t PROTECTING the Hollywood Jews from their irresponsible control and domination of the MPAA studio/distributors, we must be hate-filled, anti-Semitic, jack-booted, Nazis in the eyes of the Hollywood apologists and the cowards that claim to report the issues without any bias.

To those who have watched the saga of THE PASSION’s rejection for financing and distribution (such tale at fully documented at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/p-chrono.htm), and who see NO relationship between what Mel Gibson has gone through and WHAT EVERY DISENFRANCHISED FILMMAKER IS GOING THROUGH RIGHT NOW ON A SMALLER SCALE -– I say take a closer look – there’s a major double standard going on in Hollywood. Certain people get to make movies, such as THE LAST TEMTATION (antagonistic to Christians) or SHINDLER’S LIST (supportive of Jews) with little or no problems compared to Mel’s ordeal. Is this double standard okay in a democratic society? That the most powerful communications channel yet devised, the feature motion picture, is reserved for CERTAIN PEOPLE, a narrow demographic of people that chooses to forward their secular agenda to the exclusion of almost all others.

It’s about time the Culture Wars deal with the REAL issues and the real players, because unless they do, nothing will change and it will be business as usual in Hollywood: the same hackneyed stories from the same studio-approved writers; the same performances from the same studio-approved actors and the same endless saturation of sex and violence on, not only the large screen, but on the smaller screen, such as the CARTOON NETWORK, our kids watch when they’re especially impressionable to what their culture should be all about.

James Jaeger

Re(1): Culture Wars
Posted on February 25, 2004 at 10:49:34 AM by WFM

From various mediums that saturate our nation, there are different perceptions and beliefs that we all devour.

Was Christ white or was he black?

The film "Malcolm X", by Spike Lee, is a justifiable credible example. I'm sure "The Passion of Christ" is a great film about religion. That will go down in time as one of the greatest films in movie history.

But, to see the faces and hear the voices of millions of Americans on the news NBC,ABC,CBS,...especially African Americans, with tears in their eyes about how God sacrificed his life for us was incredible.

I wonder, do these people know about the contradiction, look at the color of Christ skin...I think Mel Gibson would've caused a riot if he portrayed Christ as black!

Mel could have taken us to another level of dialogue and communication, especially with crossing the diversity line of race, culture, and prejudice forever. Especially from Christ who gave his life for us.

He being portrayed as "white" instead of "black", lets examine this perception.

I believe Jesus was and is "black" which is actually "white"; to understand the class, Art 101,Chapter 3 in your text book..."white" and "black" are all colors of the rainbow.

Who is is calling the "kettle black".

WFM

Re(1): Culture Wars
Posted on February 23, 2004 at 00:07:47 AM by Mitchell Levine

X for in the past – and asked them to please distribute it so he could get his 30 million dollars back and so he could make them additional hundred million dollars or so for their CONTINUED good business sense in investing in his projects. But MPAA-infested FOX, in effect, taking their cue from the broad Jewish community’s mouthpiece, the ADL, told Mel go to take hike. So he did to the other "competitive" Jewish-dominated MPAA studio/distributors and all of them, acting like a monopolistic or monolithic entity (take your choice), also stonewalled Mel’s movie. Even DreamWorks, a studio that ‘doesn’t want Well Jeffrey, if you don’t want to PERPETUATE an existing system, why do you perpetually ACT like the existing system?

- Would you expect a Black production house to distribute an equally racist film??? No one has to finance a film that they don't want to for any reason.

In the end, the MPAA studios, a wannabe MPAA studio and the Jewish community at large, all who constantly SCREEM about their First Amendment rights of Free Speech – all told Mel Gibson to go to hell with HIS First Amendment Rights

Yet again you tell this lie. Once more, in the vain hope that'll you'll stop spreading this intentional deceit: MEL GIBSON HAS NOT BEEN ARRESTED, THEREFORE HIS FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS HAVE NOT BEEN VIOLATED. YOU HAVE NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO HAVE YOUR FILMS DISTRIBUTED!!!

because they "are under nobligation to finance or distribute anything" – as Mitchell Levine will puke

- The word "puke" is better used to describe the shameful diatribe against everyone who doesn't share your beliefs that you embark on here.


in rebuttal to this post. How convenient. And ALL these guys are the same ones that constantly vomit: "Hey if you don’t like it hit your OFF button on your TV. Your TV DOES have an on/off button doesn’t it?"

- It's convenient, because it happens to be true. The Founding Fathers did not promise that anyone would have the right to have anything printed or filmed or broadcast.

They DID promise freedom of the press, which certainly includes the right not to have to accept someone's money to distribute their film.

Now, contrary to Levine’s prediction (or secret wishes), it looks like THE PASSION will make hundreds of millions.

- I was referring only the prerelease version of the film without subtitles. I have no idea how the current version will do.

It will open on over 2,800 screen

Since the PASSION followed the New Testament strictly, as The Patriot promised it would from the VERY beginning – it DID not.

- No, it does not: it contains numerous items that don't appear in the Gospels, and draws heavily on extra-biblical materials.

But no such deal, or any production-distribution agreement, was ever forthcoming from the "economically motivated" MPAA studios. Thus, one can see that the idea that the studio/distributors are entirely economically motivated is rubbish and that the idea that THE PASSION was not financed "because it was risky" is pure HORSE.

- Bullshit. Exactly the same arguments could have been made for King David, and that was in English.


The REAL reason FOX didn’t finance Mel’s movie is because that movie had an agenda DIFFERENT from the agenda of the control group that dominates Hollywood -- such control group identified as politically liberal, not-very-religious(i.e., secular) Jewish males of European heritage.

- Why should they HAVE to make a film that accuses them of being guilty of the crime of murdering God? Your production company wouldn't finance a film that made similar accusations about you.

Gibson found alternate financing and distribution, which is the way a free enterprise system is supposed work. There's no reason in the world those distributors should have been forced to pick it up.

Let me spell this out for you: MOVIES REFLECT THEIR MAKERS, as John Cones’ research exhaustively shows (see WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON IN HOLLYWOOD at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/whats.htm

- Once again, telling more lies, like, for example, that John Cones' "research" proves anything, or was even competently executed. Gibson's movie will probably be one of the few films ever made that reflected its maker instead of its intended audience - and it's telling that many have perceived it as being as much an anti-Jewish diatribe as his father's recent interviews were.

And they DID not, and WOULD not, because, again, such a movie was contrary to their agenda.

- What "agenda?" That they and their families and entire ethnicity not be defamed as Christ-killers worthy of extermination???

What is their agenda? Well it certainly is NOT the spread of Christianity or conservative, traditional causes and values. Their agenda is above all to protect and perpetuate the Jewish community and Israeli interests as well as Israel itself.

- This is simply antisemitic propaganda. The last "pro-Israel film" that got made was Raid on Entebbe, and that was in 1978. There is quite simply no reason why they had to make The Passion. If you want to tell the Christ narrative, fine, but leave me out of it.

Don't you dare try to make it appear as if the studios did anything wrong by refusing to make a film that denigrated them. Once again, if a Black production company had refused to make Birth of a Nation you would applaud them.

The Hollywood control group’s agenda is to also perpetuate AN EXISTING SYSTEM of liberal causes that they endorse such including, but not limited to, their elite lifestyle. This can only be done, in their view, by continuing to dominate the Hollywood-based movie studios that produce the global cash flow, such cash flow funneled into the ridiculously over-promoted, hence over-priced greater Los Angeles and California real estate market.

- They're not "dominating" anything. They're simply running their businesses like businesses. They are not branches of the government that are shared as public trusts. If anyone ever told you that you had to run your business like you're suggesting the studios have to run theirs, you'd buy a gun.

Other agenda are the removal of guns from the electorate/citizens, wanton abortion, a re-definition of the word "marriage" to mean the union of other than one man and one woman and ENDLESS immigration to all people that are NOT prone to anti-Semitic behavior so that the dominating Christian community in America (85% of Americans are Christians, 2% Jews and less than 1% Muslims) can be diluted and then dissolved.

- This is the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard, and could really be a headliner in Das Steurmer. If you want to live in a Christian nation, move to England. Otherwise, you'll have to abide by the Constitution, which states that we have the rights enumerated there, and a separation of Church and state.

And if you don't like abortion, don't have one. A woman's reproductive rights should not be determined by anyone's religion except theirs, nor should the rights of gays to form commited love unions and get the same benefits as everyone else.


And, by the way, you're ADMITTING that Christians are antisemitic??? Or are you advocating for more bigots to emigrate here. If you were really so righteous, you'd advocate for universal tolerance instead, not balanced bigotry.

All of these agenda are coming out of Hollywood and any feature or media that supports same, or that incorporates endless VIOLENCE and SEX on the screen to foster an environment of discord conducive to "optimum" change, WILL be financed by the control group over a movie, like THE PASSION, that reverses such agenda.

- Violence and sex are part of a Jewish plot??? Thanks for sharing, Jim. The reason why these things are prevalent is because people enjoy seeing them. Don't even try to make the bogus argument that if Fox and Paramount were run by gentiles that everyone would want to see G-rated films instead.

Thus Christian doctrine and Christian morals tend to stand in the way of the Hollywood control group’s agenda. And that’s why it’s covertly despised in Hollywood. Christian values PREVENT these things from happening wholesale in American society (as similar values in other religions prevent same in other societies).



Thus, from their POV, there is NO WAY a Christian themed motion picture will EVER get financed or distributed by the MPAA studio/distributors so long as they are dominated in the TOP THREE positions by liberal, secular Jewish males of European heritage.

- Once again, bullshit: if that were true, the numerous Christian-themed films which have been recently released like Bless the Child, End of Days, Stigmata, and so on never would have made the screens.

These things indicate that we are in a CULTURE WAR as Bill O’Reilly says. The CULTURE WAR can best be understood by reading John Cones’ book, HOW THE MOVIE WARS WERE WON (available at http://www.mecfilms.com/coneslaw/conesbk.htm). The MOVIE WARS are part of the CULTURE WAR. Get it?


In THE PASSION conflict, we are seeing a MICROCOSM of the CULTURE WAR that is being waged by traditionalists (and people like O’Reilly who is at least attempting to inject some balance). The only difference is the fact that we at FIRM have the "gall" to include the J-word, that Hollywood Jews are a significant part of the demographic involved in the Culture War. But for some, since we dare to mention the word "Jew," we must be anti-Semitic. To them we must automatically hate all Jews because after all, if we did NOT do the politically correct thing of dropping the mention of Jews out of the demographic, even though everyone KNOWS this is part of the demographic -- we must be bigots.

- I think your presentation of Jews as demons bent on destroying society by asserting their equal liberties might have something to do with it too.

And since we aren’t PROTECTING the Hollywood Jews from their irresponsible control and domination of the MPAA studio/distributors, we must be hate-filled, anti-Semitic, jack-booted, Nazis in the eyes of the Hollywood apologists and the cowards that claim to report the issues without any bias.

To those who have watched the saga of THE PASSION’s rejection for financing and distribution (such tale at fully documented at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/p-chrono.htm), and who see NO relationship between what Mel Gibson has gone through and WHAT EVERY DISENFRANCHISED FILMMAKER IS GOING THROUGH RIGHT NOW ON A SMALLER SCALE -– I say take a closer look – there’s a major double standard going on in Hollywood. Certain people get to make movies, such as THE LAST TEMTATION (antagonistic to Christians)

- Yes, Jim, it was so "antagonistic" to Christians that it was written and directed by devout Christians as an adaptation of a novel by a devout Christian. I guess their religious beliefs must be wrong.

or SHINDLER’S LIST (supportive of Jews) with little or no problems compared to Mel’s ordeal. Is this double standard okay in a democratic society?

- What's not OK in a democratic society is your hypocritical idea that the film industy should be communized because its pvalently led by Jews, whom should be uniquely deprived of protection from being disenfranchised on the basis of their ethnicity regardless of paying their dues.

That the most powerful communications channel yet devised, the feature motion picture, is reserved for CERTAIN PEOPLE, a narrow demographic of people that chooses to forward their secular agenda to the exclusion of almost all others.

- Many films, both religious and secular, and reflective of many different "agendas" get made, which is why movies with antisemitic themes like Batman Returns, Die Hard, Family Business, and so on get made.

It seems like what you're complaining about is that more specifically antisemitic films don't get made. Many films have already been made of the Gospels; The Passion is just the latest and the most sensationalistically gory.

It’s about time the Culture Wars deal with the REAL issues and the real players, because unless they do, nothing will change and it will be business as usual in Hollywood: the same hackneyed stories from the same studio-approved writers; the same performances from the same studio-approved actors and the same endless saturation of sex and violence

- Like that which saturates The Bible, The Iliad, The Aeneid, Shakespeare, and so on.

on, not only the large screen, but on the smaller screen, such as the CARTOON NETWORK, our kids watch when they’re especially impressionable to what their culture should be all about.

- I see. These things are uniquely Jewish, and Jews are uniquely immoral. How could anyone think you're a bigot, Jimbo? They must be insane.

Re(2): Culture Wars
Posted on February 23, 2004 at 10:24:32 PM by James Jaeger

- What "agenda?" That they and their families and entire ethnicity not be defamed as Christ-killers worthy of extermination???

This agenda, see below:

--------------------
The New Sanhedrin
Mel Gibson's PASSION Gives Rise to an Ancient Controversy
by Mark Glenn

"What are we to do with these men?" they asked among themselves. "We must warn them not to speak anymore in his name."

The problem for those who were debating this question of "what to do with these men" was that many miracles had been performed by them in the plain sight of the whole community, and there was no arguing against it. What was even more vexing to them was the boldness of these former fishermen in going forth fearlessly like first century renditions of William Wallace and his band of Scotsmen, refusing to knuckle under and abandon their War for Independence in the face of so many threats. And it was due to these reasons that their opponents were gathered that day, and understandably anxious about handling this problem without too much attention being drawn to it.

Those who were gathered together pondering this troubling question were the members of the Sanhedrin who had just recently put that ambitious and pesky carpenter from Nazareth to death, and who now were in the business of persecuting his followers, stoning them, having them thrown into prison, and in general bringing to bear all of the mechanisms of coercion which were available to them at the time. Clearly, the business of bringing to an end the boxing match that took place over the course of 3 years between the Nazarene and the most esteemed and honored members of the religious leadership was not as finalized as they had thought it was. In killing him, they had opened up a can of worms that appeared to be almost uncontainable, and now, in utter desperation, they were attempting to stop a fire that appeared to be unstoppable.

Thus were the events which gave birth to the Christian faith as recounted in the Book of Acts, a heart pounding, heroic tale in which a band of revolutionaries defies the powers that be in their desire to live as free men. As such, there are to be found in this story all the elements which have encompassed other tales of similar theme, including the evil tyrants who oppress and weigh down the people, and the heroes who, having been struck with the idea that it is better to perish as free men than to live as slaves, bravely go forth lighting the fires of revolution and justice in the process. Most of those who call themselves Christians today, while acknowledging their respect for these events, nevertheless seem to have little understanding as to where the importance of such events lie in the present. To those who pay some lip service to the freedom fighters, (Peter, Paul, et al) the events are simply occurrences of a bygone history, as was General Washington's crossing of the Delaware or Patrick Henry's speech to the Virginia House of Burgesses. Little do they appear to realize that they are living in the midst of this event, an event which was only part one in the War of Independence which Christianity declared against Pharisaical Judaism in the tiny town of Jerusalem nearly 2,000 years ago. The danger to this inaccurate understanding of the event is lethal, both spiritually and physically, for in the process of getting bad intelligence reports (which appears to have become the "in" thing now) much of what calls itself Christianity has made fatal errors in terms of logistics and planning, and as such now stands poised to be overrun by the enemy, if indeed this has not already happened.

"What are we to do with these men?" they ask on a daily basis today, and have now, for at least one century, possibly two. Those who are gathered together today, pondering this troubling question are the modern day descendants of the same Sanhedrin who had put that ambitious and pesky carpenter from Nazareth to death, and who now are in the business of persecuting his followers, killing them, having them thrown into prison, and in general bringing to bear all the mechanisms of coercion which are available to them at this time. "We must warn them not to speak anymore in His name."

The average Christian contemplating who such persons might be today, (and inevitably falling back on the propaganda which has been poured into his or her consciousness by a Zionist media) would invariably arrive at the conclusion that what was being discussed was some form of religious extremism emanating from the Middle East, which would be partially correct. Where clarification is needed though, is in recognizing that in this case the real threat existing today to the religion of Christianity and its adherents is not posed by Islamic Extremism, but rather is to be found lying within the sentiments of Judaic Extremism, The New Sanhedrin, and never before has it been more apparent than now.

As much as the American media, (for decades now a mouthpiece for the interests of Marxist Zionism) has propagandized America since the fateful day in which the Twin Towers came down concerning the "hatred for Christianity" that it alleges is the defining characteristic of the Islamic religion, nevertheless from time to time the mask comes off the Beast and gives the observant spectator a glimpse of what better constitutes reality. Whether such sloppiness is the result of laziness on the part of those weaving the spell or whether it is the product of divine providence makes little difference in the fact that the world should be grateful that it happens, even if it is only too infrequent. In such instances, the act of the Beast in revealing itself allows truth, (if even only for a brief moment) to have an opportunity in dispelling the clouds of confusion under whose cover an agenda is permitted to operate. It is understandable how sloppiness like this can exist, since maintaining a deception is a full time job, much akin to keeping a dead corpse alive through artificial means. As such, from time to time the hypnotists managing the delusional state of American Christianity are not as diligent in covering all their tracks and tying up all the loose ends with respect to the propaganda they peddle which fuels American involvement in the Middle East. The double-sided justification for this involvement, after all the polemics and flowery arguments are removed can be reduced to two main ideas, the one being that Muslims hate Christians, and the other that Americans who consider themselves to be Judeo-Christian in their orientation owe their allegiance to the Marxist state of Israel. In furtherance of this agenda, Israel's propaganda infrastructure in America has hidden not only what are the easily verifiable sentiments of respect and veneration which Muslims maintain towards Christ and those who follow him, but as well have kept hidden the malicious sentiments held by adherents of Judaic extremism which can be verified with equal ease.

This cover-up has been accomplished by what has become a fast moving shell game in which the Muslims, who hold and always have held Christ in the highest regard, have been inaccurately portrayed as his enemies, while the real villains have gone unsuspected and unmentioned throughout the entirety of the discussion. This is tragic on several levels, not only in the fact that a decades-long war has now been launched against almost a billion people under completely false pretenses, but as well in the fact that it illustrates what has become the intellectual capacity of the average American Christian Zionist in his or her blind support for the interests of Marxist Zionism. The average American who has swallowed the bait put forth by a Zionist media that the religion of Islam is inherently anti-Christian in its foundations could have easily become better enlightened in an afternoon of reading, not The New Republic or other Zionist think-tank rags, but rather passages of the Koran, a process by which much if not all of the negative notions which have been put forth concerning the religion of Islam and its adherents would have been reduced to the meaningless dribble that they are. By doing so, the curious American would have found out that he or she has much more in common with the adherents of Islam than has been revealed, including a shared belief in Christ as the Messiah, his miraculous works, and that he is favored in the eyes of the creator. In addition to this, it would have been discovered as well that Christ's mother is revered as the highest woman ever to have walked the face of the earth, and that his Apostles are held in the same esteemed positions of honor that they occupy in the religion of Christianity.

By the same notion, the average Christian, spending an afternoon reading (instead of watching some foolishness designed to reduce his or her intellect to that of a drooling, sexualized adolescent) might find disquieting pieces of information concerning the religion of Judaism and its extremist elements in Israel whom Americans subsidize to the tune of over 6 billion dollars a year. In the great shell game of propaganda which has fueled American Christianity's support for the war in the Middle East at the behest of Israel, with deafening silence has been discussed how Christ and his followers (including his mother) are viewed by adherents of modern day Judaic extremism, the modern day members of the New Sanhedrin. Amidst all the programming which has appeared on mainstream television and radio, whether such programming has featured paid polemicists for the Zionist agenda like Daniel Pipes, Richard Pearle, Dari Gold, et al, or whether they are the Zionists wearing the garb of Christian sentimentality as personified by the likes of Falwell, Robertson, Limbaugh, Hannity, or Lindsay, not a mention has been made concerning what are the blatant anti-Christian tenants as practiced and preached by Talmudic Judaism or its extremist adherents. One would think that such items which include Christ being depicted as a sorcerer and a mamzer (bastard child) who suffers in Hell by being boiled in excrement would arouse some suspicion among a rightly (and hopefully, genuinely) outraged Christianity. One would hope that religious sentiments depicting his mother Mary as a prostitute who mated with carpenters and Roman soldiers would spark some sense of curiosity to find out more. And finally, in the interest of learning all there was to know concerning religious extremism and how it has played itself out in the events surrounding 9/11, one would expect that the average Christian in America would like to understand better who is and who is not the real enemy, particularly when his hard-earned livelihood is sent to prop up a nation which has been billed as the only ally to Christian America in the Middle East. Sadly, this has not taken place, even when there are glaringly obvious reasons to do so.

Re(3): Culture Wars
Posted on February 23, 2004 at 11:04:42 PM by Mitchell Levine

Jim, this is quite simply a paranoid hate tract, and it's pretty indicative that it appears prominently on Jenks' hate site, which is probably where you found it.

Re(4): Culture Wars
Posted on February 23, 2004 at 11:53:47 PM by James Jaeger

>Jim, this is quite simply a paranoid hate tract, and it's pretty indicative that it appears prominently on Jenks' hate site, which is probably where you found it.

I am not assuming this article is true or false, so why don't you point out what's not true otherwise I am going to have to assume you won't "dignify" it with an answer. And whenever I see this, it makes me a little suspicious that all or part of it may have validity.

James Jaeger

Re(5): Culture Wars
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 02:18:10 AM by Mitchell Levine

1) It claims that Jews have a secret cabal that controls the world, designed to destroy Christianity. It refers to the "enemy" as being the "descendants of the Sanhedrin," which would quite logically include all Jews.

Its assurances that it only indicts "Jewish extremists" are belied by the fact that it considers "extremists" to be any Jews who believe in the existence of Israel as a Jewish state in the same sense as the Muslims' Islamic states - and certainly not just those very, very few American Jews that would ever support Sharon, the Likud, and his "occupation" - which would also include the overwhelming majority of Jews.

It also tries to popularize the despicable myth that Jews hate Christianity, when the only members of the Jewish community I've ever encountered who felt that way would be fringe groups like the JDL, whom are themselves despised by the vast majority of the Jewish world.

2) It promotes the ridiculous idea that Israel is somehow "Marxist," the only possible justification for which would be the fact that Marx was born into an ethnically Jewish family, despite having been baptized and raised Protestant, and that some Israelis live on communes.

3) It relates the absolutely unforgivable lie that the Talmud says Jesus is boiling in excrement in Hell, which has been debunked thoroughly more times than you can imagine.

4) It advocates an idea which Muslims would consider completely heretical, that they "accept Jesus as the Messiah," when they, of course, don't accept the need for a Messiah in the first place and would see this as a denial of their scripture's prophecies.

5) It promotes the claim that Bush's cabinet is somehow "controlled by Zionism" and is sacrificing Christian soldiers in a "war for Israel," the only evidence of which is the fact that Wolfowitz and Perle et al are Jewish. Almost all knowledgeable, sane analysts believe that Bush wants Iraq's oil.

6) It appears to accept the insane notion that the Pharisees and Sadduccees were some kind of powerful Goliath, when , of course, they represented a tiny minority completely under the domination of the Roman Empire that lived in constant fear of being obliterated by the latter, as it was wont to do.

7) It quite simply reiterates just about every single conceivable paranoid, hysterical antisemitic theme, stereotype, and myth, and your support for it as a valid demonstration of a Jewish "agenda" doesn't say much for your "commitment to diversity."

Your claim that you're only presenting information and that you aren't responsible for its consequences is as valid as the MPAA's similar claim.

Re(3): Culture Wars
Posted on February 23, 2004 at 10:25:53 PM by James Jaeger

All this talk about religious extremism (particularly when it takes place within the context of an anti-Christian agenda) couldn't occur at a better time than the present. Besides the war taking place in the Middle East, (which Christians in America are told is a war fought between a religion of terror and a religion of freedom) the culture war in America is raging at full throttle, even if unbeknownst to many. The culture war, whose victims include the most basic precepts with regards to decency and morality have been and are being attacked by a Zionist agenda which never seems to pause for a breather. Pop idols who have more influence over America's youth than people would like to realize or admit are now publicly engaging in acts of lesbianism, simulated sex, and parading themselves nude on stage under the direction and protection of a media intent on destroying the moral underpinnings of an entire nation for the furtherance of the Israeli agenda. Unfortunately, Americans who have since 9/11 effected a sense of outrage over what were attacks against a Christian nation seem to be bothered more by the crumbling of America's concrete pillars than they are bothered by the crumbling of America's moral pillars which are of far more importance to her stability and survival. Even more so, those in America who boldly put themselves before America's television and radio programs and who earn a living by professing their Christianity, while showing outrage over such attacks against America's morals, nevertheless refuse to reveal that such attacks are the product of a Zionist agenda which rules America's airwaves and by default America's sentiments. And if there existed in the past a grey area in which Christianity in America could be excused for such shortsightedness in not recognizing what forces have been behind the destruction of America's moral foundations, there is no such grey area now, and particularly with regards to the current controversy surrounding Mel Gibson's movie The Passion.

Unfortunately for the bulk of American Christianity, the significance of the controversy surrounding the movie which depicts the murder of Christ at the hands of Jewish extremists 2,000 years ago has been lost. This is due in large part to the fact that American Christianity (like much of mainstream America) has been robbed of the ability to think for itself outside of the totalitarian box which has been fashioned for it by a Zionist propaganda infrastructure. What ability for independent thought which hasn't been torn to shreds by the Zionist agenda in mainstream media like some intellectual abortion has been accomplished by the seduction of Christian Zionism, whose false prophets are given all the leeway they need in manipulating what remains of independent thought. If the American intellect were in tact, able to think for itself critically about the current controversy surrounding the movie and its content, then what would inevitably result would be the dissonance and cacophony of the crashing together of contradictory statements, leading inevitably to a series of questions and debate. Tragically, the fact that organized Jewish groups, (most notably the ADL) are those who are spearheading the attack on Gibson's film has barely caused a blip in the American consciousness or curiosity, even though the relevance in this fact is of momentous importance. In an America which has been warned to "watch out for the adherents of Islam who are out to destroy Christianity and its followers" by the propaganda which it has been force-fed on a daily basis by a Jewish owned media to not take note of the importance of the current controversy only portends the worst. One can imagine the campaign that would be launched by a Zionist media upon a complacent and intellectually compliant American public if the opponents to the film were Muslims instead of Jews. Rather than getting the sanitized coverage that it has received up to now, such opposition to the film would make headline news every hour on the hour and would be the subject of talk-shows designed to raise the ire of American Christianity. Such coverage would without question incorporate in its content the message concerning the dangerous existence of religious extremism and how it threatens the American way of life, and used to bolster the Zionist agenda of wiping out Israeli's enemies in the process.

This event brings to clarity what is the unfortunate status of American intellectual decay which can only be accurately described as in an advanced and possibly irreversible stage. And despite the fact that Christian Zionists (not only the religious but irreligious as well) are making at least the pretense of defending the movie, nevertheless they are complicit in covering up what are the true roots of the peculiar brand of religious extremism which is driving the opposition to it. One must wonder whether or not their motives for defending the movie are rooted in general sentiments which are favorable to Christianity, or whether instead they find themselves in the frightful position of possibly having their carefully constructed masks ripped off, revealing them for the frauds that they are. Certainly, it has been a difficult juggling act for them, calling themselves Christian while at the same time supporting the most anti-Christian agenda which has ever been hatched in the last 2 millennia, that being the agenda of Marxist Zionism as managed by members of the New Sanhedrin.


"We gave you strict orders not to teach in his name, yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood." Acts 5:28

The above quote, although 2,000 years old, nevertheless encompasses the agenda which has been feverishly and mercilessly enacted in America today against the religion of Christianity and its adherents. In the process, the Christian faith which is day by day assaulted and regulated by the legal process and made to be the butt of jokes on prime time television has been harrowed and hushed over the course of the last 30 years through the efforts of Zionist groups operating under orders from their corporate headquarters in Israel. Whether such an agenda has been realized through the dizzying number of lawsuits brought to silence and remove the effervescence of Christian sentimentality from American society or whether it has been accomplished through the efforts of a Zionist media and its immoral programming, nevertheless the message which has been imparted upon American Christianity has been a decisive warning "not to teach in His name." It is within this context that the lunacy and duplicity of Christian Zionism becomes all too apparent. For all the grandstanding that such groups do in challenging the secular attack on Christian sentimentality in America, nevertheless they refuse to reveal the identity of the groups orchestrating these attacks for the Israeli agenda, including the ADL, JDL, and others of similar stripe who collectively represent the membership of the New Sanhedrin.

The well-publicized argument being put before the consideration of Americans by the likes of Abe Foxman at the ADL and others concerning The Passion that the movie will create anti-Semitic reactions in American Christians is revealed as the falsehood it is when considered next to the mountains of contradictory evidence readily available to anyone with eyes to see. For groups such a the ADL, JDL, and all the other friends of Israel, anti-Semitism is as vital to their survival as lawsuits are vital to lawyers. They fear anti-Semitism the way that a dentist fears tooth decay, or the way in which an abortionist fears unwanted pregnancies. These groups, all managing multi-million dollar budgets and enjoying the pretension of respectability and influence which has been conferred upon them by their siblings in the media would be out of business permanently were it not for the hysteria that they create over alleged acts of Jewish persecution. They were founded on such occurrences and need them to continue if they are to remain in the positions they now enjoy. Therefore, in considering the arguments which they put forward for their opposition to the movie, the world would have to conclude that such groups are either very honest or very duplicitous, and humanity would be wise to assume that it is the latter. They thrive on anti-Semitism the way that a weed thrives on manure, and like their Marxist cousins who in the past instigated acts of anti-Semitism for propaganda purposes in the early years of Israel's founding, it must be assumed that such groups today, if finding themselves without the necessary fuel for their machinery, would be willing to author or sponsor in some manner similar acts against their own Jewish constituency for the same purposes.

Re(4): Culture Wars
Posted on February 23, 2004 at 11:47:06 PM by Mitchell Levine

I can't believe it really took you this long to show your hand, Jim. This might as well be from Mein Kampf. You should really be ashamed of yourself.

Re(5): Culture Wars
Posted on March 2, 2004 at 04:08:39 PM by James Jaeger

>I can't believe it really took you this long to show your hand, Jim. This might as well be from Mein Kampf. You should really be ashamed of yourself.

I didn't write that Bozo. If you had taken the time to read it you would have seen that.

James Jaeger

Re(2): Culture Wars
Posted on February 23, 2004 at 10:15:45 PM by James Jaeger

>- Why should they HAVE to make a film that accuses them of being guilty of the crime of murdering God? Your production company wouldn't finance a film that made similar accusations about you.

Because as Michael Medved said tonight on FOXNEWS: The Jews that were back then, WERE evil, particularly the head Sanhedrin. This film has NOTHING to with Jews today idiot. Stop commingling the past with the present and grow up.

Yes Jews CAN be evil, just like anyone else you hypocritical bigot. Or is your position that no Jew any where, through out all time, has ever been evil? Sheesh.

James Jaeger

Re(3): Culture Wars
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 00:40:20 AM by Mitchell Levine

The idea isn't that THOSE Jews were evil; it's that ALL Jews everywhere were supposedly to be condemned for the death of Christ forever; i.e., "his blood be upon us and our children." The church taught that for thousands of years, and, wisely, eventually repudiated it and apologized, earning the well-deserved gratitude of the Jewish community.

In fact, most Christian denominations have condemned their one-time antisemitic teachings, and very sincerely apologized for them, the way the Lutheran church has openly retracted their support of Martin Luther's virulently bigoted writings like Von der Juden und Iher Leugen. You'd be hard-pressed to find Jews anywhere outside the JDL and the Kahane-kai that would ever blame all Christians everywhere for them for all time.

Mel's sect, unfortunately, teaches that the Vatican's condemnation of the deicide idea is null and void, and he's very clear that he accepts everything they teach literally. If anyone ever made such claims about Christians, you'd be up in arms. It's hypocritical of you to condemn Jews for feeling the same way.

And criticizing your behavior, which can be changed, is not "bigotry," nor is replying to slander with disapproval. There's nothing "hypocritical" about it.

What right do I have to dictate other people's religious beliefs you ask? The one I got the minute they defamed me. If it's libel for the ADL to falsely claim that non-antisemites are antisemitic, it's just as much so for anyone to claim that Christ's death is my fault, and then try to tell me I've got no right to complain.

I wouldn't ask Def Jam Productions to distribute Birth of a Nation, and there's absolutely no valid reason whatsoever that Jewish movie execs should have promote the Deicide concept.

Mr. Gibson shopped his film to a distributor that was willing to handle it and got his deal, so the free enterprise system works the way it's supposed to.

Re(2): Culture Wars
Posted on February 23, 2004 at 03:04:01 AM by George Shelps

AS usual, we have another presentation of the Jaeger-Cones conspiracy theory
of the movie history.

Actually, one of the most successful and popular films about Jesus---and so far,
the best ever made--was JESUS OF NAZARETH (1977)...which was produced by
a ewish producer, Lord Lew Grade.

But the studios have not always done well with films about Christ, so they
have reason to be cautious. One of the most famous box office disasters of all
time was George Stevens' THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD---an expensive, well-acted epic released by United Artists. Fox had every valid reason
to be concerned about distributing THE
PASSION OF CHRIST.

nNevertheless, I don't write off ALL of
Me Jaeger's concerns. There is indeed
an anti-Christian bias afoot in many
of the attacks on Gibson and his film.

AAnd your comment, Mitchell---

"VWhy should they HAVE to make a film that accuses them of being guilty of the crime of murdering God? Your production company wouldn't finance a film that made similar accusations about you.

os over-the-top about a film you haven't seen.

Re(3): Culture Wars
Posted on February 23, 2004 at 10:24:15 AM by Mitchell Levine

George, I've already said that, of course, I haven't seen the film and have no idea whether or not it's antisemitic.

And obviously I understand that Foxman is a hair trigger whom isn't always objective - I've said that many times.

What I was referring to was the studio's perception of the film, not the reality of what the film presents. It may be a perfectly fine movie; actually, that's what I'm expecting.

As a general principle, an outlet shouldn't be forced to carry a film if it offends them, just like I wouldn't expect the 700 Club to finance and distribute Corpus Christi. Please note that I'm not trying to draw an equivalency between the Gospels and Mcnalty's insulting piece of crap, I'm simply pointing out that Jews quite reasonably find being indicted for the Crucifixion as defamatory as a depiction of Christ as a gay playboy would be to Pat Robertson (or, for that matter, just about any sensitive person).

Even if it's true that anti-gay prejudice might inform that decision, they wouldn't be guilty of "discrimination" in Jaeger's sense, any more than the Methodist group that financed Plan 9 from Outer Space was for asking Ed Wood to ensure that
the graveyard scenes show respect for their ideals of Christian burial.

What's being objected to isn't Christianity, it's anti-Jewish defamation, which is not synonymous with Christianity. Unfortunately, Jager's trying to make the case that the studios are trying to undermine Christianity, which is just a bunch of paranoid, hateful bullshit.

Re(4): Culture Wars
Posted on February 23, 2004 at 10:44:37 PM by James Jaeger

>Unfortunately, Jager's trying to make the case that the studios are trying to undermine Christianity, which is just a bunch of paranoid, hateful bullshit.

Mitch, you're so full of it it's pathetic if you don't think there's an anti-Christian agenda, or at least an anti-Christian sentiment, coming out of the studios and Hollywood.

The only rational voice I have heard in the frenzied media so far has been Michael Medved. And he said it's true the Jews that crucified Christ WERE evil. Only a moron, or a rampant apologist, would equate that deed with contemporary Jews and then use that as an excuse to deny a talant as profitable as Mel Gibson the financing for a picture that so obviously was a money-maker.

You state that the reason you felt THE PASSION wasn't going to make any money was because it was in three foreign languages with no subtitles. Well for those who have any marketing acumen at all, and surely the executives in the studios have SOME such acumen, "they have so much experience," as you profess, this was a dead give-away that THE PASSION was going to be a NO NONSESE picture = the Christian community will LOVE it = they will turn out in droves = muchos dinero. So don't given me the, "it was risky," crap.

James Jaeger

Re(5): Culture Wars
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 00:10:24 AM by m

Jim, no Jews crucified Christ - it was done by Roman soldiers. If he was sentenced to death by a Jewish court, he would have been stoned. Crucifixion was a Roman punishment. No biblical scholar or historian anywhere outside the Vatican believes it really happened the way the Gospels depict it, nor do they believe they were composed by anyone who actually witnessed the events.

It would have been very strange to people of that era to think that anyone would expect their composition to reflect the actual events as they happened. People of that time thought much more metaphorically and not historically.

And if Christian doctrine is to be believed, it was God's will that Christ be crucified to redeem human sin. Why would doing his will be considered evil??? In that scenario, REFUSING to crucify him would have been evil.

The whole thing was a symbolic trope, with the authorities of organized Judaism signifying the Law, and the Sanhedrin's condemnation of him, the Crucifixion and his subsequent Resurrection a metaphor for Justification by Faith.

The entire narrative is an allegory dramatizing the concept of redemption by Grace superseding adherence to a rigid doctrine. That's why Paul said that "the only purpose of the Law was to create the consciousness of sin."

If you really are a filmmaker, you should understand that.

And if the Christian community really would have loved it in Aramaic without subtitles, Gibson would have released it that way.

For example, the reason he removed the "His blood be upon us and our children" line - which he misattributes to the Sanhedrin when New Testament has it chanted by the observing crowd - wasn't because of anything Foxman did. It was because focus groups didn't like it, which Gibson freely admits.

Its very telling that he decided to have Ceiphias deliver that line: the ethnic composition of the crowd isn't established in the Gospels, although tradition has always had it that it was at least partly Jewish.

So giving it to the Sanhedrin is a conscious distortion of the Bible, which just happens to directly condemn Jews in perpetuity.

Who are you kidding???

Re(6): Culture Wars
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 06:35:47 PM by James Jaeger

>And if Christian doctrine is to be believed, it was God's will that Christ be crucified to redeem human sin. Why would doing his will be considered evil??? In that scenario, REFUSING to crucify him would have been evil.

Right. And this is why I always laugh when you try to use the argument that "they're trying to accuse Jews of
deicide." If he is God and they are supposed to kill him, then it's ultimately a good act. If he isn't God then why all the concern that the Jews are guilty of some ultimate act, an act that "should" provoke anti-Semitism.

James Jaeger

Re(7): Culture Wars
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 07:31:23 PM by Mitchell Levine

Because Jim, it DID provoke antisemitism. Thousands of years of savage, brutal murder and torture from Ancient Rome to Medieval Europe to 20th century fascism.

And it still does.

That's why.

Re(4): Culture Wars
Posted on February 23, 2004 at 10:59:29 AM by George Shelps


by Mitchell Levine


What's being objected to isn't Christianity, it's anti-Jewish defamation, which is not synonymous with Christianity. Unfortunately, Jager's trying to make the case that the studios are trying to undermine Christianity, which is just a bunch of paranoid, hateful bullshit.

__Yes, Jaeger's charge reflects his desire to "prove" the FIRM hypothesis of the dominance of the "control group."

He refuses to look at film history---which contains many, many
examples of pro-Christian films, in
many cases made by Jewish film-makers.
(The producer and director of BEN HUR,
for example, were Jewish).

Yes, in today's more secular culture,
it's perhaps more difficult to get a film made with rejects that culture, but
Hibson made his film, found a distributor, it will open on Wednesday
in 2800 theatres, and there seems to be
a lot of public interest in it.

However, that said, I do detect anti-
Christian bias in some of the attacks.

Re(5): Culture Wars
Posted on February 23, 2004 at 11:25:43 AM by Mitchell Levine

Anti-Christian bias probably DOES figure into some of the criticisms of the film, much the same as antisemitism motivates some (but not all) people advocating diversity in the motion picture business.

Prejudice is a universal human social pathology, which, unfortunately, is the one thing that DOESN"T discriminate in this world.

I'm only denying that I"M motivated by anti-Christian sentiment. I don't believe that the ADL are either. Of course, the JDO are just as bigoted (and crazy and violent) as any other hate group. Even worse, they don't like other Jews that don't subscribe to their insane ideology, which is the overwhelming majority of Jews.

Some People Just Dishonest
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 12:54:35 PM by John Cones

Recent postings reaffirm the point that it is useless to discuss issues with some people - the same ones who repeatedly make the same argument that anything in my writing alleges a "conspiracy". It is simply not there. No one has ever been able to demonstrate that I have made a "conspiracy" argument. We have repeatedly pointed that out here at this site. Yet, some people keep coming back and make the same old stale arguments. In anticipation of those arguments, I wrote on the question of conspiracy back in the early '90s in my book "How The Movie Wars Were Won":

"We Don't Exaggerate the Arguments of Our Critics--The film industry apologists who want to distract the 'film industry critics' in their criticism relating to who really controls Hollywood often resort to the old 'straw man' argument by exaggerating the claims being
made by the industry critics. The defenders of Hollywood thus suggest that the critics are really alleging that some sort of 'cabal' exists or that a 'conspiracy'exists, not because that is what the industry critics are actually saying, but that such exaggerations place a much higher burden of proof or persuasion on the critics and serves to divert the focus of the discussion. In other words, it is much more difficult for the industry critics to prove or show persuasive evidence that a 'Jewish cabal' or any other cabal exists in Hollywood or that a 'Hollywood insiders conspiracy' or any other form of conspiracy exists in Hollywood, so the defenders of Hollywood like to misrepresent the industry critics' arguments precisely for that reason."

For this reason, I do not respond specifically to the arguments of the people who repeatedly make such dishonest claims. It's just a waste of time.

John Cones

Re(1): Some People Just Dishonest
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 07:37:25 PM by George Shelps

The film industry apologists who want to distract the 'film industry critics' in their criticism relating to who really controls Hollywood often resort to the old 'straw man' argument by exaggerating the claims being
made by the industry critics.

__Your use of the term "apologist" is itself a "straw man" argument.

U dio not defend the legal and financial
abuses of the film industry, but you
and Jaeger have failed to proved that
they're connected with lack of "diversity."

(I have shortened my original comment,
which you unfairly deleted. Is that your idea of "diversity?")

Re(2): Some People Just Dishonest
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 08:44:06 PM by john alibrandi

>(I have shortened my original comment, which you unfairly deleted. Is that your idea of "diversity"?)

No George, but the 'censorship' word has been pretty popular these days...

Re(3): Some People Just Dishonest
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 08:53:21 PM by Mitchell Levine

All I wanted to say was that I never meant my comments to apply to John, and that I was only responding to Jaeger's post, and he even deleted that.

RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 05:18:43 PM by James Jaeger

You will see various Hollywood apologists, like Mitchell Levine and George Shelps, claim that the studios had a RIGHT to pass on Mel's movies under freedom of speech, that they had no obligation to finance or distribute him. Duh! This is not the argument, but a straw.

It's not a matter of "freedom of speech" or whether the studios had a RIGHT to pass on the financing and distribution of Mel's movie, THE PASSION -- it's a matter of whether the studios had an INTENTION to continue a business relationship with Mel in good faith. And it is obvious by their actions that they had no such intention because they thwarted the financing, AND, more importantly, the distribution of a perfectly viable picture. Thus their real motivation was not commercial, but self-serving (i.e. fear of generating anti-Semitism) in a way that is not appropriate for a publicly held corporation whose ONLY interest is supposed to be the commercial potential of a project -- NOT the interest of any particular person or group, in this case the Jewish community. By their actions they send the message that it's okay for Jews to portray Arabs and Christians in negative or stereotypical manners but when the tables are turned, they use their power of domination to censor others, like Mel Gibson, who has an equal right to portray Jews in any manner he wishes, even a negative or stereotypical manner.

