Charlton Heston as Judah Ben Hur, the Jewish hero—notice the Star of David necklace—of Ben Hur, 1959.

The Los Angeles Times is, like the NY Times, a reliably anti-Israel newspaper whose liberal/progressive/leftist slant often veers into  support for the Jew-hatred that is the foundation of Palestinian terror.

Even their entertainment articles frequently marinate in a radical ideology that extends to an ignorant and vile denial of Jewish, not to mention literary history.

In this brief announcement of an anniversary release of a Ben Hur DVD, the Charlton Heston character, Judah Ben Hur, is referred to as a “Palestinian nobleman.”

In the book and in all the movies Judah Ben Hur is a Jewish merchant.

This charade of so-called Palestinian history is a replacement ideology, Jewish history erased by faux Palestinians, a post-modern construct with zero historical basis.

I might add that this is also a fabrication of movie history.

This is a classic example of the big lie that was used by the Nazis to persecute and ultimately commit genocide against the Jews. This strategy is being used by the Muslim world, Arab, Turkish and Persian, to demonize the Jewish people and create an environment where the murder of Jews is not only acceptable but necessary.

Remember, The Los Angeles Times withheld the video of footage showing Barack Obama celebrating with PLO terrorist spokesman Rashid Khalidi. Apparently the Jew-hatred rampant that evening would have destroyed Obama’s presidential aspirations.

The Los Angeles Times is an enthusiastic partner in jihad.

I’d like to thank my friend Yisroel Medad of My Right Word for bringing this stealth piece of Jew-hatred to my attention.

William Wyler‘s 1959 epic, “Ben-Hur,” which dominated the Academy Awards in winning 11 Oscars, including best film, director, actor (Charlton Heston) and supporting actor (Hugh Griffith), is getting the superstar treatment in Warner’s 50th-anniversary ultimate collection edition arriving Tuesday in both regular DVD and Blu-ray.

Based on the novel by Lew Wallace, the period drama revolves around Judah Ben-Hur (Heston), a Palestinian nobleman [bold font by Big Hollywood] who is enslaved by the Romans, engages in one of the most thrilling chariot races ever captured on screen, and even encounters Jesus Christ.

The film was restored frame by frame from the original 65-millimeter camera negative and digitally remastered. Among the extras on the three-disc set are the new feature-length documentary “Charlton Heston & Ben Hur: A Personal Journey,” written and directed by the actor’s son, Fraser C. Heston; highlights from the 1960 Oscar telecast and the 1925 silent version starring Ramon Novarro.

From the Associated Press:

NEW YORK — A frequent contributor to a jihadist website has threatened David Letterman, urging Muslim followers to “cut the tongue” of the late-night host because of a joke the comic made on his CBS show.

The Site Monitoring Service, a private intelligence organization that watches online activity, said Wednesday that the threat was posted a day earlier on the shumukh al-Islam forum, a popular Internet destination for radical Muslims.

Jihadist didn’t like his joke…

The contributor, who identified himself as Umar al-Basrawi, was reacting to what he said Letterman did after the U.S. military announced on June 5 that a drone strike in Pakistan had killed al-Qaida leader Ilyas Kashmiri.

Al-Basrawi wrote that Letterman had made reference to both Osama bin Laden and Kashmiri and said that Letterman had “put his hand on his neck and demonstrated the way of slaughter.”

“Is there not among you a Sayyid Nosair al-Mairi … to cut the tongue of this lowly Jew and shut it forever?” Al-Basrawi wrote, referring to El Sayyid Nosair, who was convicted of the 1990 killing of Jewish Defense League founder Meir Kahane. Letterman is not Jewish.

Al-Basrawi, which is likely to be an alias, has made some 1,200 postings to the Muslim website, said Adam Raisman, an analyst for the Site Monitoring Service. The private firm, part of the Site Intelligence Group, provides information to government and commercial clients on what jihadists are saying on the Internet and traditional media. Raisman said the online forum is often used by al-Qaida.

Muslim extremist groups in the past few months have increased calls for people to take violent action against certain targets in the West, he said.

“The concern is that there is someone who will read it, agree with it and say, ‘I want to be the Sayyid Nosair of 2011 and kill David Letterman,’” Raisman said.

The FBI is also looking into the threat, said Jim Margolin, spokesman for the bureau’s New York office. “We take every potential threat seriously,” he said.