People should be concerned about the proper use of the nation's communication channels because they are the life blood of a free democratic society.

As Bill O'Reilly says, we are in the middle of CULTURAL WARS, a war between secularists and traditionalists. The MPAA studio/distributors are instrumental in this war as their film products in many ways define the quality of our culture and the way people think.

People that try and point out these things are often falsely labeled anti-Semites.

Michael Medved, who happens to be Jewish, had a good point last night. He said that when people water down the term, anti-Semite, by calling people like me or John Cones (or Mel Gibson anti-Semites, as Abe Foxman called Mel), all you're doing is crying wolf. He said the Christian community is NOT the target. You're actually putting the Jewish community at risk because you're making people insensitive to the term anti-Semite. When a real anti-Semite comes along, you know, someone who pulls out a bomb and blows away a Jewish community, it makes people who frivolously use that term look pretty irresponsible.

To see the entire time track of how Mel was boycotted by not only FOX, but the other MPAA studios, see http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/p-chrono.htm .

James Jaeger

Re(1): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 08:08:33 PM by Mitchell Levine

You will see various Hollywood apologists, like Mitchell Levine and George Shelps

- A "Hollywood apologist" wouldn't encourage you to pursue nailing the studios for their financial malfeasance, Jim.


, claim that the studios had a RIGHT to pass on Mel's movies under freedom of speech, that they had no obligation to finance or distribute him. Duh! This is not the argument, but a straw.

- No, Jim, you continue to irrationally argue that Mel's "freedom of speech" has been violated because the studios wouldn't make his film. The only thing freedom of speech protects Mel from is being indicted for a crime.

It's not a matter of "freedom of speech" or whether the studios had a RIGHT to pass on the financing and distribution of Mel's movie, THE PASSION -- it's a matter of whether the studios had an INTENTION to continue a business relationship with Mel in good faith. And it is obvious by their actions that they had no such intention because they thwarted the financing, AND, more importantly, the distribution of a perfectly viable picture.

- If Gibson had a rider in his contract entitling him to get the picture made, he would have sued them successfully a long time ago. If he didn't, he had no right to have the film made.

The studios can typically make 12-15 pictures a year. If everyone that made them money in the past had the right to have their dream projects made, no questions asked, then they couldn't possibly make anything else. By necessity, they have to say no to many people. Mel Gibson doesn't have any automatic right not to be one of them.

Thus their real motivation was not commercial, but self-serving (i.e. fear of generating anti-Semitism) in a way that is not appropriate for a publicly held corporation whose ONLY interest is supposed to be the commercial potential of a project -- NOT the interest of any particular person or group, in this case the Jewish community.

- If that was true, then you shouldn't b e complaining about "patterns of bias" because only commerical considerations should prevail.

If they refused to make a film because they believed it denigrated Christians, you'd applaud. If you claim that it should be any different for Jews, you're a hypocrite.

By their actions they send the message that it's okay for Jews to portray Arabs and Christians in negative or stereotypical manners but when the tables are turned, they use their power of domination to censor others,

- No, it sends the message that demeaning minorities is wrong and Christians and Arabs shouldn't stand for it either.

The message you want to send is that it's wrong to demean everyone except Jews, to get even with the "control group" for failing to reward you with the career you feel you deserve.

like Mel Gibson, who has an equal right to portray Jews in any manner he wishes, even a negative or stereotypical manner.

- If he can get it financed and distributed, but one right he doesn't have is to not be criticized for doing so.

People should be concerned about the proper use of the nation's communication channels because they are the life blood of a free democratic society.

As Bill O'Reilly says, we are in the middle of CULTURAL WARS, a war between secularists and traditionalists.

- Unfortunately for Mr. O'Reilly, history proves that traditionalists will lose.

The MPAA studio/distributors are instrumental in this war as their film products in many ways define the quality of our culture and the way people think.

- If people are idiots incapable of thinking or believing anything except what they see in the movies.

People that try and point out these things are often falsely labeled anti-Semites.

- No, people who try to blame all of these things on Jews and provoke hate and fear of them are antisemites.

Michael Medved, who happens to be Jewish, had a good point last night. He said that when people water down the term, anti-Semite, by calling people like me or John Cones (or Mel Gibson anti-Semites, as Abe Foxman called Mel), all you're doing is crying wolf. He said the Christian community is NOT the target. You're actually putting the Jewish community at risk because you're making people insensitive to the term anti-Semite. When a real anti-Semite comes along, you know, someone who pulls out a bomb and blows away a Jewish community, it makes people who frivolously use that term look pretty irresponsible.

- It's ridiculous to assume that you have to be guilty of murder to be a bigot.

Read Gordon Allport's The Nature of Prejudice for a serious study of it by a professional experimental researcher.

Re(1): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 06:26:23 PM by john alibrandi

That's your example of an anti-Semite? I am stunned! James, like your previous Scientology quest, you have latched onto a group of people that have distorted your views. You are more intelligent than this.

Re(2): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 06:41:00 PM by James Jaeger

>That's your example of an anti-Semite? I am stunned! James, like your previous Scientology quest, you have latched onto a group of people that have distorted your views. You are more intelligent than this.

I'm sorry but I just don't understand this comment. Can you explain what you are referring to?

James Jaeger

Re(3): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 07:27:07 PM by john alibrandi

Sure.
>Thats your example of an anti-Semite?
-The average anti-Semite uses much more subtle means of offending and attacking Jews. You put this segment in the posting for a reason; to attempt to invalidate the average anti-semitism that exists every day.

>...like your previous Scientology quest, you have latched onto a group of people that have distorted your views.
-FIRM.
Many of the previous messages make statements that demonstate a distorted view. They attempt to catagorize certain Jewish people and in a an untrue and ugly way. You have bought into much of this, and have in fact promoted these same views at every opportunity.

>You are more intelligent that this.
-You are clearly an intelligent person, and I can't for the life of me begin to understand why an intelligent person would write some of the things that you do. This is not about 'reform' James, it's about blaming others for failure.

Re(4): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 09:08:38 PM by James Jaeger

>-The average anti-Semite uses much more subtle means of offending and attacking Jews. You put this segment in the posting for a reason; to attempt to invalidate the average anti-Semitism that exists every day.

At this point I no longer care if someone thinks I'm an anti-Semite. This is not the issue anyway. The issue is not me or my beliefs or my political preferences. The issue is Hollywood will never reform unless the dominating forces that run it give way to more diversity. There I said it without using the word Jew. Does that make you feel better? Suppose I never again use that word. Will the arguments then be more valid?

>...like your previous Scientology quest, you have latched onto a group of people that have distorted your views. -FIRM.

Did you know that the CIA and the FBI have an intense interest in Scientology Situation Analysis and Data Series technology? (I know this because I know several analytical agents in the CIA personally.) Did you know that Hubbard was a master of recognizing and handling black and white propaganda? (I know this because I used to know LRH). Did you know that some of the Jewish executives in the studios are acutely aware of Scientologist administrative and ethics policies because Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Lisa and Pricilla Presley and Chick Corea, etc., are all Scientologists and they constantly disseminate same per policy? (I know this because I am a graduate of the Management Series Course.) Did you know that the COS is one of the most formidable litigators that has ever existed BECAUSE the lawyers USE Scientology technology? (I know this because I know many of them personally and I used to do volunteer work for the COS legal bureau.) Well this technology can be used for good or evil. It is my opinion that the COS has the intention of using it for good, however there are those who may not be so well-intentioned when it comes to dominating Hollywood. Therefore it could be said that, my having had experience with Scientology, puts me in a position to recognize when such technologies, or similar technologies, are being used to further the domination of arguably the most powerful communications channel yet devised, the feature motion picture. You may need someone like me on that wall. Bill O'Reilly says, in 5 years you won't even recognize the America you live in today unless change happens the tide changes in the Culture Wars.

>Many of the previous messages make statements that demonstrate a distorted view. They attempt to categorize certain Jewish people and in a an untrue and ugly way. You have bought into much of this, and have in fact promoted these same views at every opportunity.

When Abraham Foxman says he represents the Jewish people and their interests, and then allegedly suggested that a bunch of public corporations not distribute a piece of art, THE PASSION, that invokes the idea that the larger Jewish community condones how Hollywood conducts business or uses Hollywood business to protect their interests. Do you think it would have been fair for the Christian community to have asked the studios to stop distributing AMEN? This film blames the Catholic Church for much of the delay in recognizing the atrocities that were going on towards Jews. Many feel this is blatantly anti-Christian. So, it's okay for Jews to scream at Hollywood to do what they want, but it's a violation of Constitutional rights for the Christian community to do the same.

>-You are clearly an intelligent person,

I'm no more intelligent than you or the next person. All Homo sapiens' DNA has been found to be virtually identical.

>and I can't for the life of me begin to understand why an intelligent person would write some of the things that you do.

Well if you actually DID feel I was so intelligent, maybe you would listen to me. Obviously you don't. But thanks for the ingenuous compliment any way.

>This is not about 'reform' James, it's about blaming others for failure.

It's true, if I were busy directing a $500,000 feature or producing STALIN'S BACK ROOM, I would probably not be here writing this now. It doesn't mean I wouldn't agree with John Cones' work. All it means is I would probably be the same as all the other scared little filmmakers who fail to speak up because they KNOW the Jewish network in Hollywood blacklists filmmakers that they deem anti-Semitic. Fact of the matter is, the strong evidence of what John Cones and I say here at FIRM is true is the deafening silence surrounding these domination issues. Filmmakers and writers are not known to be quite. But in this case, they all know what we say is so true, they don't DARE speak up. Even Mel Gibson, with all the courage he has for making THE PASSION, side stepped the issue of FOX censoring/blackballing his film. He said he doesn't blame them. Hey, he wants to work again in Hollywood. But ironically he may not even have to work in Hollywood again. If THE PASSION makes in excess of a billion dollars over the next 5 - 10 years, Mel will have the seed capital to in essence start an entirely new studio system. One based on the principle of "turn the other cheek" rather than "an eye for an eye." With the Internet now connected to 640 million people and 24 million broadband users (and an increase of over 105% per year for broadband), one will not even need the MPAA studios for distribution. It will all be video-on demand in 10 years. Where do you think COMCAST will get the money to acquire DISNEY? Yes it will be nice to have the largest media company on the planet right here in this area down the street from Matrixx Entertainment's new offices! Plus, after THE PASSION release, NEW MARKET will have established a significant relationship with many exhibitors and thus will be able to garner play dates for future product coming out of ICON (and satellite production companies that ICON could and will probably set up). I have already been in contact with ICON and sent Mel a complete blueprint for an 8 division, 200 executive/staff, state-of-the-art studio complete with a 144-acre sound stage complex and airport system that will blow the crap out of anything that's in congested, over-used, over-priced Hollywood. All the executive Job Descriptions are written up and ready to go. I have also personally given the plan to Merv Griffin (who's an old friend of my parents) and asked him to kick in some financing otherwise we will get Donald Trump to do it instead. Have a look at the 98-executive/staff volumes for the studio which are ready-to-go at http://www.mecfilms.com/moviepubs/mmmexp.htm and what it does at http://www.mecfilms.com/moviepubs/bk0004.htm Think I'm crazy? Maybe I am.

James Jaeger

Re(5): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 09:43:42 PM by Mitchell Levine

At this point I no longer care if someone thinks I'm an anti-Semite.

- You better not.

When Abraham Foxman says he represents the Jewish people and their interests, and then allegedly suggested that a bunch of public corporations not distribute a piece of art, THE PASSION, that invokes the idea that the larger Jewish community condones how Hollywood conducts business or uses Hollywood business to protect their interests.

- In exactly what way did the Gospel's narratives reference Hollywood???

Do you think it would have been fair for the Christian community to have asked the studios to stop distributing AMEN?

- Of course it would be. It's fair to ask someone to do anything legal that you wish. That doesn't mean they have to do it.

This film blames the Catholic Church for much of the delay in recognizing the atrocities that were going on towards Jews. Many feel this is blatantly anti-Christian.

- It's not "anti-Christian" - it never indicts all Christians everywhere simply for being Christians; it charges the specific Church officials that were involved at the time, and it certainly never claims the Christian religion is evil because of this.

It just suggests that those particular individuals failed to live up to the ideals of Christ, just like every once in a while I fail to live up to the examples of Moses and Solomon.

The church could have done more. That hardly means it's your fault or Christ's or Christians'.

So, it's okay for Jews to scream at Hollywood to do what they want, but it's a violation of Constitutional rights for the Christian community to do the same.

- How is it a "violation" of anyone's Constitutional rights? You have as much right to ask as anyone else .

Think I'm crazy? Maybe I am.

- You are. Doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

Re(4): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 08:11:43 PM by Mitchell Levine

-You are clearly an intelligent person, and I can't for the life of me begin to understand why an intelligent person would write some of the things that you do.

- You and me both, Mr. Alibrandi.

Re(5): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 25, 2004 at 08:25:22 AM by john alibrandi

"A Billion Dollars"!
James, If THE PASSION makes even a quarter of that it will be a huge return, and Mel will be thrilled. When you exaggerate like that, you discount your position, and come across as out of touch.

The Scientology topic speaks for itself and is not worthy of a resonse.

Your idea of a new studio sounds great, but you don't need nearly that kind of money or scale to make great movies. Some of the best movies that I have ever seen were made for a fraction of the small sum that Mel spent on his.

As far as 'grasping' the concept, I admit that I know little about the industry. (Be sure to exploit that sentance in your response...) So let me ask you a question; How is it that a hand full of guys (Gentiles) that know nothing about the biz are able to cut a deal with Dream Works?

THE AMERICAN CONTENDER brings people from all walks of life together and gives them a shot at the American dream. No cheap shots at Muslems, no evil Nazi party leaders, no stereotypes what so ever. Just an uplifting story line, that appeals to the majority of captured viewers.

You continue to express that this noble fight against the system has been at great expense to your career. James, be honest with yourself for a moment. Evaluate your career; Has the European Jewish Hollywood consortium played the deciding role in your career, snubbing really great screen plays due to some hidden agenda? Or is it because you have been unable to develop anything with any real marketable value? Instead joining a cause (with anti-semetic overtones)and wasting all of your energy, talent and time, just to be noticed. The damage to your 'career' has been brought on by yourself. Nobody, not in any industry, cares for people with your behavior. Again, focus your energy on what brought you to film making to begin with. You will be a much happier person.

Re(6): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 25, 2004 at 07:44:12 PM by James Jaeger

>"A Billion Dollars"! James, If THE PASSION makes even a quarter of that it will be a huge return, and Mel will be thrilled. When you exaggerate like that, you discount your position, and come across as out of touch.

Before you "discount" me, why don't you look over my mathematics in a post entitled "CULTURE WARS" - an excerpt of my figures below for your convenience.(1)

>The Scientology topic speaks for itself and is not worthy of a resonse.

Shows how little you know about the subject then. What's your experience with Scientology? Not that I'm defending it, it just annoys me when people invalidate something they don't even know anything about - just the piss they read in the New York Times or some such.

>Your idea of a new studio sounds great, but you don't need nearly that kind of money or scale to make great movies.

Making movies is project A. Building an infrastructure to make a stream of movies is project B. The Christian community is always bitching about how bad it all is in "liberal" Hollywood, so I’m asking them to put they money where their mouth is and do A AND B.

>Some of the best movies that I have ever seen were made for a fraction of the small sum that Mel spent on his.

Sure. The old saying, the less money you have the more creativity you need, has merit.

>As far as 'grasping' the concept, I admit that I know little about the industry. (Be sure to exploit that sentance in your response...)

Not at all. I always admire it when some one owns up to subjects they may have not gotten around to studying (yet) rather than trying to "cheat" their way through: as latest issue of WIRED says in a review of David Callahan’s new book, "THE CHEATING CULTURE: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead." To wit:

44% pad their resume
30% pirate software and music
75% cheat on exams
79% steal from the workplace
17% falsify their tax returns
3% of scientists fabricate data

>So let me ask you a question; How is it that a hand full of guys (Gentiles) that know nothing about the biz are able to cut a deal with Dream Works?

There are always exceptions to any trend. I have been corresponding and talking with executives at DreamWorks since their inception. When I took our STALIN’S BACK ROOM project to them, they admitted it was an interesting story but they passed on it because they felt they were a little over solicited on WWII pictures. Ultimately maybe they will finance one of our projects.
>THE AMERICAN CONTENDER brings people from all walks of life together and gives them a shot at the American dream. No cheap shots at Muslems, no evil Nazi party leaders, no stereotypes what so ever. Just an uplifting story line, that appeals to the majority of captured viewers.

Hey I have nothing against DREAMWORKS. I admire SKG for starting the company. But when Jeffrey tells me that he’s not interested in perpetuating an existing system, I have to question that because he seems, for the most part, to fall in line with the MPAA studios. And correct me if I’m wrong, George, but I don’t believe that DREAMWORKS has their OWN distribution network – they use UNIVERSAL’S network. Thus, they aren’t really a studio, but only a glorified production company with a studio deal.

>You continue to express that this noble fight against the system has been at great expense to your career.

Well it depends. There are those that say Hollywood does not blacklist people for their views and there are those that say that it does. If you believe that Hollywood respects the right of an individual’s free speech, then my career in Hollywood should be just as secure as it has always been. On the other hand, if you believe that Hollywood is hypocritical, that they give lip service to right of free speech, but in the back rooms they blacklist people they disagree with as far as politically views or opinions on how the industry should run – then I guess my career is not secure.

I would like to think the best of Hollywood. I don’t discriminate over a person’s views (as an example, I would have no problem hiring Mitchell Levine for something even though we have differing opinions on things) and I expect people not to discriminate against me. I can say this: Over the past 25 years I have HIRED a lot more Jews than Jews have hired me. Make with this what you will.

>James, be honest with yourself for a moment. Evaluate your career; Has the European Jewish Hollywood consortium played the deciding role in your career, snubbing really great screen plays due to some hidden agenda?

I honestly don’t know. I was going over my correspondence with the studios the other day and it looks like quite a few of the major executives have been willing to receive my projects and give them consideration. This would range from Stacy Snider, Bob Aaronson and Tom Pollock at UNIVERSAL to Courtenay Valenti at WARNER to
to Lindsay Doran when she was at PARAMOUNT and Jeff Sagansky when he was at TRISTAR to David Putnam when he was at COLLUMBIA. There are many many others who have since gone independent with deals that I have an open door with, such as Mike Medivoy’s company, Gale Ann Hurd’s company, Dustin Hoffman’s company, Harvey Kitel’s company and Jodie Foster’s company, Mel Gibson’s company. These are all great people and I love their products. I have always been very respectful of them and appreciate the fact that they have been willing to receive packages directly from me without agents or attorneys or releases. I value these relationships and I am NOT willing to say that they form a part of some conspiracy against me in any way. That’s plane silly. But what concerns me is this: That, because I have decided to stand up for the principles at FIRM, these people don’t just hear about this over the grapevine as some sort of interpretation that me or FIRM are anti-Semitic. This is known as a black whispering campaign. So what I often do when I speak to my contacts in Hollywood is I out right ask them if they have heard of FIRM or if anyone has ever said anything negative to them about me or about FIRM. This way I can track down anyone who seeks to slander or libel me. And believe me, my years in Scientology have given me great training on exactly how to do this because L. Ron Hubbard was endlessly attacked by people who misunderstood Scientology. So if you want to call me a Nazi or an anti-Semite to anyone in Hollywood, you better make damn certain that I AM or that I don’t find out about it, because if I do, you are, to put it mildly, in great legal trouble.

>Or is it because you have been unable to develop anything with any real marketable value?

I acknowledge that I have been only associating with "the best" and therefore the anti will be higher, so from this POV you could be entirely right: I may have not been able to "develop anything with any real marketable value." But when you use the term marketable value, you have to be careful because what has "market value" to one person or company, may not have "market value to another." The term market value is to a great degree arbitrary. I believe, and believe to this day that the projects we develop have market value. The reasons I believe they have market value are as follows:

o watch an almost endless number of movies specifically so I know what my competition is and I follow the grosses so I know what the public has been willing to pay for.

o I don’t only submit screenplays that I write. Most of the 105 screenplays that we currently own or have under option have been written by other writers. So you can’t just write all this off as MY failure to create a good screenplay.

o And lastly, are you aware that Matrixx Entertainment has signed up over 600 volunteer readers from all over the world over the past 10 years? These readers supply a constant flow of input about our projects. Every screenplay we take to the studios has been read countless times by readers in all sorts of markets, and the writers re-write these screenplays in consideration with the comments so the quality is constantly improving.

So I can say this: the projects we have been developing and acquiring here are as good as any projects in Hollywood or as good as any projects made. In the absence of some sort of a black whispering campaign, there is no reason a studio would and should not give us a first look deal and a number of other studios secondary look deals. Check out what we are doing at http://www.mecfilms.com/dna and give me some constructive criticism. I’ll listen.

>Instead joining a cause (with anti-semetic overtones)and wasting all of your energy, talent and time, just to be noticed.

Well you’ve heard the old saying: If you are a leader of the game, you better lead and get on with it and allow others to do the same, because if you don’t, the game will become getting you. So here we have the studios that are supposed to be the leaders in the entertainment business. If they are effective leaders, they will recognize those that are making an effort and allow them be a part of the game – otherwise the game will be getting them. But I maintain that they don’t. That Hollywood is NOT a merit system. That only the inside network gets most of the breaks. Thus I no longer feel the studios are effective leaders, not because the individuals are bad people, but because the system is suppressive and they are stuck in it with little power to do anything about it. It’s fear-driven. And when such a condition exists, everyone in it is terrified to "make any waves." This is why I have seen so many of the executives I have dealt with over the years "go indie." They too hate the system. They too know they need to get out of it for their own creative lives. They know there is something wrong. But again, when you are working for a studio, you can’t just stand up and say: this studio sucks because we don’t have enough diversity at the top. The powers that be would have your head the next morning. Thus the heavy lifting for such reform falls on people like me and John as we don’t have to deal with the day to day politics that would suppress such an initiative in the studio.

>The damage to your 'career' has been brought on by yourself. Nobody, not in any industry, cares for people with your behavior.

I bet there are thousands of people out there that have found conditions as I have described. It is unfortunate that the exact causes of the problem are so hot to handle and entrenched that no one wants to deal with them. So we’ll see if my "behavior" turns out to be wrong. It looks to me that THE PASSION has certainly been a live demonstration of how paranoid and over reactive the Jewish community is with their anti-Semitic Sword anytime anyone tries to cross their interests. It’s too bad there are so few that have the guts to say anything about it as have Michael Medved and Bill O’Reilly.

>Again, focus your energy on what brought you to film making to begin with.

What brought me to filmmaking was the idea that I could produce and direct some quality, ORIGINAL projects. But it seems to me that this is not Hollywood’s idea of a game.

>You will be a much happier person.

Speak for yourself, I’m plenty happy. How are you doing?

James Jaeger

--------------------
(1) Now, contrary to Levine’s prediction (or secret wishes), it looks like THE PASSION will make hundreds of millions. It will open on over 2,800 screens and some experts predict it will earn as much as $300 million in domestic theatrical revenues alone. If so, the picture will probably garner another $400 million in homevideo/DVD as the standard revenue extrapolation formula applies. It will then play over seas and do these figures again, bringing the total to $1.4 billion. Then THE PASSION will go to other "windows." The second window will be video-on-demand and later windows will be pay-per-view and cable. It will then go to second-run cable and eventually onto free TV and 10-year syndication. None of these revenue streams even include the ancillary markets it will pick up through church groups, airlines, merchandising and sell-through retail DVDs and VHS videos. This is the DOWNSIDE of the revenue potentials it was WELL-understood by most of the MPAA marketing brass PRIOR to the completion of principal photography, or at least post production – and it was a less than speculative downside provided the picture did NOT alienate or antagonize the billion plus individuals in the worldwide Christian community. Since the PASSION followed the New Testament strictly, as The Patriot promised it would from the VERY beginning – it DID not.

Again, given an honest and true representation of the New Testament, at a certain point, it was thus a NO-BRAINER for MPAA marketing EXPERTS that THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST would sell to at least 10% of the Christian community, as I stated in an earlier post to Mitchell Levine. Since the global Christian community is about 1.5 billion, even 10% would have easily recouped the production-marketing budget such being about $30 million for production and $50 million for marketing for a total of $80 million as follows: 10% of 1.5 billion Christians is 150 million potential ticket sales at say $5 each is a gross revenue $750 million. Giving the theaters about half of this leaves $375 million in "rentals." The distributors would have been able to recoup their $30 million production budget and then their P&A (marketing budget of $50 million) leaving $295 million from which they would take a 35% distribution fee of $103 million. They then could have split the balance with ICON PRODUCTIONS of $96 million each. All this just for theatrical. If the picture sells to a significant portion of the Christian market, the UPSIDE could be that this picture will be the largest grossing movie of all time – even surpassing $5 billion in the next 10 years.

Re(7): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 25, 2004 at 10:57:49 PM by Mitchell Levine

1) Now, contrary to Levine’s prediction (or secret wishes), it looks like THE PASSION will make hundreds of millions.

- Once again, I WAS ONLY REFERRING TO THE PRE-RELEASE VERSION OF THE MOVIE, NOT THE VERSION IN THEATERS NOW.

And for the record, I don't "secretly wish" that the movie fails - I admire Mel for making the movie the way he wanted to.

Although I might not agree with the film's content, I can certainly appreciate his integrity and determination in producing it.

Re(8): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 26, 2004 at 09:47:07 PM by James Jaeger

>- Once again, I WAS ONLY REFERRING TO THE PRE-RELEASE VERSION OF THE MOVIE, NOT THE VERSION IN THEATERS NOW.

Okay.

>And for the record, I don't "secretly wish" that the movie fails - I admire Mel for making the movie the way he wanted to.

Well most of the Jewish comminity I have been scanning on TV is not at all happy with the movie. They are all taking it personally or something. I applaud you for being different.

>Although I might not agree with the film's content, I can certainly appreciate his integrity and determination in producing it.

I applaud that.

James

Re(9): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 27, 2004 at 05:29:22 PM by Mitchell Levine

The truth is, the movie's "anti-Jewishness" has been overblown: actually, what I didn't like about the film is that Mel's clumsy direction really undercuts the excellent acting performances and mise-en-scene. It wasn't anywhere near as powerful and moving as I was expecting. It seems to me the final product isn't even as direly antisemitic as the Gospel of John itself.

In a sense, The Passion really brings out the Jewishness of the context of the historical Christ as opposed to the Anglicized versions of the story we're generally accustomed to (although that's also true of the Last Temptation to a certain extent).

True, it would have been nice if the script had mentioned that Christ was in Jerusalem to celebrate the Pesach, but Mel can't be faulted for concentrating on the narrative's essentials.

I work part-time at Broadway Video in development, where a lot of people have been involved with SNL, which Mel has hosted several times, and I can tell you that the people there that have worked with him don't think he's a bigot - in fact, exactly the opposite, and many of them are Jewish themselves. They say he's the nicest, most down-to-earth guest host they ever have on the show. They, however, say they make sure to get not even within the ballpark of discussing his belief system.

Basically, the problem is, from what I've been told, that if you're in a situation that requires great sensitivity, tact, and diplomacy, you DON'T send Mel Gibson! Unfortunately, in this case, Mel Gibson was the guy doing the sending. A phrase I've heard a few times is "bull in china shop." It wasn't intentional, and I think that's really the important point.

Re(8): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 26, 2004 at 04:24:49 PM by john alibrandi

James,
Thank you for the response. If Mel makes that kind of scratch...that would be insane. I'll make a little wager with you; If the film tops $1B dollars over the next two years, I will buy dinner for two (you and a guest) at the place of your choice - up to $500.00. However, if 2 years from todays date, the movie is even one dollar under $1B, you agree to a reasonable request from Mitchel. And I'm pretty sure that he could come up with some good ones... perhaps he might suggest a few.

Re(9): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 26, 2004 at 09:58:45 PM by James Jaeger

>James, Thank you for the response. If Mel makes that kind of scratch...that would be insane. I'll make a little wager with you; If the film tops $1B dollars over the next two years, I will buy dinner for two (you and a guest) at the place of your choice - up to $500.00. However, if 2 years from today's date, the movie is even one dollar under $1B, you agree to a reasonable request from Mitchell. And I'm pretty sure that he could come up with some good ones... perhaps he might suggest a few.

Okay you're on with this modification: If THE PASSION's gross, from any and all markets and territories, comes in under $1 billion after 2 years from 25 February 2004 (the day it was released), I will take both you and Mitchell Levine to dinner at the Union League in Philadelphia (a private club that Abraham Lincoln founded).

James Jaeger

Re(9): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 26, 2004 at 05:26:00 PM by Mitchell Levine

My only request would be that Jim get off his butt and do something for his own career, and stop complaining about the success of everyone else's!

I don't know if you're aware of this, but due to the way Mel collateralized and presold the profits to the film, it's very unlikely he'll make much money no matter how well it does.

It's really irrelevant: he was worth well over $100 million anyhow.

Re(10): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 26, 2004 at 10:16:58 PM by James Jaeger

>My only request would be that Jim get off his butt and do something for his own career, and stop complaining about the success of everyone else's!

Mitchell, are you aware that in just the past 12 months I have directed a TV commercial for a mutual fund (which is playing on CNN, FOXNEWS and CNBC), directed 3 documentaries (one in association with the Morgan Stanley Trust) and a promotional film, a multiple-camera comedy show (for a COMCAST producer) and completed post production on a feature which I directed and am currently entering into a major film festival? I am also promoting 105 screenplays we have under option to studios, talent and other entities as well as our STALIN project, a TESLA project, a MICKEY ROONEY project (with whom I personally wrote the story concept) and several other projects that I either wrote or co-wrote in the past 5 years.

I am also ushering along numerous projects that I can't discuss in public.

All this while keeping up with my responsibilities at FIRM, something for which my pay is mostly constant abuse.

>I don't know if you're aware of this, but due to the way Mel collateralized and presold the profits to the film, it's very unlikely he'll make much money no matter how well it does.

No I'm not aware of what Mel's deal is with NEW MARKET, and I'm sure no one but his fiduciaries, NEW MARKET and Mel are aware of this. My wager is on the gross proceeds of distribution worldwide.

>It's really irrelevant: he was worth well over $100 million anyhow.

Fine.

James Jaeger

Re(11): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on February 26, 2004 at 10:44:05 PM by Mitchell Levine

Mitchell, are you aware that in just the past 12 months I have directed a TV commercial for a mutual fund (which is playing on CNN, FOXNEWS and CNBC), directed 3 documentaries (one in association with the Morgan Stanley Trust) and a promotional film, a multiple-camera comedy show (for a COMCAST producer) and completed post production on a feature which I directed and am currently entering into a major film festival? I am also promoting 105 screenplays we have under option to studios, talent and other entities as well as our STALIN project, a TESLA project, a MICKEY ROONEY project (with whom I personally wrote the story concept) and several other projects that I either wrote or co-wrote in the past 5 years.

- I'll be convinced when George is.

No I'm not aware of what Mel's deal is with NEW MARKET, and I'm sure no one but his fiduciaries, NEW MARKET and Mel are aware of this. My wager is on the gross proceeds of distribution worldwide.

- There was a long article on it in The Hollywood Reporter: he presold the profits just to get it distributed.

Re(12): RIGHTS v. INTENTIONS
Posted on March 2, 2004 at 04:28:25 PM by James Jaeger

>>Mitchell, are you aware that in just the past 12 months I have directed a TV commercial for a mutual fund (which is playing on CNN, FOXNEWS and CNBC), directed 3 documentaries (one in association with the Morgan Stanley Trust) and a promotional film, a multiple-camera comedy show (for a COMCAST producer) and completed post production on a feature which I directed and am currently entering into a major film festival? I am also promoting 105 screenplays we have under option to studios, talent and other entities as well as our STALIN project, a TESLA project, a MICKEY ROONEY project (with whom I personally wrote the story concept) and several other projects that I either wrote or co-wrote in the past 5 years.

>- I'll be convinced when George is.

I have invited George over to the offices of Matrixx Entertainment a number of times over the past 3 or 4 years and he has yet to make it over. If he actually gets over, and you are welcome to nudge him, I will be happy to sit down with him and show him an excerpt from each and every project I have mentioned above.

We also had our offices completely remodeled and a state-of-the-art NLE editing studio built -- but George hasen't even seen that. In short, George is living in the past as far as where we are at and what we are doing and have done in present time.

Also, again, there are a number of projects developing that I can't even discuss with company-outsiders.

>>No I'm not aware of what Mel's deal is with NEW MARKET, and I'm sure no one but his fiduciaries, NEW MARKET and Mel are aware of this. My wager is on the gross proceeds of distribution worldwide.

>- There was a long article on it in The Hollywood Reporter: he presold the profits just to get it distributed.

What profits?! That means nothing to me as it's too nebulous. There are at least 6 windows and many teritories all over the world.

James Jaeger

Medved Makes Sense
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 06:06:00 PM by James Jaeger

Deborah Norville interviewed Jewish film critic, Michael Medved, on CNBC on 'Deborah Norville Tonight' on February 23, 2004 at 11:22 p.m. ET


NORVILLE: Michael Medved, let me turn to you. And you‘ve taken issue with that (the accusation of anti-Semitism). You‘ve felt that that was a fear that, having seen the film (THE PASSION) yourself a couple of times already, just wasn‘t justified by what you saw in the movie.

MEDVED: That‘s absolutely right. We have a problem here. And it‘s a problem of crying wolf. There are real dangers for Jewish people in the world today. There were just eight more Jews who were killed in Israel by Islamo-fascist terrorists over the weekend. And the real danger is to Jews today. The dangers of Jew hatred are not coming from the Christian community. And we need to keep repeating that. Christians in this country have been among our best friends and closest supporters. We have dangers from Islamic elements in the world and even here in the United States, to some extent. And we have tremendous dangers from the international left that has taken an increasingly anti-Semitic line. To accuse people like Mel Gibson of anti-Semitism—and Abraham Foxman did that; he said Mel is very seriously infected with anti-Semitic ideas—is the worst kind of crying wolf and the worst kind of putting attention on people in a negative way on people who don‘t deserve it.

NORVILLE: But Michael, isn‘t it important to get the dialogue out there and have the notion that people could take this in a way that could be harmful to members of the Jewish community? Isn‘t it better to have that out there beforehand, than to have it foster possibly afterward and then to have play Monday morning quarterback?

MEDVED: Absolutely not. I happen to believe that the bad guys in the movie were bad guys in real life. In other words, I believe that the Roman collaborator Caiphus, who was a high priest in the temple 2,000 years ago, was not a good guy. And for people in the Jewish community to demand that Christians like Mel Gibson disregard their own scripture to try to portray Caiphus and some of the Jewish elite in Judea of 2,000 years ago in a positive light at the cost of cooperation and understanding with the Jewish community today, is ridiculous. I don‘t want my children associated with the images in that movie. It was not Mel Gibson who was associating—Jews with those images. It was people like Abraham Foxman and like Rabbi Hire, who were so over the top with their condemnation who made that association.


Complete Transcript at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4356566/

Re(1): Medved Makes Sense
Posted on March 2, 2004 at 04:34:02 PM by James Jaeger

Funny how there are no comments on Medved's transcript by Mitchell Levin or any of the other apologists.

I guess it's embarrasing for them any time a Jew comes forward and makes some good sense because all they want to do is fight, not resolve conflicts.

Hey Mitch, the Holocaust is OVER! But I guess you won't believe that either, unless George Shelps tells you.

James Jaeger

Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 06:58:36 PM by FirmHelper

The great conspiracy about "PASSION," as its being played out by Abraham Foxman and ADL, is that they want the public to believe that they are somehow the victims (once again) by their portrayal of 1st century Jews as "Killers of the Messiah/GOD), when, in reality, their real concern is that we won't focus on their basic, underhanded, dubious, censorship.

Fact: every devout Christian knows that it wasn't the Jews, that killed Jesus, any more than it was you or I. God's redemptive plan was for Jesus to act as a sign post - pointing all of us towards a right relationship with a forgiving, loving Father.

Re(1): Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 26, 2004 at 03:05:15 AM by ben preven

The issue isn't censorship. It's accuracy. The misunderstanding of Christians regrding the life and death of Jesus is not whether or not a Jew was responsible for the death of Christ but the simple fact that Christ was a Jew. Not just a Jew but a Jewish Rabbi. In fact the youngest Rabbi ever ordained (I may be corrected if I am wrong but I believe age 12). As in Hebrew society today, a Rabbi would never be addressed as anything other than his proper title. Well I haven't seen the movie yet but before I do in the name of historical accuracy if nothing else, in this movie is Jesus even once addressed as Rabbi?

Re(2): Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 26, 2004 at 08:31:54 AM by Mitchell Levine

When Judas meets him before the Betrayal, he greets him "Hail, Rabbi."

Re(3): Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 27, 2004 at 11:53:34 PM by ben preven

Point in favor.

Re(1): Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 09:10:19 PM by Steve Weinberg

This is in response to Mr. Cones' stated opinion regarding Jews in Hollywood:

A movie that depicts Jews as an evil race that condemned Jesus to 12 hours
of torture and violent death. Is that negative enough for you? Jews are
successful and outnumber other "majorities" in MANY Fields. They are
overrepresented due to an inherent familial, genetic predisposition to
learning and scholastic achievement. This leads to professional careers such
as lawyer, doctor, banker. Jews have an inherent thirst for success. Jews
have always been persecuted and perhaps sought refuge in higher thinking,
invention, and creativity. Certain ethnic groups are overrepresented in
certain fields. Irish are overrepresented in Law Enforcement. Arabs are
overrepresented in petroleum product sales and manufacturing. White males
with Southern roots are overrepresented in farming. Pakastanis overepresent
in the taxicab industry. The list goes on. Jews just happen to attain
success in high-dollar industries: Entertainment, Law, Medicine, Banking,
Prescious Stones (old tradition). Add this to your observations when making
conclusions based on your hypotheses.

Dr. Steve Weinberg
Veterinarian Musician Filmmaker
Jewish
Easten European ancestors

Re(2): Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 25, 2004 at 04:28:14 PM by James Jaeger

>A movie that depicts Jews as an evil race that condemned Jesus to 12 hours of torture and violent death. Is that negative enough for you?

Ah, what movie might that be, Steve? Was that the movie were one of the Jews was heroic and helped Jesus carry the cross (which is never mentioned by Jewish apologists)? And are you going to ignore what Michael Medved said, such being: "I happen to believe that the bad guys in the movie were bad guys in real life. In other words, I believe that the Roman collaborator Caiphus, who was a high priest in the temple 2,000 years ago, was not a good guy. And for people in the Jewish community to demand that Christians like Mel Gibson disregard their own scripture to try to portray Caiphus and some of the Jewish elite in Judea of 2,000 years ago in a positive light at the cost of cooperation and understanding with the Jewish community today, is ridiculous. I don‘t want my children associated with the images in that movie. It was not Mel Gibson who was associating—Jews with those images. It was people like Abraham Foxman and like Rabbi Hire, who were so over the top with their condemnation who made that association."(1)

>Jews are successful and outnumber other "majorities" in MANY Fields. They are overrepresented due to an inherent familial, genetic predisposition to learning and scholastic achievement.

Kind of an elitist view don't you think? I would say a main reason Jews tend to get ahead is because they don't drink as much. At least most of the Jews I know don't. For most, alcohol makes it difficult for one to succeed in any meaningful way.

>This leads to professional careers such as lawyer, doctor, banker. Jews have an inherent thirst for success.

Hey that's great. As I have said many times, I admire the intellectual skills of Jews and usually enjoy the lively exchange with them.

>Jews have always been persecuted

I don't buy this. I think this sounds like the victim self-identity thing Jim Jenks is always talking about. See his book, WHEN VICTIMS RULE at jewishtrivalreview.org and tell me if the victim thesis makes any sense -- or will you just write it off as anti-Semitic without even reading it.

>and perhaps sought refuge in higher thinking, invention, and creativity.

And don't forget building atomic bombs. . .

>Certain ethnic groups are overrepresented in certain fields. Irish are overrepresented in Law Enforcement. Arabs are overrepresented in petroleum product sales and manufacturing. White males with Southern roots are overrepresented in farming. Pakastanis overepresent
in the taxicab industry. The list goes on.

Well since you obviously haven't read very much of John's thesis you are missing the entire point as to WHY it's NOT okay for ANYONE (i.e., has nothing to do with Jews) to dominate the most powerful communications machine ever devised: the feature motion picture. In other words mass media is VASTLY different than all the other occupations you mentioned. The issue at hand is therefore that NO GROUP should dominate this particular field. Stop trying to justify it by saying that such and such is dominated by the Irish, etc. Do you have any idea how many times I have heard bogus argument and just how silly it is?

>Jews just happen to attain success in high-dollar industries: Entertainment, Law, Medicine, Banking, Prescious Stones (old tradition).

Just "happen" to eh? Money and power and domination have nothing to do with it I suppose. If Jews aren't dramatizing a victim state, why the need to enter all these high-powered fields? Is this to "protect" themselves from erstwhile enemies? Are they PTS Type 2? Where's the "no spin zone" when you need it?

>Add this to your observations when making conclusions based on your hypotheses.

Okay I have and I'm sure John will too.

James Jaeger


----------------------------
(1) Complete transcript at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4356566/

Re(3): Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 25, 2004 at 06:39:49 PM by Mitchell Levine

Ah, what movie might that be, Steve? Was that the movie were one of the Jews was heroic and helped Jesus carry the cross (which is never mentioned by Jewish apologists)?

- As if one token figure is enough to redeem a full package of demonic stereotypes??? The movie even has Satan walking amongst the Jews motivating them and the Sanhedrin. If Gibson had given Blacks or Asians the same treatment, he'd never have to stop apologizing.

And for people in the Jewish community to demand that Christians like Mel Gibson disregard their own scripture to try to portray Caiphus and some of the Jewish elite in Judea of 2,000 years ago in a positive light at the cost of cooperation and understanding with the Jewish community today, is ridiculous.

- A big chunk of the detail in the film came straight out of the imagination of rabidly Jew-hating Sister Marie Anne Emmerich, who died in 1924. For him to hide behind scripture when he was perfectly willing to incorporate complete fantasy is kind of disingenuous.

I don‘t want my children associated with the images in that movie. It was not Mel Gibson who was associating—Jews with those images. It was people like Abraham Foxman and like Rabbi Hire, who were so over the top with their condemnation who made that association."

- Right, it was Abraham Foxman that made Mel Gibson use hook noses as the focal point of a fade cut between scenes.


Kind of an elitist view don't you think?

- Just a little bit. Never said NO ONE thinks like this!

I would say a main reason Jews tend to get ahead is because they don't drink as much. At least most of the Jews I know don't.

- While that might not be the whole picture, you might be interested in the fact that some geneticists believe Jews may have some kind of hereditary protection against alcoholism (although my dad likes to tell stories about the beloved character of Yiddish folklore, "Shikker Sam.")

For most, alcohol makes it difficult for one to succeed in any meaningful way.

- You really don't spend much time in Hollywood, do you?


>Jews have always been persecuted

I don't buy this. I think this sounds like the victim self-identity thing Jim Jenks is always talking about.

- Oh yeah, he's a real credible authoritative source.


See his book, WHEN VICTIMS RULE at jewishtrivalreview.org and tell me if the victim thesis makes any sense -- or will you just write it off as anti-Semitic without even reading it.

- I've read it. It is, of course, antisemitic. Not to mention deceitful. And evil.

>and perhaps sought refuge in higher thinking, invention, and creativity.

And don't forget building atomic bombs.

- Jim, neither Oppenheimer nor Werner Von Braun were Jewish. Numerous of the American "rocket scientists" were imported Nazis the State Department was willing to overlook the sordid past of in exchange for their expertise.. .

>Jews just happen to attain success in high-dollar industries: Entertainment, Law, Medicine, Banking, Prescious Stones (old tradition).

Just "happen" to eh? Money and power and domination have nothing to do with it I suppose.

- And I suppose that it's different for anyone else???

If Jews aren't dramatizing a victim state, why the need to enter all these high-powered fields?

- For the same reasons everyone else does. Like John Cones was motivated to enter high-powered entertainment law by philanthropy???

Re(2): Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 09:44:50 PM by Mitchell Levine

And I thought Howard Stern was the world's biggest embarassment to the Jews...

Re(3): Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 25, 2004 at 04:31:01 PM by James Jaeger

>And I thought Howard Stern was the world's biggest embarassment to the Jews...

No, actually you are Mitchell.

James

Re(4): Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 25, 2004 at 06:08:47 PM by Mitchell Levine

I don't know, Jim. More than one's posted here to say that my defense of them has made them proud.

And besides, that's coming from the world's most embarassing Scientologist. And that includes Chick Corea. And Battleship Earth.

Re(1): Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 24, 2004 at 08:30:10 PM by Mitchell Levine

There was nothing "underhanded" about it: they told Mel Gibson that they were offended and worried by the portrayal of Jews - the same thought that's occurred to just about every film critic Jewish or Gentile that's published about it to date - and tried to convince him that he should listen to their concerns. That is not censorship, defined as a denial of rights, something which has not occurred to Mel Gibson.

They didn't have to convince the studios not to distribute it. All the studios had to do is watch it. Seeing Jewish children morph into demons forcing Judas Iscariot to hang himself on the Blood Acre, or watching a lap dissolve from the hook nose of one evil Jewish character to the hook nose of another evil Jewish character was plenty of motivation, especially considering the fact that there were no subtitles at that point.

According to the Bible, what killed Jesus was Original Sin.

Re(2): Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 25, 2004 at 04:37:13 PM by James Jaeger

As Medved says in effect, those Jews WERE bad boys. Get use to it. Stop trying to make all Jews in all times angels. I notice you conveniently ignore Medved's comments as well as mention of the Jewish guy Mel put in there heroically helping Jesus carry the cross.

MEDVED: "I happen to believe that the bad guys in the movie were bad guys in real life. In other words, I believe that the Roman collaborator Caiphus, who was a high priest in the temple 2,000 years ago, was not a good guy. And for people in the Jewish community to demand that Christians like Mel Gibson disregard their own scripture to try to portray Caiphus and some of the Jewish elite in Judea of 2,000 years ago in a positive light at the cost of cooperation and understanding with the Jewish community today, is ridiculous. I don‘t want my children associated with the images in that movie. It was not Mel Gibson who was associating—Jews with those images. It was people like Abraham Foxman and like Rabbi Hire, who were so over the top with their condemnation who made that association."

Re(3): Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 25, 2004 at 04:52:51 PM by Mitchell Levine

Excuse me, but where in the New Testament do Jewish children suddenly shape-shift into demons to kill Judas Iscariot???

Much of the detail in the film, almost all of it expressly anti-Jewish, was taken from a tract written in the 19th Century, and is being passed off as scriptural fact anyhow.

No one is claiming all Jews are angels. But the Pharissees and Sadduccees represented virtually all of organized Judaism at the time, and to suggest that they and the rest of the Jews of the era, at the height of the period of the temple of Jerusalem, were all manifestly evil, when they were simply doing their best to survive under the brutal domination of the Romans, is pretty much a slander against all Jews, particularly since the text itself specifically condemns their heirs.

Mel didn't even include "forgive them for they know not what they do."

Re(4): Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 25, 2004 at 05:44:03 PM by James Jaeger

Well it seems to me that if they were mostly all "good" Jews, and one of them (Jesus) suddenly rose up with a new doctrine from God, this would tick them ALL off. Therefore, being good Jews, by definition, they would seek to put down anyone that they felt was blasphemous to the Jewish ideal of the day. Actually they must have been forced to either join the Jesus movement or fight it. And if they didn’t fight it, they could have been considered "bad" Jews by their fellow parishioners.

Hey, this is the way any religious group handles a splinter group -- the larger group tries to suppress the splinter group. This is human nature. This is group behavior. It has nothing to do with targeting Jews over any other group and it’s paranoid of you to claim different. From the POV of the Jews back then, Jesus and his followers were bad.
So they sought to have the leader, Jesus, destroyed. When we look at this event in retrospect from 2,000, we are, in essence, looking at it from the victor's POV because that small splinter group has now grown bigger (2 billion Christians) than the original group from which it splintered (14 million Jews). So even though it might be natural for Christians of today to look upon those early Jews as being "bad" the actual fact of the matter is they are neither good or bad as good and bad are relative to your POV. In this light, it's actually ridiculous of you to try and defend Jews of 2,000 years ago as it points out how psychotic you really are on this issue. And I use the term psychotic in purely a psychological way, meaning, being out of present time and fighting an enemy that is not in present time.

James Jaeger

Re(5): Censorship of THE PASSION
Posted on February 25, 2004 at 06:06:20 PM by Mitchell Levine

I'm not "fighting an enemy," I'm explaining why I consider this characterization defamatory.

Hindsight's 20/20, and it's easy to criticize the Sanhedrin from the vantagepoint of the 21st Century, but try to understand it from their point of view.

The Jews of that time were a barely tolerated minority living under brutal suppression by the most totalitarian autocracy of all time - the 1st Reich. The slightest provocation, the least bit of demonstrated uppitiness on the part of the Galillean Jews would be enough to get them annihilated. Christ wasn't the first Jew to be crucified, and he certainly wasn't the last.

A young man shows up with the gall to say that he was the Son of Man and the way Yahweh had been obeyed and worshipped for a thousand years was wrong, and his way was right. He beat out a competitive marketplace of messianic claimants - but was not the wished-for King that would lead the people out from under Rome's thumb.

The thing had to potential to harm the whole Jewish community, which was extremely vulnerable at the time, and it was Caiphas' responsibility to ensure the safety of "God's people." He could have no intuition of the future, and even later Christian scripture would maintain that it was necessary for the Jews to survive as Jews for the prophecies to be fulfilled.

It wasn't necessarily evil that motivated the Pharisees. To suggest that's true is to also assert that God would break an eternal covenant.

Hysterical Nonsense
Posted on February 25, 2004 at 08:06:02 PM by John Cones

Just for the record fellows, I had nothing to do with the making of Mel Gibson's film, and have no intention of even seeing it. Violent films are of no interest to me. The story being portrayed is also of no particular interest to me. The rather hysterical speculation about the possible impact of a single film is, as already stated, somewhat amusing to me since none of these same people have ever indicated that they even accepted the FIRM premise that motion pictures are a significant medium for the communication of ideas, and that ideas have and will always influence the beliefs and behavior of filmgoers. Presumably, that's because the negative and stereotypical portrayals we have complained about here at FIRM are made in defense of the images of other groups of people (those not generally in control of the Hollywood filmmaking machinery). Isn't it amazing that such a brouhaha can be stirred among the media on behalf of one film's depiction of one group, but the media virtually ignores the thousands of films we have noted here at FIRM that have consistently portrayed other groups in a negative and stereotypical manner for forty years. What does that tell us?

John Cones

Re(1): Hysterical Nonsense
Posted on February 27, 2004 at 02:03:38 PM by MK

"Isn't it amazing that such a brouhaha can be stirred among the media on behalf of one film's depiction of one group, but the media virtually ignores the thousands of films we have noted here at FIRM that have consistently portrayed other groups in a negative and stereotypical manner for forty years. What does that tell us?"

Then let those groups speak out and be heard as well. This is a free society isn't it?

Re(2): Hysterical Nonsense
Posted on February 28, 2004 at 01:22:00 PM by James Jaeger

>Then let those groups speak out and be heard as well. This is a free society isn't it?

Bozo, they can't speak out. They don't get to tell their stories for the reasons John Cones says. :)

James Jaeger

Re(3): Hysterical Nonsense
Posted on February 28, 2004 at 03:21:35 PM by Mitchell Levine

Right, Bozo, just like Mel Gibson "didn't get to tell his."

Re(4): Hysterical Nonsense
Posted on February 28, 2004 at 05:54:26 PM by James Jaeger

Bozo, Mel "didn't get to tell his" story through FOX, because FOX was more interested in protecting the interests of a minority of people in the U.S. than engaging in commerce on behalf of its stockholders. Very commendable! :)

James Jaeger

Re(5): Hysterical Nonsense
Posted on February 28, 2004 at 07:22:11 PM by Mitchell Levine

Fox does just fine for its shareholders, and to paraphrase your usual unintelligent argument, if shareholder accountability truly is the key ethical interest to be observed, then the studios are also obliged to make the films that denigrate all the other minorities whom are the victims of the alleged "patterns of bias" you and Cones are always agonizing over, if those projects will be economically successful, which they historically have been.

If it's wrong to defame all of those other minorities, it's also wrong to defame Jews.

Re(6): Hysterical Nonsense
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 02:11:31 AM by James Jaeger

See "Defamation Is Not the Issue" BozO.

JamesO

Re(7): Hysterical Nonsense
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 12:30:33 PM by Mitchell Levine

Bozo, if that argument is really so, then WHY are you arguing that shareholder accountability is the primary ethical imperative here???

There's no evidence that the current studio administrations haven't provided an adequate return to their investors.

If there's indeed a larger moral issue, then Fox was justified in turning down The Passion, if they believed it was defamatory. (More likely, they feared the negative publicity from the controversy).

You can't have it both ways.

Re(8): Hysterical Nonsense
Posted on March 2, 2004 at 04:53:32 PM by James Jaeger

>Bozo, if that argument is really so, then WHY are you arguing that shareholder accountability is the primary ethical imperative here???

Because I was being sarcastic. Note the smiley.

Defamation Is Not the Issue
Posted on February 28, 2004 at 10:23:17 PM by John Cones

No one here at FIRM has ever made the statement that movies should not defame minorities or anyone else. That is not the issue. Defamation is not the issue. Minorities are not the issue. Fairness and balance is the issue. Everyone knows that most movies need some character to be portrayed in a negative manner. Movies generally need a "bad guy". That helps to create drama. Our complaint has always been that there is clear evidence that patterns of bias have occurred over the years in Hollywood movies. Some groups have been consistently portrayed in a negative or stereotypical way in Hollywood movies, while other groups have generally been portrayed in a more favorable light. We have observed that there appears to be a direct relationship between who has dominated "greenlight" power at the major studios over the years with the patterns of bias existing in motion picture content -- that movies do, in fact, tend to a large extent to mirror the values, interests, cultural perspectives and prejudices of their makers. It is rather useless to engage in discussion with people who consistently use the worn out "straw man" technique of argument -- constantly exaggerating or misrepresenting our position, just to make it easier to contend with.

John Cones

Criminals Who Founded Hollywood
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 02:00:57 AM by James Jaeger

I quote from the latest edition of WIRED magazine, page 102, March 2004 edition:

"The Hollywood film industry was built by fleeing pirates. Creators and directors migrated from the East Coast to California in the early 20th century in part to escape controls that film patents granted the inventor Thomas Edison. These controls were exercised through the Motion Pictures Patents Company, a monopoly "trust" based on Edison’s creative property and formed to vigorously protect his patent rights. California was remote enough from Edison’s reach that filmmakers like Fox and Paramount could move there and, without fear of the law, pirate his inventions. Hollywood grew quickly, and enforcement of the federal law eventually spread west. But because patents granted their holders a truly "limited" monopoly of just 17 years (at that time), the patents had expired by the time enough federal marshals appeared. A new industry had been founded, in part from Edison’s creative property."

Of course this article, unlike Gabler’s book, AN EMPIRE OF THEIR OWN, in order to remain politically correct, fails to state that Fox and Paramount were founded by Jews. Thus by the process of the transitive property of equality, something we all learned in high school geometry, we can deduce that the pirates were mostly Jews. This doesn’t mean that all Jews are criminals(1) – just the Jews that violated the patent laws pertaining to the invention of the motion picture camera and used that advantage to establish an early domination of the studios in Hollywood, studios that are members of the MPAA today.

James Jaeger

---------------------
(1) Nor does this mean that they were criminals because they were Jewish. Thus in the movie about the founding of Hollywood, the Jews are the "bad guys." But then, you will never see this movie, "based upon a true story," greenlit by the MPAA studios because Hollywood avoids allowing Jews to be portrayed as the bad guys in a movie. And when someone does portray them as such, such as some say Mel Gibson did in THE PASSION, all hell breaks out in the media. What a double standard, especially when the media is silent every time another Arab is portrayed as a terrorist.

Re(1): Criminals Who Founded Hollywood
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 06:32:30 AM by George Shelps

AM by James Jaeger

I quote from the latest edition of WIRED magazine, page 102, March 2004 edition:
"The Hollywood film industry was built by fleeing pirates. Creators and directors migrated from the East Coast to California in the early 20th century in part to escape controls that film patents granted the inventor Thomas Edison. These controls were exercised through the Motion Pictures Patents Company, a monopoly "trust" based on Edison's creative property and formed to vigorously protect his patent rights. California was remote enough from Edison's reach that filmmakers like Fox and Paramount could move there and, without fear of the law, pirate his inventions. Hollywood grew quickly, and enforcement of the federal law eventually spread west. But because patents granted their holders a truly "limited" monopoly of just 17 years (at that time), the patents had expired by the time enough federal marshals appeared. A new industry had been founded, in part from Edison's creative property."

____All incorrect. The Edison Trust was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court.
O

Re(2): Criminals Who Founded Hollywood
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 08:33:05 PM by James Jaeger

>____All incorrect. The Edison Trust was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court.

Well tell it to WIRED magazine.

James Jaeger

Re(3): Criminals Who Founded Hollywood
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 10:58:13 PM by George Shelps


PM by James Jaeger
>____All incorrect. The Edison Trust was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court.

Well tell it to WIRED magazine.
J
___I don't need to. I posted an excerpt
from the original Supreme Court ruling some back.

Re(4): Criminals Who Founded Hollywood
Posted on March 1, 2004 at 07:14:02 PM by James Jaeger

So what you're trying to say George, is that, at the time these individuals took the Edison cameras out to California, it was all perfectly okay. They had purchased a right to use or build the cameras and they did such. Then they moves out to where the sunlight is and started shooting?

Are you saying that Thomas Edison HAD no patents? Or are you saying that he had patents, but abused them and for some reason had them take away? Please try and be clear on this. As you know, I am a Tesla fan, so I have no great sympathy for Edison as I know how he was capable of treating others when they crossed him. Edison was a great man, but he DID have his negative side, and I'm not trying to discount that. I'm just trying to get to the truth, and part of the truth is based on the SEQUENCE OF EVENTS. If the Jews took the camera BEFORE Edison got in trouble with the Supreme Court, then they were violating patent law no matter what kind of a person Edison may have been that causes the court to take action against him and/or his patent trust.
If the court slapped Edison with some sort of a judgement AFTER the Jews took the camera, that doesn't absolve them from the crime of haveing stolen the cameras -- unless there was some sort of explicit forgivness.

Can you please clarify this and state the exact sources of your claims. Thanks.

James Jaeger

Re(5): Criminals Who Founded Hollywood
Posted on March 1, 2004 at 10:38:10 PM by George Shelps


by James Jaeger

So what you're trying to say George, is that, at the time these individuals took the Edison cameras out to California, it was all perfectly okay. They had purchased a right to use or build the cameras and they did such. Then they moves out to where the sunlight is and started shooting?

___They went to CA for the better weather, yes, but also to escape the
goon squads Edison and the Trust hired
to enforce his illegal control.



Are you saying that Thomas Edison HAD no patents? Or are you saying that he had patents, but abused them and for some reason had them take away?

____No. He tried to make his patents
the basis of collecting a perpetual
royalty on their use.



Please try and be clear on this. As you know, I am a Tesla fan, so I have no great sympathy for Edison as I know how he was capable of treating others when they crossed him. Edison was a great man, but he DID have his negative side, and I'm not trying to discount that. I'm just trying to get to the truth, and part of the truth is based on the SEQUENCE OF EVENTS. If the Jews

__They were not all Jews.




took the camera BEFORE Edison got in trouble with the Supreme Court, then they were violating patent law no matter what kind of a person Edison may have been that causes the court to take action against him and/or his patent trust.

___They were not violating patent law
at any time. When you purchase a piece of equipment outright, you don't have to
pay the inventor forever.

If the court slapped Edison with some sort of a judgement AFTER the Jews took the camera, that doesn't absolve them from the crime of haveing stolen the cameras -- unless there was some sort of explicit forgivness.

___There was no crime because Edison had
no basis for requiring that all camera
users pay him a continuing royalty after
he collected his percentage from the original purchase of the camera equipment. The Supreme Court of the US regarded Edison's attempt to control the
uyse of his equipment after it was purchased as an illegal restraint of trade.


Can you please clarify this and state the exact sources of your claims. Thanks.
James

Re(5): Criminals Who Founded Hollywood
Posted on March 1, 2004 at 07:41:04 PM by Mitchell Levine

"The Jews" took Edison's patent??? If I didn't know better, Jim, I'd think that you blamed Jews collectively for this alleged crime...

Re(6): Criminals Who Founded Hollywood
Posted on March 1, 2004 at 10:10:26 PM by James Jaeger

>"The Jews" took Edison's patent??? If I didn't know better, Jim, I'd think that you blamed Jews collectively for this alleged crime...

Well then I guess Neal Gabler shouldn't have said that "the Jews invented Hollywood" either when he titled his book, "AN EMPIRE OF THEIR OWN - How the Jews Invented Hollywood."

I guess it's okay to use the collective or plural term when one is praising Jewry but not okay when one is saying anything critical.

James Jaeger

Re(7): Criminals Who Founded Hollywood
Posted on March 2, 2004 at 00:20:05 AM by Mitchell Levine

Nothing wrong with that rule of thumb.

Would you think it was commendable to say "the Blacks are crack dealers," or "the Blacks commit welfare fraud," simply because there ARE Black crack dealers and welfare cheats?

I hope not, because it would mean you're also incorrigibly racist.

Re(3): Criminals Who Founded Hollywood
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 08:44:10 PM by Mitchell Levine

They're hardly an authoritative source on film.

Chew. Spit. Repeat.
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 11:54:51 AM by Jack

Has anyone read the LA Times piece?

COVER STORY
Chew. Spit. Repeat.
The Movie Industry Consumes Carpetbagging Investors Like Prime-Cut Steak. What's the Appeal of Being Eaten Alive?
By Patrick J. Kiger
For the Times

February 29, 2004

The Article
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 07:30:32 PM by LA Messenger

February 29, 2004 E-mail story Print
COVER STORY
Chew. Spit. Repeat.
The Movie Industry Consumes Carpetbagging Investors Like Prime-Cut Steak. What's the Appeal of Being Eaten Alive?
By Patrick J. Kiger, For the Times

Looking back, the truest sign that then-Vivendi Universal honcho Jean-Marie Messier was toast may have come when he showed up for a public forum at the Beverly Hilton two years ago with Viacom Chief Executive Sumner Redstone and other entertainment industry power players, and he wasn't wearing a necktie. The accepted sartorial style for Eurobusiness potentates is, after all, buttoned-up, highly starched, primary colors formality with all the accoutrements — forget the pocket square and you might as well be naked. On that occasion, Messier had on a shrimp-colored open-necked shirt under his charcoal gray suit. But that affront to taste was just one sign that yet another outsider had gone Hollywood. He had gotten slimmer too, and radiated a healthy tan even in photos.

Little did he know that he was headed for that nearly inevitable fate, the one that has befallen scores of interlopers who've dared to become moguls in that alluring but inscrutable culture known as the motion picture industry: Messier was about to be spanked by Hollywood.

"We don't go for strangers," spoke one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's characters in the writer's final, unfinished Hollywood novel. But he didn't get it completely right. The Industry likes interlopers just fine—as long as they empty their wallets and don't overstay their welcome. That scenario has been repeated in Hollywood almost as often as the two-unlikely-cops-become-wisecracking-crime-fightin'-buddies action thriller. An outsider, flush with success in some other industry or bankrolled by a family fortune, bursts onto the scene with dreams of becoming the next Louis B. Mayer, only to slink away a year or three later in ignominious defeat. The most recent, high-profile examples—Messier and Edgar Bronfman Jr., the Seagram heir whose Hollywood ambitions were intertwined with Vivendi's—are only the latest in a series that goes back to the early days of Hollywood, when sharpies such as William Randolph Hearst and Joe Kennedy came West to get their pockets picked.

Since then, scores of other West Coast carpetbaggers have met with varying degrees of failure—old-line industrialists, Wall Street financiers, insurance conglomerates and corporate raiders, New Economy wunderkinds from this country, plus Dutch, Japanese, British, Italian and Israeli hopefuls. The recent news that Comcast, the Philadelphia-based cable-TV giant, may make a hostile bid for Walt Disney Co. raises the possibility that Hollywood may welcome yet another outsider and would-be mogul—Comcast Chief Executive Brian L. Roberts, a publicity-shy, squash-playing scion of a family that amassed its wealth by making belts. But with few exceptions, such as Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch, the movie industry has chewed up and spit out newcomers like hunks of Morton's prime-cut steak.

Why do all these powerful, wealthy alpha males venture out of their comfy enclaves and plunge into an utterly unfamiliar, notoriously Byzantine business that they often approach with distain and condescension? What sort of mass-induced hypnotic state convinces a German investor, for example, that it's a sensible idea to sink millions into a film homage to L. Ron Hubbard's "Battlefield Earth"? Or an otherwise adroit telecommunications mogul into putting his name in the credits of an unnecessary remake of "Around the World in Eighty Days"? Is there some sort of semiotic explanation for why otherwise astute people from another culture—whether it's Amsterdam or Peoria—get hopelessly tangled up in movie industry lingo and end up mumbling about "synergy" after that disastrous first-cut screening?

To truly understand why would-be moguls mostly fail, we must look past the conventional explanations and into the realms of behavioral psychology and anthropology. It also helps to understand a bit about chaos theory.

The film industry is so notoriously hard to crack that there's a rich literary genre on the subject—ranging from "Final Cut" (Steven Bach's account of Transamerica's disastrous stewardship of United Artists in the 1960s and 1970s) to "Out of Focus" (Charles Kipps' account of David Puttnam's brief tenure as head of Coca Cola-owned Columbia in the late 1980s) to innumerable fly-on-the-wall exposés of the tribulations of Bronfman and others. Similarly, the precise strategic mistakes of the Matsushitas, PolyGrams and JVCs have been dissected and number-crunched by savvy business journalists in the Wall Street Journal, Variety and other business publications. Yet the mountain of bleached bones does little to deter the next wave of wannabe moguls, simply because the one enduring truth about all this is that we're dealing with human nature, not logic.

"Outsiders who've been very successful and made a lot of money rightly think they're smarter than the average person and perhaps even somewhat creative," explains Roderick Kramer, a onetime Hollywood script reader who is a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University's graduate business school, where he also teaches a course on the movie industry for MBA students. "They want to believe they can translate that experience and power into success in Hollywood."

Unfortunately, the world's dream factory, by its very nature, doesn't quite work that way. And it could be that even the business world's richest and smartest minds are helpless to resist a fate that may be determined, in part, by our genes.

Syracuse University evolutionary psychologist John Marshall Townsend suggests that would-be moguls may be driven metaphorically—and sometimes literally, in the cases of Joe Kennedy and Howard Hughes—by the same urges as male bulls: the biological imperative to dominate and procreate. "You're talking about the place where there are the most desirable women in the world," says Townsend, who has studied the sexual behavior of powerful males. "Couple that with the fact that male attractiveness doesn't matter in the subculture—you can look like the Elephant Man if you have enough power. The problem is that the cows are encircled by the bulls who already are in the herd. You've got to get past them."

Daniel Fessler, an assistant professor of anthropology at UCLA, notes that Hollywood in many ways functions as a classic ethnic group. "Essentially, the movie business is a culture of its own in which members use common behavioral markers—their style of dress, various decorations, a distinctive dialect and so on. What these markers are telling you is that another person shares the same values and cultural understandings and expectations of what is appropriate. An out-group female may be allowed in, because from an evolutionary perspective the in-group males stand to benefit from the opportunity to mate. But an out-group male is merely a competitor for resources."

Instead of locking horns like real bulls, the in-group may resort to trickery and exploitation. "The in-group members may look at the outsider and think, 'I'm not going to have reciprocal relations with this person in the future, because he's not going to be allowed to stay.' So instead they go after whatever he's got that's of value."

The idea of biology as destiny might seem odd in a culture where so many conspicuous body parts are fake, and Viagra is dispensed like Pez. But that theory neatly meshes with Roderick Kramer's field of organizational behavior, which studies the motivation, decision-making, uses of power and other things that people do inside businesses, and crosses into the realms of psychology and economics. Kramer sees Hollywood as a series of interlocking networks, composed of various combinations of movie potentates who started together in the proverbial mailroom and clawed their way to the top. Because they didn't kill one another in the process, they form alliances that last—and are almost impenetrable from the outside.

"The most important thing is [your] knowledge base, the contacts that give you 'reputational capital,' " Kramer says. "That's what gets you in. An outsider has a lot of trouble breaking into that kind of network, because outside money and power aren't going to trump those connections. They don't really have time for you. The ones who are willing to let you into a network are the ones who are less reliable, the ones who are out to take advantage. Because the only thing an outsider brings to the network is money—while he still has it."

Re(1): Chew. Spit. Repeat.
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 05:59:13 PM by James Jaeger

John Cones has discussed how Hollywood treats outsiders exhaustively in his books. See http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/outsider.htm

James Jaeger

Re(2): Chew. Spit. Repeat.
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 07:35:00 PM by Mitchell Levine

Now let's see him discuss how the legal profession treats outsiders.

Re(3): Chew. Spit. Repeat.
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 07:44:36 PM by QT

Ask Alan Dershowitz and the Jewish Lawyer Klan.

Re(4): Chew. Spit. Repeat.
Posted on March 1, 2004 at 05:05:45 PM by mitchell levine

Dershowitz helped O.J. get acquitted, last time I checked, not lynched.

Re(1): Chew. Spit. Repeat.
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 03:34:46 PM by LAX

Chew. Spit. Repeat.

Excerpts:

Little did he know that he was headed for that nearly inevitable fate, the one that has befallen scores of interlopers who've dared to become moguls in that alluring but inscrutable culture known as the motion picture industry: Messier was about to be spanked by Hollywood.

An outsider, flush with success in some other industry or bankrolled by a family fortune, bursts onto the scene with dreams of becoming the next Louis B. Mayer, only to slink away a year or three later in ignominious defeat.

To truly understand why would-be moguls mostly fail, we must look past the conventional explanations and into the realms of behavioral psychology and anthropology. It also helps to understand a bit about chaos theory.

The film industry is so notoriously hard to crack that there's a rich literary genre on the subject—ranging from "Final Cut" (Steven Bach's account of Transamerica's disastrous stewardship of United Artists in the 1960s and 1970s) to "Out of Focus" (Charles Kipps' account of David Puttnam's brief tenure as head of Coca Cola-owned Columbia in the late 1980s) to innumerable fly-on-the-wall exposés of the tribulations of Bronfman and others.

Outsiders who've been very successful and made a lot of money rightly think they're smarter than the average person and perhaps even somewhat creative," explains Roderick Kramer, a onetime Hollywood script reader who is a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University's graduate business school, where he also teaches a course on the movie industry for MBA students. "They want to believe they can translate that experience and power into success in Hollywood."

Unfortunately, the world's dream factory, by its very nature, doesn't quite work that way. And it could be that even the business world's richest and smartest minds are helpless to resist a fate that may be determined, in part, by our genes.

Syracuse University evolutionary psychologist John Marshall Townsend suggests that would-be moguls may be driven metaphorically—and sometimes literally, in the cases of Joe Kennedy and Howard Hughes—by the same urges as male bulls: the biological imperative to dominate and procreate. "You're talking about the place where there are the most desirable women in the world," says Townsend, who has studied the sexual behavior of powerful males. "Couple that with the fact that male attractiveness doesn't matter in the subculture—you can look like the Elephant Man if you have enough power. The problem is that the cows are encircled by the bulls who already are in the herd. You've got to get past them."

Daniel Fessler, an assistant professor of anthropology at UCLA, notes that Hollywood in many ways functions as a classic ethnic group. "Essentially, the movie business is a culture of its own in which members use common behavioral markers—their style of dress, various decorations, a distinctive dialect and so on. What these markers are telling you is that another person shares the same values and cultural understandings and expectations of what is appropriate. An out-group female may be allowed in, because from an evolutionary perspective the in-group males stand to benefit from the opportunity to mate. But an out-group male is merely a competitor for resources."

Instead of locking horns like real bulls, the in-group may resort to trickery and exploitation. "The in-group members may look at the outsider and think, 'I'm not going to have reciprocal relations with this person in the future, because he's not going to be allowed to stay.' So instead they go after whatever he's got that's of value."

The idea of biology as destiny might seem odd in a culture where so many conspicuous body parts are fake, and Viagra is dispensed like Pez. But that theory neatly meshes with Roderick Kramer's field of organizational behavior, which studies the motivation, decision-making, uses of power and other things that people do inside businesses, and crosses into the realms of psychology and economics. Kramer sees Hollywood as a series of interlocking networks, composed of various combinations of movie potentates who started together in the proverbial mailroom and clawed their way to the top. Because they didn't kill one another in the process, they form alliances that last—and are almost impenetrable from the outside.

"The most important thing is [your] knowledge base, the contacts that give you 'reputational capital,' " Kramer says. "That's what gets you in. An outsider has a lot of trouble breaking into that kind of network, because outside money and power aren't going to trump those connections. They don't really have time for you. The ones who are willing to let you into a network are the ones who are less reliable, the ones who are out to take advantage. Because the only thing an outsider brings to the network is money—while he still has it."

Of course, the playing field is hardly level for newcomers to the game. Neophyte actors and screenwriters can rely on books such as Fran Harris' "Crashing Hollywood: How to Keep Your Integrity Up, Your Clothes On & Still Make It in Hollywood." But nobody has written a cautionary how-to manual for, say, an oversexed, middle-aged Italian financier who fantasizes about running a movie studio. And seductive illusion is, after all, Hollywood's stock in trade.

Not that conventional business analysis would do much good. Arthur De Vany, a former UC Irvine professor, industry consultant and author of the book "Hollywood Economics," points out that outsider-newcomers have three times the failure rate as veterans in any business, so it's not a total shock that they usually bomb in the movie biz. From an empirical point of view, though, an outsider would have to be totally insane to try the movie industry in particular, because the economic model is bizarrely different from just about any other business. The movie industry actually earns only a 3% to 4% return on investment, which is lousy when compared with steel-making or book publishing.

To make it worse, the statistical curve for movie profits isn't much of a curve at all. If the movie industry followed a bell curve, the typical movie would make money, and it would be extremely rare for a movie to take in more than three times the standard deviation—the average amount that the films differ from the middle. Instead, it's shaped more like a playground slide —6% of the product earns 90% of the money, and 70% to 80% of the product sinks into oblivion. This results in what economist De Vany calls an industry of "extreme uncertainty." That is, successes are aberrantly rare and outlandishly enormous. The movie "Titanic," for example, grossed $600 million domestically in 1997, in a year when the average film grossed $23 million. Results like that are impossible to predict.

Another added complication: Most industries don't have Hollywood's peculiar distribution system, in which a would-be blockbuster suddenly covers most of the nation's movie screens like kudzu and competitors get what's left. That's the equivalent of one brand of microwave oven getting all the shelf space at Best Buy, Target and WalMart for a week, but then disappearing instantly if it doesn't sell.

The carpetbagging mogul usually doesn't realize that until it's too late. Early in his Hollywood misadventure, William Randolph Hearst was so confident that he brushed off Adolph Zukor's offer of management help. "Making pictures is fundamentally like making publications," proclaimed Hearst, who orchestrated such flops as 1933's "Going Hollywood," in which Marion Davies starred with Bing Crosby—an unfortunate bit of casting because the two shared an interest in alcohol and spent much of their time on the set intoxicated. The movie lost $250,000. Just a few years later, Hearst was ready to quit the movie business, despairing: "I don't think I can make any money at it."

Stripped of his competence and confidence, the outsider is vulnerable. Stuart Fischoff, a sometime screenwriter and professor of media psychology at Cal State L.A., compares the process by which outsiders get sucked in by the Hollywood culture to cult recruiting or North Korean prison camp brainwashing. The would-be mogul is "brutalized and humiliated, then infantilized and reduced to a helpless state, and then introduced to the new set of values," Fischoff says.

For example, a Euromogul must master a whole new meal etiquette. "In Europe, you spend two or three hours on lunch, and you don't talk about business except maybe in the last few minutes," explains French anthropologist Rapaille. "You might say a few words about the deal. What you're really judged on is how you behave, what you know about wine. In Hollywood, everything is organized around the deal. You're at the table for five minutes, you're already working. It can be very disorienting."

Language also can be a problem for outsiders. Matsushita's executives reportedly spoke little English when they took over MCA in 1990. Although that type of handicap is rare these days, the peculiar semantics of Hollywood can be a hazard even for the linguistically fluent. "The language of Hollywood is so filled with hyperbole that you have to be able to decode it," behavior expert Kramer explains. "Otherwise, you don't pick up that when a guy tells you that your project is fantastic and it'll be exciting to work with you, he really means that he's going to tell his assistant not to put through any more of your calls."

But Hollywood is a dominatrix with a waiting list. The industry has "a never-ending need for money," says economist De Vany, and as long as eager outsiders have it, they'll be allowed to indulge their dream of being players, at least for a while. Sooner or later, though, most will end up like Messier, humbled and somber.
The periodic fall of feckless would-be moguls also enables Hollywood to lead the world in producing another entertainment product that's nearly as popular as its films and TV shows: what Germans and the would-be Eurohipsters among us call schadenfreude—the experience of taking delight in others' misfortune.

That's why everyone is secretly pleased to see others fail—especially if they're outsiders."

Hollywood in many ways functions as a classic ethnic group
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 04:30:14 PM by jack

Gosh, I wonder which one?

Re(1): Hollywood in many ways functions as a classic ethnic group
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 05:43:42 PM by Mitchell Levine

The one capable of creating it.

French Theaters Censor PASSION
Posted on February 29, 2004 at 05:54:30 PM by James Jaeger

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-passion29.html

French theaters won't show 'Passion', by Kim Willsher, Chicago Sun-Times,
February 29, 2004

"French cinema chains are refusing to distribute or screen Mel Gibson's
controversial film "The Passion of the Christ" because of fears it will
spark a new outbreak of anti-Semitism. France is the only European country
where there is still no distribution deal for the film, which depicts
the last days of Jesus Christ in graphic detail and is accused by
critics of stoking anti-Jewish sentiment.

The film was released in America last week, but French distributors are
wary of its impact on audiences and want to gauge its reception elsewhere
in Europe, where it is due to open next month. "We don't want to be on the
side of those who support such anti-Semitism," a veteran film industry
figure said. "When we distributed 'It's a Beautiful Life' by [Roberto]
Benigni, we were worried about the risk of making a comedy about the
Holocaust, but that was different. There's enough anti-Semitic stuff
circulating here already without us throwing oil on the fire."

The debate over the film is highly sensitive in France, where a spate of
firebombings of synagogues and Jewish schools and attacks on rabbis over
the last year has led Israel to denounce it as the most anti-Semitic
country in Europe."

Re(1): French Theaters Do NOT Censor PASSION
Posted on March 9, 2004 at 03:44:49 AM by James Jaeger

http://fr.movies.yahoo.com/040229/202/3o47d.html

The film of Mel Gibson "the passion of Christ" to be distributed in France,
Yahoo! News, February 29, 2004 [translation from French article]

"The controversial film of Australian Mel Gibson, "The passion of Christ,"
will be finally distributed in France. The name of the distributor will be
announced Monday, says the Newspaper of Sunday, quoting Icon, Gibson's
production company. Anticipated by some Christian groups, and criticized by
Jewish organizations which fear that it feeds anti-semitism, the film has
evoked sharp critical response because of its violence. Questioned by the
JDD, Marin Karmitz, President of the National Federation of Film
Distributors, declared: "Some press members have portrayed us as boycotting
The Passion of Christ, under pressures of an alleged Jewish lobby. But it
has been Icon's choice to appear to be martyrs. Why weren't we invited to
view the feature film? I do not know, and it is the first time this has
happened. People have believed that there is a deliberate will to censure
the film" ... Contacted by the AFP, the organizer of the support campaign
for traditional Catholics in favour of Gibson's movie, Daniel Hamiche, was
not able to confirm the information in the Newspaper of Sunday but declared
himself to be "very satisfied that someone has the couage to distribute
it".

[The original French version of the above.]
Le film de Mel Gibson "La passion du Christ" finalement distribué en France
PARIS (AFP),
"Le film controversé de l'australien Mel Gibson "La passion du Christ" sera
finalement distribué en France et le nom du distributeur sera annoncé
lundi, affirme Le Journal du dimanche, citant Icon, la maison de production
de l'acteur-réalisateur. Attendu depuis des mois par certains groupes
chrétiens, ou vivement critiqué par des organisations juives qui craignent
qu'il n'alimente l'antisémitisme, le film, sorti mercredi aux Etats-Unis, a
été accueilli par de très vives critiques en raison de sa violence.
Interrogé par le JDD, Marin Karmitz, Président de la Fédération nationale
des distributeurs de films, déclare : "Une certaine presse nous a accusés
de boycotter +La passion du Christ+, sous la peur ou la contrainte d'un
quelconque lobby juif. Mais c'est une tactique volontaire de la part d'Icon
pour se faire passer pour des martyrs". "Pourquoi ne nous a-t-on pas
invités à visionner le long-métrage ? Je ne sais pas, et c'est bien la
première fois que cela se produit. Les gens croient qu'il y a une volonté
délibérée de censure. C'est une forme de marketing inadmissible, qui ne
devrait pas trouver un tel relais dans les médias", ajoute-t-il. Si le film
trouve un distributeur, il faut au moins trois mois pour qu'il soit à
l'écran, indique-t-il."

THE PASSION
Posted on March 1, 2004 at 10:03:43 PM by Keith Duncan

It's interesting how an account that is trying to be somewhat accurate by the written record can bring so much controversy! It is understandable, given Jewish history, their trepidation, but if one looks accurately at the Christian scriptures regarding the Passion of the Jesus, it is evident that both Jew and Gentile were equally culpable in the crucifixion.

In fact the Jews at the time, could not carry out capital punishment by Roman law, so, for there to even be a crucifixion of Christ at all meant that it was both sanctioned and carried out on Roman (Gentile) authority. SOME ruling Jews did want Jesus dead, but it was the Gentiles who had the authority at the time to carry the execution out.

From what I understand from Mr. Gibson's spokes people, Mr. Gibson has attempted to present the story in a balanced way. I cannot comment specifically yet, having not had the opportunity to see the film. But the Christian scripture and the scant secular records we have to date have never rested the blame on the Jews alone - EVER.

In the view of the early church, ALL humans were perpetrators of the execution of Jesus, both Gentile and Jew. In fact, if one were to look deeply into the collection of letters and testimony that makes up the Christian New Testament, it actually places Jews in a premiere position of salvation "First to the Jew, then to the Gentile" upon referencing salvation. So one should not be able to draw a evidential defaming conclusion about Jews from Christian scripture.

Of course what some white supremists still cannot accept is that Jesus himself was a Jew and in the Christain scriptual view, having accepting the authority of the Old Testament, or Torah, Jews are a special, holy people to YHWH, the Jewish and Christian God (or Supreme Being). Some, of course, sometimes say that modern Jews are an apostate people, with no standing with God any longer. If they believe that where, again, is the scriptural or historical indication of this contention? The evidence that has been presented to me regarding this minority belief in the Christian community was vague and amorphous at best.

Christians who say that the Jews alone killed Jesus and are to blame for his execution are just plain errant and have no historical basis for there argument. To hold the Jews solely in contempt for their role in Christ's execution is to live in denial of the record as we have it today. I guess if we are to hold the Jews in contempt to the point of extermination for theor role in the crucifixon of Jesus, then we should also hold the Italians in the same contempt, for it was the Romans who actually performed the murder of Christ.

If one peels back the "onion" of history and gets to its root, the Christian Gospel story is not one of extermination, prejudice, hatred or exclusion. It seems to me the teachings and morals Christ died for were peace, redemption, inclusion (even lepers), repentance from evil and a nurturing of the better things in the human spirit. That is why it caught on so quickly so long ago. Now, as to many of its contemporary incarnations, that's another subject entirely.

In closing, Jesus Christ is an interesting historical character. Both polarizing and somehow inspiring and calming as well. The gospel is certainly a great source for the dramatic, the contemplative and also a point where great sorrow and freeing joy can meet, (if you look at from an ancient Christian perspective especially). Basically, what a story! Why wouldn't someone try and make an account as close to the existing record as possible? Why is the mere mention of this historical figure such a problem in our world today? Why can we make graphic movies about serial killers, the rape and victimization of women and indiscriminate snuffing out of life and hardly any one takes notice? But someone makes an account of Jesus and the roof blows off and people start pissing vinegar. It makes one wonder if there really may be a new persecution brewing in this country and that persecution being against the Christian community. If we start "censoring" this community, though, where will that lead? If ideas are trampled due to disagreement,when one idea falls, others will follow. The free flow of ideas (not hate now) is essential to a free society and for filmmakers, any curtailment of expression is a dangerous thing for us.

Thanks for your kind attention (James).

Movie'ng Ahead!>>>>>

Keith

www.thinktankentertainment.com
www.sharkothemovie.com

Re(1): THE PASSION
Posted on March 2, 2004 at 00:12:14 AM by Mitchell Levine

It's interesting how an account that is trying to be somewhat accurate by the written record can bring so much controversy!

- Gibson added liberally to the actual Gospel accounts, when desired - which never suggested that Pilate acquiesced to Jewish demands out of fear of Caesar - and the actual historical record doesn't support many of the scriptural claims at all.

Of course, for example, you're asked to believe that the Sanhedrin would convict Yeshua for violating the laws of the Torah, while at the same time meeting on the eve of Passover.

Mr. Gibson can't be faulted for wanting to meet the letter of his Bible, but certainly shouldn't claim that his film is based on validated history instead of theology, particularly when he didn't find it beneath him to change things freely when he felt like it.

It is understandable, given Jewish history, their trepidation, but if one looks accurately at the Christian scriptures regarding the Passion of the Jesus, it is evident that both Jew and Gentile were equally culpable in the crucifixion.

- Very true. It's the doctrine of collective Jewish culpability that's being disputed, not a denial of ANY Jewish culpability.

In fact the Jews at the time, could not carry out capital punishment by Roman law, so, for there to even be a crucifixion of Christ at all meant that it was both sanctioned and carried out on Roman (Gentile) authority. SOME ruling Jews did want Jesus dead, but it was the Gentiles who had the authority at the time to carry the execution out.

- Of course, the Romans crucified Jews all the time.

From what I understand from Mr. Gibson's spokes people, Mr. Gibson has attempted to present the story in a balanced way.

- Not really. He made numerous changes to the Gospels, intentionally or not, all of which tend to exaggerate the guilt of Jews in the Crucifixion - to the point of giving the line "his blood upon us and our children" to the Jewish high priest - whose ethnicity is unquestionable - when the New Testament gives it to the Mob, whose ethnicity isn't directly established.

In the view of the early church, ALL humans were perpetrators of the execution of Jesus, both Gentile and Jew.

- Sorry, but the early church emphasized Jewish collective condemnation for it, because believers' sin was removed by faith.

In fact, if one were to look deeply into the collection of letters and testimony that makes up the Christian New Testament, it actually places Jews in a premiere position of salvation "First to the Jew, then to the Gentile" upon referencing salvation.

- Interestingly, Paul does say that "all of the Jews will be saved for the sake of the patriarchs," but the church never seemed to make a lot of it.

So one should not be able to draw a evidential defaming conclusion about Jews from Christian scripture.

- Unfortunately, that didn't stop anyone from doing so for a couple of thousand years. It was the mainstream position of many churches explicitly until well into the 20th century.

Of course what some white supremists still cannot accept is that Jesus himself was a Jew and in the Christain scriptual view, having accepting the authority of the Old Testament, or Torah, Jews are a special, holy people to YHWH, the Jewish and Christian God (or Supreme Being).