Neither CBS nor a Letterman spokesman, Tom Keaney, would comment on the threat. CBS would not make available a transcript of Letterman’s monologue on the killing of Kashmiri.

Letterman has been the target of criminal threats in the past. A former CBS News producer was jailed for trying to extort $2 million from Letterman in 2009 by threatening to expose the host’s sexual dalliances with members of his staff. A former painter at Letterman’s ranch in Montana was jailed following a 2005 plot to kidnap the TV funnyman’s nanny and son.

A radical Muslim group last year warned the creators of “South Park” that they could face violent retribution for depicting the prophet Muhammad in a bear suit on the Comedy Central cartoon. Author Salman Rushdie spent years in hiding after Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini urged he be killed for blasphemy after writing the book “The Satanic Verses.”

Filmmaker Theo van Gogh was killed on an Amsterdam street in 2004 by a Dutch Muslim angered by his film “Submission,” a fictional study of abused Muslim women.

So as I write this, the whole Egypt thing seems to have cooled down a little.

We’ve been told that, temporarily, the military will take over. And then there’s the Muslim Brotherhood, who swear on their sexy camels they aren’t interested in seeking power.

I dunno.

Here’s the way I look at this, which is based on my own “granddad bank robber” theory.

The theory is this: if you read about some dude robbing a bank, you figure he should be caught, and punished.

But if the story mentions that the dude is a grandfather, reporters focus on that.

Suddenly there’s something charming about a gun-toting thug who smells like toffee and poligrip.

He probably drinks Ovaltine.

That’s where the Muslim Brotherhood comes in. It’s being considered by our own Prez as having a role in Egypt’s future, just because, it’s been part of its past, for so long.

Because – as something ages – no matter how bad it is -it gains respect.

Except for strippers, this is the norm.

Now, never mind that the Brotherhood may want to crush the US. According to documents from the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial, the MB wanted to replace our government with Sharia Law in a delightful “civilization-jihadist process.”

That’s from 1991, which is ages ago (Friends hadn’t even started!), so maybe it’s not so scary.

Who cares that they called their work in America, quote “a grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within..”

Don’t worry.

People change.

In 1991 I was wearing plaid and listening to Soundgarden. Then the hormone therapy kicked in. And look at me now.

And if you disagree with me, you sir are a racist!

And now, some are pushing for Hollywood to go beyond these various messages of the past and take a shot at crafting one that fights terrorism by showing how misunderstood Muslims are in the minds of rank and file, xenophobic Americans.

In other words, some in Hollywood (and other aspects of the entertainment industry) are calling for “sitcom diplomacy” whereby a television show can allow Americans to become acquainted with middle eastern families in the same way that so many of us became acquainted with the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family.

What would Americans learn from such Hollywood propaganda such television programming? According to Middle Easterner and LA Times’ contributor Firoozeh Dumas, Americans would learn that “Middle Easterners come in all shapes, sizes and belief levels, just like every other kind of American.” Moreover, looking back on her own experience growing up as a Middle Eastern in America, Dumas contends such a program could go a long way in lessening America’s suspicion of Middle Easterners by demonstrating that the Middle Easterners she grew up with weren’t terrorists and weren’t even “very Muslim.” (Notice: By contending that Middle Easterners who aren’t “very Muslim” aren’t terrorists, Dumas does nothing to alleviate the fear that radical Islamists, Middle Easterners that are “very Muslim,” thrive on terrorism.)

Of course, CBS News’ anchor Katie Couric thinks it’s a great idea regardless of whether Dumas’ points are valid are not. She even proposes the show be fashioned in a style similar to “The Cosby Show.” Said Couric: “People are afraid of what they don’t know” (there’s the elitist jab at stupid Americans again) “[So] a Muslim equivalent to the Huxtables could be just what the country needs to stay all of this hate in its tracks. ”

Why does the solution to tension between a foundationally-Christian nation like America and Middle Easterners (or any other group) always boil down to helping Americans move beyond hate? Why must we always be depicted as hate-filled bigots by Hollywood elites who are too bigoted to stop and think about the fact that American troops are giving their lives at this very moment to nation-build in Middle Eastern countries like Afghanistan, among other places?

Dumas, Couric, and other members of Hollywood’s movers and shakers who favor this “sitcom diplomacy” really ought to step back, take a deep breath, and understand that radical Islam has declared war on the West, thus our consequent declaration of war (the “War on Terror”) was and is a defensive measure. In this war, there are no actors, directors or stagehands. Our soldiers aren’t pretending to die when struck by shrapnel from an IED (improvised explosive device) nor is it a special effect when Westerners are captured and beheaded on camera by our enemies.