- Of course, that's a possible reading.


Christians who say that the Jews alone killed Jesus and are to blame for his execution are just plain errant and have no historical basis for there argument.

- Actually, it seems on the basis of scripture that what killed Jesus was original sin. If so, if Jesus died for anyone, he died for everyone.

If one peels back the "onion" of history and gets to its root, the Christian Gospel story is not one of extermination, prejudice, hatred or exclusion.

- It's unfortunate that not everyone realizes that, including Jews.

Why wouldn't someone try and make an account as close to the existing record as possible? Why is the mere mention of this historical figure such a problem in our world today?

- Because of what's happened historically when the charge of deicide has surfaced publically. It's not even the distant past I'm referring to. Numerous Jews fifty and over can tell you that they were personally touched by it, like my aunt Joan who got a concussion from two neighbor children in the early 50's because "the Jews killed Christ." It's not an unusual story.

Why can we make graphic movies about serial killers, the rape and victimization of women and indiscriminate snuffing out of life and hardly any one takes notice? But someone makes an account of Jesus and the roof blows off and people start pissing vinegar.

- It's not, unfortunately, about logic; it's about people's feelings, which, as we found out a few times last century, aren't always rational.

It makes one wonder if there really may be a new persecution brewing in this country and that persecution being against the Christian community. If we start "censoring" this community, though, where will that lead?

- No one "censored" Mel Gibson: at last I checked, his film has earned over $100 million dollars at the box office. If Fox didn't want to make it, they didn't have to. So he shopped it to another distributor, the way the free enterprise model suggests things should happen.

And 80% of society really doesn't have to worry about "persecution" like that the religious minorities have had to deal with. Although everyone should have their freedoms respected, not being able to pray in public school is not quite the same thing as being raped by Cossacks.

Against All Odds
Posted on March 2, 2004 at 01:34:28 AM by Johnny

<< - It's been said before: Mel Gibson should thank the ADL, as well as at
least one Catholic group, for complaining. Controversy is publicity.

They did more than complain. At least the studios did. It was made clear that if Mel went forward he never would get another picture to star in or get one his own distributed by a studio.
And that's a promise that probably will be kept!

Of course now Mel is never going to come asking them again either!

So if the Passion had failed Mel would have been history without a doubt.

The Passion being a hit was not certain.
The reason is getting it distributed. No one's ever done such distribution with the Studios not only not helping, but strongly fighting distribution.

Once it got into 3,000 Theaters it was a hit for sure but that distribution was a historical accomplishment without any prior precedent I believe.

Re(1): Against All Odds
Posted on March 2, 2004 at 07:15:26 AM by LAX

February 26, 2004

New Film May Harm Gibson's Career
By SHARON WAXMAN

excerpt:

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 25 Mel Gibson's provocative new film, "The Passion of the Christ," is making some of Hollywood's most prominent executives uncomfortable in ways that may damage Mr. Gibson's career.

Hollywood is a close-knit world, and friendships and social contact are critical in the making of deals and the casting of movies. Many of Hollywood's most prominent figures are also Jewish. So with a furor arising around the film, along with Mr. Gibson's reluctance to distance himself from his father, who calls the Holocaust mostly fiction, it is no surprise that Hollywood ‹ Jewish and non-Jewish ‹ has been talking about little else, at least when it's not talking about the Oscars.

Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, the principals of DreamWorks, have privately expressed anger over the film, said an executive close to the two men.

The chairmen of two other major studios said they would avoid working with Mr. Gibson because of "The Passion of the Christ" and the star's remarks surrounding its release.

Neither of the chairmen would speak for attribution, but as one explained: "It doesn't matter what I say. It'll matter what I do. I will do something. I won't hire him. I won't support anything he's part of. . . ."

Re(1): Against All Odds
Posted on March 2, 2004 at 01:41:06 AM by Mitchell Levine

Don't be so sure that Mel won't get to do another studio film: in Hollywood, the only true original sin is not selling tickets.

Harm to Gibson's Career
Posted on March 2, 2004 at 01:49:46 AM by Will Smith

New Film May Harm Gibson's Career,By SHARON WAXMAN, New York Times,
February 26, 2004

"Mel Gibson's provocative new film, "The Passion of the Christ," is making some of Hollywood's most prominent executives uncomfortable in ways that may damage Mr. Gibson's career.Hollywood is a close-knit world, and friendships and social contact are critical in the making of deals
and the casting of movies. Many of Hollywood's most prominent figures are
also Jewish. So with a furor arising around the film, along with Mr.
Gibson's reluctance to distance himself from his father, who calls the
Holocaust mostly fiction, it is no surprise that Hollywood - Jewish and
non-Jewish has been talking about little else, at least when it's not
talking about the Oscars.

Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, the principals of DreamWorks, have
privately expressed anger over the film, said an executive close to the two men. The chairmen of two other major studios said they would avoid working with Mr. Gibson because of "The Passion of the Christ" and the star's
remarks surrounding its release. Neither of the chairmen would speak for
attribution, but as one explained: "It doesn't matter what I say.

It'll matter what I do. I will do something. I won't hire him. I
won't support anything he's part of. Personally that's all I can do." The chairman said he was angry not just because of what he had read about the film and its portrayal of Jews in relation to the death of Jesus, but because of Mr. Gibson's remarks defending his father, Hutton Gibson. Last week in a radio interview the elder Mr. Gibson repeated his contention that the Holocaust was "all -
maybe not all fiction - but most of it is." Asked about his father's
Holocaust denial in an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC, the movie
star told her to "leave it alone."

The other studio chairman, whose family fled European anti-Semitism before
the Holocaust, was less emphatic but said, "I think I can live without
him." But others said there would be no lasting backlash against Mel Gibson ...

Many in the relentlessly secular movie industry see his recent religious
conversion - he practices a traditionalist version of Roman Catholicism - as another form of addiction. Last Friday the media billionaire Haim Saban, former owner of the Fox Family Channel, sent a concerned e-mail message to friends about Mr. Gibson and his father. The message forwarded an article by the journalist Mitch Albom calling on Mr. Gibson to repudiate his father's denial of the Holocaust. Mr. Saban sent the
article to, among others, Roger Ailes, who heads Fox News; Norman Pattiz,
who runs the Westwood One radio network; and Michael R. Milken, the securities felon turned philanthropist.

Amid the daily dealings of Hollywood, the film and the star have been
fodder for unfavorable gossip. Dustin Hoffman has talked to friends about
what he called Mr. Gibson's "strangeness" during the ABC interview. The producer Mike Medavoy said Mr. Gibson's religious zealotry made him feel uncomfortable. Mr. Hoffman is Jewish; Mr. Medavoy is the child of Holocaust survivors. "One question is, `What propelled him to make the movie about the passion of Christ?' " Mr. Medavoy said. "It makes me a little squeamish. What makes me squeamish about religion in general is that people think they have the answer: `I think my God is the right God.' How do you argue against that?"

But many non-Jews in Hollywood have also been unhappy about the religious
divisions that the movie has exposed and could deepen.

... Alan Nierob, Mr. Gibson's publicist, is himself the child of Holocaust survivors. "I think Hollywood appreciates good art and will embrace the talent of a filmmaker," Mr. Nierob said. "I don't see a negative reaction."

The "Elite" Media
Posted on March 3, 2004 at 09:46:10 PM by James Jaeger

I don't know if you watch Bill O'Reilly on THE FACTOR, but things are really heating up. He is fighting a similar battle as the one we're fighting here at FIRM except he's afraid to use the J-word (even though last Thursday he DID mention that Hollywood and the media have a lot of Jewish people in it). Instead Bill uses the more politically "correct" euphemism, "elite media." This is laughable because almost every single person Bill (and others on his show, such as Pat Robertson, Newt Gingrich and Mel Gibson) are arguing with are Jewish.

What gives?

James Jaeger

A Review of THE PASSION
Posted on March 3, 2004 at 02:12:08 PM by Chad Powers

No work of art is frozen with an absolute "meaning." The interpretation of any art creation is merely the realm of shared -- or unshared -- experience and belief systems between creator and audience. Of course interpretive meaning is not necessarily the same between different cultural, and subcultural groups. Or even individuals. Meaning can also change over time. Whatever the case, each individual brings his/her own experiential realities and interpretive world view towards the negotiation of any artwork's ultimate significance. In essence, per the broadest cultural landscape, any work of art's meaning is subject to a war between contesting ideologies, whatever they may be.

That said, I'm still going to tell you what this movie is about.

There are two quite distinct realms that inform Mel Gibson's 2004 film. The first is the celluloid story itself, which depicts Gibson's version of a Christian icon, with some poetic license. The second is the modern social and political context wherein powerful elements in mass culture struggle to dictate the movie's meaning on their terms, and their terms only.

Let's start with the elementals of this story, devoid of the tightening net of expressly political content. That we'll look at later.

If there is anything a majority of viewers should be able to agree upon, The Passion of the Christ is about intense suffering and sacrifice. The viewer need not hold allegiance to expressly Christian dogma, or even know the details of it all, to understand this in the film. Take it literally, or take it as fable, the story of Christ is a story of compassion. A man, Christ, surrenders his life, in a horribly torturous manner, on behalf of all other human beings. It is an affirmation of the human community, albeit -- paradoxically -- via death. But Jesus' brutal end is an affirmation which parallels in no small sense the act of giving birth -- blood and all. (In this film, mother Mary's face, smeared with Christ's blood, repeatedly echoes this theme). And in Christian tradition (and Gibson's film), with Christ's resurrection this (re)birth is explicit as a transcendence of materialist anchors and delusions. ("My kingdom is not the world of Caesar's.") This is the core terrain of the tale that Mel Gibson explores. There are plenty of tangents of course, including explicitly religious dogma (not the least that Christ is alleged to be "son of God"), but this noble expression of "love" via personal sacrifice for the welfare of all others is the heart of the thing. For even the anti-religious skeptic (or bigot), the story of Christ is -- at the very least -- a legend about altruism.

That's the story's baseline. So how does Gibson deal with it, on film?

The Passion of the Christ begins like a dream in prelude to a growing nightmare wherein odd shrieks, mob monsters, semi-hysterical characters, and brief camera whooshes (past contorted peripheral faces) highlight a horrifically surreal scenario wherein Jesus staggers to his final demise. The Passion of the Christ is a giant wound of hurt and vulnerability.

Panning down from the moon and moody cloud formations, the camera first approaches Jesus from behind, in a misty grove. He is soon betrayed here to Roman soldiers by Judas, and this is where Gibson chooses to start his own version of this traditional story. Among his symbolic innovations is the physical embodiment of what we presume to be "evil" -- a somewhat androgynous woman who leers about from the periphery of various scenes, underscoring her/its influential (almost monitoring) omnipresence. She seems to be intended as part of the Christian Good-Evil dialectic: a negative female/mother symbol in contradistinction to Jesus' mother, Mary, and, for that matter, God, "the father."

Much has been already written by Gibson's professional critical enemies about the "violence" and "sadism" of Gibson's film. The movie is indeed laden heavy with dripping blood, wounds, welts, and repeated flagellation. (This focus is not unique to Christianity, of course. Shi'ite Islam, for instance, commemorates yearly the death of their own revered martyr, Hossain, sometimes by men beating their chests with chains and razor blades in communal allegiance to their own tradition of bloody suffering). While most Hollywood movies feature violence as titillating, voyeuristic, sensational, and gratuitous, Gibson's very heavy dose of agony seemed absolutely justifiable. Why? Aside from the fact that this is the popular understanding of the brutal event by traditional Christian dogma, such intensive violence is the natural boiling of the central premise of the "legend" of Christ. If a single man is to be burdened upon his physical body with ALL THE SINS OF HUMANKIND, it would seem that this would be a rather seriously hurtful undertaking. To say the least.

Such agonized suffering of Christ renders in the movie viewer (let alone religious believer) a confrontation with the very essence of human hopelessness. Here, Christ, lying on the ground in a puddle of blood, being struck yet again and again by whips, is the consummate loser. He has no hope against the soldiers and mobs against him. He is starkly alone in his predicament. It is human loneliness at its most pathetic. No one will save him. Christ knows that. And the viewer knows that. Who of us has not felt this kind of overwhelming defeat? A completely vulnerable Christ, sprawled out on the pavement, completely vulnerable to endless abuse, is DEFEAT's great metaphor. And from this bloody pulp -- once a human body -- arises our very human hopes and dreams. What arises is faith. We all face it in our darkest moments: Dear God, all of our miserable sufferings surely must mean something.

Spiritual seekers of any avenue inevitably face mystifying disdain and disillusionment, for life is truly rife with continuous pain, suffering, and violence. The big fish eats the little fish in a potentially horrific (depending where you reside in the predatory link) food chain. This is the essence of life, always feeding on itself, always causing pain up and down the line. Now, why must it work this way? And herein is the riddle of the eons, and wherein many of the great religions, for instance Buddhism, focus their contemplative energies.

Now, these are some of the fundamental currents of this religiously "fundamentalist" film. They are transcendent ideas, abstracts, above and beyond the specifics of the social and political world, and even passing beyond the limitations of any expressly religious boundary.

This brings us, however, to the next interpretive level of Mel Gibson's movie: the current social and political American milieu which also informs its meaning.

Wherein in centuries past "art" was largely the expression of institutionalized religious motifs, celebrating tradition, in modern Western culture the great "artist" of worthy acclaim is widely heralded as an ultimate truthsayer against social convention. The truly dedicated artist is expected to war against the cultural grain, destroy antiquated views of the world, and expose mainstream social conventions as merely hollow follies and foibles. In a word, the modern artist (so often heroized as tortured and afflicted by in-house ghosts and demons) is a prophetic figure. Yes, a form of messiah. This has important resonance to Mel Gibson. In Western culture, we live in a society that has reversed course. Wherein once religious faith and organizations dominated the realm of popular culture, today's most important and influential institutions are avidly irreligious and actively subvert any expressly religious enterprise. In this context, Mel Gibson's courage and sacrifice in bringing his movie about Christ against so many odds reiterates himself, of course, as a prophetic Christ figure.

As seen in the news for months now, there has been a massive propaganda and defamation campaign -- largely from the Jewish American community -- to censor this film on grounds that it is "anti-Semitic." What the Jewish Lobby has succeeded in doing, however, much to their shock and chagrin, is to implant itself -- socially and politically -- into the very thematic weave of Mel Gibson's movie, underscoring a theme that has long been dead but -- thanks to their hyper-aggressive actions in attempting to defame and censor this movie -- is now revived.

When the viewer watches the mob of hysterical Pharisees (corrupt Jewish leaders of Jesus' era) calling for Christ's death in the movie, what does he see (if he's been watching the news at all lately)? He sees Abe Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League calling for the head of Mel Gibson. He sees Rabbi Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal spitting at Christ (Gibson) as he drags his cross along the cobblestone. He sees yet another, then another, rabbi with public forum adjusting Gibson with a crown of thorns. The innocent Passion of Christ viewer now invariably notes in the very cloth of hysterical Jews in Mel Gibson's movie equally hysterical modern Jewish rabbis, editorialists, media pundits, and organizations of all sorts TODAY demanding changes and concessions in Mel Gibson's vision as a Christian and artist. Bizarrely, these modern Jews have succeeded in creating crystal clear closure between the ancient Jews who killed Christ (and Jewish convention has ALWAYS accepted responsibility for the execution of Jesus) and the Jews who very much seek to do the same today.

Gibson's movie about suffering and human universalism has been declared everything (by mainstream -- mostly Jewish -- movie critics) from "anti-Semitic" to "fascistic" to a sadomasochistic playground that will attract an audience of twisted gays.

Now, this all makes for a very interesting scenario, does it not? Mel Gibson is a famous movie actor. He made a fortune working in Hollywood, which was founded by Jews and remains dominated by them to this very day. Yet depicting Christianity (the traditional Jewish nemesis) in a positive light is a serious taboo in Tinseltown and Gibson had to pay out of his own pocket to express his (subversive to Judeocentric Hollywood) Christian spiritual vision.

So what has happened? Mel Gibson's spiritual movie about compassion, altruism, human universalism, and suffering in a Christian context has become a central point in today's Culture Wars which pits Jewish materialism, Jewish censorship, Jewish power, Jewish narcissism, and anti-religious hedonistic nihilism throughout mass culture versus anyone who resists such a Vision: those who yearn for a public communion of the spiritual.

The astounding thing is that coordinated Jewish political and propagandized assault against Mel Gibson has inevitably underscored traditional Jewish hatred and disdain for Christ and his followers, highlighting the whole historical continuum. Jewish censorial hysteria has taken a movie that has really very little (in the Big Picture) to do with Jews and foregrounded them via modern Jewish narcissism into a movie that they have declared to be CENTRALLY about Jewish victimhood. And, hence, The Passion of the Christ has become exactly the very public vehicle for anti-Jewish hostility that they sought to censor. In other words, today's Jewish Lobby has managed to assail a movie about human suffering and universalistic love and reconstruct it into one about incessant Jewish complaint about Christianity -- represented in a direct line from Jesus Christ to Mel Gibson.

In the most profoundly spiritual sense, The Passion of the Christ has nothing to do with Jews whatsoever. In the current social and political sense, however, the movie now serves as a historical mirror to underscore the fact that nothing has really changed over the millennia in Jewish demand and anti-Christian sentiment. In the modern political sense, The Passion of the Christ is a very clear echo about the powerful Jewish Lobby's efforts to reshape everyone else's' thinking to suit them -- be it the nature of Christianity or the nature of modern apartheid Israel.

Let us not forget the essence of the Christ story -- Mel Gibson's or otherwise. Jesus exited the Jewish fold. He was a rebel against the Jewish Power of the day. He shut the door behind him. The Jewish community, to this very day upset with their most famous blasphemer, insists upon opening it and kicking Jesus down again.

As much as Christians have strained not to notice it, and as much as they've worked to turn the proverbial cheek to the unending blows, too many Jews have clearly demonstrated that they still have the need to crucify him.

Crucify who? Christ or Mel Gibson?

It doesn't really matter. The relentless attackers drive the same hateful spike into both of them.

Chad Powers
http://www.jewishtribalreview.org

Re(1): A Review of THE PASSION
Posted on March 3, 2004 at 07:00:01 PM by E. Wilson


Great post!!

This is an excellent review of "The Passion" and really explains why the Jewish community has tried to denigrate Mel's movie.

Thanks for clarifying many things that the media (mostly has Jewish people in it I understqand) has failed to clarify.

Re(1): A Review of THE PASSION
Posted on March 3, 2004 at 04:07:57 PM by Mitchell Levine

No work of art is frozen with an absolute "meaning." The interpretation of any art creation is merely the realm of shared -- or unshared -- experience and belief systems between creator and audience. Of course interpretive meaning is not necessarily the same between different cultural, and subcultural groups. Or even individuals. Meaning can also change over time. Whatever the case, each individual brings his/her own experiential realities and interpretive world view towards the negotiation of any artwork's ultimate significance. In essence, per the broadest cultural landscape, any work of art's meaning is subject to a war between contesting ideologies, whatever they may be.

That said, I'm still going to tell you what this movie is about.

- This ludicrous opener pretty much sets the standard for the whole thing: "Although I really should know better, as I'll proceed to demonstrate with a pretentious recap of the most oft-repeated postmodern bromides, I'm still going to reduce complex social phenomena to the broadest, most rigidly black-and-white stereotypes imaginable anyhow!"

Bizarrely, these modern Jews have succeeded in creating crystal clear closure between the ancient Jews who killed Christ (and Jewish convention has ALWAYS accepted responsibility for the execution of Jesus) and the Jews who very much seek to do the same today

- Yet more paranoid, antisemitic bullshit. To say "Jewish convention has always accepted responsibility for the execution of Christ" because one line of hundreds in the Talmud suggests a contributor believed it might be true is like saying that Plato believed there is no Truth because one of the characters in his dialogues says so. The Talmud is not a book of catechism - it's primarily a series of dialectics which aim at progressively searching for the truth.

No Jews anywhere, let alone Jewish orthodoxy, ever believed that Jews are to be condemned in perpetuity for the death of Christ, particularly since they don't belive that Christ is the messiah to begin with: Why would they be guilty of the death of one Jew collectively and forever when the Romans were responsible for the crucifixion of hundreds of thousands of them?

To say that Jews believed this story would be to say that Jews would believe that Orthodox rabbis would ever have condemned a man for violating the Laws of Moses at a public show trial held on Passover, which, in Jewish eyes, is simply a complete absurdity. It would be like the Vatican convicting Galilleo of heresy in a trial held on Christmas Eve; i.e., something which would never happen.

Also, the claim that "Jews are still killing Christ today," is a bunch of hateful crap which tries to make the argument that not wanting to be defamed by someone is equivalent to hating them, not to mention a blatant attempt to further promote the idea that Jews have some big conspiracy to destroy Christian society.

And to draw a parallel between Mel Gibson's being criticized for the many tasteless, unnecessary insensitivities in his film and Christ's suffering on the cross is an insult to Christ, Christianity, and Christians everywhere.

He was a rebel against the Jewish Power of the day. He shut the door behind him. The Jewish community, to this very day upset with their most famous blasphemer, insists upon opening it and kicking Jesus down again.

- Bullshit: Yeshua was most likely a dedicated member of a small but not completely marginalized Jewish school, the Essenes, and, as even Mel's script notes, he was a rabbi, and in Jerusalem during the Passion to celebrate Pesach in the first place.

He was a rebel, not against Judaism, but against hypocrisy and hatred of all kinds -something this guy could really use.

Mitchell Levine, get a f-ing life!
Posted on March 3, 2004 at 10:37:00 PM by J. Detroit

(no message)

J. Detroit, get bent!
Posted on March 4, 2004 at 11:05:19 AM by Mitchell Levine

(no message)

Unaligned With Hollywood Interests
Posted on March 4, 2004 at 00:06:31 AM by James Jaeger

Check out the unbelivable amount of media critisism over Mel Gibson's choice of making a movie that reflects his interests instead of Hollywood's interests.

http://www.catholicleague.org/Passion/maligning.htm

Also, here are some of the issues in connection with THE PASSION as noted by the Catholic League:

http://catholicleague.org/newsreleases.htm

Christian Depictions in Movies
Posted on March 4, 2004 at 00:28:29 AM by James Jaeger

"Before closing, please understand that many Christians deeply resent the kinds of movies Hollywood has been releasing over the last few decades. They especially resent the long list of anti-Christian films that have been made (most of which have been explicitly anti-Catholic). And now that they finally have a film they can be proud of, some are calling them bigots, if not thugs."

-William A. Donohue, Ph.D.,
President, Catholic League

Source: http://www.catholicleague.org/Passion/openletter040205.htm

Chutzpah
Posted on March 4, 2004 at 00:40:33 AM by James Jaeger

"... Those who are sounding the alarms over anti-Semitic violence are historically ignorant: the last time Jews were assaulted after the production of a Passion Play was in the Middle Ages. As for fidelity to the New Testament, Mel is not obligated to tailor his interpretation of the Bible according to someone else’s politically correct straightjacket. If they don’t like his version, they can always make their own. Moreover, it takes chutzpah for a non-Catholic to lecture the Church about defending its teachings, simply because he doesn’t like a movie the Church had nothing to do with. As for the violence, it is amazing to hear those who think it’s okay for a teenager to submit her unborn child to lethal violence—without parental consent—now worry whether she is able to endure a movie about the death of Jesus.

"These critics are cracking up. But their demagoguery is failing: they cannot stop the movie from being a blockbuster."

http://www.catholicleague.org/04press_releases/quarter1/040219_Passion.htm

Telling One's Own Story
Posted on March 4, 2004 at 00:51:26 AM by James Jaeger

When one is not making another Holocaust picture to kiss Hollywood butt, but instead exercises their constitutional right to tell THEIR own story, all hell breaks out. Ah, the liabilities of telling one's own story when one must work in an industry dominated by those who hate your stories.

To wit:


"The attack on ‘The Passion of the Christ’ is unprecedented in its ruthlessness. The script was stolen and given to those who could be counted on to slam it; tapes of the film were stolen and distributed to those who also could be relied upon to bash it; Mel’s faith has been impugned; charges that violence against Jews will occur after the movie has been shown are commonplace; attempts to bully Gibson into changing the film have been ongoing; demands for a postscript have been made by those who seek to put Gibson on the defensive; bishops have been badgered to get Mel’s friends in line; the Vatican has been lobbied to criticize the movie; accusations that the movie is being kept away from Jewish neighborhoods have been made; fears that the movie will damage youngsters who see it have been expressed; demands that Gibson vet his script for approval to officials of the Catholic Church have frequently been made; critics have deceitfully gained admission into screenings of the film; highly personal questions about Gibson’s life have been raised; sneering comments that the film may make a profit have been voiced; the way the movie has been marketed has been raised in a derisive way; demands that the film be censored have been made at public rallies; Catholics who defend the movie have been insulted by foes of the film; disrespect for Gibson’s artistic rights has been voiced many times; and so on.

"Now they’re going after Mel’s 85-year-old father...."

- William Donohue

Source: http://www.catholicleague.org/04press_releases/quarter1/040219_attacking.htm

Most Powerful Communication Channel
Posted on March 4, 2004 at 00:57:11 AM by James Jaeger


"...Having spent their entire adult lives studying the Bible, and having concluded they really don’t know very much about their subject (no argument there), they’re angry at Mel because he pays them no respect. More important, why are they angry with Mel for giving us his version of what happened when they confess they don’t know what happened? How can his portrayal be inauthentic if they don’t know what is authentic?

"Susan B. Thistlethwaite is president of the Chicago Theological Seminary. Marvin Meyer is a professor at Chapman University. Amy-Jill Levine is professor of New Testament studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Ex-priest John Dominic Crossan is a DePaul University professor emeritus. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth teaches Holocaust studies at the University of Texas at Dallas. Michael Evans is the head of the Jerusalem Prayer Team. Susan Bond is a Vanderbilt Divinity School professor. Stephen Prothero teaches at Boston University. Philip Cunningham is a theology professor at Boston College. Over the weekend, they made it clear that they don’t like the movie because, they say, it doesn’t conform to their understanding of Christ’s death. How unfortunate.

"What’s driving the ‘experts’ mad is the realization that all their books, articles and lectures put together cannot compare to the influence that Mel’s film will have on people all over the world....

-William Donohue

Source: http://www.catholicleague.org/04press_releases/quarter1/040223_Passion.htm

The New Puritanism
Posted on March 4, 2004 at 01:03:12 AM by James Jaeger

"Having failed to tag the movie as anti-Semitic, those who hate everything about Mel’s masterpiece are trying to convince the public not to see it because it’s too violent. Alas, there is a New Puritanism in the land. Violence has now joined cigarettes as the new taboo.

"But as it turns out, violence, like cholesterol, can be both good and bad. Consider New York Daily News reporter Jami Bernard. She voted the super-violent flick, ‘Gladiator,’ best picture for the year 2000. But she brands Mel’s film, ‘a compendium of tortures that would horrify the regulars at an S&M club.’ Yet she is a big fan of the Marquis de Sade—the pervert who wrote the book on S&M—and that is why she liked ‘Quills.’ Peter Rainer also condemns Mel’s movie for delving into ‘the realm of sadomasochism.’ Yet he commended Spielberg for the ‘gentleness’ he brought to ‘Saving Private Ryan.’

"Richard Corliss of Time thinks the only people who will be drawn to ‘The Passion’ are those ‘who can stand to be grossed out as they are edified.’ Yet he calls the ‘body halvings, decapitations, [and] unhandings’ of ‘Gladiator’ a ‘pleasure that we get to watch.’ Newsweek’s David Ansen says Mel’s film will ‘inspire nightmares,’ though he hails as ‘a must-see’ movie a flick about incest (‘The Dreamers’). David Denby of the New Yorker cites ‘The Passion’ as being so violent it ‘falls into the danger of altering Jesus’ message of love into one of hate.’ This is the same guy who said of ‘Schindler’s List’ that ‘the violence [is] neither exaggerated nor minimized.’

"The New Puritans will not win this one. The public does not share their deep-seated aversion to religion nor their phony pacifism."

-William Donohue

Source:
http://www.catholicleague.org/04press_releases/quarter1/040224_Passion.htm

Liabilities of the "Anti-Semitic Sword"
Posted on March 4, 2004 at 01:17:34 AM by James Jaeger

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_2696429,0
0.html

ADL must pay in Evergreen case. Denounced as anti-Semites, pair is owed
millions,
By Karen Abbott, Rocky Mountain News, March 2, 2004

"The Anti-Defamation League must pay a former Evergreen couple it denounced
as anti-Semites more than $10 million, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused
Monday to review the lawsuit. "This is the end of the case," said Bruce
DeBoskey, director of the league's Mountain States Region, which includes
Colorado and Wyoming. Denver attorney Jay Horowitz, who won the case for
William and Dorothy "Dee" Quigley, said the couple was "extraordinarily
delighted" when he told them the news Monday. The widely publicized court
battle drew friend-of-the-court briefs from a variety of national advocacy
organizations worried that the danger of huge legal liabilities threatened
their ability to work for good causes. "There were 15 other human rights
organizations that filed briefs in support of our legal position," DeBoskey
said. The U.S. Supreme Court did not explain why it declined to review the
case. "We're all disappointed," DeBoskey said. "But as a practical matter,
through the entire process, we have continued to serve the community." "We
do remain committed to our fight against hatred and racism and bigotry and
extremism and anti-Semitism," he said. The dispute that raged for nearly a
decade through the federal courts began when the Quigleys' dog fought with
a dog owned by their Jewish neighbors, Mitchell and Candice Aronson, in
their upscale foothills neighborhood. The Aronsons called the ADL in 1994,
after overhearing the Quigleys' telephone remarks on their Radio Shack
police scanner. They said they heard the Quigleys discuss a campaign to
drive them from the neighborhood with Nazi scare tactics, including tossing
lampshades and soap on their lawn, putting pictures of Holocaust ovens on
their house and dousing one of their children with flammable liquid. The
Aronsons were advised to record the conversations. Based on the recordings,
they sued the Quigleys in federal court, Jefferson County prosecutors
charged the Quigleys with hate crimes, and Saul Rosenthal, then the ADL's
regional director, denounced the Quigleys as anti-Semites in a news
conference. The Quigleys got death threats and hate mail. Later, everyone
found out that the recordings became illegal just five days after they
began, when President Clinton signed a new wiretap restriction into federal
law. The hate charges were dropped, and Jefferson County paid the Quigleys
$75,000 after prosecutors concluded Dee Quigley's remarks to a friend were
only in jest. Two lawyers on the ADL's volunteer board, who had advised the
Aronsons, paid the Quigleys $350,000 to settle a lawsuit. The Quigleys and
Aronsons dropped their legal attacks on one another, and neither family
paid the other anything. The Aronsons divorced. The Quigleys moved to
another state. But a federal jury found in 2000, after a four-week trial
before Denver U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham, that the
Anti-Defamation League had defamed the Quigleys. The jury awarded them
$10.5 million. The ADL appealed, and the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals ruled last year that the jury's award stood. DeBoskey said
the long legal proceedings allowed the ADL to set aside funds to pay the
judgment if necessary. Some the money will come from insurance and some
will come from other sources, including donors, but none will come from the
ADL's operating budget, DeBoskey said. Horowitz estimated the judgment now
totals more than $12.5 million, once interest is included. He said the
Quigleys suffered greatly because they were branded as anti-Semites.
William Quigley's career in the motion picture industry was virtually
destroyed, Horowitz said. "They cannot express how life-altering the ADL's
actions have been," Horowitz said. The Quigleys' children were affected
because "they grew up during some of the most trying circumstances of this
case," he said. At one point, the family hired bodyguards. They received a
box of dog feces in the mail. Their own Catholic priest criticized them
from the pulpit."


Source: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_2696429,0
0.html


What is the "anti-Semitic Sword"? See http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/shields.htm


Re(1): Liabilities of the
Posted on March 4, 2004 at 02:03:25 PM by Mitchell Levine

The reason why the courts held the ADL liable for the damages wasn't because they didn't believe that the Quigley's had made antisemitic references, it's because the tapes of their phone conversations were recorded from a police scanner and therefore held to be inadmissable.

Without further evidence that their hilarious material about running their neighbors out of town with a Nazi campaign featuring pictures of the ovens from Aushwitz pasted over their door - of course, the appropriate reaction to a fight with your neigbor's family dog - was intended to be serious, the court couldn't conclude that it wasn't just a 'joke."

That hardly makes it an example of your concept of the all-powerful "Antisemitic Sword," which is supposed to be the use of bogus claims of antisemitism to achieve some type of reward through intimidation and silence. Apparently, even the Quigley's priest thought their behavior was contemptible enough to criticize in a sermon.

Re(2): Liabilities of the
Posted on March 5, 2004 at 10:52:20 AM by Shannon

As usual Mr. Levine doesn't know how to read. He makes up "defending the Jew" stories as he goes along. Here's what the article says:

"The Quigleys moved to
another state. But a federal jury found in 2000, after a four-week trial
before Denver U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham, that the
Anti-Defamation League had DEFAMED the Quigleys."

That's not a legal technicality. The ADL defames the way Levine defames. Levine is the ADL's echo, here at FIRM. They are the same two-headed monster rooted to the same Censorial Body. Criticize Jews? You're a Nazi "anti-Semite."

The Quigley's priest responded to the ADL's hysteria in kind to DEFEND THE JEWS automatically, not by any intrinsic knowledge.

As an Israel propagandist, the big money says Levine is a member of the ADL at the very least.

Re(3): Liabilities of the
Posted on March 7, 2004 at 12:44:58 PM by Mitchell Levine

As usual, this jerk can't read: the court ruled that the statement was defamatory, not because the judge felt that the Quigley's statements weren't antisemitic, or their behavior was appropriate, but because the key piece of evidence was recorded off of a police scanner.

Because the ADL didn't have a warrant for a wiretap, that piece of evidence was inadmissable at trial. The standard of proof for civil trials is "preponderance of evidence," and not "beyond a reasonable doubt," like a criminal one. Without that tape, the court felt they couldn't establish that the Quigley's statements were serious. That means that in this civil case, the preponderance of evidence was on the plaintiff's side.

The Quigley's had real damagages and without the evidence on that tape, the court felt the ADL couldn't prove their case. It doesn't mean that the Quigley's acted commendably, or that the court didn't believe they were antisemitic.

Jaeger's idea of the "Antisemitic Sword" doesn't apply: no one was falsely claiming the Quigley's were antisemitic to obtain any kind of benefit - the court felt they ADL just couldn't establish their statements with the available evidence.

And since I've never said a word about Israel, exactly where you come up with the bogus title "Israel propagandist" is beyond imagination: I'm anti-Likud, anti-Sharon, and anti-Occupation. I guess because I'm not for exterminating Jews that makes me a "Israel propagandist."

A Catastrophic Blunder
Posted on March 4, 2004 at 01:55:44 AM by John Constable

The orchestrated attempt by the Jewish film industry, media and Establishment
represented by the ADL, and the New York Times, Newsweek, and others, to suppress the release of "Passion", to block its distribuition, to smear Mel Gibson as an "anti-semite" and his father as a "Holocaust denier" and at the very least ruin Mel Gibson professionally forever- has failed spectacularly. In the over-reaching the way they did, they made a very big mistake. And, it will cost them dearly. It already has in the way of public credibility and respect.

Essentially, the America people have said a big "fuck you" to organized Jewry, to all the Jewish media nannies out there (and their shabbas goys) who'd been warning them not to see this movie for over a year.

Three days since its Ash Wednesday opening, "Passion" is a bonafide blockbuster. Its earnings thru this weekend will top 100 million. It's now genuine cultural phenomenon. It will likely draw repeat fans. Internationally, it'll be a monster. It may, ultimately exceed over one billion dollars gross. That's "Star Wars" mega-profits territory. By the end of its run (if it has a run) "Passion" could conceivably be the world's #1 favorite movie.

So, at this point, the smear campaign may go on, Jews may endlessly lay heavy hands on Mel Gibson, may hound his dad 'till the ends of time, but it'll all be for naught. A dull, vain, miniscule exercise full of cacophony and pissant blues, but signifying nada.

There's a lesson to be learned here. Don't push people too far. Don't meddle in their religions. Don't think that the only thing that matters is if it's "good for the Jews." Or that Gentiles should heed that for their own damn good. Because, they're sick of it. They're hungry for something more spiritually uplifting than "Seinfeld". If a show "about nothing" (Jerry & friends) were being pitched today- the networks would pass.

American audiences are sick to death of soulless Jewish materialism, of mildly wry, Jewish banalities. And, most catastrophically, the net result of all this is that it may cause Americans to re-think their support for Israel. The thought that perhaps those poor Palestinians are being crucified may very well have already crossed many people's minds.

Re(1): A Catastrophic Blunder
Posted on March 4, 2004 at 11:33:27 AM by Mitchell Levine

There's a lesson to be learned here. Don't push people too far. Don't meddle in their religions. Don't think that the only thing that matters is if it's "good for the Jews." Or that Gentiles should heed that for their own damn good. Because, they're sick of it. They're hungry for something more spiritually uplifting than "Seinfeld". If a show "about nothing" (Jerry & friends) were being pitched today- the networks would pass.

- Very true - Don't meddle in people's religions by exterminating them and ahistorically blaming them for the murder of God because it catharitically relieves you of your own unconscious feelings of guilt, and gives you a false sense of superiority when you envy their achievements.

And the rest of this appalling, moronic bigot's argument - which Jaeger once again took down directly from Jenks' hate site - is about as sound as his claim that the networks would pass on Seinfeld if it were pitched today.

Don't worry, I understand - it's really only discussing two dozen not-very-religious, politically liberal media executives of Eastern European extraction.

Re(2): A Catastrophic Blunder
Posted on March 8, 2004 at 02:19:32 AM by Jake

The reaction to the Passion has been nothing short of SUFFOCATING, and has demonstrated with absolute clarity how pervasive and vile the Jewish thought police have become. To have a group that represents 2.5% of the population (far less when fair-minded Jews are accounted for) dominate the airwaves and printing presses for a solid week on this (non)issue is patently absurd.

Re(3): A Catastrophic Blunder
Posted on March 8, 2004 at 10:09:49 AM by Mitchell Levine

If it was a "non-issue," people wouldn't be interested in talking about it - just a quick glance at the IMDB message board will confirm that numerous Christians are more than a little enthused about discussing the issues surrounding the film. Most of them are just as eager to state their contempt for those who would condemn Jews for the Crucifixion as the ADL is to oppose those who make antisemitic claims.

What dominates printing presses and broadcast airwaves is what people are interested in talking about, mostly controversy. People are interested in talking about The Passion.

People criticizing something that they feel defames them don't constitute a "thought police" any more than Cones and Jaeger do when they complain about the supposed "patterns of bias" that apparently emerge in every historical era of film.

If you're arrested for what you say, then you can complain about having your rights violated: the Jews have as much freedom to express their feelings about the film as the Catholic League.

What is anti-Semitism?
Posted on March 4, 2004 at 05:13:53 PM by James Jaeger

The very word anti-Semite is reminiscent of the term anti-Soviet. It serves a similar function of facilitating imputations of ill-defined guilt.

The strength of Western law has always been its insistence on definition. When we want to minimize an offense, say murder or burglary, we define it as clearly as possible. We want judge and jury to know exactly what the charge means, not only to convict the guilty but, also, just as important, to protect the innocent.

Clear definitions put a burden of proof on the accuser, and properly so. If you falsely accuse a man of murder or burglary, not only is he apt to be acquitted — you may pay a heavy penalty yourself. As a result, few of us are afraid of being charged with murders and burglaries we didn’t commit.

By contrast, the Soviet legal system left prosecutors with a wide discretion in identifying "anti-Soviet" activities. Almost anything irritating to the Soviet state could qualify. An impossible burden of proof lay on the accused; guilt was presumed; acquittals were virtually nonexistent. To be indicted was already to be convicted. Since the charge was undefined, it was unfalsifiable; there was no such thing as a false accusation. As a result, the Russian population lived in fear.

The word anti-Semitic functions like the word anti-Soviet. Being undefined, it’s unfalsifiable. Loose charges of "anti-Semitism" are common, but nobody suffers any penalty for making them, since what is unfalsifiable can never be shown to be false. I once read an article in a Jewish magazine that called the first Star Wars movie "anti- Semitic." I was amazed, but I couldn’t prove the contrary. Who could? And of course people in public life — and often in private life — fear incurring the label, however guiltless they may be.

If you want to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty, you define crimes precisely. If, however, you merely want to maximize the number of convictions, increase the power of the accusers, and create an atmosphere of dread, you define crimes as loosely as possible. We now have an incentive system that might have been designed to promote loose charges of "anti-Semitism."

Silly as all this is from a rational point of view, the label of anti-Semitism is deeply feared. It does signify one thing: Jewish hatred. When I became a conservative as a college freshman, in 1965, nearly all Jews were liberals and Jewish intellectuals associated conservatism with "anti-Semitism." Bill Buckley was often depicted as a fascist or crypto-Nazi; given the smears he endured, it’s understandable that he should go to great lengths to appear pro-Jewish, even if he somewhat overdid it by abetting smears of his fellow conservatives.

The situation changed somewhat when many Jewish intellectuals, upset by liberal criticism of Israel, became what were called "neoconservatives." This term implied no deep adherence to conservative principles, but only the adoption of a few ad hoc principles useful to Zionism, with no basic departure from New Deal liberalism insofar as it was useful to Zionism. "Neoconservatism" was really a sort of "kosher" conservatism.

A few incidents from my years at National Review may illustrate the point.

In the mid 1980s, the neoconservative Earth Mother Midge Decter, wife of Norman Podhoretz, accused Russell Kirk of "anti-Semitism." Kirk’s offense? He had made a mild quip that some neoconservatives appeared to believe that the capital of Western civilization was Tel Aviv. Never mind that he had a point. Kirk had been a founding father of modern conservatism and a National Review columnist for many years, yet the magazine not only failed to rally to his defense against this smear — it didn’t even report the incident! Decter’s attack was the biggest news of the season in the conservative movement, but Buckley was afraid to mention it. So was most of the conservative press.

At about the same time, Israeli troops shot up a Catholic Church on the West Bank during Mass — a horrible sacrilege that sent worshipers fleeing for their lives and provoked an angry protest from the Vatican. (The congregation had planned a march after Mass to protest the beating of a Palestinian priest by Israeli soldiers.) I mentioned the incident to Buckley, a fellow Catholic, at an editorial meeting and gave him a news clipping describing the event in detail; as I expected, the magazine ignored this too. Even the violent persecution of Catholics by Jews was unmentionable — in a "conservative" magazine owned and run by a Catholic.

When the Pollard spy case broke, the magazine called for the death penalty for Pollard — but excused Israel for sponsoring him, on grounds that it’s normal for friendly nations to spy on each other!

And so it went. I could have understood a favorable attitude toward Israel, having been pro-Israel for many years myself; but surely even this alliance must have occasional drawbacks. From time to time it’s necessary to criticize even friends. If we criticized our own government every week, why not Israel once in a while? But the magazine consistently refused to find the slightest fault with Israel, and since I left in 1993 it has gotten much worse. Today it has become assertively slavish, to a comical degree.

By 1993 I’d had enough. I wrote a column correcting some of the things Bill had written about me, in which I mentioned his evident fear; I wrote that he was "jumpy about Jews." This was a pretty mild description of his terror, but the column got me fired, just as I expected. Since then it has become a neoconservative legend that I was fired for "anti-Semitism," but the truth is that it was far more personal than that. Bill knew me too well to make such a charge. I was fired for making him look bad. He considered making others look bad his prerogative.

-Joe Sobran

Balance of article at http://www.sobran.com/fearofjews.shtml

Re(1): What is anti-Semitism?
Posted on March 9, 2004 at 07:00:13 PM by B. Willis

This is such a great article even Levine has nothing to say.

Re(2): What is anti-Semitism?
Posted on March 9, 2004 at 08:04:34 PM by Mitchell Levine

I've already said everything I've had to say about the subject.

If you like, you can read what his former publisher, American conservative leader William F. Buckley, had to say about it in the full chapter he devoted to Sobran in his 1994 book In Search of Antisemitism.

It's why he fired him.

Re(1): What is anti-Semitism?
Posted on March 10, 2004 at 10:59:31 AM by Joachim Martillo

Sobran is too verbose.

Popular American discourse is sloppy. Jewish Studies scholars prefer the term Judeophobia to describe hatred or fear of (either modern Rabbinic or modern Karaite) Jews or of Judeans during the Persian, Hellenistic or Greco-Roman periods.

Anti-Semitism is a specific instance of Judeophobia. It is a political ideology of the late 19th and first half of the 20th century. Anti-Semitism is illegitimate hatred or fear of Jews on the basis of pseudoscientific biological determinist or social Darwinist theories. It was associated with powerful political parties in Central and Eastern Europe. Anti-Semitism is for the most part non-existent today, and racist Ashkenazi Americans and racist Israeli Zionists use the accusation of anti-Semitism as a slur to intimidate their critics.

Hating Zionism and the State of Israel as well as the racist Ashkenazi Americans that support the continued existence of the State of Israel is perfectly legitimate Judeophobia.

Murderous racist genocidal Eastern European Ashkenazi Zionists stole Palestine from the native population and have been carrying out their vile genocidal program by stages ever sense.

Zionism today as a form of state-sponsored violent racist is the equivalent of slavery in the 19th century, and the State of Israel is the ethical equivalent of the Confederacy. Just as Abolitionists demanded the complete abolition of slavery, neo-Abolitionists demand the complete abolition of Zionism. Just as the USA had to destroy the Confederacy, the USA has an inescapable ethical obligation to destroy the State of Israel.

Fighting against Anti-Semitism and other illegitimate forms of Judeophobia is an insignificant activity. The defining cause of the 21st century will be the abolition of Zionism, the destruction of the State of Israel and undoing the damage that Ashkenazi racism has caused in the USA.

All true patriotic Americans must be on guard against Ashkenazi racism and be ready to fight against it at all times.


Cardamon.Org

Re(2): What is anti-Semitism?
Posted on March 10, 2004 at 09:57:26 PM by Mitchell Levine

No, Mr. Martillo, the defining cause of the 21st Century will be the realization of Mr. Cones and Mr. Jaeger that this hateful bullshit is off-topic and deletable.

The only thing that needs to be abolished is your state of mind.

The Passion: Jewish Tradition Accepts Responsibility for Killing Jesus
Posted on March 8, 2004 at 10:09:58 PM by W.S.


The Passion and the Jews,
by Paul Gottfried, LewRockwell.com, March 8, 2004

"John Zmirak (in The American Conservative) has written a forceful and timely defense of Mel Gibson’s reverential cinematic treatment of The Passion of the Christ, and one can find much to admire in his criticism of Christianity-bashers. One can never vent enough contempt in dealing with the whiney Abe Foxman, who is beginning to surpass even Al Sharpton as a victimological nudnik. Zmirak rightly stresses that anti-anti-Semites dislike pious Christians more than they like Jews ...

A recent interview in the Israeli newspaper Maariv with the former Israeli minister of labor and a leading spokesman for the Sephardic Orthodox party Shlomo Beniziri, revealed what traditional Rabbinic Jews still believe about the death of Jesus. On the basis of the received Talmudic account, Beniziri proclaims that the Gospel story is "nonsense." The Orthodox leader goes on to explain that Jesus was a rebellious student in a Rabbinic academy, who after a proper judicial proceeding, was executed by the Sanhedrin. The judges "took him to a high roof and threw him crashing to the ground." To send a message to others, the Sanhedrin then took his lifeless body and displayed it on a crossbeam. Note that all of this is unrelieved fantasy, which cannot be attributed to Christian persecution of Jews. The relevant Talmudic statements came from Jews living in a non-Christian society; and Maimonides, who famously expanded on this interpretation, and Rabbi Beniziri were born and grew up in non-Western Muslim countries.

While there are real theological differences that separate Jews and Christians, the offensive references to Jesus that by now everyone knows about should have about as much standing as a truth-claim as the view that all Jews are Christ-killers. Perhaps it is time for Abe Foxman and the editorial board of the New Republic to give at least some consideration to the festering problem of Jewish bigotry. It is for me inconceivable that such a sentiment has nothing to do with why American Jewish organizations appeal successfully to their donor base by evoking the specter of Christian traditionalists. This is happening not in Tsarist Russia but in a country founded by Protestant sectarians, who have never persecuted Jews, and the campaign of fear and loathing is being directed against enthusiastically philosemitic Christians.

It is unlikely that contemporary Jews have forgotten entirely about medieval Rabbinic prejudices. American and Canadian Jews are at most three generations removed from Eastern European ghettos where the inhabitants certainly listened to Rabbi Beniziri’s pseudo-history. As a boy, I recall that "religious" Jews were always fuming against Christians, including those who treated them well, and that the Rabbinic narratives about Jesus always had a way of surfacing during these invectives. In short, the myth had a way of trumping truth. One might hear from one and the same person the historical fact, that ancient Jews had lost their right under Roman rule to execute anyone generations before Jesus’s death, and then the mind-boggling Talmudic narrative. If the historical fact is correct, then the Rabbinic account is fictive. But while being fictive, it is also gratuitously nasty; and since it has no Jewish legal standing, it might be nice if Jewish religious authorities disavowed this garbled account. But such an honorable course would have no more appeal to Jews qua Christian victims than admitting the truth about black Africans keeping and selling slaves would have for American civil rights leaders. It is easier to have public fits about the bigotry embedded in the Gospels or in the hearts of white people than to acknowledge the questionable legacies of designated victims.

Liberal Christians are the classical enablers in both situations. Why should Jews reassess their own history of prejudice when they enjoy the status of Christian victims, courtesy of the Christian world? In this situation, David Klinghoffer, Abe Foxman, and Elie Wiesel will all go on sharing the fruits of moral success. And this is bad for Jews and Christians alike."

How Wrong Can Hollywood Be?
Posted on March 8, 2004 at 11:23:01 PM by John Cones

Considering that Hollywood is supposedly motivated primarily by the prospects for making money with films, and the fact that those Hollywood-based distributors that had an opportunity to distribute Mel Gibson's film erroneously chose not to, how many other times has Hollywood demonstrated such horrible judgment? The possibilities boggle the mind!

John Cones

Re(2): How Wrong Can Hollywood Be?
Posted on March 9, 2004 at 06:58:50 AM by Joachim Martillo

Do you seriously believe that the studios did any sort of marketing research on the effect that releasing The Passion of The Christ would have on the future lineup?

Gross ticket receipts from Ashkenazi Americans are an insignificant source of revenue for the studios, and I doubt whether even most Ashkenazi Americans would decide not to view a studio's other releases on the basis of its involvement in the production or distribution of Gibson's film.

BTW, I do not understand the sense of "pall" in Levine's comment.

Main Entry: 2pall
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, cloak, mantle, from Old English pæll, from Latin pallium
1 : PALLIUM 1a
2 a : a square of linen usually stiffened with cardboard that is used to cover the chalice b (1) : a heavy cloth draped over a coffin (2) : a coffin especially when holding a body
3 : something that covers or conceals; especially : an overspreading element that produces an effect of gloom

Cardamon.Org

Re(3): How Wrong Can Hollywood Be?
Posted on March 9, 2004 at 11:16:42 AM by Mitchell Levine

I used it in the last sense: a wet blanket.

They didn't need to do any marketing research to infer that the social stigma attached to bigotry would be harmful to their brand image - history and common sense are more than enough to establish that.

The consequences of that kind of negative positioning reach far beyond just the loss of actual ticket sales to Jews.

Just ask Chuck D.

Re(4): How Wrong Can Hollywood Be?
Posted on March 10, 2004 at 08:44:45 AM by Joachim Martillo

I have to wonder in which alternate reality Levine resides. Hollywood has been making lots of money in trading on bigoted and prejudiced stereotypes for decades. Just look at all the negative depictions that we can find of Chinese, Blacks, Arabs, Muslims, Catholics, Hispanics, American Indians, Russians, Turks, etc. ad infinitum.

I am not even certain that The Passion of The Christ will suffer from low ticket sales among Ashkenazi Americans. Even if we accept the common false and twisted Ashkenazi belief that The Passion of The Christ is some sort of hate movie targeting Jews, Ashkenazim historically are one of the biggest consumer groups of hate materials they perceive to target Jews. Moreover, Ashkenazim are often prominent among the purveyors and creators of hate materials that target Jews.

Levine's position has so little contact with reality that we need to deconstruct it. First we must determine whether he is a racist bigot himself.

Zionism is a racist ideology because it presupposes that the historical, ethnic or national rights of Jews to Palestine are superior to the human rights of the native population -- a position that corresponds to classical Eastern European voelkisch racism.

Zionism is a racist ideology because it privileges a colonial settler population over the native population -- a basic principle of colonialist racism.

Thus, Zionism combines the worst of Eastern European voelkisch and colonialist racism. All true patriotic Americans must unequivocally despise Zionism, Zionists and those that support Zionism.

Does Levine forthrightly and categorically condemn Zionist racism? If he does not, he is just another Ashkenazi American racist, and we can legitimately dismiss any of his discourse as just another attempt of a racist Ashkenazi to protect racist Ashkenazi privilege either here in the USA or in Palestine, where murderous racist genocidal Ashkenazi Zionist thieves and interlopers stole the country from the native population.


Cardamon.Org

Re(5): How Wrong Can Hollywood Be?
Posted on March 10, 2004 at 06:20:40 PM by Mitchell Levine

I have to wonder in which alternate reality Levine resides. Hollywood has been making lots of money in trading on bigoted and prejudiced stereotypes for decades. Just look at all the negative depictions that we can find of Chinese, Blacks, Arabs, Muslims, Catholics, Hispanics, American Indians, Russians, Turks, etc. ad infinitum.

- Apparently in your "reality," there haven't been massive upheavals in public standards of political correctness in the last twenty years, and the vast majority of the films that contained those stereotypes could still get made. Try pitching Soul Man II, for example, and see what reaction you get from the studios.

Also, you evidently didn't notice that sensibilities defing what does and does not constitute a stereotype have changed as well, as would seem to be demonstrated in Spike Lee's recent complaint about God being played by Morgan Freeman in Bruce Almighty. You never would have heard Sammy Davis Jr. complaining about getting that role.

Nor, for that matter, did you pick up on the very pronounced trend of color-blind casting in Hollywood right now, as opposed to the era ending in the 70's and 80's when Black actors only got roles written specifically for Black characters. Sidney Poitier and Billy Dee Williams never got the chance to play leading roles like the ones Samuel L. Jackson, Denzel Washington,Will Smith, and many others do, let alone even dream about playing the President of the United States as, once again, Morgan Freeman did in Deep Impact.

The problem is that all of society was in large part completely insensitive to race and ethnicity in earlier times, which didn't begin to change until the Civil Rights era in the 60's. In tthe years prior to that, the social stigma attached to bigotry ranged from practically non-existent to only moderately significant. Hollywood, being a barometer of the social climate, reflected that. These are different times - not perfect, but different.

Try syndicating the old Amos and Andy Show and you'll see a way bigger uproar than the one you did with The Passion, if not outright civil war.

I am not even certain that The Passion of The Christ will suffer from low ticket sales among Ashkenazi Americans.

- You seem to have forgotten that this debacle started generating negative publicity about a year ago, something that the studios very reasonably didn't want to endure, and neither would I, and had no obligation to.


Even if we accept the common false and twisted Ashkenazi belief that The Passion of The Christ is some sort of hate movie targeting Jews

- No one that I know personally believes that it's a hate movie, including myself.

Ashkenazim historically are one of the biggest consumer groups of hate materials they perceive to target Jews.

- Yes, I'm sure the National Alliance sells most of its literature to Jews. Very insightful.

Moreover, Ashkenazim are often prominent among the purveyors and creators of hate materials that target Jews.

- Apparently, you must have just finished toking on a stem. Wait a few minutes to come down before hitting the Enter key.

Zionism is a racist ideology because it presupposes that the historical, ethnic or national rights of Jews to Palestine are superior to the human rights of the native population -- a position that corresponds to classical Eastern European voelkisch racism.

- That's absurd: "Volkisch racism" was specifically antisemitic, and postulated that Aryans were the Master Race whose birthright was to rule the world, something that Jews certainly don't claim for themselves and neither do Zionists.

And just to begin with, Jews ARE NOT a race! Anyone who wishes to can be Jewish. For another, Jews ARE part of the native population of Palestine, and have been for thousands of years. Also, large numbers of Palestinian people are not natives of that area, and are related to natives of Egypt and Jordan that emigrated there in modern times as well.

The traditional owner of the land, as any history textbook will confirm, was neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis, but the Ottomans, whom ruled it for 1200 years. The Palestinians were sharecroppers that didn't develop a national consciousness until the time of the 1st Aliyah in the early years of the last century.

The Turks wanted out of their war with the British Empire and thus agreed to legitimately sell out their land to the Jews, at way inflated prices considering that it was mostly sand.

The Palestinians wanted to get out from under the thumb of the Turks themselves, which is why both Faisal and Husseini agreed to a partition plan, and Transjordan was formed.

None of this has anything to do with "race," or any presumption of "superiority." The Arabs, as natives of the area, got 22 countries, and the Jews, as natives and a deposed historical ruler of the land, got the only scrap of real estate on the continent without oil.

Zionism is a racist ideology because it privileges a colonial settler population over the native population -- a basic principle of colonialist racism.

- That's ridiculous: the Zionists never said anything about race, and, in fact, both are Semites and together constitute the "native population." A Jewish nation is no more "racist" than a Muslim one, and if the Islamic fundamentalist states are allowed to exist, Israel should be as well.

What's necessary is that the Palestinians are granted the opportunity to have a secure, prosperous state of their own, whether or not they choose to continue to live in Israel. The American Jewish community needs to mobilize their opposition to the Occupation, and step up American pressure on the Likud. The Palestinians should also be entitled to equal protection and aid from the U.S. as well.

Does Levine forthrightly and categorically condemn Zionist racism?

- Levine forthrightly and categorically condemns any kind of racism - including the blatant anti-Black racism embarassingly promoted by the JDL and Kahane-Kai - and just as forthrightly and categorically denies that there is anything more "racist" about Zionism than there is about the Palestinians' (primarily, excluding the Druze) Islamic fundamentalism.

The Jews are equally historically tied to that land and equally deserve their share of it, as the Palestinians do as well.


If he does not, he is just another Ashkenazi American racist

- I've never met an "Ashkenazi American racist," but I don't know anyone from Kahane's gang. I certainly don't know anyone that considers Jews "racially superior" to non-Jews, or even consider, as anthropologists don't, Jews a "race."

, and we can legitimately dismiss any of his discourse as just another attempt of a racist Ashkenazi to protect racist Ashkenazi privilege either here in the USA or in Palestine, where murderous racist genocidal Ashkenazi Zionist thieves and interlopers stole the country from the native population.

- You're a liar.

Re(6): How Wrong Can Hollywood Be?
Posted on March 23, 2004 at 09:38:09 AM by Joachim Martillo

- I have to wonder in which alternate reality Levine resides. Hollywood has been making lots of money in trading on bigoted and prejudiced stereotypes for decades. Just look at all the negative depictions that we can find of Chinese, Blacks, Arabs, Muslims, Catholics, Hispanics, American Indians, Russians, Turks, etc. ad infinitum.

-- Apparently in your "reality," there haven't been massive upheavals in public standards of political correctness in the last twenty years, and the vast majority of the films that contained those stereotypes could still get made. Try pitching Soul Man II, for example, and see what reaction you get from the studios.

Apparently, David Mamet does not pay attention to Levine, for he just released Spartan, yet another bigoted anti-Arab film.

It is worth pointing out that Israel is probably the world center for the white slave trade, which is dominated by ethnic Ashkenazim. Mamet is practicing racist psychological projection.

Re(7): How Wrong Can Hollywood Be?
Posted on March 23, 2004 at 02:06:01 PM by Mitchell Levine

Apparently, David Mamet does not pay attention to Levine, for he just released Spartan, yet another bigoted anti-Arab film.

- Apparently, this shmuck doesn't need a factual foundation for his tirades: he's already referring to a film he hasn't seen (and probably knows little about) as "bigoted."

Re(8): How Wrong Can Hollywood Be?
Posted on March 23, 2004 at 03:17:37 PM by Joachim Martillo



Apparently, David Mamet does not pay attention to Levine, for he just released Spartan, yet another bigoted anti-Arab film.

- Apparently, this shmuck doesn't need a factual foundation for his tirades: he's already referring to a film he hasn't seen (and probably knows little about) as "bigoted."

-- Levine like most Ashkenazi Americans is so racist anti-Arab anti-Muslim that he cannot detect obvious demonization when he sees it. It does not matter that the movie has a complex ending that challenges the early assumptions of Val Kilmer. The movie makes the connection between white slavery, Dubai, the UAE and Arabs in general. The viewer comes away with the connection implanted in his mind.

-- I have worked in Dubai. I have many American female friends -- even blonds -- that live in Dubai a good part of the year without problems.

-- The prop of Arab white slaving is a fantasy of Ashkenazi American anti-Arab racism, in which one of the major criminal activities of Ashkenazim is projected onto Arabs.

-- The major hub of white slavery in the ME is Israel. Practically, everyone involved in the trade is Ashkenazi. Since Mamet goes out of his way not to represent the facts and to project white slaving onto Arabs, I have to assume that he is just another Ashkenazi anti-Arab racist, or he simply reflexively projected the anti-Arab racism of other Ashkenazim into his film.

-- To avoid anti-Arab racism, the film should have shown brutal Israeli Ashkenazi white slavers and pimps. The investigation should have focused on Tel Aviv not Dubai.

-- Anyway, I am not alone in my assessment.

-- http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D04E1DF133EF931A25750C0A9629C8B63

-- http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/screenreviews/spartan.htm

-- http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2004/03/12/kilmer_comes_to_the_rescue_in_mamets_spartan_setting/

-- http://www.boxofficemojo.com/review/movies/?id=spartan.htm

Re(9): How Wrong Can Hollywood Be?
Posted on March 23, 2004 at 04:53:28 PM by Mitchell Levine

- Levine like most Ashkenazi Americans is so racist anti-Arab anti-Muslim that he cannot detect obvious demonization when he sees it.

- I am not "anti-Arab" or "anti-Muslim" in the slightest, nor have I ever displayed even the slightest hint of those traits. Your assertion otherwise is nothing less than slander.

I AM anti-idiot, so like anyone else with the ability to reason competently, I reject your moronic, hateful bullshit.

It does not matter that the movie has a complex ending that challenges the early assumptions of Val Kilmer.

- It CERTAINLY does matter, and the actual conspiracy is shown to originate in the White House itself, and Arabs are vindicated.

If anything, what's dramatized are the prejudices of Americans like Kilmer, and all you've done here is display your own.


The movie makes the connection between white slavery, Dubai, the UAE and Arabs in general. The viewer comes away with the connection implanted in his mind.

- Hardly: the viewer comes away with the idea that the world is a lot more complicated than they thought, and is challenged to re-examine their own beliefs.

Hollywood HAS been guilty of mischaracterizing both Arabs and Islam, but Mamet is not.

-- Levine like most Ashkenazi Americans is so racist anti-Arab anti-Muslim that he cannot detect obvious demonization when he sees it.

- I am not "anti-Arab" or "anti-Muslim" in the slightest, nor have I ever displayed even the slightest hint of those traits. Your assertion otherwise is nothing less than slander.

As I pointed out, I was not the only viewer that felt Mamet was reinforcing the demonization of Arabs and Muslim in American pop culture. As racist Ashkenazim are the main producers of this type of demonization, Mamet should have thought twice before using this material.

He could have used his own ethnic group, Eastern European Ashkenazim, which has long been associated with pornography, pimping and white slavery both in popular imagination and in fact. Then, I would not have had a problem with the material.

Since you do not have a problem with the movie, I have to put you in the same category as white segregationists that used to claim they loved black people as long as the "darkies" kept with their own. You are just another racist Ashkenazi American, who is incapable of perceiving his own racism. From reading through the AJC statistics on Ashkenazi Americans, at least 80% of Ashkenazi Americans fit into this category. Therefore, I have over an 80% chance of being correct -- probably more like 95% on the basis of your submissions to this website.

- I AM anti-idiot, so like anyone else with the ability to reason competently, I reject your moronic, hateful bullshit.

Did you do an association test of audience? I have a fairly good idea, which ethnic group would be associated with pimp, white slaver and brutality in the minds of most of the audience after watching the movie. Is it not interesting that the ethnicity most prominently associated with pimping, white slaving and brutality (e.g., racism, murder, genocide and theft) in the ME and Eastern Europe is the Israeli Ashkenazi ethnic group, but Mamet picks on Arabs for his bad guys of misdirection.

-- It does not matter that the movie has a complex ending that challenges the early assumptions of Val Kilmer.

- It CERTAINLY does matter, and the actual conspiracy is shown to originate in the White House itself, and Arabs are vindicated.

How would you have felt if Mamet had used the much more probable scenario in which the faux bad guys were Israeli Ashkenazim? I would wager that you and Foxman would accuse Mamet of self-hating anti-Semitism.

- If anything, what's dramatized are the prejudices of Americans like Kilmer, and all you've done here is display your own.

There certainly are authors that have managed to achieve such a result. I would put Caroline Cooney, who wrote "The Terrorist" in that category. The movie simply is not so well written, and Mament does depict the brutal Arabs of racist Ashkenazi propaganda instead of the vile murderous racist genocidal Israeli Ashkenazim of daily reality in the ME. [By the way "The Terrorist" would transfer to the screen very easily. Why has it not appeared as a movie? Could the racism of Ashkenazi Americans that pick stories possibly be involved in ignoring the work of one of the most popular young adult authors?]

-- The movie makes the connection between white slavery, Dubai, the UAE and Arabs in general. The viewer comes away with the connection implanted in his mind.

- Hardly: the viewer comes away with the idea that the world is a lot more complicated than they thought, and is challenged to re-examine their own beliefs.

The reality is not so complicated in the ME. Vicious racist murderous genocidal Ashkenazi thieves and interlopers stole Palestine from the native population and committed massive genocide in 1947-8 including mass murder and ethnic cleansing. Racist Israeli Zionists are continuing the genocidal Zionist program to this day.

Where was this major aspect ME reality in the movie? I did not see it. And because you are just another vicious Ashkenazi American racist, you do not even perceive it as missing just one day after Sharon, the archetypal vicious racist genocidal Ashkenazi thief, interloper and murderer, had a blind, quadriplegic old man blown up along with at least 7 bystanders with a missile shot from a helicopter when the fat slob could simply have had the Shaykh arrested.

- Hollywood HAS been guilty of mischaracterizing both Arabs and Islam, but Mamet is not.

Both Mamet and you are typical racist Ashkenazi Americans. Such racists certainly do not belong in the movie industry. Racist Ashkenazi Americans that support Zionism either directly through contributions to Zionist causes or indirectly by racist demonization of Arabs and Muslims should be sent to prison camps as supporters of Zionist terrorism. They should be tried before military tribunals, convicted and stripped of all their assets to defray the costs of Zionist-inspired adventurism in Iraq and to pay compensation to Palestinian victims of Zionism.


Cardamon.Org

Re(11): How Wrong Can Hollywood Be?
Posted on March 23, 2004 at 07:03:44 PM by Mitchell Levine

As I pointed out, I was not the only viewer that felt Mamet was reinforcing the demonization of Arabs and Muslim in American pop culture. As racist Ashkenazim are the main producers of this type of demonization, Mamet should have thought twice before using this material.

- The point, idiot, was to force the viewer to confront their own stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims - the fact that the viewer is willing to entertain the idea that Muslims WERE likely cultprits implicates them.

In case you didn't notice - and which you apparently didn't - the whole film is exceedingly anti-Bush and neoconservative, and was intended to be a metaphor for American involvement in Iraq. The only evidence you have that the film is "anti-Islamic" is that Mamet is Jewish and you're an antisemitic dickhead.

Also, there's no evidence whatsoever that Ashkenazi Jews are any more likely to be "racist" then anyone else, especially considering the fact that, unlike whatever group you belong to, they started the NAACP and Amnesty International.

Since you do not have a problem with the movie, I have to put you in the same category as white segregationists that used to claim they loved black people as long as the "darkies" kept with their own. You are just another racist Ashkenazi American, who is incapable of perceiving his own racism. From reading through the AJC statistics on Ashkenazi Americans, at least 80% of Ashkenazi Americans fit into this category. Therefore, I have over an 80% chance of being correct -- probably more like 95% on the basis of your submissions to this website.

- What a pile of horseshit: your definition of a "racist" is anyone who doesn't agree with your idiotic drivel, and points out the vast stupidity of everything you say and believe.

I would never support anything like segregationism, certainly don't believe that any race is inferior or superior to another, or any more or less entitled to rights than another, and the fact you're saying so just underscores that my estimation of your moral character is correct.

You simply hate Jews and would do or say anything no matter how incorrect to smear them. You consider a "racist" to be anyone who doesn't hate Jews and want to murder them with their bare hands like you do.

The reality is not so complicated in the ME. Vicious racist murderous genocidal Ashkenazi thieves and interlopers stole Palestine from the native population and committed massive genocide in 1947-8 including mass murder and ethnic cleansing. Racist Israeli Zionists are continuing the genocidal Zionist program to this day.

- You're a liar.

Both Mamet and you are typical racist Ashkenazi Americans. Such racists certainly do not belong in the movie industry. Racist Ashkenazi Americans that support Zionism either directly through contributions to Zionist causes or indirectly by racist demonization of Arabs and Muslims should be sent to prison camps as supporters of Zionist terrorism. They should be tried before military tribunals, convicted and stripped of all their assets to defray the costs of Zionist-inspired adventurism in Iraq and to pay compensation to Palestinian victims of Zionism.

- No, those who spread Nazi-esque lies like you should be forced to perform community service for all the people harmed by your evil world conspiracy of hatred; it would be a good warm-up for what eternity will be like when Satan finally decides you've done enough, and calls you home to Hell.

And it's quite evident that you are a big fan of the idea that everyone who holds beliefs that you don't should be exterminated, so you can stop your bullshit pretense of caring for other people, and just be what you are - a sick, genocidal fascist.

-- As I pointed out, I was not the only viewer that felt Mamet was reinforcing the demonization of Arabs and Muslim in American pop culture. As racist Ashkenazim are the main producers of this type of demonization, Mamet should have thought twice before using this material.

- The point, idiot, was to force the viewer to confront their own stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims - the fact that the viewer is willing to entertain the idea that Muslims WERE likely cultprits implicates them.

No, Spartan is just a more subtle form of racist Ashkenazi American demonization of Arabs and Muslims. 90% of the film gets spent in reinforcing racist Ashkenazi American propaganda about Arabs and Muslims, and then 10 minutes is spent in suggesting that maybe the situation is more complex than it seemed. With what view of Arabs is the audience likely to leave?

In any case, I have no doubt that racist Ashkenazi chauvinist bigots like Foxman and Levine would make all sorts of apoplectic accusations of anti-Semitism if Suleiman or Elias had made a film in which an Israeli Ashkenazi white slave connection were central to 90% of the film and then 10 minutes were spent in suggesting that maybe the situation were more complex than it seemed.

- In case you didn't notice - and which you apparently didn't - the whole film is exceedingly anti-Bush and neoconservative, and was intended to be a metaphor for American involvement in Iraq. The only evidence you have that the film is "anti-Islamic" is that Mamet is Jewish and you're an antisemitic dickhead.

So what? Racist Ashkenazi Americans are often very anti-Bush and there is an internal Ashkenazi American split over Neoconservatism. It mirrors the split between the less openly genocidal murderous racist Zionist left like Peres and the more openly genocidal murderous racist Zionist right like Sharon.

- Also, there's no evidence whatsoever that Ashkenazi Jews are any more likely to be "racist" then anyone else, especially considering the fact that, unlike whatever group you belong to, they started the NAACP and Amnesty International.

In point of fact, there is tremendous evidence of the racism of Ashkenazi Americans and of Ashkenazim in Eastern Europe over the last two centuries. Ashkenazi Americans are not obviously more racist than other Eastern European Americans, but the most murderous genocidal people on the planet are often Eastern Europeans, and Ashkenazim have very typical Eastern European attitudes and behavior.

In general the Ashkenazi involvement with the NAACP and AI has mostly been opportunistic. In some sense Ashkenazim try to recreate the conditions of Pre-Partition Poland in which Ashkenazim were the favored (junior) partners of the Polish nobility in the exploitation of Polish, Ruthenian and Ukrainian peasants.

By supporting civil rights for Blacks, Ashkenazi Americans made sure that there was a much larger target available xenophobic and ethnoracial bigots. Lately, Ashkenazi Americans involved in civil rights have been working to make sure that Blacks do not analogize the Black condition that results from historic state sponsored violent racism (slavery) in the USA with the Palestinian condition that results from ongoing state sponsored violent racism (Zionism) in historic Palestine.

The Ashkenazi role in AI is exactly the same.

Zionism is inherent a vicious racist ideology

1) because Zionism presupposes that the ethnic, historic or national rights of Jews to Palestine are superior to the human rights of the native population to Palestine -- classic Eastern European voelkisch racism.

2) because Zionism privileges a colonial settler population over the native population -- classic colonialist racism.

Obviously Zionism is a criminal racist ideology that every decent human being should oppose. Zionism is the exact Ashkenazi counterpart of German Nazism with the qualification that Zionism developed several decades before Nazism and may have contributed some of its fundamental ideas to Nazism.

There are so many Ashkenazim involved with AI that AI would certainly have condemned German Nazism in the 30s if AI had existed, but because Zionist Israel is today one of the most obvious violators of human rights, the racist Ashkenazim involved in AI have managed to bind AI to the principle that AI only condemns specific instances of human rights violations and does not condemn ideologies.

-- Since you do not have a problem with the movie, I have to put you in the same category as white segregationists that used to claim they loved black people as long as the "darkies" kept with their own. You are just another racist Ashkenazi American, who is incapable of perceiving his own racism. From reading through the AJC statistics on Ashkenazi Americans, at least 80% of Ashkenazi Americans fit into this category. Therefore, I have over an 80% chance of being correct -- probably more like 95% on the basis of your submissions to this website.

- What a pile of horseshit: your definition of a "racist" is anyone who doesn't agree with your idiotic drivel, and points out the vast stupidity of everything you say and believe.

I follow the definition of the 1st edition of the AHD: the belief that one's ethnic stock is superior.

However, you look at it Zionists believe they are superior (have superior rights or more privileges) to Palestinians. Zionism is racism. 80% of Ashkenazi Americans according to AJC statistics support Zionism or identify with Zionist Israel. Therefore 80% of Ashkenazi Americans support or identify with racism. As far as I concerned 80% of Ashkenazi Americans are racists and therefore betray the fundamental American principle of antiracism. Ashkenazi Americans constitute a fundamentally disloyal unpatriotic anti-American racist community with the American body politic. They are a treasonous fifth column within the USA.

- I would never support anything like segregationism, certainly don't believe that any race is inferior or superior to another, or any more or less entitled to rights than another, and the fact you're saying so just underscores that my estimation of your moral character is correct.

Fish or cut bait. Categorically, clearly and absolutely condemn, reject, renounce and denounce Zionism in this forum. State clearly that fundamental American principles require the repatriation of the native Palestinians to pre-1967 Israel, the granting of equal citizenship and the return of plundered properties to their rightful owners. State unequivocally that unless Israel starts to implement these demands, the USA should force Israeli Zionists if necessary by a declaration of war.

Until you make clear your total rejection of Ashkenazi Nazism in this manner, I have to consider you a racist, an Ashkenazi Nazi, and a traitor to everything for which the USA is supposed to stand.

- You simply hate Jews and would do or say anything no matter how incorrect to smear them. You consider a "racist" to be anyone who doesn't hate Jews and want to murder them with their bare hands like you do.

I have no opinion on Jews. I hate racists, and in fact, I find cryptoracists like the vast majority of Ashkenazi Americans even more despicable than open racists, whom I despise totally.

-- The reality is not so complicated in the ME. Vicious racist murderous genocidal Ashkenazi thieves and interlopers stole Palestine from the native population and committed massive genocide in 1947-8 including mass murder and ethnic cleansing. Racist Israeli Zionists are continuing the genocidal Zionist program to this day.

- You're a liar.

Nope. The documentation of Ashkenazi genocidalism and Nazism is copious. See http://www.counterpunch.org/shavit01162004.html .

-- Both Mamet and you are typical racist Ashkenazi Americans. Such racists certainly do not belong in the movie industry. Racist Ashkenazi Americans that support Zionism either directly through contributions to Zionist causes or indirectly by racist demonization of Arabs and Muslims should be sent to prison camps as supporters of Zionist terrorism. They should be tried before military tribunals, convicted and stripped of all their assets to defray the costs of Zionist-inspired adventurism in Iraq and to pay compensation to Palestinian victims of Zionism.

- No, those who spread Nazi-esque lies like you should be forced to perform community service for all the people harmed by your evil world conspiracy of hatred; it would be a good warm-up for what eternity will be like when Satan finally decides you've done enough, and calls you home to Hell.

I only spread the truth. Racist Ashkenazi Americans like you are the enemies of the human race. We need a serious purge in the USA or racist traitors in the media, academia and the government because vicious racist Ashekanzi Americans like you are destroying the moral fabric of the nation and are turning the basic American principles into the basic American lies.

- And it's quite evident that you are a big fan of the idea that everyone who holds beliefs that you don't should be exterminated, so you can stop your bullshit pretense of caring for other people, and just be what you are - a sick, genocidal fascist.

You are the one engaging in the Big Goebbelsian lie. You need only denounce Ashkenazi American and Zionist racism as outlined above and demand the purging of racist Ashkenazi American traitors from the media, academia and the government to prove that you are a loyal patriotic American committed to the USA and not to murderous racist Ashkenazi tribalism in Palestine.




Cardamon.Org

-- As I pointed out, I was not the only viewer that felt Mamet was reinforcing the demonization of Arabs and Muslim in American pop culture. As racist Ashkenazim are the main producers of this type of demonization, Mamet should have thought twice before using this material.

- The point, idiot, was to force the viewer to confront their own stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims - the fact that the viewer is willing to entertain the idea that Muslims WERE likely cultprits implicates them.

No, Spartan is just a more subtle form of racist Ashkenazi American demonization of Arabs and Muslims. 90% of the film gets spent in reinforcing racist Ashkenazi American propaganda about Arabs and Muslims, and then 10 minutes is spent in suggesting that maybe the situation is more complex than it seemed. With what view of Arabs is the audience likely to leave?

In any case, I have no doubt that racist Ashkenazi chauvinist bigots like Foxman and Levine would make all sorts of apoplectic accusations of anti-Semitism if Suleiman or Elias had made a film in which an Israeli Ashkenazi white slave connection were central to 90% of the film and then 10 minutes were spent in suggesting that maybe the situation were more complex than it seemed.

- In case you didn't notice - and which you apparently didn't - the whole film is exceedingly anti-Bush and neoconservative, and was intended to be a metaphor for American involvement in Iraq. The only evidence you have that the film is "anti-Islamic" is that Mamet is Jewish and you're an antisemitic dickhead.

So what? Racist Ashkenazi Americans are often very anti-Bush and there is an internal Ashkenazi American split over Neoconservatism. It mirrors the split between the less openly genocidal murderous racist Zionist left like Peres and the more openly genocidal murderous racist Zionist right like Sharon.

- Also, there's no evidence whatsoever that Ashkenazi Jews are any more likely to be "racist" then anyone else, especially considering the fact that, unlike whatever group you belong to, they started the NAACP and Amnesty International.

In point of fact, there is tremendous evidence of the racism of Ashkenazi Americans and of Ashkenazim in Eastern Europe over the last two centuries. Ashkenazi Americans are not obviously more racist than other Eastern European Americans, but the most murderous genocidal people on the planet are often Eastern Europeans, and Ashkenazim have very typical Eastern European attitudes and behavior.

In general the Ashkenazi involvement with the NAACP and AI has mostly been opportunistic. In some sense Ashkenazim try to recreate the conditions of Pre-Partition Poland in which Ashkenazim were the favored (junior) partners of the Polish nobility in the exploitation of Polish, Ruthenian and Ukrainian peasants.

By supporting civil rights for Blacks, Ashkenazi Americans made sure that there was a much larger target available xenophobic and ethnoracial bigots. Lately, Ashkenazi Americans involved in civil rights have been working to make sure that Blacks do not analogize the Black condition that results from historic state sponsored violent racism (slavery) in the USA with the Palestinian condition that results from ongoing state sponsored violent racism (Zionism) in historic Palestine.

The Ashkenazi role in AI is exactly the same.

Zionism is inherent a vicious racist ideology

1) because Zionism presupposes that the ethnic, historic or national rights of Jews to Palestine are superior to the human rights of the native population to Palestine -- classic Eastern European voelkisch racism.

2) because Zionism privileges a colonial settler population over the native population -- classic colonialist racism.

Obviously Zionism is a criminal racist ideology that every decent human being should oppose. Zionism is the exact Ashkenazi counterpart of German Nazism with the qualification that Zionism developed several decades before Nazism and may have contributed some of its fundamental ideas to Nazism.

There are so many Ashkenazim involved with AI that AI would certainly have condemned German Nazism in the 30s if AI had existed, but because Zionist Israel is today one of the most obvious violators of human rights, the racist Ashkenazim involved in AI have managed to bind AI to the principle that AI only condemns specific instances of human rights violations and does not condemn ideologies.

-- Since you do not have a problem with the movie, I have to put you in the same category as white segregationists that used to claim they loved black people as long as the "darkies" kept with their own. You are just another racist Ashkenazi American, who is incapable of perceiving his own racism. From reading through the AJC statistics on Ashkenazi Americans, at least 80% of Ashkenazi Americans fit into this category. Therefore, I have over an 80% chance of being correct -- probably more like 95% on the basis of your submissions to this website.

- What a pile of horseshit: your definition of a "racist" is anyone who doesn't agree with your idiotic drivel, and points out the vast stupidity of everything you say and believe.

I follow the definition of the 1st edition of the AHD: the belief that one's ethnic stock is superior.

However, you look at it Zionists believe they are superior (have superior rights or more privileges) to Palestinians. Zionism is racism. 80% of Ashkenazi Americans according to AJC statistics support Zionism or identify with Zionist Israel. Therefore 80% of Ashkenazi Americans support or identify with racism. As far as I concerned 80% of Ashkenazi Americans are racists and therefore betray the fundamental American principle of antiracism. Ashkenazi Americans constitute a fundamentally disloyal unpatriotic anti-American racist community with the American body politic. They are a treasonous fifth column within the USA.

- I would never support anything like segregationism, certainly don't believe that any race is inferior or superior to another, or any more or less entitled to rights than another, and the fact you're saying so just underscores that my estimation of your moral character is correct.

Fish or cut bait. Categorically, clearly and absolutely condemn, reject, renounce and denounce Zionism in this forum. State clearly that fundamental American principles require the repatriation of the native Palestinians to pre-1967 Israel, the granting of equal citizenship and the return of plundered properties to their rightful owners. State unequivocally that unless Israel starts to implement these demands, the USA should force Israeli Zionists if necessary by a declaration of war.

Until you make clear your total rejection of Ashkenazi Nazism in this manner, I have to consider you a racist, an Ashkenazi Nazi, and a traitor to everything for which the USA is supposed to stand.

- You simply hate Jews and would do or say anything no matter how incorrect to smear them. You consider a "racist" to be anyone who doesn't hate Jews and want to murder them with their bare hands like you do.

I have no opinion on Jews. I hate racists, and in fact, I find cryptoracists like the vast majority of Ashkenazi Americans even more despicable than open racists, whom I despise totally.

-- The reality is not so complicated in the ME. Vicious racist murderous genocidal Ashkenazi thieves and interlopers stole Palestine from the native population and committed massive genocide in 1947-8 including mass murder and ethnic cleansing. Racist Israeli Zionists are continuing the genocidal Zionist program to this day.

- You're a liar.

Nope. The documentation of Ashkenazi genocidalism and Nazism is copious. See http://www.counterpunch.org/shavit01162004.html .

-- Both Mamet and you are typical racist Ashkenazi Americans. Such racists certainly do not belong in the movie industry. Racist Ashkenazi Americans that support Zionism either directly through contributions to Zionist causes or indirectly by racist demonization of Arabs and Muslims should be sent to prison camps as supporters of Zionist terrorism. They should be tried before military tribunals, convicted and stripped of all their assets to defray the costs of Zionist-inspired adventurism in Iraq and to pay compensation to Palestinian victims of Zionism.

- No, those who spread Nazi-esque lies like you should be forced to perform community service for all the people harmed by your evil world conspiracy of hatred; it would be a good warm-up for what eternity will be like when Satan finally decides you've done enough, and calls you home to Hell.

I only spread the truth. Racist Ashkenazi Americans like you are the enemies of the human race. We need a serious purge in the USA or racist traitors in the media, academia and the government because vicious racist Ashekanzi Americans like you are destroying the moral fabric of the nation and are turning the basic American principles into the basic American lies.

- And it's quite evident that you are a big fan of the idea that everyone who holds beliefs that you don't should be exterminated, so you can stop your bullshit pretense of caring for other people, and just be what you are - a sick, genocidal fascist.

You are the one engaging in the Big Goebbelsian lie. You need only denounce Ashkenazi American and Zionist racism as outlined above and demand the purging of racist Ashkenazi American traitors from the media, academia and the government to prove that you are a loyal patriotic American committed to the USA and not to murderous racist Ashkenazi tribalism in Palestine.




Cardamon.Org

Re(13): How Wrong Can Hollywood Be?
Posted on March 25, 2004 at 01:50:29 PM by Mitchell Levine

With what view of Arabs is the audience likely to leave?

- The view they're likely to leave with is that the views they held prior to seeing the film need to be re-examined: that's the function of drama. Bigots will be forced to confront their bigotry, as you so desperately need to.

n any case, I have no doubt that racist Ashkenazi chauvinist bigots like Foxman and Levine

- Don't you dare call me a bigot, asshole: you don't even have the slightest evidence that it's true.

Fish or cut bait. Categorically, clearly and absolutely condemn, reject, renounce and denounce Zionism in this forum. State clearly that fundamental American principles require the repatriation of the native Palestinians to pre-1967 Israel, the granting of equal citizenship and the return of plundered properties to their rightful owners. State unequivocally that unless Israel starts to implement these demands, the USA should force Israeli Zionists if necessary by a declaration of war.

- No, what I declare is that anyone who supports this is a fascist - the only way to return the land to its owners is give it to the Turkish, because they, not the Palestinians, were the owners prior to 1967, as they were for 1200 years. I know that fact is inconvenient for your racist demonization of an ethnic group you hate, but it's, unfortunately for your stupidity, true.

The Palestinians were sharecroppers for absentee landlords in a feudalist system, and had their own nationalist aspirations: that's why their major country of origin, Jordan, agreed to a partition of the land. Only about 30% of the people now calling themselves Palestinian are actually natives of the land area.

- In case you didn't notice - and which you apparently didn't - the whole film is exceedingly anti-Bush and neoconservative, and was intended to be a metaphor for American involvement in Iraq. The only evidence you have that the film is "anti-Islamic" is that Mamet is Jewish and you're an antisemitic dickhead.

So what? Racist Ashkenazi Americans are often very anti-Bush and there is an internal Ashkenazi American split over Neoconservatism. It mirrors the split between the less openly genocidal murderous racist Zionist left like Peres and the more openly genocidal murderous racist Zionist right like Sharon.

- Notice, that, most importantly, you don't even deny being an antisemitic dickhead.

I only spread the truth. Racist Ashkenazi Americans like you are the enemies of the human race. We need a serious purge in the USA or racist traitors in the media, academia and the government because vicious racist Ashekanzi Americans like you are destroying the moral fabric of the nation and are turning the basic American principles into the basic American lies.

- Seig Heil!!!

- You're a liar.