While this isn’t to say that every Middle Easterner condones the conduct of radical Islamists – to say that would be absurd – it is to say that lumping all Middle Easterners together (as Dumas and Couric are doing) and equating our distrust of some of them with a distrust of all them is ludicrous.

6.  “Being exploited is different from being empowered ” – Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

Often too-easily dismissed as a raunchy teen sex comedy, Fast Time was a tremendously influential and important mirror on young America in the early 1980s.  The fact that it is gut-bustlingly funny – Sean Penn’s turn as surfer/stoner Jeff Spicoli remains his only role where he doesn’t annoy me – seems to overshadow the serious undercurrents, as does the ample nudity culminating in the unforgettable swimming pool scene starring the glorious Phoebe Cates.

—–

However, there is a very, very dark undercurrent to this movie that provides a serious lesson to young people.  Jennifer Jason-Leigh’s Stacy is a pretty but not-so-bright 15/16 year old who does not understand the difference between love and sex.  In a world of absolutely no parents (not a single one is ever seen), she tries to find love (or at least attention) by basically trying to have tacky sex with every guy she meets – and it’s heartbreaking.  She’s not “empowered” – she’s used.  The ugly scene where she loses her virginity to a guy in his 20s in a Little League dug-out staring at graffiti reading “Surf Nazis Must Die” is a better repudiation of the “hook-up” culture than a hundred lectures.

After scaring off the one guy who actually likes her for herself by trying to bed him too, she seeks comfort underneath his skanky pal.  A grim, humiliating encounter in a pool house leaves her pregnant and she immediately seeks an abortion.  Regardless of one’s stand on the life issue, one cannot be anything other than horrified at how the fact she sees herself as literally nothing but a mere receptacle leads her to feel nothing at all about her decision.

But there is hope.  The film ends with her finally back with the boy who actually loves her, and a final title card assures us that they remain together and “still haven’t gone all the way yet.”

7.   “You make your destiny” — The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

Liberal filmmakers would have you believe that you are nothing but a victim of forces you cannot control, and that without their help you have no future.  That is especially true for minorities, who liberal ideology requires be told again and again that without the help of their liberal masters they can never succeed.  But, of course, liberalism never leads to success, only to a few more scraps in the form of entitlements offered in exchange for perpetual ballot box fealty to the elite overlords.

The Pursuit of Happyness drives a Mac truck through that loser paradigm.  Will Smith is the lead in the true story of a man who hits bottom but simply will not quit.  Believing in himself, working his butt off, taking risks and – shock! – out-performing the competition, he goes from homeless to capitalist success story.

He doesn’t look for handouts.  He doesn’t sit back waiting for his the liberal overlords to decide what he gets.  He embraces the challenge of the free market and through sheer dedication makes himself a winner.  He makes his own destiny; he doesn’t wait to be told what it can or will be.

As such, Pursuit may well be the one of the most subversive films of the last decade.

8.  “Character is what you do when the stakes are the highest” – Bolt (2008)

This terrific Disney cartoon about a TV star dog who thought he was the superhero he plays on television then finds himself separated from the little girl who owns him makes a huge point about character.  It comes up most clearly at the end, where his little girl is trapped on a burning soundstage.  The dog who had replaced Bolt runs away, leaving her in the fire.  But Bolt, though he now knows he is just a normal hound, goes back in anyway.

Character isn’t something that you wear like a medal.  It’s what you do when the chips are down, when all hell is breaking lose, when everyone else is running away.

The message of Bolt is a powerful statement that is especially applicable to young people.  My little girl saw Bolt as a good dog who would not leave his girl behind and understood why that mattered; her dad thought of his own heroes who would not leave those they swore to protect no matter what the cost.

And when young people are a little older, they’ll be ready for the similar messages of Black Hawk Down – “It’s what you do right now that makes a difference” and “Leave no man behind.”  (BHD also teaches the vital lesson that there is no substitute for the firepower of heavy armor and artillery.)  But Bolt is a great foundation  for learning about character – as well as a great movie.

9.  “The west is worth defending” – 300 (2006)

If you enjoy lame liberal flicks that spend most of their time apologizing for our Western culture, you’ll probably want to miss 300.  I’m sure there will be plenty of seats available for the revival of Lions for Lambs down at the Nuart.