Nope. The documentation of Ashkenazi genocidalism and Nazism is copious. See http://www.counterpunch.org/shavit01162004.html .

- Sorry, but you're ignoring the most basic historical point, which is that Jews are also the natives of Palsestine, and always have been, have equal historical ties to the land, and that, most importantly, the Palestinians were never legal owners of the land, and the Turks were.

If the Ottomans were motivated to legally sell their land to the Israelis, which they did, then the Israelis are entitled to their pre-1967 borders.

That does not in any way legitimize the Israeli's actions in the Occupied Territories, or their expulsions of Palestinians from their homes.

However, you look at it Zionists believe they are superior (have superior rights or more privileges) to Palestinians.

- Nope, they believe they have the right to live on land that they: a) are just as much natives of as the Palestinians; and, b) legally purchased under an international mandate from its rightful owners, the Ottoman Empire.

When you can find any declaration that the Israeli government considers itself to be racially superior to any other group, then you are justified in calling it "racist."

When all of the Islamic fundamentalist governments dissolve themselves in favor of constitutional democracies providing religious freedom and human rights to their subjects, then you are justified in saying that they are superior to Israel.

In point of fact, there is tremendous evidence of the racism of Ashkenazi Americans and of Ashkenazim in Eastern Europe over the last two centuries. Ashkenazi Americans are not obviously more racist than other Eastern European Americans, but the most murderous genocidal people on the planet are often Eastern Europeans, and Ashkenazim have very typical Eastern European attitudes and behavior.

- In other words, you're a racist.

You are the one engaging in the Big Goebbelsian lie. You need only denounce Ashkenazi American and Zionist racism as outlined above and demand the purging of racist Ashkenazi American traitors from the media, academia and the government to prove that you are a loyal patriotic American committed to the USA and not to murderous racist Ashkenazi tribalism in Palestine.

- Sorry, Nazi Dickhead, but in the United States, we do not "purge" people from their positions because of their beliefs, even Nazi dickheads like you. Whether or not you agree with them is irrelevant.

That's what America is all about, not your hatred, Nazi Dickhead.

Politics and The Passion of the Christ (I)
Posted on March 9, 2004 at 06:46:43 AM by Joachim Martillo

Palestine and the Politics of Passion

By

Joachim Martillo

Passion plays are dramatic representations of the last hours of Jesus’ life, his death and then his resurrection. They originated in the 12th century, and they depict the rejection of Jesus by the populace of 1st century CE Jerusalem. Detractors of Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ, claim that the dramatic performance of this portion of the Gospel narratives leads causally to hatred or violence against Jews. While anti-Semites and other Judeophobes have at times made use of Passion plays, the performance of the Passion with an implicit or explicit accusation of deicide does not correlate in any simple or direct way either with hatred or with violence directed toward the Jewish contemporaries of any Passion play performance.

The early development of Passion plays may correlate both with the Crusades and with the suppression of political disorder and heresy in France and Germany. There is a fairly large (mostly dubious) literature from that time period that portrays the Muslim as the ally of the Jew. Creating enough animosity to inspire French and Germans to take up arms and travel to fight in Palestine might have required a difficult staged marketing effort that involved portraying a Jewish/Judean persecution of Christ and then making claims that Muslims were Jewish allies.

There were attacks on Jewish communities in the Rhineland in 1096 during the First Crusade and subsequently. Such violence could have been an unintended consequence of the aforementioned attempt to develop an effective anti-Muslim polemic. The church and local political leaders seem to have worked very hard to stop these attacks. Scholars of the Crusades debate the severity of the attacks on the Jewish communities, and there are questions about the veracity of the Hebrew chronicles of the Crusades especially in the numbering of casualties and the descriptions of Jewish martyrdom. German and French Jewish communities survived while the Cathars were completely wiped out during the Crusader period. In the modern terminology that apologists for Zionism and the State of Israel use, the civilian Jewish victims of the Crusades were accidental collateral damage and not specific military targets.

During the period of the wars of the Reformation and for some time thereafter, the Jews of the Passion plays tend to represent not the "Jews" but the Protestants, who were labeled Judaizers in Catholic propaganda. Protestants were the main target of Catholic hatred during active hostilities and for a long time after the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia. The Jews of Emmerich's Passion, as portrayed by Brentano in 1833 in Das bittere Leiden unsers Herrn Jesu Christi, probably represent the French revolutionaries.

The Ashkenazi anti-Catholic polemic associated with the Passion plays tends to overlook the possibility that contemporary Jews might for the most part be of no interest either to the audience or to anyone associated with the production. Ashkenazi polemicists make the tenuous connection between Matthew 27:5, which sometimes appears in Passion plays to foreshadow the destruction of Jerusalem Temple by the Romans, and the idea of the modern Jewish Diaspora as humiliation and punishment for rejecting Christ.

St. Augustine (354-430 AD) formulated this Christian conceptualization of the late Roman Judean Diaspora at a time when the term "Judean" had lost all territorial sense, but using the term "Jew" is anachronistic because the Babylonian Talmud does not yet exist in a finished form . Without the Babylonian Talmud, there is no such thing as Modern Rabbinical Judaism.

Judean sages in Palestine and Mesopotamia had come to use the concept of Exile (Galut) to represent a spiritual alienation from God. The sages used this metaphorical Galut to understand the human condition. In contrast, Augustine concretizes the Judean spiritual Galut as punitive physical exile from Palestine for disbelief. He equated the dispersed Roman Judean communities of his time with the Biblical Israelites defeated and taken captive because of their sins by the Assyrians and the Babylonians even though the late Roman Judean population was for the most descended from various convert populations that had begun to practice some form of Judean religion at an earlier time period (see The Beginnings of Jewishness by Shaye Cohen). In other words, these convert Judean populations, which practiced pre-Rabbinic Judaic religions, had little or no ancestral connection to Palestine.

This idea that Judean/Jewish Diaspora populations are descended from ancient Palestinian populations has embedded itself firmly in Western mythology and serves as a large part of the legitimization of the theft of Palestine from the native population by Eastern European Zionist racists.

Why did St. Augustine create this idea? Was St. Augustine an anti-Semite? Was St. Augustine a gentile Zionist?

The Augustinian formulation serves a more benign purpose. St. Augustine was actually protecting "Jewish" neighbors during a time when the Roman government had decided everyone should be Christian. "Jews" constituted the only communities that were permitted to dissent from the universal creed. Augustine’s understanding of the Diaspora created a sort of theological space where "Jews" could live and very often prosper. Christian heretics, by comparison, received no such privileges. They were often forced to recant, exiled or sometimes killed. Modern Jewish anti-Christian polemic tries to find at least some of the roots of modern anti-Semitism and violence against Jews in Augustine’s creed even though it was at the time a benevolent doctrinal exemption from compulsory conversion to Christianity.

The mischaracterization of Augustine's doctrine belongs to the very questionable "Pogrom and Persecution" version of Jewish history. The anti-Passion polemic is also part of this dubious historiography. This genre of history writing makes proper historical understanding difficult because partisan and tendentious Ashkenazi authors tend to ignore the sufferings of all but Jews and typically overestimate the number of Jewish victims by an order of magnitude. Lucy Dawidowicz (in The Golden Tradition) puts the number of Ashkenazim killed during the Chmielnicki Rebellion (1648-1655) at approximately 100,000 while the real figure is closer to 15,000 as can be determined from examination of contemporary records.

Boston Area Middle East Related Events, Activities and Lectures

Re(1): Politics and The Passion of the Christ (II)
Posted on March 9, 2004 at 06:48:44 AM by Joachim Martillo

This sort of Ashkenazi anti-Gentile polemic also tends toward fantasy. The scene in Fiddler on the Roof, in which the Ukrainian Constable warns Tevye that the Czarist government ordered a pogrom, is a complete fabrication and slander of Russians and Ukrainians. The Russian government had no role in the pogroms that began in the 1880s in the Pale of Settlement. The Russian government actually tried hard to suppress the pogroms as a threat to the stability of the Russian Empire.

Suppose that a new dramatic production transposed that scene to Israel and replaced Tevye the Milkman with Ahmad the Fellah, an Israeli Palestinian, who had a good relationship with the local Jewish police captain. Suppose that in this new version of the drama the captain received orders from the Knesset for a pogrom. Suppose that he warned his friend Ahmad shortly before the wedding of Ahmad’s daughter. Foxman and the ADL would accuse the director, the producer, the writer and anyone associated with the production of the vilest sort of anti-Semitism even though the transposed scenario is not particularly unlikely in the context of the history of

* the massacre at Qibya,
* the massacre at Kafr Qassim,
* the massacre of Israeli Palestinians that started the second intifada, and
* the tendency of many Israeli Jews to believe that they should not be held accountable for the sorts of crimes that they erroneously believe the Czarist government committed against Ashkenazim.

The Eastern European Ashkenazi anti-Christian claims that, in the past, Easter and Christmas were particularly dangerous for Jews may be for the most part another example of a collective persecution complex, but they could have originated simply as mechanisms for the control of social deviance. There may also have been an attempt to instill fear in order to prevent assimilation by fraternization or by conversion to Christianity. There may have been a tertiary attempt to externalize all the problems that Ashkenazim had with coresident Polish and Ukrainian populations. In Prussian Poland Ashkenazim (but not Jews of other ethnicities), played the role of favored native collaborators in a program of colonization and Germanization. By relegating the developing hostility against Ashkenazim (we see no comparable development of hostility toward Polish Karaite Jewish Tatars) to the realm of religion, Ashkenazim avoided facing the possibility that there might have been something about Ashkenazi attitudes or behavior towards their neighbors that caused friction.

The same mechanism seems to be operative when Facts, Faith and Film-Making (http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/partners/CSG/passion_guide.htm) worries that The Passion might serve as some sort of inspiration to theologically based anti-Semitism against Israel. The document suffers from a serious misinterpretation of the nature of anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism. People that hate Zionism and the State of Israel generally hate them because racist Eastern Europeans stole Palestine from the native population in 1947-8 and have continued a process of sometimes harsher sometimes less harsh abuse and ethnic cleansing. Trying to connect this hostility with theological anti-Semitism is an attempt to irrationalize and discount genuine and irreducible grievances against Zionism and the State of Israel. It is also an attempt by the ADL and friends to control discourse in the USA about historic Palestine. (There may be elements of a fundraiser as well.)

The ADL does not demand that Gibson dissociate modern Rabbinic Jews from the Greco-Roman Judeans of Palestine by making sure that only "Judean" or "Galilean" appear in subtitles instead of the anachronistic term "Jew" (see The Beginnings of Jewishness by Shaye Cohen) and by taking care that the Judeans in the movie do not anachronistically wear the accouterments (such as the prayer shawls or taliot) of modern Rabbinic Judaism, a religion very different from the Jerusalem Temple cult.

The Ashkenazi American critics of The Passion of the Christ are "hoist upon their own petards" – so to speak. The controversy could have been framed not around the religious epic aspect but rather around the primordialist historical mythology axis, but Ashkenazi Americans have had no problems at all with Solomon and Sheba, Ben-Hur, Masada or similar movies even though such films have served the purposes of very racist, very violent, very murderous primordialist politics in their depiction of the ancient history of Palestine.

Such movies are acceptable to Gibson's critics because they are completely congruent with Zionist primordialist propaganda. Solomon and Sheba embodied the Zionist primordialist myth of "the ancient lost Kingdom", Ben-Hur the Zionist primordialist myth of "the reclamation of lost birthright", and Masada the Zionist primordialist myth of "righteous resistance and struggle to liberate land that had once been fertilized with Jewish blood." The comparable political content of Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ is hardly any more problematic and objectionable than the politics of the other three movies, but because the political implications of Gibson's movie potentially conflict deeply with the Zionist narrative, large numbers of Ashkenazi Americans react apoplectically to his film. Control of discourse, not anti-Semitism, is the issue in the uproar.

The Catholic solicitousness about anti-Israelism and anti-Zionism in the discussion of Gibson's film is disturbing. Because the Evangelists were neither historians nor newspaper reporters, the cinematic documentary effect of The Passion of the Christ has problematic aspects, but the depiction of Arabs and Muslims in US cinema is of far more concern than the portrayal of ancient Judeans in a single completely subtitled movie about the Passion. There is an obvious correlation between the anti-Arab anti-Muslim racism of US film and the current distressing situation that vicious anti-Arab anti-Muslim racists like Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith and Wurmser make US government policy toward the Middle East and the even more distressing situation that the US has been killing a large number of Arabs and Muslims over the last 10 years while the USA provides unqualified support to the State of Israel, which has been killing an even larger number of Arabs and Muslims over the last 50 years.

Catholic guilt is understandable. There is a lot of more or less justified criticism of behavior of the Catholic Church (and practically everyone else) during WW2, but as we learn more about Pope Pius during the Hitler period, we find that he was concerned about the Jewish situation and tried to help. A proper course of action is not always as clear in the midst of events as it is afterwards. Pius probably did not do all he could, and maybe he could have been more effective in many ways, but he had many concerns. The threat to Catholics (especially Polish Catholics) was clear from the moment Hitler became Kanzler. The Sejm (the Polish parliament) even debated a preventative strike against Germany in 1933. Max Weinreich documents in Hitler's Professors the public discussion among German academics of Umvolkung in Poland even during the years before the Nazi ascension to power. During the 30s relations between the Church and the Nazis were very strained even if it was not always publicly apparent.

At the very same time the Zionist executive was collaborating very effectively with the Nazis under the Haavarah Agreement. Hannah Arendt calls the period from 1933-9 the "Zionist phase of Nazism." The Nazi mass-murder of Jews began in May 1941 and was mostly over by the end of 1944. The Zionist leadership did not fully comprehend the magnitude of the Nazi program of genocide. It is simply unfair to criticize the Catholic Church for having worse relations with the Nazis from 1933-9 than the Zionists. The Catholic Church probably understood the ongoing mass-murder better than the Zionists (and the American Jewish community) in 1941-5 and was doing far more to save Jews from Hitler than the Zionists (and the American Jewish community) during the same time period.

But today, because of exaggerated guilt, historical confusion, and the personal sorrow of Pope John-Paul, who saw the ongoing mass-murder of Polish Jews as a young man in Poland, the Church is failing far worse than it did during the Hitler period. Palestinian Israelis live under a regime comparable to life for Jews in Nazi Germany circa 1935. Jerusalem Palestinians live under a regime comparable to life for Jews in Nazi Germany circa late 1938-9. Palestinians in the Occupied Territories live under a regime comparable to life for Jews in occupied Poland circa December 1940. Today we know more about the class of extremist organic nationalist political phenomena to which Nazism and Zionism belong. While there was a legitimate fear in the 1930s that an open clash between the Vatican and Nazi Germany could worsen conditions for Jews, the State of Israel is in a very dependent relationship with the USA. Strong moral leadership by the Vatican against the State of Israel could materially affect US politics to provide relief to Palestinians and would show to 2 billion justifiably angry Muslims that Westerners will pay attention to their completely legitimate complaints and outrage about the situation in Palestine.

Now is the time for the Catholic Church to help to stop another mass murder before it happens. Now is the time for the Church to act and to make the forthright condemnation of Zionism that it did not make of Nazism in the 1930s. The controversy over The Passion of the Christ is far more than a matter of Catholic-Jewish or Christian-Jewish relations. It provides a chance for Catholics and all Christians to make amends by standing up to the genocidal racists. As long as Catholics and any other Christians maintain friendly relations with pro-Israel groups, all their repentance for neglect of the victims of Nazi Germany is totally in vain.

Boston Area Middle East Related Events, Activities and Lectures

Re(2): Politics and The Passion of the Christ (II)
Posted on March 9, 2004 at 12:16:52 PM by Mitchell Levine

This sort of Ashkenazi anti-Gentile polemic also tends toward fantasy.

- There's nothing "anti-Gentile" or "anti-Christian" about not wanting to be stigmatized as a Christ-killer. You don't have to be an antisemite to be a Christian.

The scene in Fiddler on the Roof, in which the Ukrainian Constable warns Tevye that the Czarist government ordered a pogrom, is a complete fabrication and slander of Russians and Ukrainians. The Russian government had no role in the pogroms that began in the 1880s in the Pale of Settlement. The Russian government actually tried hard to suppress the pogroms as a threat to the stability of the Russian Empire.

- According to E.H. Judge, in Anatomy of a Pogrom:"

Pogroms were few before the assassination of Alexander II in 1881; after that, with the connivance of, or at least without hindrance from, the government, there were many pogroms throughout Russia. Soldiers and police often looked on without interfering. These pogroms encouraged the first emigration of Russian Jews to the United States. After 1882 there were few pogroms until 1903, when there was an extremely violent three-day pogrom at Chisinau resulting in the death of 45 Jews. Although it has not been conclusively proved that the czarist government organized pogroms, the government's anti-Semitic policies certainly encouraged them."

The Eastern European Ashkenazi anti-Christian claims that, in the past, Easter and Christmas were particularly dangerous for Jews may be for the most part another example of a collective persecution complex, but they could have originated simply as mechanisms for the control of social deviance. There may also have been an attempt to instill fear in order to prevent assimilation by fraternization or by conversion to Christianity.

- This is bullshit. I can tell you from the personal experience of relatives that not only were they often dangerous times for Jews in the old country, they were frequently so for Jews in some parts of America prior to the Sixties.

That those recollections were not part of any anti-assimilationist fantasy is indicated by the fact that many of the people who've related such stories to me assimilated and intermarried themselves.

The comparable political content of Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ is hardly any more problematic and objectionable than the politics of the other three movies, but because the political implications of Gibson's movie potentially conflict deeply with the Zionist narrative, large numbers of Ashkenazi Americans react apoplectically to his film. Control of discourse, not anti-Semitism, is the issue in the uproar.

- If that were true, then even anti-Zionist Jews wouldn't be deeply disturbed by the resurfacing of the deicide slander.

There is an obvious correlation between the anti-Arab anti-Muslim racism of US film and the current distressing situation that vicious anti-Arab anti-Muslim racists like Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith and Wurmser make US government policy toward the Middle East and the even more distressing situation that the US has been killing a large number of Arabs and Muslims over the last 10 years while the USA provides unqualified support to the State of Israel, which has been killing an even larger number of Arabs and Muslims over the last 50 years.

- That would be a valid argument, if there were even the slightest evidence that Perle and Wolf Blitzer are "anti-Muslim racists" other than the fact that they're Jewish.

Jerusalem Palestinians live under a regime comparable to life for Jews in Nazi Germany circa late 1938-9.

- That's ridiculous. The Nuremberg Laws were enacted in 1935. Jerusalem Arabs can vote, belong to Parliment, send their children to religious schools, and loads of other things that Jews in Nazi Germany in late 1938 could only dream of.

That Palestinians live under brutal military occupation is undeniable.

Today we know more about the class of extremist organic nationalist political phenomena to which Nazism and Zionism belong.

- To compare people who simply believe in the acceptability of the existence of a Jewish state to a totalitarian fascist attempt to create a master race through extermination is nothing less than an evil lie.

It also carries the less-than-subtle paranoid implication that Zionism is nothing less than an plot to take over the world, if not to exterminate non-Jews, which is equally bullshit.

There's absolutely no reason that Islamic states should be allowed to exist and a Jewish one shouldn't be. That statement is not meant to imply that the Occupied Territories should continue to beoppressed by Israeli rule or that a two-state solution shouldn't be aggressively pursued and implemented.

NY Times' Rich Lashes Out at Mel Gibson, O'Reilly
Posted on March 12, 2004 at 02:13:33 AM by James Jaeger

NY Times' Rich Lashes Out at Mel Gibson, O'Reilly
Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Sunday, Sept. 21, 2003
The New York Times' Frank Rich used his Sunday column to lash out against Mel Gibson, "The Passion" – Gibson's new film about the death of Jesus – and Fox News star Bill O’Reilly.
Rich leads his polemic with Gibson's comments about Rich published in the New Yorker: "I want to kill him. I want his intestines on a stick. ... I want to kill his dog."

Though Rich laughed off Gibson's "death threat," writing "that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals may be relieved to learn that I do not have a dog," he launched a nasty attack against Gibson, Gibson’s 85-year old father, the film, and Bill O’Reilly.

Rich chastised Gibson for only showing the film to sympathetic Christians or rightwing Jews.

He again raised the issue that a group of scholars, before seeing the film but after reviewing a purloined copy of the script, had deemed the film to be anti-semitic as it laid the blame for Jesus’ death on the Jews.

Rich says he has consulted some of those who have seen the film, and they all agree with the sentiment expressed by one: ‘‘It’s not a close call —the film clearly presents the Jews as the primary instigators of the crucifixion.’’

Rich continued his line of attack in his latest column, claiming that Gibson "has based his movie on at least one revisionist source, a 19th-century stigmatic nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich, notable for her grotesque caricatures of Jews. To the extent that there can be any agreement about the facts of a story on which even the four Gospels don’t agree, his movie is destined to be inaccurate."

Rich cites in the New Yorker profile, "Gibson says that ‘modern secular Judaism wants to blame the Holocaust on the Catholic Church,’ a charge that Abraham Foxman, of the Anti-Defamation League, labels ‘classic anti-Semitism.’’’

Balance of article at:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/9/20/165028.shtml

Bill O'Reilly's Imus radio interview on Frank Rich at http://www.billoreilly.com/images/streaming/buttonPlayAudio.gif

"Elite Media" veiled code for Jews
Posted on March 12, 2004 at 02:28:25 AM by James Jaeger

Thursday, March 11, 2004 5:12 p.m. EST
Battle Lines Drawn Between O'Reilly and Rich

America's raging culture war has come down to a sparring match between two top media figures, with Fox News superstar Bill O'Reilly verbally slugging it out with New York Times arts columnist Frank Rich, says today's issue of the Forward.


Zeroing in on this week's heated exchanges between the two men, the Forward reported that O'Reilly let loose on Rich for what he called the Times columnist's "savage attack on Mel Gibson" in the paper's Sunday edition, one of a number of vicious attacks Rich has aimed at "The Passion of the Christ" and Gibson over the past year.


According to the Forward, on Monday O'Reilly spent most of his time condemning Rich as a member of the "elite media," who, O'Reilly charged, "believe that the majority in the country — white Christian Americans — are prone to oppressing the minority," and added that "elites don't debate, they attack and marginalize."


In his Sunday column Rich raised questions about O'Reilly's show three days earlier, during which O'Reilly asked a film critic whether the hubbub over Gibson's movie was because "the major media in Hollywood and a lot of the secular press is controlled by Jewish people?"


Noting that "Rich has not resorted to personal invective in print," The Forward recalled that during a recent interview with the paper Rich had compared O'Reilly both to Father Charles Coughlin, the anti-Semitic radio host from the 1930s, and "Ted Baxter [from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"], the blowhard local anchorman, where it's all about him rather than the issue."


Then on Wednesday morning, Rich appeared on the "Imus in the Morning" show and renewed his assault on O'Reilly, provoking the star of the top-rated "O'Reilly Factor" to fire back later in the morning during his own appearance on the Imus show.


He continued his response to Rich's comments that night, devoting his opening editorial to attacking Rich for claiming that he had never used his Times columns to wage personal attacks against Gibson or O'Reilly.


"For one of the few times in history," O'Reilly said, "the elite media has been called on a blatantly unfair campaign and is losing the debate."


"If you go up against the elite media, it's not going to be pretty. You'll be branded a bigot, racist, anti-Semite, homophobe," O'Reilly added.


But Rich says, without a shred of evidence to back the accusation, that O'Reilly's constant references to the "elite media" are a veiled "code word" for Jews — a reference, the Forward suggested, that the host "seemed to make explicit in his March 4 question about Jewish control of the media."


"Whenever he attacks me, it sets off a flood of anti-Semitic e-mails and voice mail messages," Rich told the Forward.


And so it goes.


For his part, O'Reilly keeps challenging Rich to appear on his show, an invitation Rich continues to decline - which, O'Reilly says, proves he's a coward. "He's hiding under his desk," O'Reilly said.


Rich responds by saying he avoids going on shows where people shout at each other.

Source: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/3/11/171859.shtml


O'Reilly interview on Imus radio show:
http://www.billoreilly.com

Sound Familiar?
Posted on March 12, 2004 at 02:35:36 AM by James Jaeger

Sounds like the mainstream media is finally starting to have the kind of debate we have been having here at the FIRM site for over 6 years now.

To not lose sight of the main issue at FIRM, I think it's appropriate that we read, or e-read, John Cones' speech entitled: "Hollywood's Disdain for Democracy".

Thank you _________. I'm going to try to keep my prepared remarks rather short this evening and reserve as much time as possible for questions and answers. That's usually a lot more fun, and should help us come closer to answering your specific concerns anyway.

Some of you in this audience may have heard that there are those who consider my positions on certain issues relating to the Hollywood-based U.S. film industry to be controversial. To me, my views are honest, straightforward, based primarily on facts and entirely logical. So now, we'll give you an opportunity to decide for yourself.

First let me point out the general academic orientation from which I come. My undergraduate degree at the University of Texas at Austin was in communications. So my approach to film has always been one in which I recognize that motion pictures are more than merely entertainment. As the U.S. Supreme Court stated in its 1952 Burstyn v. Wilson case, the decision which first applied the First Amendment right of free speech to feature film, the motion picture is a significant medium for the communication of ideas. I agree with the Supreme Court's assessment and consider the motion picture to be one of the most powerful communications media ever devised.

Second, my minor concentration as an undergraduate was in sociology, so quite naturally, I am also concerned about issues relating to whether the ideas communicated through this powerful communications medium of feature film, have an impact on our society, and if so, what is the nature of that impact?

So, these are a couple of important starting points for me, two areas of academic study which still influence my thinking and approach to the study of film. Now, it just so happens that back in 1987, my law practice took me to Los Angeles for the purpose of working with independent feature film producers who sought to raise investor funds with which to develop or produce their movies. That's what I've done professionally for twelve years.

In addition to helping hundreds of independent feature film producers attempt to put their visions on the screen, I've also lectured to thousands of filmmakers, attorneys and others over the years at UCLA, USC, SMU, the American University in Washington, D.C., the American Film Institute, the Loyola, University of Texas and Cal Western schools of law, the Hollywood Film Institute and elsewhere, about this topic of film finance. I developed seminar handouts to accompany those lectures, and the handouts grew into books. So I've published about a half dozen books about the film industry, starting with this area of film finance and then moving on to topics delving into the relationship between film finance and creative control. It turns out that in many real life transactions, it is extremely difficult to separate the source of financing from the power to control what goes on the screen.

As I did more and more research about the film industry I realized that a number of Hollywood observers and commentators were concerned and had written about what they viewed as excessive violence in films, graphic sex, gratuitous foul language, a politically liberal slant and anti-religion themes in Hollywood films, so not wanting to duplicate their work, I took a look at another area of concern to me, and that is the apparent depiction of certain populations in our diverse society in a negative or stereotypical manner.

It just seemed to me that if the motion picture was a significant medium for the communication of ideas, and we recognized that ideas, have always (throughout the history of modern civilization), and will always, influence the thinking, beliefs and attitudes of human beings, then it could not possibly be desirable to allow any powerful communications medium to consistently portray certain groups within our diverse society in a negative or stereotypical manner. But, that apparently is exactly what was happening with Hollywood films. A number of groups have in fact complained from time to time about this phenomenon, but unfortunately, they've not had much success in influencing the way such decisions are made in Hollywood.

So, instead of restricting my research to any particular group victimized by Hollywood films, I considered film portrayals of many populations that co-exist in our modern day society, and confirmed to my satisfaction that at least a half-dozen groups or so were indeed consistently portrayed in Hollywood films in a negative or stereotypical manner. Those groups included Arabs and Arab-Americans, Muslims, Christians, Latinos, Asians and Asian-Americans, Italian Americans and Whites from the American South. My studies indicate that several other population groups have in recent years made some small gains toward more balanced or diverse portrayals in Hollywood films, but still are probably not where they ought to be in that regard and those groups include women and African-Americans, along with gays and lesbians.

Again, keep in mind that my belief and concern is that the consistent portrayal of any population in our diverse society in a negative or stereotypical manner, through a powerful communications mass medium like feature film, will inevitably influence the attitudes, thinking and beliefs of millions of moviegoers, particularly the more unsophisticated younger members of those audiences. And my concern is a serious and legitimate concern.

In any case, once I confirmed that these blatant patterns of bias actually exit in Hollywood films, the next logical question is, why? Why are whole populations in our diverse society consistently portrayed in Hollywood films in a negative or stereotypical manner? Well, again I turned to the literature of the film industry and determined that several observers of Hollywood, including Hortense Powdermaker who had studied the film industry from an anthropological perspective in the middle of the century, had already offered a possible explanation. But, I came up with my own expression of the phenomenon, and that is that movies, to a large extent, tend to mirror the values, interests, cultural perspectives and prejudices of their makers. And, I've yet to find anyone who rejects this thesis statement--that movies, to a large extent, tend to mirror the values, cultural perspectives and prejudices of their makers. So, this leaves of with no other choice, as seekers of truth, but to proceed to the next logical question: who are the makers of Hollywood films?

As any researcher must do, I've tried to narrow the focus of this inquiry, in this instance to those films produced or released by the Hollywood major studio/distributors, because those are the films seen by some 95% of the domestic theatrical moviegoing audience. So, then the question becomes, who has the power to decide which movies are going to be produced or released by the Hollywood major studio/distributors each year.

Again, I primarily relied on my survey of the film industry literature, the published works of several hundred other authors and observers of the Hollywood scene, combined with some original research. I looked at various segments of the film industry (producers, distributors, talent agents, directors, actors, actresses, screenwriters, equipment manufacturers, entertainment attorneys and so forth) and concluded that although in some instances a particularly powerful agent, actor, actress or director may have a considerable amount of influence in helping move a given film project forward, ultimately, those people who actually have the power to greenlight a movie are still the top three studio executives at the vertically integrated major studio/distributors.

So, I limited my study to the top three studio executives at these so-called major studio/distributors, made a list of the names of those executives from the start of operations for each of those companies through the mid-90s when the study was done, and set out to determine as best I could, what about their backgrounds might result in the particular patterns of bias I had observed in Hollywood films. Again, I merely collected from the industry literature, including individual press clippings on these studio executives what they and others had already reported about their backgrounds. I merely conducted an organized study that allowed me to determine that some 60 to 80 percent of these individuals who had greenlight authority over Hollywood films actually shared a common background. And, based on the literature of the industry and using specific descriptions already offered by many other Hollywood observers, that shared background could most accurately be described as politically liberal, not very religious, Jewish males of European heritage.

Now, for some people, this was going too far! But for me, it was merely a logical progression leading to a factual and sociological observation. And, I've seen no study by academics or others offering persuasive evidence that the Hollywood control group could be accurately described in a significantly different manner. It seems that some of the Hollywood apologists simply can't handle the truth.

Now, it is important to note that nowhere in my writing or lectures, have I ever stated, suggested or implied that any of these 20 or so gentlemen at any given time, behaved the way they behaved because they are Jewish. It's just simply not there. Nor, have I ever written, stated, suggested or implied that the behavior of this small group of gentlemen is typical of the much broader Jewish community. Despite the false allegations of some of the so-called Hollywood apologists, including the false accusation of anti-Semitism, those broad generalizations are just not there.

And further, I'm not even suggesting that the consistent negative or stereotypical portrayals of certain populations in our diverse society has any particular connection to the Jewish part of the multi-faceted backgrounds of these studio executives. Rather, I'm suggesting that these particular individuals, the twenty or so studio executives who at any given time have the power to decide which movies will be produced or released by the major studio/distributors each year, have been and continue to be prejudice, or at the very least not very sensitive to the biased portrayals they are consistently putting out through their films. I am also stating with certainty that there is very little diversity at the highest levels in the Hollywood establishment and that lack of diversity is reflected on the screen.

Aside from those few who have chosen to utilize the false accusation of anti- Semitism (what I call the anti-Semitic sword) in their effort to chill my free speech, others have simply taken the position that inquiries into the backgrounds of studio executives is for some reason inappropriate. On the other hand, these same Hollywood apologists readily admit that it is appropriate for the studio executives to utilize the enormous communications power of feature film to make bold, emotionally charged and sometimes outrageous or misleading statements about religion, politics, culture, ethnicity, race, regional populations, sexuality and all manner of other topics. If we accept the fundamental concept that movies, to a large extent, tend to mirror the values, interests, cultural perspectives and prejudices of their makers, then it is completely appropriate to study whether there are positive correlations between what we see on the screen and the backgrounds of those who have the power to determine what is portrayed in movies. Unfortunately, few, if any in our academic community have the courage to undertake such highly relevant studies.

On the other hand, how did the power to determine which movies will be produced or released by the Hollywood major studio/distributors come to be concentrated in the hands of such a narrowly-defined interest group? Again, my studies indicate that it occurred over a 90-year period through the use of hundreds of business practices that can be collectively described as unfair, unethical, unconscionable, anti-competitive, predatory and illegal. Those specific business practices are set forth and discussed in some detail in my two books: How the Movie Wars Were Won and The Feature Film Distribution Deal. Ultimately, I've had to conclude that control of the Hollywood-based U.S. film industry has been obtained illegitimately. It was gained and is maintained through the systematic and arbitrary exclusion from power of most Hollywood outsiders by the consistent patterns of behavior of this Hollywood insider group.

Control Group Gets Religion?
Posted on March 15, 2004 at 10:09:16 AM by George Shelps



March 15, 2004
Hollywood Rethinking Films of Faith After 'Passion'

By SHARON WAXMAN

OS ANGELES, March 14 — As the overwhelming success of "The Passion of the Christ" reverberates through Hollywood, producers and studio executives are asking whether the movie industry has been neglecting large segments of the American audience eager for more openly religious fare.
During the weekend the film took in another $31.6 million, increasing the total box office to $264 million in nearly three weeks, according to Exhibitor Relations, which tracks ticket sales.

Unlike many blockbusters, the movie has not dropped precipitously soon after a huge opening weekend. It is expected to finish its domestic run taking in well over $300 million in box-office receipts, easily outstripping big-budget movies like "The Hulk" or any in the "Matrix" series.

That number will only swell when the film is released internationally, beginning in Europe and Latin America in the next few weeks. The foreign audience is expected to be huge. And 20th Century Fox is in negotiations to distribute the DVD and videocassette, which is also expected to be immensely profitable.
"You can't ignore those numbers," said Mark Johnson, a veteran film producer. "You can't say it's just a fluke. There's something to be read here."
The movie's box-office success has been chewed over in studio staff meetings and at pricey watering holes all over Hollywood, echoed in interviews with numerous executives in the last week. In marketing departments the film is regarded as pure genius; its director, Mel Gibson, is credited with stoking a controversy that yanked the film from the margins of the culture to center stage, presenting it as a must-see.
There is little doubt at the studios that the movie will affect decision making in the short and the long term. Some predict, as one result, a wave of New Testament-themed movies or more religious films in general.
"Will there really be scriptural pictures — Old Testament, New Testament?" asked Peter Guber, a producer who formerly ran Sony Pictures Entertainment. "The answer seemingly is probably so."

The turn-on-a-dime television world has already responded. Last week ABC broadcast the long-shelved movie "Judas," about the disciple who betrayed Jesus. It lost in the ratings to "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "C.S.I.: Miami."

And as publicity about "The Passion" grew in the weeks before its release, NBC ordered a pilot of an apocalyptic show called "Revelations," partly based on the Book of Revelation. One of its producers, Gavin Polone, described it as being along the lines of "The X-Files," but about a nun and a skeptical scientist who begin to believe in the Bible as the events of Armageddon begin to happen. In his pitch to the networks, he said, he cited polls in which 78 percent of Americans said they believed that the events of Revelation would occur and 39 percent said they believed that those events would happen in their lifetime.

" 'The Passion' has helped," Mr. Polone said.

He said that Hollywood executives were overlooking broad segments of moviegoers who are unlike themselves — upper-middle class, college educated — even though Hollywood's stock in trade is mass-market entertainment.

Mr. Guber said that reaction to that movie's success was butting up against the feelings of many in Hollywood who dislike its widely criticized portrayal of Jewish responsibility in the death of Jesus.

"There's both discomfort, amazement and anger — sometimes all at once," he said. "Greed and envy and anger and jealousy are all interesting bedfellows. They make for interesting conjugal visits in this town."

Many movie executives said they were uncertain about whether to try to imitate "The Passion."

"I wouldn't know how to duplicate this," said Jeff Robinov, the president of production at Warner Brothers.

But Mr. Robinov, who said he liked the film, said he was not sure that he needed to reach a religion-oriented audience. The success of "The Passion," he said, "doesn't encourage me to find a movie to satisfy that group."
"But," he added, "if a guy like Mel Gibson came in with a film that had a sociological, theological message — a religious message — that was controversial, I wouldn't run from it."
In the first days after its release on Feb. 25 (Ash Wednesday) "The Passion" drew large numbers from religious groups whose members had bought blocks of tickets. Since then exit polls conducted by the movie's distributor, Newmarket Films, have found that young moviegoers have made up much of the audience.
"The R rating is limiting younger kids, but it is getting teens and college kids," Newmarket's president, Bob Berney, told Variety last week. The film has been promoted on horror-fan Web sites, and young men seem to be drawn by reports that the movie is gory.
The movie is also doing well among the traditionally religious Latino and African-American audiences, Mr. Berney said. Newmarket declined to give specific numbers.

Last week a Gallup poll found that 11 percent of Americans had seen the movie and that 34 percent more said they planned to see it in theaters. The poll, based on a statistically representative sample of 1,005 adults nationwide, found that older people were less likely to see the movie and that people who attended church at least once a month were more likely to see it than those who did not.

Many Hollywood executives argue that the success of "The Passion" cannot be easily replicated by simply making more Bible stories. The movie is not just a portrayal of the Crucifixion, they say, but a political religious statement driven by the intensity of Mr. Gibson's conservativeCatholicism. It has been hyped into a phenomenon by protests from Jewish groups about the film's depiction of Jews, they say, and by Mr. Gibson's reluctance to discuss the film with his critics.

"You can't deny when a movie makes that kind of money that the audience has spoken to the filmmaking community, but it's a frightening comment," said Michael Nozik, a producer of the forthcoming "Motorcycle Diaries," about Che Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary leader. Mr. Nozik is alarmed by the violence in "The Passion," he said, and dismayed by the "pot of anger" that has been stirred by accusations of anti-Semitism.

"I would not think of making a religious movie that speaks to this aspect of the audience," Mr. Nozik said. "I don't know how you speak to that audience as a filmmaker. But as a businessman you have to go, `God, there´s something there.´ "
As divisions of major media conglomerates concerned with their public image, Hollywood studios have historically shied away from all but the most benign values, like friendship, family and love. Movies with strong points of view — political and particularly religious — have had difficulty receiving green lights.
"It's not clear that Hollywood has the appetite or the attitude" to make religious movies, Mr. Guber said. Mr. Gibson's movie, he said, "in my judgment, has a politically religious point of view."

"The question is: Is that a necessity for films of faith?"

One indication of how Hollywood might find a middle road is in the recent announcement by the Walt Disney Company of its plan to make a big-budget movie of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," the beloved children's book by C. S. Lewis, an influential Christian writer. The rights to make a movie of the book are owned by a production company owned by the media mogul Philip Anschutz, a practicing Christian.
Mark Johnson, one of its producers, said the film would not be a Christian project per se. "We are intent on not making this into a Christian movie," he said. "But it will be seen by many loyal readers as a very Christian movie."
C

ADL approved Christian movies
Posted on March 15, 2004 at 07:12:26 PM by Tam

No negative depiction of Jews!!!

Re(1): ADL approved Christian movies
Posted on March 15, 2004 at 07:30:02 PM by Mitchell Levine

No, you're right - every film made should blame all Jews collectively for Christ's death in perpetuity!

That would really do a lot to advance the cause of "diversity"; i.e., would lead to their genocidal extermination!

Are Anti-Semitic Films Profitable?
Posted on March 16, 2004 at 05:03:02 PM by James Jaeger

>No, you're right - every film made should blame all Jews collectively for Christ's death in perpetuity!

Good idea. Maybe Hollywood should just put out a bunch of anti-Semetic movies -- that sounds like what's selling these days, no?(1) :)

I mean, after all, Hollywood has no agenda, according to all the apologists here -- it's just trying to make commercially viable pictures, right?

James Jaeger


-----------------
(1) By saying this I'm not saying THE PASSION is either anti-Semitic or not --I haven't seen it -- but many have said it IS anti-Semitic.

Re(1): Are Anti-Semitic Films Profitable?
Posted on March 16, 2004 at 06:27:14 PM by Mitchell Levine

No, you're right, Jim - it's obviously just part of the overlying architectural superstructure of ZOG's international banking conspiracy.

Thanks for pointing that out.

PASSION Earnings to Date
Posted on March 16, 2004 at 04:33:38 PM by James Jaeger

Looks like I made some errors in my predictions of what THE PASSION will earn in my post of February 22, 2004 at 10:07:42 entitled "Culture Wars" (see FIRM Archives). I have re-printed what I said below after a bracket (>)and my corrections are without a bracket.


JAEGER WROTE (ON 22 Feb):
>Now, contrary to Levine’s prediction (or secret wishes), it looks like THE PASSION will make hundreds of millions.

JAEGER WROTE:
Already is.

>It will open on over 2,800 screens

It opened on over 4,000 screens. I was technically correct as 4,000 is "over" 2,800.

>and some experts predict it will earn as much as $300 million in domestic theatrical revenues alone.

It is at $270 million now and experts are projecting that it will do $350 - $400 million by Easter.

>If so, the picture will probably garner another $400 million in homevideo/DVD as the standard revenue extrapolation formula applies.

So if the picture hits $400 million in box office, it will garner at least an additional $600 million in homevideo/DVD.

>It will then play over seas and do these figures again, bringing the total to $1.4 billion.

It will then go over seas and do these figures again bringing the figure to $2 billion rather than $1.4 billion as I stated. Sorry Mitch.

>Then THE PASSION will go to other "windows." The second window will be video-on-demand and later windows will be pay-per-view and cable. It will then go to second-run cable and eventually onto free TV and 10-year syndication. None of these revenue streams even include the ancillary markets it will pick up through church groups, airlines, merchandising and sell-through retail DVDs and VHS videos. This is the DOWNSIDE of the revenue potentials it was WELL-understood by most of the MPAA marketing brass PRIOR to the completion of principal photography, or at least post production – and it was a less than speculative downside provided the picture did NOT alienate or antagonize the billion plus individuals in the worldwide Christian community. Since the PASSION followed the New Testament strictly, as The Patriot promised it would from the VERY beginning – it DID not.

True.

>Again, given an honest and true representation of the New Testament, at a certain point, it was thus a NO-BRAINER for MPAA marketing EXPERTS that THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST would sell to at least 10% of the Christian community,

According to recent polls, as many as 75% of the Christian community say they will see THE PASSION sooner or later.

>as I stated in an earlier post to Mitchell Levine. Since the global Christian community is about 1.5 billion, even 10% would have easily recouped the production-marketing budget such being about $30 million for production and $50 million for marketing for a total of $80 million as follows: 10% of 1.5 billion Christians is 150 million potential ticket sales at say $5 each is a gross revenue $750 million. Giving the theaters about half of this leaves $375 million in "rentals." The distributors would have been able to recoup their $30 million production budget and then their P&A (marketing budget of $50 million) leaving $295 million from which they would take a 35% distribution fee of $103 million. They then could have split the balance with ICON PRODUCTIONS of $96 million each. All this just for theatrical. If the picture sells to a significant portion of the Christian market, the UPSIDE could be that this picture will be the largest grossing movie of all time –

Experts are already saying this will beat TITANIC and thus it will be the largest grossing movie of all time.

>even surpassing $5 billion in the next 10 years.

I stand by this number: $5 billion in next 10 years, more probably the next 5 years. I used the figure of 10% of the Christian community, but if 75% of the Christian community see the picture here's what we are looking at. The Christian community world wide is 1.2 billion to 2 billion. Taking the average of 1.6 billion X .75 we get 1.2 billion rentals at the Box Office or in stores at an average of $4 each (conservative as some tickets are $8) we get revenues of $4.8 billion.

For all those Hollywood apologists that have been trying to tell me that Hollywood only caters to the dollar I say, phooey. At least 10% of the films put out are political in nature and apparently THE PASSION was SO political, Hollywood was willing to sacrifice over a billion dollars, even more when you consider all the screens the picture has been monopolizing, over 4,000 screens -- unheard of. Am I wrong on any of this?

>Thus, PRIOR to the completion of principal photography, or at least post production –- and BEFORE Mel had arranged a distribution deal with NEW MARKET –- there was PLENTY of time and REASON for FOX, or at the very least one (1) of the other "highly competitive" MPAA studio/distributors to give Mel a NEGATIVE PICK-UP DEAL. But no such deal, or any production-distribution agreement, was ever forthcoming from the "economically motivated" MPAA studios. Thus, one can see that the idea that the studio/distributors are entirely economically motivated is rubbish and that the idea that THE PASSION was not financed "because it was risky" is pure HORSE.

>The REAL reason FOX didn’t finance Mel’s movie is because that movie had an agenda DIFFERENT from the agenda of the control group that dominates Hollywood -- such control group identified as politically liberal, not-very-religious(i.e., secular) Jewish males of European heritage.

>Let me spell this out for you: MOVIES REFLECT THEIR MAKERS, as John Cones’ research exhaustively shows (see WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON IN HOLLYWOOD at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/whats.htm). Since the MAKERS of THE PASSION do NOT control the financial strings of the MPAA studio/distributors –- the MPAA studios did not, and would not, MAKE THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST.

>And they DID not, and WOULD not, because, again, such a movie was contrary to their agenda. What is their agenda? Well it certainly is NOT the spread of Christianity or conservative, traditional causes and values. Their agenda is above all to protect and perpetuate the Jewish community and Israeli interests as well as Israel itself. The Hollywood control group’s agenda is to also perpetuate AN EXISTING SYSTEM of liberal causes that they endorse such including, but not limited to, their elite lifestyle. This can only be done, in their view, by continuing to dominate the Hollywood-based movie studios that produce the global cash flow, such cash flow funneled into the ridiculously over-promoted, hence over-priced greater Los Angeles and California real estate market. Other agenda are the removal of guns from the electorate/citizens, wanton abortion, a re-definition of the word "marriage" to mean the union of other than one man and one woman and ENDLESS immigration to all people that are NOT prone to anti-Semitic behavior so that the dominating Christian community in America (85% of Americans are Christians, 2% Jews and less than 1% Muslims) can be diluted and then dissolved. All of these agenda are coming out of Hollywood and any feature or media that supports same, or that incorporates endless VIOLENCE and SEX on the screen to foster an environment of discord conducive to "optimum" change, WILL be financed by the control group over a movie, like THE PASSION, that reverses such agenda. Thus Christian doctrine and Christian morals tend to stand in the way of the Hollywood control group’s agenda. And that’s why it’s covertly despised in Hollywood. Christian values PREVENT these things from happening wholesale in American society (as similar values in other religions prevent same in other societies). Thus, from their POV, there is NO WAY a Christian-themed motion picture will EVER get financed or distributed by the MPAA studio/distributors so long as they are dominated in the TOP THREE positions by liberal, secular Jewish males of European heritage.

>These things indicate that we are in a CULTURE WAR as Bill O’Reilly says. The CULTURE WAR can best be understood by reading John Cones’ book, HOW THE MOVIE WARS WERE WON (available at http://www.mecfilms.com/coneslaw/conesbk.htm). The MOVIE WARS are part of the CULTURE WAR. Get it?

>In THE PASSION conflict, we are seeing a MICROCOSM of the CULTURE WAR that is being waged by traditionalists (and people like O’Reilly who is at least attempting to inject some balance). The only difference is the fact that we at FIRM have the "gall" to include the J-word, that Hollywood Jews are a significant part of the demographic involved in the Culture War. But for some, since we dare to mention the word "Jew," we must be anti-Semitic. To them we must automatically hate all Jews because after all, if we did NOT do the politically correct thing of dropping the mention of Jews out of the demographic, even though everyone KNOWS this is part of the demographic -- we must be bigots. And since we aren’t PROTECTING the Hollywood Jews from their irresponsible control and domination of the MPAA studio/distributors, we must be hate-filled, anti-Semitic, jack-booted, Nazis in the eyes of the Hollywood apologists and the cowards that claim to report the issues without any bias.

>To those who have watched the saga of THE PASSION’s rejection for financing and distribution (such tale at fully documented at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/p-chrono.htm), and who see NO relationship between what Mel Gibson has gone through and WHAT EVERY DISENFRANCHISED FILMMAKER IS GOING THROUGH RIGHT NOW ON A SMALLER SCALE -– I say take a closer look – there’s a major double standard going on in Hollywood. Certain people get to make movies, such as THE LAST TEMTATION (antagonistic to Christians) or SHINDLER’S LIST (supportive of Jews) with little or no problems compared to Mel’s ordeal. Is this double standard okay in a democratic society? That the most powerful communications channel yet devised, the feature motion picture, is reserved for CERTAIN PEOPLE, a narrow demographic of people that chooses to forward their secular agenda to the exclusion of almost all others.

>It’s about time the Culture Wars deal with the REAL issues and the real players, because unless they do, nothing will change and it will be business as usual in Hollywood: the same hackneyed stories from the same studio-approved writers; the same performances from the same studio-approved actors and the same endless saturation of sex and violence on, not only the large screen, but on the smaller screen, such as the CARTOON NETWORK, our kids watch when they’re especially impressionable to what their culture should be all about.

James Jaeger

Re(1): PASSION Earnings to Date
Posted on March 16, 2004 at 06:44:21 PM by Majik

THE MEL GIBSON - LATINO CONNECTION
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/vv/20040312/lo_laweekly/
51741


NIKKI FINKE LA WEEKLY - L.A. Weekly has learned that, according to
research exit polls, The Passion of the Christ is attracting a
gargantuan 40 percent Latino audience in the cities tested. Until now,
there has been only anecdotal evidence that Latinos, as well as Asians
and African-Americans, are flocking to the film. The research shows that
Latinos are rating Passion higher than does any other ethnic group, and
76 percent say they’re inclined to pay to see the movie again. Not only
do 86 percent of Latinos say the film is excellent, but 80 percent say
the movie is better than they expected. And while a whopping percentage
of the overall audience say they would definitely recommend it, that
figure among Latinos is a startling 91 percent.

For too long now, Hollywood moviemakers, who have forced on us countless
casts of blond and blue-eyed bimbos and himbos, have been stumped on how
to appeal to Latinos, the largest ethnic minority in the country ~~ So
here’s Mel, not just pulling in Latinos but even Latino families. He did
what no one else has been able to. Frankly, it never occurred to the
godless Hollywood liberals — as the folks at Fox News Network and wacko
right-wing Web sites refer to us — to use religion as bait for Latinos.
And it never occurred to the Democratic Party, pal of most Hollywood
filmmakers, to embrace Gibson or his movie. Big mistake. Huge! Because
in the 2004 presidential race for Latino votes, any advantage at all
could be the difference between winning and losing.

Instead, the conservative propaganda machine is embracing Gibson and The
Passion with, well, passion, and its become a cornerstone of the
Republicans strategy to divide this country culturally between the
supposed elites they’re so fond of criticizing (tell us, are the rich
who get all of Bush’s tax breaks not also the elite?) and just regular
Americans, whom they presume to be on their side along with God.

Re(1): PASSION Earnings to Date
Posted on March 16, 2004 at 07:52:29 PM by Mitchell Levine

At least 10% of the films put out are political in nature

- As if you have any idea what percentage of films are "politically motivated"??? You don't even know what films are politically motivated; i.e., inspired by ZOG's evil conspiracy to destroy Christianity, let alone what percentage they make up of all releases.

and apparently THE PASSION was SO political, Hollywood was willing to sacrifice over a billion dollars

- The full year of unprecedented negative publicity it generated could have easily cost Fox more on the total balance sheet.


, even more when you consider all the screens the picture has been monopolizing, over 4,000 screens -- unheard of. Am I wrong on any of this?

- Yes, on the motivations, which you seem to blame on a Jewish plot to destroy Christianity.

>The REAL reason FOX didn’t finance Mel’s movie is because that movie had an agenda DIFFERENT from the agenda of the control group that dominates Hollywood-- such control group identified as politically liberal, not-very-religious(i.e., secular) Jewish males of European heritage.

- The latter's agenda obviously being to destroy Christianity, and to "help Israel," despite the fact that no pro-Israel film has been made in the 25 years since Raid on Entebbe. Also, notice that in your mind, religion is a zero-sum game, where if Judaism "wins," Christianity loses.

ENDLESS immigration to all people that are NOT prone to anti-Semitic behavior so that the dominating Christian community in America (85% of Americans are Christians, 2% Jews and less than 1% Muslims) can be diluted and then dissolved. All of these agenda are coming out of Hollywood and any feature or media that supports same, or that incorporates endless VIOLENCE and SEX on the screen to foster an environment of discord conducive to "optimum" change, WILL be financed by the control group over a movie, like THE PASSION, that reverses such agenda.

- Where do you get your information: the majority of immigrants to our country are from other predominantly Christian countries like Mexico, whose inhabitants are hardly "unlikely to be antisemitic," and by the way, if you are really for "diversity," why do you want to see more antisemites entering this country? Shouldn't you be promoting TOLERANCE, not more bigotry (unless you feel that simply being Jewish constitutes anti-Christian bigotry)???

Certain people get to make movies, such as THE LAST TEMTATION (antagonistic to Christians) or SHINDLER’S LIST (supportive of Jews) with little or no problems compared to Mel’s ordeal.

- The Last Temptation of Christ was made by a devout Catholic to narrate a novel written by a devout Greek Orthodox to express their deep religious beliefs, and was opened by Scoreses' explicit, sincere pledge of adoration to both his church and saviour.

The only way you could possibly rationalize your bullshit claim that it was "antagonistic" to Christianity is demonstrate that you're a better Christian than Martin Scorsese. The proof you're not is this post.

And a film which depicts the true story of how an ordinary German man risked his life and business to save people that didn't share his religion, should be easier to get made than a film which distorts both history and scripture to blame another religious group for murdering God.

Re(2): PASSION Earnings to Date
Posted on March 16, 2004 at 11:44:46 PM by James Jaeger

>- As if you have any idea what percentage of films are "politically motivated"???

What makes you so sure? Hey Mitch, how long have you been working for the ADL?

>You don't even know what films are politically motivated; i.e., inspired by ZOG's evil conspiracy to destroy Christianity, let alone what percentage they make up of all releases.

It's obvious when a Hollywood film is politically motivated. Look at films like DEAD MAN WALKING which are there to invalidate the death penalty. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm against the death penalty -- but this doesn't mean I agree that Hollywood should promote its abolition.

>>and apparently THE PASSION was SO political, Hollywood was willing to sacrifice over a billion dollars

>- The full year of unprecedented negative publicity it generated could have easily cost Fox more on the total balance sheet.

Oh right. Mitch admit it -- they screwed up.

- Yes, on the motivations, which you seem to blame on a Jewish plot to destroy Christianity.

IF there were a plot to destroy Christianity -- do you think anyone would actually admit it. Come on!


>- The latter's agenda obviously being to destroy Christianity, and to "help Israel," despite the fact that no pro-Israel film has been made in the 25 years since Raid on Entebbe. Also, notice that in your mind, religion is a zero-sum game, where if Judaism "wins," Christianity loses.

I am not concerned with who is in what religion, or who various religions compete with each other for members. I am concerned with Hollywood's secular agenda which is manifest by a narrowly defined control group, a group which excludes others.

>>ENDLESS immigration to all people that are NOT prone to anti-Semitic behavior so that the dominating Christian community in America (85% of Americans are Christians, 2% Jews and less than 1% Muslims) can be diluted and then dissolved. All of these agenda are coming out of Hollywood and any feature or media that supports same, or that incorporates endless VIOLENCE and SEX on the screen to foster an environment of discord conducive to "optimum" change, WILL be financed by the control group over a movie, like THE PASSION, that reverses such agenda.

>- Where do you get your information:

There are some new reports out on the Immigration laws of 1965.

>the majority of immigrants to our country are from other predominantly Christian countries like Mexico, whose inhabitants are hardly "unlikely to be antisemitic,"

Yes hardly, compared to France and most of Europe.

>and by the way, if you are really for "diversity," why do you want to see
more antisemites entering this country?

I don't. I just don't like small groups contouring the media and legislation to their ends.

>Shouldn't you be promoting TOLERANCE, not more bigotry (unless you feel that simply being Jewish constitutes anti-Christian bigotry)???

I think thee are people out there that claim to be Jewish and they are not. These people are difficult to tolerate because they are wrecking society. They give the majority of Jews a bad name. I have nothing against Jews so long as they don't a) discriminate against me and b) write endless idiotic posts on the FIRM site (only kidding).

>>Certain people get to make movies, such as THE LAST TEMTATION (antagonistic to Christians) or SHINDLER’S LIST (supportive of Jews) with little or no problems compared to Mel’s ordeal.

- The Last Temptation of Christ was made by a devout Catholic to narrate a novel written by a devout Greek Orthodox to express their deep religious beliefs, and was opened by Scoreses' explicit, sincere pledge of adoration to both his church and saviour.


I personally liked THE LAST TEMPTATION as I understood what Scorsese was doing -- but most Christians felt it was terrible, if not blasphemous.

>The only way you could possibly rationalize your bullshit claim that it was "antagonistic" to Christianity is demonstrate that you're a better Christian than Martin Scorsese. The proof you're not is this post.

It was antagonistic because I ended up in a quite a few arguments with Christians over it. I felt it was great, they hated it. What can I say -- this is my personal experience with this picture. Thus I know it was antagonistic to Christians, and I observed this on both coasts. Did I survey thousands of Christians, no, but I bet if you did a survey it would show that I am correct.

>And a film which depicts the true story of how an ordinary German man risked his life and business to save people that didn't share his religion, should be easier to get made than a film which distorts both history and scripture to blame another religious group for murdering God.

IF the studio's claim is that they make movies to make money, THEN they should have made THE PASSION because the dead giveaway was that this movies was going to be authentic (because it was in the original languages with NO subtitles) -- at least authentic to the Christian community. Since there are so many numbers in this demographic, it is difficult to see that the marketing executives were not savvy to the potential. I maintain they were -- thus the film was passed on for other reasons than those they stated. I maintain those reasons were to serve the interests of the narrow group that controls Hollywood, i.e. secular Jewish males.

James Jaeger

Re(3): PASSION Earnings to Date
Posted on March 17, 2004 at 01:46:28 PM by Mitchell Levine

What makes you so sure? Hey Mitch, how long have you been working for the ADL?

- Because, idiot, only the people responsible for producing a film can conclusively validate what the "political intentions" of a film might be, if any.

It's obvious when a Hollywood film is politically motivated. Look at films like DEAD MAN WALKING which are there to invalidate the death penalty. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm against the death penalty -- but this doesn't mean I agree that Hollywood should promote its abolition.

- Since it's impossible to make any statement, creative or not, outside the context of personal values, the only alternative would be to just not make films that dealt with the death penalty at all, which would include The Passion.

>- The full year of unprecedented negative publicity it generated could have easily cost Fox more on the total balance sheet.

Oh right. Mitch admit it -- they screwed up.

- They didn't "screw up": they simply did not want to make the film, because they felt that it was not the kind of publicity they wanted for the studio and that it was socially irresponsible. Those are perfectly good reasons not to greenlight it, in a free market, constitutional society. It didn't matter how much money it could potentially make.

Even if releasing Corpus Christi might bring in $100 billion, the 700 Club wouldn't finance it, and they wouldn't feel guilty or stupid when it returned its receipts.

am not concerned with who is in what religion, or who various religions compete with each other for members. I am concerned with Hollywood's secular agenda which is manifest by a narrowly defined control group, a group which excludes others.

- Bullshit: you think that religion is a high school popularity contest not unlike electing a homecoming queen, and that if more people believe in your religion, you "win"; i.e., get more social status.

And you've never been able to identify even the most scant evidence that Hollywood excludes anyone by ethnicity, except by implying that, because the heads of the three MPAA distributors happen to be Jewish, they are "excluding" Christians by simply being Jewish and not Christian.

think thee are people out there that claim to be Jewish and they are not. These people are difficult to tolerate because they are wrecking society.

- RAHOWA!!!

hey give the majority of Jews a bad name. I have nothing against Jews so long as they don't a) discriminate against me and b) write endless idiotic posts on the FIRM site (only kidding).

- The reason you started FIRM was to write endless idiotic posts, especially since a lot of message boards you frequent do things like replace all your posts with a stock disclaimer "James Jaeger is an antisemitic bigot..," or post heartfelt requests from the webmaster not to encourage you by sending you email, like "please don't feed the monomaniac!"

personally liked THE LAST TEMPTATION as I understood what Scorsese was doing -- but most Christians felt it was terrible, if not blasphemous.

- That doesn't mean it was antagonistic to Christianity; it means some Christians were antagonistic to it. It hardly means Scorsese did anything wrong by making it: it means that unfortunately some people weren't openminded enough to try and understand what he was saying.

At least most Jews that were unfairly antagonistic to The Passion actually saw the movie, although not necessarily before criticizing it.


F the studio's claim is that they make movies to make money, THEN they should have made THE PASSION because the dead giveaway was that this movies was going to be authentic (because it was in the original languages with NO subtitles) -- at least authentic to the Christian community.

- Actually, a number of Christian commentators have pointed out that it's historically inauthentic because the Romans speak Latin, instead of the correct Coptic Greek, and the Jews speak an anachronistic dialect of Aramaic.

maintain those reasons were to serve the interests of the narrow group that controls Hollywood, i.e. secular Jewish males.

- No, the studio probably correctly decided that risking relentless negative publicity for an extended prerelease period, and reintroducing the deicide myth to world culture didn't serve the interests of either the studio or society.

That doesn't mean I believe that was Gibson's intent in making the film, but he is actively advocating for a sect of Catholicism that specifically denies the Vatican's rejection of the church's earlier teaching that Jews are an "accursed race" of "perfidious murderers" that must be shunned because of their collective guilt for murdering the Creator.

Re(3): PASSION Earnings to Date
Posted on March 17, 2004 at 01:09:49 AM by George Shelps

I am concerned with Hollywood's secular agenda which is manifest by a narrowly defined control group, a group which excludes others.

____How does this "control group" manifest its control in the exhibition
business? In the large movie theatre chains where PASSION is playing. These are an integral part of the movie business, so why did they book the movie, why didn't they refuse to rent it
and show it if they wanted to maintain
the "control?"

It would have been an
easy matter to force Mel to show it in small independent "art houses."

Re(1): PASSION Earnings to Date
Posted on March 16, 2004 at 06:44:21 PM by Majik

THE MEL GIBSON - LATINO CONNECTION
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/vv/20040312/lo_laweekly/
51741


NIKKI FINKE LA WEEKLY - L.A. Weekly has learned that, according to
research exit polls, The Passion of the Christ is attracting a
gargantuan 40 percent Latino audience in the cities tested. Until now,
there has been only anecdotal evidence that Latinos, as well as Asians
and African-Americans, are flocking to the film. The research shows that
Latinos are rating Passion higher than does any other ethnic group, and
76 percent say they’re inclined to pay to see the movie again. Not only
do 86 percent of Latinos say the film is excellent, but 80 percent say
the movie is better than they expected. And while a whopping percentage
of the overall audience say they would definitely recommend it, that
figure among Latinos is a startling 91 percent.

For too long now, Hollywood moviemakers, who have forced on us countless
casts of blond and blue-eyed bimbos and himbos, have been stumped on how
to appeal to Latinos, the largest ethnic minority in the country ~~ So
here’s Mel, not just pulling in Latinos but even Latino families. He did
what no one else has been able to. Frankly, it never occurred to the
godless Hollywood liberals — as the folks at Fox News Network and wacko
right-wing Web sites refer to us — to use religion as bait for Latinos.
And it never occurred to the Democratic Party, pal of most Hollywood
filmmakers, to embrace Gibson or his movie. Big mistake. Huge! Because
in the 2004 presidential race for Latino votes, any advantage at all
could be the difference between winning and losing.

Instead, the conservative propaganda machine is embracing Gibson and The
Passion with, well, passion, and its become a cornerstone of the
Republicans strategy to divide this country culturally between the
supposed elites they’re so fond of criticizing (tell us, are the rich
who get all of Bush’s tax breaks not also the elite?) and just regular
Americans, whom they presume to be on their side along with God.

PASSION in Back of Theaters
Posted on March 19, 2004 at 09:16:03 PM by James Jaeger

>____How does this "control group" manifest its control in the exhibition
business? In the large movie theatre chains where PASSION is playing. These are an integral part of the movie business, so why did they book the movie, why didn't they refuse to rent it and show it if they wanted to maintain the "control?"

I have to admit I am somewhat amazed that so many theaters are showing THE PASSION. I thought I was going to have to get out there and picket. I guess the theaters aren't controlled by the studios as much as I thought. I don't know what the deal is. Maybe they just smelled money and all decided to run it, to hell with the studios. I wish the MPAA studios could have been more like this -- but then the theaters aren't dominated by secular Jewish males like the studios are.

I will note however, the big theater complex in King of Prussia (which is a UNITED ARTIST chain just purchased by REGAL) was running THE PASSION all the way in the very back of the theater and they took down the one-sheet after the first week. My wife is a GIA-certified gemologist and she used to work for Philadelphia's largest jewelry chain, THE JACK KELLMER COMPANY. This chain is entirely Jewish-owned and 95% of its employees are Jewish. The Kelmers are great people and Carol had a lot of fun working there and also had an opportunity to get to know a lot about Jewish culture. For instance, many Jews go to the movies during the Gentile holidays, such as December 25th. I was wondering if this was really true, so I took a drive over to the REGAL theater in King of Prussia last Christmas, December 25th, and the parking lot was ABSOLUTELY PACKED. So I took a walk into the theater and saw enough Stars of David to realize that this wasn't a Gentile crowd plus the fact most Gentiles are eating turkey with relatives on Christmas afternoon or preparing to go out for a turkey dinner.

So, my point is this: The King of Prussia theater may have packed THE PASSION away in the corner because they didn't want to offend any of their Jewish customers. I am going out to another REGAL theater in Edgemmont, which is almost entirely Gentile, and I'll see where THE PASSION is playing there.

James Jaeger

Re(1): PASSION in Back of Theaters
Posted on March 19, 2004 at 10:25:53 PM by Mitchell Levine

For instance, many Jews go to the movies during the Gentile holidays, such as December 25th. I was wondering if this was really true

- Better believe it. Every single year I was a kid. It's probably the only reason they keep the theatres open.

Got into Star Wars one year in 5 minutes, when everbody else in my class had to wait about three days in line.

Re(1): PASSION in Back of Theaters
Posted on March 20, 2004 at 06:01:44 PM by George Shelps

I have to admit I am somewhat amazed that so many theaters are showing THE PASSION. I thought I was going to have to get out there and picket. I guess the theaters aren't controlled by the studios as much as I thought. I don't know what the deal is.___The "deal" is there is no "controlgroup," because the MPAA studios could have easily bludgeoned the theatre chains (which depend on their product) and forced THE PASSION into art houses.That this did not happen disproves your "control group" hypothesis. THE PASSIONis everything your "control group" issupposed to loathe.InIn reality, the term "control group" is an inflammatory and conspiratorialterm that should be abandoned. There is no doubt that the demographic you and Cones talk about is powerful but it falls short of anything which smacksof "control." There are other forcesat work...$$$$$ being the most powerful one.

Re(2): PASSION in Back of Theaters
Posted on March 19, 2004 at 10:57:44 PM by James Jaeger

- Better believe it. Every single year I was a kid. It's probably the only reason they keep the theatres open.

Well see, these are the delightful little tidbits one can pick up by observing and appreciating the neuances of other cultures. So if this makes me a bigot, then I love being bigoted.

James

P.S. If I were to go to a theater during next Christmas day, I won't get beat up by the Jews will I Mitch?

Re(3): PASSION in Back of Theaters
Posted on March 23, 2004 at 03:51:10 PM by Mitchell Levine

How would they have any idea whom you, a minor-leaguer at best, are?

Even IMDB Pro doesn't give you a ranking - and it tracks 250,000 players. The guy that wrote the pilot for Homeboys in Outer Space was rated 157,000, and you still didn't get a spot.

Re(2): PASSION in Back of Theaters
Posted on March 20, 2004 at 06:37:26 PM by James Jaeger

>___The "deal" is there is no "control group," because the MPAA studios could have easily bludgeoned the theatre chains (which depend on their product) and forced THE PASSION into art houses.

You may have a point here and I will certainly take this under consideration when evaluating Hollywood domination of American culture.

>That this did not happen disproves your "control group" hypothesis. THE PASSIONis everything your "control group" issupposed to loathe.

Do you think it's okay that FOX and the other MPAAs elected to not finance or distribute it? Do you see no connection between the power to greenlight a Christian picture, THE PASSION, and the secular Jewish males that "work" in the top positions at the studios?

>In reality, the term "control group" is an inflammatory and conspiratorial term that should be abandoned.

So what if we said: "In the MPAA studios more than 50% of the top executives are secular Jewish males." Is this true? Is this inflammatory? Is this conspiratorial? What's a conspiracy? Is it different from a network?

>There is no doubt that the demographic you and Cones talk about is powerful but it falls short of anything which smacks of "control."

Well the word "minority domination" is usually used by sociologists. Ask your soc friend.

>There are other forces at work...$$$$$ being the most powerful one.

Well if money is THE most powerful one, how come the studios passed on THE PASSION? With all their experience, can't they smell a money-maker? And if they can't what are they doing working there? What kind of experts ARE they, if such is the case?

James Jaeger

Re(3): PASSION in Back of Theaters
Posted on March 21, 2004 at 00:21:36 AM by George Shelps



>___The "deal" is there is no "control group," because the MPAA studios could have easily bludgeoned the theatre chains (which depend on their product) and forced THE PASSION into art houses.

You may have a point here and I will
certainly take this under consideration when evaluating Hollywood domination of American culture.

>That this did not happen disproves your "control group" hypothesis. THE PASSIONis everything your "control group" issupposed to loathe.

Do you think it's okay that FOX and the other MPAAs elected to not finance or distribute it?

=___Sure it's OK. Free enterprise. The project was a risky one.

Do you see no connection between the power to greenlight a Christian picture, THE PASSION, and the secular Jewish males that "work" in the top positions at the studios?

-_No. There have been many many many
Christian-oriented pictures made in the
history of Hollywood. The last film about Jesus, JESUS OF NAZARETH (1977) was made by a Jewish producer.


>In reality, the term "control group" is an inflammatory and conspiratorial term that should be abandoned.

So what if we said: "In the MPAA studios more than 50% of the top executives are secular Jewish males." Is this true? Is this inflammatory? Is this conspiratorial? What's a conspiracy? Is it different from a network?

___That fact does not negate the power
of the remaining 50%. No one disputes
your factual point about the composition
of Hollywood...what is disturbing is
the implication that the government should enter into a private industry and
attempt to restructure its ethnic composition...





>There is no doubt that the demographic you and Cones talk about is powerful but it falls short of anything which smacks of "control."


Well the word "minority domination" is usually used by sociologists. Ask your soc friend.

___"Domination" is just as bad. "Influence" is a much better term and less inflammatory.


>There are other forces at work...$$$$$ being the most powerful one.

Well if money is THE most powerful one, how come the studios passed on THE PASSION? With all their experience, can't they smell a money-maker? And if they can't what are they doing working there? What kind of experts ARE they, if such is the case?

___Because I don't think even Mel had
the feeling it would do this well.

Spielberg's Lack of Talent
Posted on March 23, 2004 at 07:54:11 PM by James Jaeger

>How would they have any idea whom you, a minor-leaguer at best, are?
Even IMDB Pro doesn't give you a ranking - and it tracks 250,000 players. The guy that wrote the pilot for Homeboys in Outer Space was rated 157,000, and you still didn't get a spot.

Gee Mitch, I guess I'm just LESS than nothing. See, what you do to me here on this site is typical of what other Jews, who dominate studios, do in Hollywood to so-called Gentiles. Has the same exact feel. And there are probably many other non-Jews (Gentiles and Christians) out there reading this who have felt this same thing. It's called invalidation and suppression, something secular Jews are good at. It's also what the secular New York Times is trying to do to Mel Gibson -- make him into less than nothing. It’s something that you are good at.

On the other hand, when Steven Spielberg illegally entered the Universal lot and fraudulently assumed a parking space as an "official observer" what suppression and invalidation did HE get from Jewish studio executives, Sid Sheinberg and Lou Wasserman? None. They just welcomed him as a fellow tribe member and gave him his first TV assignment . . . in other words, they made him MORE than nothing. And if you ever saw his early movies, I think you would agree they showed very little talent.

James Jaeger

Re(1): Spielberg's Lack of Talent
Posted on March 23, 2004 at 09:03:28 PM by Mitchell Levine

Gee Mitch, I guess I'm just LESS than nothing.

- Nope, just nothing. Jenks is less than nothing.

See, what you do to me here on this site is typical of what other Jews, who dominate studios, do in Hollywood to so-called Gentiles.

- This has nothing to do with you being Gentile; it has to do with you being not recognizable enough to get mobbed by Jews in a theatre on Christmas.

Keep it up and you'll probably become sufficiently infamous, if that's a good substitute in your mind for being famous.

Has the same exact feel. And there are probably many other non-Jews (Gentiles and Christians) out there reading this who have felt this same thing. It's called invalidation and suppression, something secular Jews are good at.

- Sorry, Jim, but the only thing I could do to "validate" you in this instance is lie and say you were a celebrity.

If the latter is what you really want, get off your butt and work on your career instead of spending your days complaining about successful people. If Mel Gibson can do it, you can.

Of course, you don't have his money or good looks, but you do have your own bankable qualities.

It's also what the secular New York Times is trying to do to Mel Gibson -- make him into less than nothing. It’s something that you are good at.

- They aren't saying Mel Gibson is "less than nothing," they are saying they feel he's a filmmaker with some unsavory characteristics. Whether that's true or not, I don't know.

I didn't like his movie, not because I believe it's bigoted, but rather because I don't think it was well-written or directed (if well-acted, shot, and generally produced).

On the other hand, when Steven Spielberg illegally entered the Universal lot and fraudulently assumed a parking space as an "official observer" what suppression and invalidation did HE get from Jewish studio executives

- It turns out that this story - oft-quoted by Spielberg as it is - is simply a myth. If they had discovered him, he probably would have been ejected from the set. You can read the debunking of it at www.snopes.com.

Sid Sheinberg and Lou Wasserman? None. They just welcomed him as a fellow tribe member and gave him his first TV assignment . . . in other words, they made him MORE than nothing. And if you ever saw his early movies, I think you would agree they showed very little talent.

- Actually, I like Duel. I don't know anything about the others, and, personally, I don't think he's a great filmmaker, but he does seem to have the ability to make movies the public wants to see. That's really what counts.

Re(2): Spielberg's Lack of Talent
Posted on March 24, 2004 at 00:19:30 AM by George Shelps

On the other hand, when Steven Spielberg illegally entered the Universal lot and fraudulently assumed a parking space as an "official observer" what suppression and invalidation did HE get from Jewish studio executives

- It turns out that this story - oft-quoted by Spielberg as it is - is simply a myth. If they had discovered him, he probably would have been ejected from the set. You can read the debunking of it at www.snopes.com.

Sid Sheinberg and Lou Wasserman? None. They just welcomed him as a fellow tribe member and gave him his first TV assignment . . . in other words, they made him MORE than nothing. And if you ever saw his early movies, I think you would agree they showed very little talent.

____He made a 35mm short called AMBLIN
(Aafter which his company is named) which served as his audition piece and
proved that he could direct.

By contrast, you have an unreleased direct to video feature made 20 years ago which never received any US
distribution---so I'd say it's time to
out down the pen and pick up the camera
and make movies.

Re(3): Spielberg's Lack of Talent
Posted on March 24, 2004 at 12:43:31 PM by James Jaeger

>By contrast, you have an unreleased direct to video feature made 20 years ago which never received any US
distribution---so I'd say it's time to
out down the pen and pick up the camera
and make movies.

I was never given the money to properly complete post production on this film FOR U.S. release.

James Jaeger

Re(3): Spielberg's Lack of Talent
Posted on March 24, 2004 at 10:48:59 AM by Mitchell Levine

Also, your idea that the studios would have considered a Jew less of a trespasser than a non-Jew is more than a little silly.

Will Mel make a film about the Ukrainian Holocaust?
Posted on March 16, 2004 at 11:39:59 PM by LAX

From Steve Sailer's website:
Gibson could pocket up to $500 million, personally -- While there was a lot of talk about whether Mel would ever work in this town again, the reality is that he will wind up a massive player in Hollywood, with the power to greenlight films that nobody else would touch. For example, I wouldn't be surprised to see a movie from him on the Ukrainian Holocaust, Stalin's 1928-33 war on the peasants. It was one of the turning point events of the 20th Century, but it is almost unknown in America.



Gibson pointed out to Peggy Noonan in Reader's Digest, "In the Ukraine several million starved to death between 1932 and 1933." To which, Abe Foxman, head of the ADL, retorted in the NYT, "He doesn't begin to understand the difference between dying in a famine and people being cremated solely for what they are."



This caused a Ukrainian-American leader to write to the NYT: "While it is certainly appropriate to avoid the fruitless exercise of "competitive martyrdom," one should not claim that the suffering of a Jewish people is somehow "marginalized" or "diluted" if the Jewish Holocaust of World War II, for example, is mentioned in a series of other major holocausts. The Jewish Holocaust was without a doubt one of the most horrendous events in all of history, but the slow, painful death by starvation, which befell millions of Ukrainians in 1932-33 was the result of a planned, methodical, and relentlessly carried out crime by the Soviet regime against the Ukrainian people. This too was a genocide and should not be "marginalized"."



It's possible that Foxman is trying to goad Gibson into developing a longterm symbiotic relationship with him. Rather than declaring victory over anti-Semitism in America and shutting down the ADL, Foxman is on a perpetual hunt for a new bogeyman to use in scaring up donations. While Foxman's attacks on Gibson's Passion certainly put millions in Gibson's pocket, they can't have hurt the ADL's bottom line either. What surer way for Foxman to keep the money rolling in than to provoke Gibson into making a movie about the Ukrainian Holocaust?

Re(1): Will Mel make a film about the Ukrainian Holocaust?
Posted on March 17, 2004 at 04:49:41 PM by Mitchell Levine

The reason you're unlikely to see a movie about the Ukrainian Holocaust isn't that Jews are afraid that somebody else will get more attention than they do, it's that:

1) Famine does not exactly make for an exciting visual narrative.

2) American audiences have consistently demonstrated a lack of interest in historical subjects that, unlike WWII and the New Testament, have little apparent connection to the United States and its culture.

3) Exceptions to the above, like The Last Emperor, usually have backdrops that have proven exotic audience appeal like the Far East, as demonstrated by Shogun and a million martial arts movies. No comparable evidence for the Ukraine as a historical subject has ever really surfaced.

4) The story of the Ukrainian Holocaist, while a historically interesting one, doesn't really have a dramatic conclusion which would make for a cinematic, marketable feature film release in the same way, say, Braveheart does.

Ironically, Jewish Americans, or at least Ashkenazi ones, probably have among the strongest historical ties to the Ukraine of native U.S. citizens (as my family does), and would possibly be one of the best ticket-buying demographics for a film treatment.

Re(2): Will Mel make a film about the Ukrainian Holocaust?
Posted on March 18, 2004 at 07:51:18 PM by James Jaeger

As far as movies are concerned: there is no such thing as a bad idea if done well.

James Jaeger

Re(3): Will Mel make a film about the Ukrainian Holocaust?
Posted on March 18, 2004 at 08:16:18 PM by Mitchell Levine

It's not that it's necessarily a "bad idea" per se, it's that the concept has too many uncinematic and anti-commercial elements to believe that it would ever be likely to make it out of (or even into) development as anything other than a documentary for the History Channel or PBS.

It's just not feature film material. I wouldn't give it a recommendation for such, nor would, I believe, any other development staffer at a major venue.

That doesn't mean that it's not an interesting idea or a worthy project.

A film on the Ukrainian Holocaust should investigate the role of communist Ashkenazim in the mass murder. They were often vicious anti-Ukrainian racists, who used the opportunity of the revolution to brutalize the peasantry. Lev Kopelev discusses his actions and those of other Ashkenazim in "To Be Preserved Forever."

Cardamon.Org

Splash of Red
Posted on March 19, 2004 at 04:36:08 PM by James Jaeger

What do you think of our stalin picture, SPLASH OF RED? Is there any reason this couldn't be an interesting movie for at least cable?
http://www.mecfilms.com/dna/indev/features/sbr.htm

James

Splash of Red
Posted on March 19, 2004 at 04:56:37 PM by Mitchell Levine

"Interesting," or "likely to get developed and released?"

Splash of Red
Posted on March 19, 2004 at 08:46:46 PM by James Jaeger

I would think this would be a fascinating look into one of histories worst mass murderers from the POV of a young boy. Thus I would hope that it merit being further developed, financed and released, at least on the History Channel or some other channel. I don't see why this wouldn't make a fascinating feature either. The more one knows about Stalin, the more interesting stuff comes out. Especially in this day when we have Saddam Hussein in custody with the trials on the horizon. Saddam's "hero" was basically Stalin, thus this could trigger new interest in what kind of a person Stalin was. Honestly, for the life of me, I can't understand why the studios haven't yet picked up on this incredible project. I mean read what Mr. Contract says in his book:

"I have lived two lives. "From my birth on January 15, 1922 until 1946, I lived in the U.S.S.R., a Soviet Jew. Since 1949, I have lived in the United States of America. I have been an American citizen since 1955.

For the two years from 1939 to 1941, I worked for the Soviet railroad, and for the NKVD, known today as the KGB. I also functioned as an undercover man, reporting directly to Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. From June 22, 1941, the beginning of the war, I was a member of the Russian Army.

From 1942, I served as bodyguard for Russian Premier Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. I joined the group of 18 other young men, Stalin's "Back Room Boys". In this capacity, I learned a great deal about personalities, behavior, attitudes, and the effect upon the course of history. Due to my contacts, I was able to provide for my parents, brothers, and sisters; on two occasions, I was able to use my influence to intervene when my family tried to flee to Palestine, and were being held by the Soviet authorities.

Sadly, I was unable to do anything to help members of my family when the Nazis invaded Kovel, in the Ukraine. My father was killed while trying to retrieve the body of a fellow rabbi. With the exception of two brothers, the rest of my family was executed by the Gestapo.

During my years in the KGB, I was privy to information about the inner workings of the government, and quickly became disillusioned. Although I could have obtained the recommendations necessary to join the Communist Party, I chose not to become a member.


I have never belonged to the Komsomol, the youth organization of the Communist Party. No one, Stalin included, ever questioned my status as a party member.

As time passed and I became knowledgeable about the behind-the-scenes deceit, my desire to defect to the United States became as strong as my father's wish to go to Palestine.

Prior to 1946, when I defected at the American Embassy in Munich, history was being written in my presence -- at Teheran, Yalta, Potsdam. First as a propaganda expert for the Railroad Communists, then in the company of Stalin, I traveled the vast Soviet empire from Eastern Europe to the Far East.

At Stalin's "request," I wore a Gentile cross; with my knowledge of the Jewish religion and propensity for languages, I was able to serve a need for Stalin, and at the same time, be in a position to help those who were close to me. In this capacity, I was able to do whatever possible to assist my people -- the Soviet Jews. With the inside information that I supplied, my father was able to assist many Jews in their desire to practice their religion, and in some cases, help them flee the country. In many instances, I was able to defuse volatile situations, that left unchecked, would have resulted in many deaths.

My regret is that I was unable to help my own family go "home" to Palestine.

It has taken me many years to be able to write of my "first" life. Initially, family members still in the Soviet Union had to be protected; later, many of the memories were simply too painful to resurrect. The emotional pain could not be denied; one does not speak easily of grave inhumanity, of sadism and cruelty.

As time has passed, the need to speak out has transcended the emotional difficulty. History records the final results of actions, not the behind-the-scenes truth, not the "back room" personalities that are the basis of all action.

My story of two lives is a chronicle of politics and personality, of cruelty and compassion. It is a story of history in the making, from the human viewpoint. It is the story of the importance of human rights, years ago. It is the story of human rights today, when oppression is as much a part of Soviet life as it was half a century ago.

It is the story of a Jewish boy -- the son of an orthodox rabbi -- who, by strength of burning desire, left the country of his birth, and came to America in search of the one important element of life.

Freedom.

/S/ ALEXANDER CONTRACT"

Re(1): Splash of Red
Posted on March 20, 2004 at 02:41:12 PM by George Shelps

for the life of me, I can't understand why the studios haven't yet picked up on this incredible project.

__Yes, it's a great story...I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Contract.

Bt the script was poorly written, in my
opinion. You need a new writer on it.

Re(2): Splash of Red
Posted on March 20, 2004 at 06:26:39 PM by James Jaeger

>__Yes, it's a great story...I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Contract.
Bt the script was poorly written, in my
opinion. You need a new writer on it.

You and I have discussed this many times. As you know I have already had 2 writers on this project, one of them delivering three drafts. In the absence of a development deal, it becomes increasingly difficult to hire additional writers. You can say that we never got a development deal because the screenplay is not as good as you feel it could be - but I feel Ken did a good enough job to warrant having this project set up. No screenplay is in its final stage when a studio comes in. If the studios can't see merit in this project simply by reading some of the source materials, my feeling is they simply DON'T WANT to see merit in this project. Since the studios are dominated by secular Jewish males, they probably don't want to see Sasha Contract's story told, the son of a Rabbi. Also, I sense Hollywood doesn't feel comfortable explicating the connection between Jews and Communism. Plus, Sasha was a captain in the KBG so the fact that he is Jewish, probably doesn't play very well with the Jews that run Hollywood. So here we have yet another example of that narrow demographic censoring, suppressing or attacking stories that don't fit the mold they have set. Ask Mel Gibson if this is true.

James Jaeger

Re(3): Splash of Red
Posted on March 23, 2004 at 03:41:50 PM by Mitchell Levine

They aren't "censoring" the story: the story is, for all the reasons I've already mentioned, simply not commercial enough to be a Hollywood film.

Try HBO or the History Channel.

Re(4): Splash of Red
Posted on March 23, 2004 at 07:31:12 PM by James Jaeger

So here we have yet another example of that narrow demographic SUPPRESSING stories that don't fit the mold they have set.

Better Mitch?

James Jaeger

Re(5): Splash of Red
Posted on March 23, 2004 at 08:40:26 PM by Mitchell Levine

No, it's an example of an industry in a free enterprise system not investing in a way unlikely to repay the investment.

The concept - while being a very interesting one - simply lacks elements necessary to be commercially marketable as a feature film.

If you don't believe me, hire a marketing research firm, and let the public tell you itself.

That doesn't mean it wouldn't be good for a specialty market (I'd personally like to see it myself), but for a mainstream release, no way.

Re(1): Will Mel make a film about the Ukrainian Holocaust?
Posted on March 17, 2004 at 00:02:07 AM by James Jaeger

>From Steve Sailer's website:
Gibson could pocket up to $500 million, personally -- While there was a lot of talk about whether Mel would ever work in this town again, the reality is that he will wind up a massive player in Hollywood, with the power to greenlight films that nobody else would touch. For example, I wouldn't be surprised to see a movie from him on the Ukrainian Holocaust, Stalin's 1928-33 war on the peasants. It was one of the turning point events of the 20th Century, but it is almost unknown in America.

Well maybe I should take our STALIN project to Mel. Or maybe some qualified individual (with a relationship with ICON) reading this post should do it on our behalf. Anyone think that might be viable? A summary of the project, SPLASH OF RED, is at
http://www.mecfilms.com/dna/indev/features/sbr.htm

The first chapter of the book upon which we based the screenplay is below. I personally know Alexander Contract, who worked for Stalin as a boy and who wrote the book. I worked with him for many years developing this project and we took it to most of the major studios, who passed on it. I was however able to arrange for Steven Spielberg to tape Mr. Contract for the SHOAH project, but I could bot convince DREAMWORKS to set up the project because they said they were oversolicited on WW2 pictures.

James Jaeger

--------------------------
"I have lived two lives. "From my birth on January 15, 1922 until 1946, I lived in the U.S.S.R., a Soviet Jew. Since 1949, I have lived in the United States of America. I have been an American citizen since 1955.

"For the two years from 1939 to 1941, I worked for the Soviet railroad, and for the NKVD, known today as the KGB. I also functioned as an undercover man, reporting directly to Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. From June 22, 1941, the beginning of the war, I was a member of the Russian Army.

"From 1942, I served as bodyguard for Russian Premier Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. I joined the group of 18 other young men, Stalin's "Back Room Boys". In this capacity, I learned a great deal about personalities, behavior, attitudes, and the effect upon the course of history. Due to my contacts, I was able to provide for my parents, brothers, and sisters; on two occasions, I was able to use my influence to intervene when my family tried to flee to Palestine, and were being held by the Soviet authorities.

"Sadly, I was unable to do anything to help members of my family when the Nazis invaded Kovel, in the Ukraine. My father was killed while trying to retrieve the body of a fellow rabbi. With the exception of two brothers, the rest of my family was executed by the Gestapo.

"During my years in the KGB, I was privy to information about the inner workings of the government, and quickly became disillusioned. Although I could have obtained the recommendations necessary to join the Communist Party, I chose not to become a member.

"I have never belonged to the Komsomol, the youth organization of the Communist Party. No one, Stalin included, ever questioned my status as a party member.

"As time passed and I became knowledgeable about the behind-the-scenes deceit, my desire to defect to the United States became as strong as my father's wish to go to Palestine.

"Prior to 1946, when I defected at the American Embassy in Munich, history was being written in my presence -- at Teheran, Yalta, Potsdam. First as a propaganda expert for the Railroad Communists, then in the company of Stalin, I traveled the vast Soviet empire from Eastern Europe to the Far East.

"At Stalin's "request," I wore a Gentile cross; with my knowledge of the Jewish religion and propensity for languages, I was able to serve a need for Stalin, and at the same time, be in a position to help those who were close to me. In this capacity, I was able to do whatever possible to assist my people -- the Soviet Jews. With the inside information that I supplied, my father was able to assist many Jews in their desire to practice their religion, and in some cases, help them flee the country. In many instances, I was able to defuse volatile situations, that left unchecked, would have resulted in many deaths.

"My regret is that I was unable to help my own family go "home" to Palestine.

"It has taken me many years to be able to write of my "first" life. Initially, family members still in the Soviet Union had to be protected; later, many of the memories were simply too painful to resurrect. The emotional pain could not be denied; one does not speak easily of grave inhumanity, of sadism and cruelty.

"As time has passed, the need to speak out has transcended the emotional difficulty. History records the final results of actions, not the behind-the-scenes truth, not the "back room" personalities that are the basis of all action.

"My story of two lives is a chronicle of politics and personality, of cruelty and compassion. It is a story of history in the making, from the human viewpoint. It is the story of the importance of human rights, years ago. It is the story of human rights today, when oppression is as much a part of Soviet life as it was half a century ago.

"It is the story of a Jewish boy -- the son of an orthodox rabbi -- who, by strength of burning desire, left the country of his birth, and came to America in search of the one important element of life.

"Freedom."

/S/ ALEXANDER CONTRACT

Jews, Hollywood, Porno
Posted on March 21, 2004 at 00:20:13 AM by Broderick Bernstein


Very, very long article -- includes lots of material about Jewish dominance of Hollywood and pornography:

http://www.culturewars.com/2003/rabbidresner.html

from Culture Wars magazine

When William Cash wrote his already cited article in the British magazine The Spectator discussing Jewish dominance in Hollywood and, therefore, the pornography industry, the discussion prompted an outraged response from Abraham H. Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League. To raise the issue meant that one was guilty of propagating an anti-Semitic canard, even though, in the case of Luke Ford, it was a Jew who raised the issue. 'Those Jews who enter the pornography industry,' Foxman opined, 'have done so as individuals pursuing the American dream, not as representatives of their religious group. Moreover, anti-Semites never seem to take note of the fact that the most prominent pornographers in America are Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt, neither of whom is the least bit Jewish. Finally, though individual Jews may play a role in pornography, Jewishness does not.'

Foxman then fell back on the same justification for obscenity that Irving Thalberg used in his fight with the Legion of Decency. Pornography is controlled by 'consumers,' most of whom are Gentiles. Therefore, Gentiles are ultimately responsible for pornography. According to Foxman, even if Jews dominate a particular field, as is the case with both Hollywood and the related pornography industry, that bears no relationship to the fact that they are Jews, no matter how one defines the term. To say otherwise is to be an anti-Semite.

Foxman is being more than a little disingenuous here. In mentioning Larry Flynt and Hugh Hefner as the paradigmatic Gentile pornographers, he failed to point out that 1) that Hugh Hefner would object to being called a pornographer and 2) that Larry Flynt is a significant contributor to the ADL. He also failed to mention, as Rabbi Dresner points out in his book, that Hugh Hefner received the ADL's freedom award in 1980. Taking a less partisan view of the question, Dresner feels that The religion of impulse likewise found significant Jewish involvement. An unusually high percentage of the material on sexual liberation was written by Jews, as well as among its advocates. On a more commercial level, for example, Jews have been strongly represented in the Playboy enterprises. B'nai Brith's Anti-Defamation League had no problem, for example, when some years back they presented their American Freedom Award at a fashionable black-tie dinner-dance to Hugh Hefner. . . . About the honoree, the ADL says, with an apparent straight face, that the empire he founded has had a far-reaching impact, not only on the publishing industry, but on the mores of American society as well.

In other words, the ADL was rewarding Hefner for the role he played in bringing about widespread moral corruption and the spread of sexual deviance in America. The question remains, why would the Jews at the ADL be interested in rewarding this sort of behavior? Why, as Dresner asks in his book, did American Jewry remain silent when the ADL conferred its freedom award. 'Both the Jewish establishment and nonestablishment observers,' Dresner laments, 'took it in stride, raising not a finger of protest. It was Catholic William Buckley of National Review who pointed to the Jewish issue.'

And what exactly is the 'Jewish issue' here? The answer depends a lot on how the term Jew gets defined, especially by the Jews themselves. Ford claims that the Jews who dominate pornography are what Rabbi Dresner would call 'advocates of Woody Allen,' which is to say, Sabbatian in their orientation. It's, in other words, not a coincidence that they are Jewish and involved in pornography. Their involvement in pornography flows naturally from the way they define themselves as Jews. Luke Ford, according to one report, 'insists that pornography constitutes a deliberate attempt by ‘non-Jewish Jews,' alienated from normative Judaism and Christian mores, to undermine Western civilization.'

According to Luke Ford's discussion, the animus of the Jewish Cultural Revolutionary is historical and ethnic. Pornography is just one weapon in a panoply of cultural warfare which gets waged half in self-defense, half in residual animus against traditional majority Christian cultures, even when, as is the case of the United States, the original prescription no longer fits the actual situation. According to Ford, that is their aim because they are Jews, and they are reaching for even more control than they already have. This is the historic modus operandi of the Jews. They are outsiders everywhere except in Israel, and when they first appear in any Gentile society and begin reaching for power they are resisted. The society treats the Jews as outsiders, as aliens, and attempts to keep them from gaining control. The Jewish method of countering this opposition is to work quietly to accumulate as much wealth as possible. At the same time they work to corrupt the society's leaders with money and to sow dissension among the masses, to set one social class against another, to break up the society's solidarity and its cohesiveness, so that there will be less resistance to their penetration of the society.

During the latter half of the 19th century and the first part of the 20th century fomenting class warfare has been their most successful technique in Europe. In Russia, for example, they would have had difficulty in corrupting the enormously wealthy aristocracy with bribes, but their technique of fomenting class warfare succeeded in destroying Russian society and letting the Jews seize control through their Marxist movement. In the United States, on the other hand, where the political leaders are essentially hucksters and lawyers and the working class is relatively well off compared to Russia, the Jews have had much more success with corruption than with their attempts to foment class warfare. . . . and in the last half of the 20th century their principal weapon for this purpose, more important than corruption or class warfare, has been their control of the mass media of news and entertainment.

Jewish involvement in pornography, in other words, goes deeper both commercially and philosophically than Abe Foxman is willing to admit. Once the majority of American Jews defined themselves as sexually deviant, pornography, along with homosexual rights, feminism, and New Age goddess worship, would become a natural expression of their worldview, and since they controlled Hollywood, they were in the position to make their worldview normative for the culture at large. The traditional animus against majority culture combined with a decline in moral scruple would naturally lead 'the advocates of Woody Allen' to become involved in pornography as a form of cultural warfare.

The most significant thinker in this regard is Wilhelm Reich, a Jew from Galicia who was a student of both Sigmund Freud (quite literally) and Karl Marx and a man who tried to create an intellectual marriage between their two quintessentially revolutionary ideologies. Reich wrote the book on sexual revolution and many Jewish porn stars have read it. Richard Pacheco is one.

'Five years before I got my first part in an adult film,' Pacheco explained, 'I went down to an audition for an X-rated film with my hair down to my ass, a copy of Wilhelm Reich's Sexual Revolution under my arm and yelling about work, love and sex, which were Reich's three principles. These things have got to be in balance or your life is going to fucked.' Pacheco didn't get the job, but he didn't stop auditioning either. Nor did he stop using his Jewishness as the rationalization for his participation in pornography. 'Five years later,' Pacheco continued, 'I auditioned for another X-rated film. That very day, I also interviewed at Hebrew Union Seminary to do rabbinical study. I made the choice that the kind of rabbi I would be, if I became one, was one that could have been performing in sex films as part of his experience.'

Jewish Responsibility
Posted on March 22, 2004 at 07:38:23 PM by James Jaeger

>...the discussion prompted an outraged response from Abraham H. Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League. To raise the issue meant that one was guilty of propagating an anti-Semitic canard, even though, in the case of Luke Ford, it was a Jew who raised the issue. 'Those Jews who enter the pornography industry,' Foxman opined, 'have done so as individuals pursuing the American dream, not as representatives of their religious group.

I have heard this "canard" many times as well: "They have done so as individuals pursuing the American dream, not as representatives of their religious group" in this case Judaism.

While it is true one can't blame the entire religious group for the miss-deeds of one (or a few members), to the degree the group condones the poor behavior of the few, it becomes complicit in the poor behavior itself. Look what happened in the Catholic Church.

As we have said time again at FIRM, the Jewish males that dominate Hollywood are not acting the way they act necessarily because they are Jewish, they are acting the way they act because they are individuals pursuing the American dream, as Foxman puts it. But, to the degree their actions are predatory, discriminatory and/or illegal, it's the responsibility of the Jewish community to insist they behave in a moral, ethical and legal manner IF they wish to remain Jews (or claim they are Jews). The Jewish community must therefore reprimand (or excommunicate, as a last resort), such misfits and criminals if it desires to maintain any sort of credible ethics presence in society.

To the degree Jews in general do not handle such situations appropriately, they are in effect condoning them, thus they cannot distance themselves from the anti-social acts as Abe Foxman attempts to do when he states such individuals are not "representatives of their religious group."

James Jaeger

Re(1): Jewish Responsibility
Posted on March 23, 2004 at 11:31:58 AM by Joachim Martillo

I prefer to use the term "Ashkenazi American" instead of "Jew" to make clear that there is an ethnic not a religious correlation. Sefardim and Jewish Arabs in the USA have shown no particular affinity for the porn industry or the white slave trade.

There may be historical cultural reasons behind the Ashkenazi American association with pornography and white slavery. The Eastern European community strongly controlled deviance until the 17th century, and the leaders were particularly concerned with sexual impurity. A major reason for early adolescent marriage was the fear of sins related to masturbation and wet dreams. We have personal testimony to this effect (viz The Golden Tradition edited by Dawidowicz).

When Ashkenazim broke from the community, they typically developed extreme antinomian attitudes expecially with regard to sex. Thus we find that Sabbatian and Frankist heretic congregations were often lead by a married woman, who would have sex with a male recruit to the community in order to determine whether he should be admitted. Usually her husband would have sex with female recruits, but sometimes both husband and wife would have sex in a menage a trois with female recruits.

Ashkenazim brought this sort of antinomianism with them from Eastern Europe, and it has found a home in the movie industry.

BTW, http://www.cardamon.org/NAAP_Lecture/naaplecture.htm provides an example of correct discussion of Jewish/Ashkenazi issues with precise terminology. There is a section on the movie industry including its contribution to demonization of Arabs and Muslims as well as its role in manipulating Americans into supporting Zionist racists in the Middle East.

Cardamon.Org

Re(1): Jewish Responsibility
Posted on March 23, 2004 at 04:35:49 PM by Mitchell Levine

I have heard this "canard" many times as well: "They have done so as individuals pursuing the American dream, not as representatives of their religious group" in this case Judaism.

- You're right, Jim: every single member of an ethnic group is morally responsible for the actions of every individual in their group.

For example, Hugh Hefner, Bob Guccione, and Larry Flynt are all White Gentiles, so therefore you're responsible for the scourge of pornography.

Also, similarly, because Stalin was a White Gentile, you are additionally responsible for the Ukrainian Holocaust. Don't tell me you had nothing to do with it personally _ White Gentiles could have stopped it, if they wished, and because you did nothing, you are obviously just as guilty as Stalin.

By the way, since you seem to be unaware of it, pornography is hardly a crime, as it's sexual conduct between mutually consenting adults. In fact, a recent marketing survey revealed that about 40% of all fundamentalist Christians visit or have visited adult sites.

If you don't like pornography, don't watch it. It's rather hypocritical of you to claim to oppose censorship and at the same time tell adults that they can't view a communications product created by perfectly willing participants, intended to be enjoyed by adults.

While it is true one can't blame the entire religious group for the miss-deeds of one (or a few members), to the degree the group condones the poor behavior of the few, it becomes complicit in the poor behavior itself. Look what happened in the Catholic Church.

- All I've heard you do is complain about people reporting on the scandals in the Church, I've never heard you criticize the Church for protecting predicate child molesters. Does that mean you're complicit in their malfeasance?

There've been many Jewish groups that have condemned the "scourge" of pornography. As the First Amendment protects its makers, there's not really anything Jews can do about its production, nor is there any reason that all Jews should be smeared for its existence.

It's hardly like there aren't many Gentiles involved with its production and distribution: it's primarily financed by Gentile gangsters. Why don't you take some "ethnic responsibility" for them, huh?

As we have said time again at FIRM, the Jewish males that dominate Hollywood are not acting the way they act necessarily because they are Jewish, they are acting the way they act because they are individuals pursuing the American dream, as Foxman puts it. But, to the degree their actions are predatory, discriminatory and/or illegal


- Since you haven't been able to establish that their actions have been predatory, discriminatory, and/or illegal, there's really nothing for them to atone for. Your idea of a Hollywood "crime" is not financing Gibson to make The Passion - when it turns out that it wouldn't have been in the film's best interests to have been made and distributed by Fox in the first place.

, it's the responsibility of the Jewish community to insist they behave in a moral, ethical and legal manner IF they wish to remain Jews (or claim they are Jews).

- They do: by not committing crimes themselves. When you start apologizing for all the many sins which have been and are being committed by White Gentiles, and people purporting to be Christians, you can expect your Jewish cohorts to do the same.

To the degree Jews in general do not handle such situations appropriately, they are in effect condoning them, thus they cannot distance themselves from the anti-social acts as Abe Foxman attempts to do when he states such individuals are not "representatives of their religious group."

- They are NOT condoning them: when it's appropriate, they refer them for criminal prosecution, as was the case in Enron.

Quite reasonably, they resist the idea that if a Gentile does something wrong, it's just that individual's fault - but if a Jew does something wrong, it's all Jews'fault, like, for instance, blaming all Jews for Christ's death.

I'll tell you what, Jimbo, stop complaining about the mote in your brother's eye, and overlooking the whole plank in yours.

When you stop complaining about the studios hiring too many Jews, and start beating your drums about Gentile sin, then you'll have credibility. Until then, you're really just guilty of bigotry.

Re(2): Jewish Responsibility
Posted on March 23, 2004 at 06:36:17 PM by James Jaeger

As usual you have twisted the intention of my post all over Mitch. To wit:

>- You're right, Jim: every single member of an ethnic group is morally responsible for the actions of every individual in their group.

I never said they were. See below.

>For example, Hugh Hefner, Bob Guccione, and Larry Flynt are all White Gentiles, so therefore you're responsible for the scourge of pornography.

I'm talking about Christians, not Gentiles. If people who claim to be Christians are doing things wrong, the Christian community has just as much obligation to encourage them to refrain as does the Jewish community. "Gentiles" are not a religious denomination - that's just an "us and them" term Jews use to label anyone who is not Jewish.

>Also, similarly, because Stalin was a White Gentile, you are additionally responsible for the Ukrainian Holocaust. Don't tell me you had nothing to do with it personally _ White Gentiles could have stopped it, if they wished, and because you did nothing, you are obviously just as guilty as Stalin.

Please stop lumping all Christians in to the category of "gentile." That's as bad as me lumping all Jews into the category of "atheists" or "wogs," as the Scientologists call anyone who is not a Scientologist.

>By the way, since you seem to be unaware of it, pornography is hardly a crime, as it's sexual conduct between mutually consenting adults. In fact, a recent marketing survey revealed that about 40% of all fundamentalist Christians visit or have visited adult sites.

My issue isn't with the porn industry as it's not my field of expertise. I have no idea whether Jews or so-called Gentiles or Christians are involved in this industry. I am addressing the Hollywood-based U.S. motion picture industry, only.

>If you don't like pornography, don't watch it. It's rather hypocritical of you to claim to oppose censorship and at the same time tell adults that they can't view a communications product created by perfectly willing participants, intended to be enjoyed by adults.

Where did I make such a claim? Again I am not addressing the issue of porn. I believe another poster brought this issue up. I might also add this is off-topic for the FIRM site as well.

Jaeger Wrote:
>>While it is true one can't blame the entire religious group for the miss-deeds of one (or a few members), to the degree the group condones the poor behavior of the few, it becomes complicit in the poor behavior itself. Look what happened in the Catholic Church.

>- All I've heard you do is complain about people reporting on the scandals in the Church, I've never heard you criticize the Church for protecting predicate child molesters. Does that mean you're complicit in their malfeasance?

I think what happened in the Catholic Church is reprehensible and it is my understanding that they are finally taking steps to clean it up. I am not a Catholic. I'm an Episcopalian. If I ever heard of a member in the Episcopalian church working in a Hollywood studio practicing discrimination, being predatory or doing anything illegal, I would report them to the Chaplin and the Chaplin would ask them to stop what they were doing and make amends to anyone they may have hurt. I ask no more or less of Judaism or anyone who says they are Jewish.

>>There've been many Jewish groups that have condemned the "scourge" of pornography.

Yes, and this is commendable. But unless Jewish Synagogues take responsibility for its members’ actions, it is condoning same and thus is a party to the unethical behavior – and this reflects on the Jewish community in general.

>As the First Amendment protects its makers, there's not really anything Jews can do about its production, nor is there any reason that all Jews should be smeared for its existence.

This is an irresponsible attitude because you are hiding behind the First Amendment. There is plenty Jews can do about it: report those who are doing it to their Rabbis and excommunicate them unless they stop. You want separation of church and state – well stop using the state to justify or prosecute acts that are clearly unethical or immoral, but not necessarily illegal. By pawning off Jews to the state for justice the Synagogue should be dealing with, the Synagogue is shirking its responsibility as a religious leader and debasing the moral credibility of all Jews. Plus, such activities are failing to practice separation of church and state. The state "respecting" a religious order is JUST as unconstitutional as a religious order "respecting" the state by demanding it perform its ethical duties.

>It's hardly like there aren't many Gentiles involved with its production and distribution: it's primarily financed by Gentile gangsters. Why don't you take some "ethnic responsibility" for them, huh?

Again, please stop using the general term "Gentiles" to describe all Christians. This is a Judeo-centric term that is reprehensible to Christians. Its translation is "cattle" even though you deny it. Christianity is comprised of many different churches, such as Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, Born Agains. The five later denominations are all Protestants, a spinner group off the Catholic Church – just as the Catholic Church is a spinner group off of Judaism 2,000 years ago. The term Gentile does not necessarily refer to Christians. The term Gentile can refer to any person who is NOT Jewish. People who are Gentiles are therefore not necessarily under the religious domain of a particular Christian Church. Sure there are many Gentiles out there that do evil things. The ones that desire fellowship with a particular church should be subject to the morals and ethics of that church, otherwise they should be excommunicated. Same for Jews that do immoral or unethical things.

>>As we have said time again at FIRM, the Jewish males that dominate Hollywood are not acting the way they act necessarily because they are Jewish, they are acting the way they act because they are individuals pursuing the American dream, as Foxman puts it. But, to the degree their actions are predatory, discriminatory and/or illegal

>- Since you haven't been able to establish that their actions have been predatory, discriminatory, and/or illegal, there's really nothing for them to atone for.

John Cones has researched and discussed all these things in his books and in excerpts at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/bginfo.htm
I in particular draw your attention to the article "337 Distribution Practices" and his book, THE FEATURE FILM DISTRIBUTION DEAL.

>Your idea of a Hollywood "crime" is not financing Gibson to make The Passion - when it turns out that it wouldn't have been in the film's best interests to have been made and distributed by Fox in the first place.

No that is not my idea of a crime – it’s my idea of network censorship. The Jewish community that dominates the Hollywood studios has made a concerted effort to, not only suppress the financing and distribution of THE PASSION, but their cronies in the general print media have launched a vicious attack on Mel Gibson personally as a part of their campaign to discredit anyone who would dare reverse the clock on their secular, liberal agenda. The New York Times, of course leads this attack. This is known as the Culture War and if you want to argue about it, I suggest you go on Bill O’Reilly’s show, THE FACTOR, and argue. You can also see info on the CULTURE WAR at http:/www.billoreilly.com if your schedule won’t permit you to go on THE FACTOR.

>>, it's the responsibility of the Jewish community to insist they behave in a moral, ethical and legal manner IF they wish to remain Jews (or claim they are Jews).

>- They do: by not committing crimes themselves.

Oh horse. You are setting a bad and irresponsible example of a Jew in the Jewish community by failing to acknowledge the simple idea that a person who calls themself a Jew should live by the tenets of the Torah and conduct themselves in an appropriate way, ESPECIALLY when running a Hollywood movie studio.

>When you start apologizing for all the many sins which have been and are being committed by White Gentiles,

Again you use this "us and them" term. I am not responsible for "Gentiles" activities, only Episcopalians activities, and possibly other Christians if I know what church they attend. And I am perfectly willing to hold this hat. You give me evidence that some Episcopalian or Christian in a Hollywood position is doing something unethical, immoral or illegal, and I will take it up with them and their pastor if necessary. When I was in Scientology, I more than once had to convene a Chaplain’s Court on fellow parishioners that I felt were being unethical. We have the same system in the Christian church.

>and people purporting to be Christians, you can expect your Jewish cohorts to do the same.

Okay, you have a deal Mitch.

>>To the degree Jews in general do not handle such situations appropriately, they are in effect condoning them, thus they cannot distance themselves from the anti-social acts as Abe Foxman attempts to do when he states such individuals are not "representatives of their religious group."

>- They are NOT condoning them: when it's appropriate, they refer them for criminal prosecution, as was the case in Enron.

No we’re talking about religious responsibilities. Sure when someone is doing something illegal, you must report them to the proper authorities, but in many cases people who desire the benefits of being connected with a religious group, commit unethical or immoral deeds. Such deeds should be handled by the church. Many of the unethical deeds in Hollywood may not be illegal, as you have pointed out at length, but they are certainly unethical and some are immoral. You as a good Jew, in fact, have a moral obligation to contact the executives in the studios who claim to be Jewish and confirm that they are in fact NOT discriminating or engaged in predator practices. And if you find evidence that they are, it is your responsibility to report them to their Rabbis or Synagogue. This is especially true if you work in the film industry as well.

>Quite reasonably, they resist the idea that if a Gentile does something wrong, it's just that individual's fault - but if a Jew does something wrong, it's all Jews'fault, like, for instance, blaming all Jews for Christ's death.

Jews DID kill Christ, however the Jews that exist today are no more responsible for his death than I am for the acts of Germans who killed Jews in the Holocaust. Plus the term "anti-Semitism" cannot and does not apply in the situation of either Christ’s death or the movie, THE PASSION, because you can’t use the term anti-Semitic when ALL the "actors" are Jewish. The term makes no sense. Maybe the Romans at the time were anti-Semitic, but it is my understanding that in the case of Jesus’ death, they were being egged on by the Sanhedrin to execute Jesus and Pilot was on probation with the Caesar so he had to keep a less aggressive profile in this particular crucifixion. That’s why Pilot was more subdued than he had been in previous crucifixions of other Jews. Pilot WAS certainly as evil as the Jews that crucified Jesus, make no mistake about that, but in this case he had to maintain a low profile.

>I'll tell you what, Jimbo, stop complaining about the mote in your brother's eye, and overlooking the whole plank in yours.

Okay Mitch I will do my best to do this. And you do your best to keep vigil over your own fellow parishioners and maybe we can make some sincere progress.

>When you stop complaining about the studios hiring too many Jews, and start beating your drums about Gentile sin, then you'll have credibility. Until then, you're really just guilty of bigotry.

Okay, fair enough IF you replace the term Gentile with the term Christian as I have no more recourse over Gentiles than you. As I said above I am willing to enforce ethics on Christians in my church but there is nothing I can do about someone who is not a member of any particular Christian church.

James Jaeger

Re(3): Jewish Responsibility
Posted on March 24, 2004 at 07:10:01 PM by Mitchell Levine

Again, please stop using the general term "Gentiles" to describe all Christians. This is a Judeo-centric term that is reprehensible to Christians. Its translation is "cattle" even though you deny it.

- Jim, you're confused: the term "gentile" is a neutral word meaning "non-Jew" which appears, for example, in the King James version of the New Testament; e.g., in the Epistles, Paul writes that the Gospels were intended to be given "first to the Jew, and then to the Gentiles."

The word you are considering to be objectionable is "goyim," which IS unfriendly, but does not have the sense that you attribute to it: (from International Standard Bible Encyclopedia)

"goi'-yim (goyim): This word, rendered in the King James Version "nations," "heathen," "Gentiles," is commonly translated simply "nations" in the Revised Version (British and American). In Genesis 14:1 where the King James Version has "Tidal, king of nations," the Revised Version (British and American) retains in the text the Hebrew "Goiim" as a proper name. Some identify with Gutium. The Hebrew word is similarly retained in Joshua 12:23."

Although the word is hostile, it DOES NOT mean "cattle." The latter idea is an anti-Jewish myth intended to convey the hateful notion that Jews consider non-Jews animals to be penned.

The word "gentile,"however, is not hostile, nor does it specify a Christian: it simply means a non-Jew, and no slur is implied.

Sure there are many Gentiles out there that do evil things. The ones that desire fellowship with a particular church should be subject to the morals and ethics of that church, otherwise they should be excommunicated. Same for Jews that do immoral or unethical things.

- Untrue: people that do immoral and unethical things should be prosecuted by the state, when possible.

No-one, however, should be prevented from worshipping God, as that opportunity may very well be the only chance that individual ever has to confront and modify their behavior. The likelihood that they will ever change on their own is probably nil. All cooperation should be given to the authorities though.

Oh horse. You are setting a bad and irresponsible example of a Jew in the Jewish community by failing to acknowledge the simple idea that a person who calls themself a Jew should live by the tenets of the Torah and conduct themselves in an appropriate way, ESPECIALLY when running a Hollywood movie studio.

- No, the example I'm setting is that all Americans of all religions should be held to exactly one standard: the Constitution and the laws of the state.

Whether someone is a good Jew or Christian or Muslim or Hindu is between them and God.

No we’re talking about religious responsibilities. Sure when someone is doing something illegal, you must report them to the proper authorities, but in many cases people who desire the benefits of being connected with a religious group, commit unethical or immoral deeds. Such deeds should be handled by the church. Many of the unethical deeds in Hollywood may not be illegal, as you have pointed out at length, but they are certainly unethical and some are immoral. You as a good Jew, in fact, have a moral obligation to contact the executives in the studios who claim to be Jewish and confirm that they are in fact NOT discriminating or engaged in predator practices. And if you find evidence that they are, it is your responsibility to report them to their Rabbis or Synagogue. This is especially true if you work in the film industry as well.

- For one, I'm not Jewish by religious persuasion, any more than I am Catholic; I believe in Eastern religion, and I don't believe it's my place - or yours - to determine what is and isn't "immoral" for other people.

Everyone has to settle up with the Lords of Karma eventually, and since it's impossible to avoid personal responsibility for one's actions, there's no reason to second guess the former. Like Christ said, "judge not, lest ye be judged."

Once everyone gets the idea that it's their right to determine what is and is not immoral for everyone else, that's when our freedom's begin to be lost. Of course, if you have knowledge that someone else is committing a crime, then you should take appropriate measures.

Jews DID kill Christ, however the Jews that exist today are no more responsible for his death than I am for the acts of Germans who killed Jews in the Holocaust. Plus the term "anti-Semitism" cannot and does not apply in the situation of either Christ’s death or the movie, THE PASSION, because you can’t use the term anti-Semitic when ALL the "actors" are Jewish. The term makes no sense. Maybe the Romans at the time were anti-Semitic, but it is my understanding that in the case of Jesus’ death, they were being egged on by the Sanhedrin to execute Jesus and Pilot was on probation with the Caesar so he had to keep a less aggressive profile in this particular crucifixion. That’s why Pilot was more subdued than he had been in previous crucifixions of other Jews. Pilot WAS certainly as evil as the Jews that crucified Jesus, make no mistake about that, but in this case he had to maintain a low profile.

- It's hardly true most historians believe this is so, and even many interpreters of scripture agree: this reading of history is just Gibson's historical speculation, and even the Gospel's don't attribute any political motivation to Pilate.

It just says that he "washed his hands" of the event, because he could find in Christ "no fault." It doesn't say anything about Pilate fearing Caesar or possible uprisings. He crucified Jews all the time.

The Jews of that time lived in the middle of a totalitarian military occupation that could have crushed them instantly without thinking twice. Several "kings of David" had tried to overthrow the Romans and reclaim Jerusalem, and failed.

It's pretty obvious that the Pharisees had a legitimate concern to fear. Jesus the Nazrene was shaking things up in a way that was exceedingly threatening to the entire Jewish community, which it was their responsibility to protect.

Pilate just did what he did: execute people in a manner designed to create the maximum deterrent to challenging Rome. Jesus just did what he had to do. It's not necessarily the case that any of them were truly evil, which is probably what he was acknowledging when he asked God to forgive them. They couldn't know the future, and could only work with the best information they had.

Besides, like the man said, "no man takes my life: I lay it down freely."

No that is not my idea of a crime – it’s my idea of network censorship. The Jewish community that dominates the Hollywood studios has made a concerted effort to, not only suppress the financing and distribution of THE PASSION, but their cronies in the general print media have launched a vicious attack on Mel Gibson personally as a part of their campaign to discredit anyone who would dare reverse the clock on their secular, liberal agenda.

- When you have any evidence that there was any communication between the former and the latter, then make this claim.

The complaint that the media made was that the film was an attempt to set back the clock on religious rights be trying to stigmatize an ethnic minority (which I don't believe), that it was historically and scripturally inaccurate, and that (as I do believe) it wasn't particularly distinguished filmmaking. There's no reason they couldn't have come up with all of that on their own.

There was also plenty of people in the media that felt the opposite, and said so. When you're discussing something as sectarian and divisive as religious belief, Jim, you can't expect everyone to agree with you. No matter who "controlled" Hollywood, many people would not have liked the movie, and said so.

If Hollywood was really as "controlled" as you claim, the film never would have made into more theatres than any other release, or topped the box office for three weeks.

Okay, fair enough IF you replace the term Gentile with the term Christian as I have no more recourse over Gentiles than you. As I said above I am willing to enforce ethics on Christians in my church but there is nothing I can do about someone who is not a member of any particular Christian church.

- There's nothing you can do to control other people's behavior, period, Jim, other than kill them or remove them from society.

Even if you excommunicated them from your church, they'd still probably go right back to doing whatever they were doing regardless. At least around responsible people, there's some chance that they'll improve; on their own, no way.

Re(4): Jewish Responsibility
Posted on March 25, 2004 at 04:06:34 PM by James Jaeger


Let me ask you 2 simple questions:

1. What does it mean to be Jewish?

2. Is Judaism a religion, a race or something else?

James Jaeger

Re(5): Jewish Responsibility
Posted on March 25, 2004 at 04:47:57 PM by Mitchell Levine

Judaism is not a race - because membership is potentially elective - nor is it necessarily exclusively a religion, as many, like myself, consider themselves a group member despite choosing an alternate faith.

Judaism is an ethnicity: a social group composed of adherents to an ancient belief system, and those that maintain their filial connection to its culture, despite rejecting the belief system.

Sorry if that seems amorphous to you, but it's complex. Interestingly enough, it turns out that there are also many people whom apparently consider themselves Catholic despite rejecting that denomination of Christianity, or Christianity itself, or even accepting atheism.

So I guess that's becoming an ethnicity as well.

Re(6): Jewish Responsibility
Posted on March 25, 2004 at 07:16:19 PM by James Jaeger

>Judaism is not a race - because membership is potentially elective -

Okay, so this means that if I wanted to go through the study program, or whatever happens, I could become Jewish? I don't have to have a mom or a dad that was Jewish?

>nor is it necessarily exclusively a religion, as many, like myself, consider themselves a group member despite choosing an alternate faith.

This is a little confusing. How do you view a religion then? I mean what is a religion to you, or to Jews generally?

>Judaism is an ethnicity: a social group composed of adherents to an ancient belief system,

Is that ancient belief system embodied in the Torah? Isn't a belief system a religion, or how do you distinguish between the two, if there IS any difference.

>and those that maintain their filial connection to its culture, despite rejecting the belief system.

It's difficult for me to see the common thread. Or are there a number of common threads? The only thing I can compare it to is Christianity. Anyone can be a Christian yet there are many different sects of Christianity (Catholics, Episcopalians, Baptists, etc.) but the common thread to all of them is they use the Bible as their reference and the Bible sets forth their tenets. They all interpret the Bible a little differently, giving different accent to different things in it. Is Judaism anything like this?

I see Christianity as a splinter group off Judaism.

>Sorry if that seems amorphous to you, but it's complex. Interestingly enough, it turns out that there are also many people whom apparently consider themselves Catholic despite rejecting that denomination of Christianity, or Christianity itself, or even accepting atheism.

Well I don't understand this either.

>So I guess that's becoming an ethnicity as well.

It seems like this term ethnicity is very difficult to grasp. I believe that when a group, any group, attaches a label on themselves, there should be some uniformity or identity to that group that sets them off as unique from other groups. If there is no identifiable uniqueness, why bother using the label. If every Jew or every Catholic lives by a different set of tenets or customs or whatever -- the term Jew or Catholic is meaningless. Am I wrong?

James Jaeger

Re(7): Jewish Responsibility
Posted on March 25, 2004 at 09:07:52 PM by Mitchell Levine

Okay, so this means that if I wanted to go through the study program, or whatever happens, I could become Jewish? I don't have to have a mom or a dad that was Jewish?

- Sure, go to any local synagogue, and enroll in their program for Jews By Choice. Many, many people do it every year. There are converts in my own family.

Although you are automatically considered Jewish if your mother's Jewish, like any other faith, you can convert if you wish to.

This is a little confusing. How do you view a religion then? I mean what is a religion to you, or to Jews generally?

- A belief system providing an explanation for life and the world, and an organized means for worshipping God.

Religion is conceived of by Jews in terms of a social contract between God and their faith, which describes the former's expectations of the latter.

Is that ancient belief system embodied in the Torah? Isn't a belief system a religion, or how do you distinguish between the two, if there IS any difference.

- That belief system is indeed embodied in the Torah, although it's supplemented by oral teachings that are generally compiled in the Talmud.

Not all Jews accept all of those teachings, and there's a great deal of diversity in beliefs among different Jews and Jewish groups.

A belief system becomes a religion when it includes a means for worship (and usually a community structure).

t's difficult for me to see the common thread. Or are there a number of common threads? The only thing I can compare it to is Christianity. Anyone can be a Christian yet there are many different sects of Christianity (Catholics, Episcopalians, Baptists, etc.) but the common thread to all of them is they use the Bible as their reference and the Bible sets forth their tenets. They all interpret the Bible a little differently, giving different accent to different things in it. Is Judaism anything like this?

- A little like it, although the variances generally revolve around the degree of adherence to the traditional teachings, rather than the substance of belief - but that isn't strictly true either.

For example, Jews that are influenced by the Caballah typically believe in reincarnation (as I do).

Another thing to consider is that Judaism is different than Christianity in that the real core of the religion isn't "believing," but doing. Oftentimes complete explanations are lacking - as in, for instance, the ultimate reasons for keeping the laws of Kashrut - and those actions are accepted as necessary simply because it's believed that God has commanded it.

f there is no identifiable uniqueness, why bother using the label. If every Jew or every Catholic lives by a different set of tenets or customs or whatever -- the term Jew or Catholic is meaningless. Am I wrong?

- Because those people, as I do, wish to define themselves in terms of a shared culture and heritage that transcends the mere religious basis, which is their right, if they wish.

Also, unfortunately, because in many instances the outside society has imposed it through religious discrimination, as was the case in Europe, and still is in Russia, for example.

In that country, if either parent is Jewish, you aren't Russian - your nationality is "Jewish," and the state doesn't CARE what you believe. You aren't a Russian; you're a Jew, and you'll be treated accordingly.

Re(6): Jewish Responsibility
Posted on March 25, 2004 at 07:21:37 PM by MOSHE THE GOYIM

Levine, you're a total fraudster/propagandst/deceiver who spews dissimulation and lies in a continuous smokescreen of skunk stench.

Toe to toe: one issue at at time, JEWISH IDENTITY AND RACISM, so you can't hide everywhere all over the map. We focus on your following comment: "Judaism is not a race."

I'm gonna bang you down on this, per Jewish tradition on this, per Jewish identity.

You lie about everything. One thing at a time: right now the "Jews and racism angle." We'll work on this, back and forth, till you're knocked out. Let's go. First citation below, and give me your usual evasive propaganda in turn, but I'm going to drop an avalanche on you. The subject RACIST JEWISH IDENTIY, don't hide in other realms, and don't get out your thesaurus to try and make things vague as usual. This is the issue and it has LOTS TO DO WITH HOLLYWOOD FILM, as you well know:

A British Jew, Emma Klein, in a 1996 book about Jewish identity, led a section called "What Is It to Be Jewish" with answers to the question by four young Jews who were grappling with the issue.

"It's two things,"said Nichola, "It's a family thing and a thing that has been imposed on me through blood. It's a genetic thing, if you like."

"It's something that has been imposed on me," said Claire, "It's a blood thing. I can't escape it."

"I feel Jewish," said Sophia, "out of history, my blood, and it's just like a nationality.'

A young man named Guy summed up the common theme more ominously:

"Entertaining any idea about racial purity just stinks of Hitler but it is an issue. I feel all sorts of people have some pride in their roots and they
feel racial mixing dilutes your heritage. I think I might feel that. It frightens me. [KLEIN, E., p. 191]

from: Klein, Emma. Lost Jews. The Struggle for Identity Today. St. Martin's Press, New York, 1996

Re(7): Jewish Responsibility
Posted on March 25, 2004 at 08:35:54 PM by Mitchell Levine

Evil Scumbag, confine your ignorance to your own idiotic website.

What this woman thinks is irrelevant, because she controls neither scientific definition, nor logic: BY DEFINITION, MEMBERSHIP IN A "RACE" IS NOT ELECTIVE! ANYONE THAT WISHES TO CAN BE JEWISH! Every synagogue in the country has programs for Jews by Choice and thousands of people convert worldwide every year.

That logically eliminates the possibility that Jews are a race, because, if they were, NOT ONE SINGLE INDIVIDUAL IN ALL OF HISTORY COULD HAVE EVER CONVERTED TO JUDAISM, in much the same way no one has ever "converted" to being Black, Asian, Latino, or anything else.

A racial group is determined SOLELY BY BIRTH AND NOTHING CAN CHANGE IT!!! Because of that, Jews can't be a racial group.

Abraham was no different racially than anyone else from his region, and he evidently converted in adulthood, which means that everyone else from that area of the world would also have to be Jewish today as well, if your theory was correct. They aren't.

End of story.

There are Jews that belong to every racial group - Black, White, Asian, Latino, even Native American. That would be impossible if Jews were a racial group: by definition, all members of a racial group share the same skin color, if they're a pure member of that group. No one can change races; it's the way you are born, and the way you'll die.

If you don't wish to believe me, you can take the word of Gordon Allport (from The Nature of Prejudice): "Anthropologists agree that Jews are not a race."

Simply because your lust object, Hitler, believed Jews were a race doesn't mean it's true. It's a logical impossibility.

New Cartoon for Kids
Posted on March 24, 2004 at 01:51:41 PM by James Jaeger

There's an excellent new cartoon for kids out by DreamWorks called GEFILTE FISH, INC. It's an undersea mob comedy featuring the anthropomorphic likes of
Meyer Sharksky, Scallops Shapiro, Bugsy Seagull and Arnold Squidstein.

Any problems with this?

James Jaeger



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http://www.timesstar.com/Stories/0,1413,125%7E1549%7E2025393,00.html

Children's cartoon film 'Shark Tale', By Rosario A. Iaconis, Alameda
Times-Star, March 18, 2004

"There's a new breed of anthropomorphic fish roiling the briny
deep. It's the undersea predator spawned by DreamWorks
SKG in "Shark Tale," the upcoming children's cartoon adventure.
Unlike Tinseltown's other aquatic role models, this animated bottom-feeder belongs to a vicious celluloid species: the "Sopranos" goombah stereotype. By grafting the bigoted imagery of
"The Sopranos" -- along with a generous whiff of "Goodfellas" and "The Godfather" -- onto a computer-generated flick for kids, DreamWorks' Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen have crossed the line into the cinematic exploitation of children. Ethnic profiling, sinister crime families and mob rubouts are not the stuff of cutesy cartoon comedy.

But the greater issue is the damage done to the self-esteem and psychological development of impressionable minors. Bigotry must not be nurtured at an early age; hatred should not come dressed in primary colors.

Slated for release Oct. 1, "Shark Tale" is a computer-generated minstrel
show filled with piscine mobsters who sleep, eat and kill with the
fishes -- and sport such names as Don Lino, Luca, Frankie, Lenny and
Angie. Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, Michael Imperioli and Vincent
Pastore provide the guttural voice-overs. And the plot would make
Tony Soprano and Uncle Junior proud.

More than a year ago, DreamWorks animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg said
the "Shark Tale" milieu should not be hard for mob aficionados to fathom:
"Imagine an underwater cityscape that is Chicago meets Las Vegas meets
Miami." He has even boasted of the movie's reverential nods to "everything
from 'The Untouchables' to 'Some Like It Hot' to all three 'Godfather'
films." Is this appropriate children's fare? No, "Shark Tale" is a
calculated attempt to cash in on the popularity of "The Sopranos" by
introducing a new generation of youngsters to the anti-Italian intolerance that has become a staple of adult entertainment. DreamWorks
hopes that kids will, quite literally, buy into the benighted notion
that Italian-ness connotes organized crime. A sequel is already in
the works ...

Imagine the outrage in the Jewish community if DreamWorks unveiled "Gefilte Fish Inc.," an undersea mob comedy featuring the anthropomorphic likes of
Meyer Sharksky, Scallops Shapiro, Bugsy Seagull and Arnold Squidstein."