But if you unapologetically support the victory of the West in our current war against jihadi barbarism and its related pathologies, you might dig 300.  It makes no excuses about the superiority of our culture and our freedoms, which is why liberals hate it.

300 is the highly stylized story of the small Spartan contingent that fought a legendary delaying action at a narrow pass called Thermopylae in northern Greece that allowed the rest of the Greeks to prepare to meet the Persian horde and their self-styled demigod king. They were slaughtered to a man, but succeeded in their mission.

The beauty of 300 is the fearlessness with which the filmmakers tell the truth – though it is unclear if they intended to make that statement, make it they do.  While imperfect, the Greeks as portrayed in the film embody the Western values of individual freedom while the Persian hordes are mere faceless slaves.  The Greeks stand and fight because they are free men who choose to do so; the Persian soldiers fight with whips at their backs, mere cannon fodder for a tyrant’s ambition.

Nothing has changed in the last couple thousand years.

It’s almost shocking to see a major Hollywood film make clear that our way of life is unequivocally worth defending, and death in battle against tyranny is infinitely preferable to “life” as a slave.  When folks get all wrapped up about “creeping sharia” I usually mention that it doesn’t worry us American soldiers because we would never be alive to see it happen; we’d all be lying dead surrounded by empty magazines, spent shell casings, and the bodies of our enemies.  If you don’t understand that perspective, you might want to skip 300.  You might also want try and see if your doctor can help you out with a spine transplant.

10.  “Your personal happiness is not the most important thing in the world” – Casablanca (1942)

Besides being arguably the greatest movie ever made, Casablanca also teaches one of conservatism’s most important lessons.  The usual Hollywood pap tells you that your personal short term desires are your only guide; just look at the unspeakable moral disaster that is The English Patient.  While conservatism is about individual liberty, with liberty comes the responsibility to occasionally put your own needs aside when duty calls.

Hollywood’s moral compass was not always broken.  In Casablanca, Rick throws away his chance for happiness with Ilsa in order to help defeat the Nazis.  Watch this classic scene – probably Hollywood’s finest hour both artistically and morally:

Here’s the key quote.  Try imagining it coming out of the word processor of one of the pampered, over-paid Ivy League twerps churning out scripts today:

Rick:  We’ll always have Paris. We didn’t have, we, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.
Ilsa:  When I said I would never leave you.
Rick:  And you never will. But I’ve got a job to do, too. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of. Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that.

Let’s assume there is still a director out there who would allow that many lines of dialogue in a row without a shaky camera jump cut.  Even then, we’d still get Victor Laszlo as an uptight, probably Christian, creep with the unreasonable expectation that his wife not start banging another man just because she finds him sexy.  Instead of sending her away, Rick would probably tell off Mr. Jesus J. Stickuphisrear, then he and Ilsa would jump on the plane together.  Let other people deal with the Nazis – inconveniences like honor and duty just get in the way of validating one’s own feelings!  Plus, they’d probably cast Ashton Kutcher as Rick and Katherine Heigl as Ilsa.  And switch the location to Vegas.  And change the Nazis into CIA agents.  And make Sam into a streetwise hustler played by 50 Cent, who could also do a hip-hop version of As Time Goes By that somehow incorporates the phrase “my bitches.”

No, the fact is that sometimes your problems don’t amount to a hill of beans, that you have to make hard choices and do the right thing even where – gasp! – it might make you feel bad.  Casablanca is easy to take because of great actors, a great script, and a great story, but its message is strong medicine.  And, as we enter a second decade of (open) warfare for our civilization’s survival, it could not be timelier.

———-

Again, this list is by no means complete, but it is evidence that within our popular culture there is the capacity for art to make powerful conservative statements.  After all, that is the whole point of Big Hollywood.  We cannot just leave our culture to the left – we know where that leads.  Instead, we need to identify and support positive popular culture, to demand it instead of accepting whatever crap the Hollywood elite tries to force down our throats.  And we need to fight back by calling out and mocking mercilessly the lefty nonsense offered to us by the Hollywoodoids, so coming soon:  “The Top 10 Idiotic Leftist Movie Messages.”

And it turns out that, try as I might, I cannot present a list of vital movies messages without citing Heat.  So here’s on key one that’s helped guide me in my daily life:  “It always helps to use intensive, controlled automatic weapons fire, along with rapid maneuver, to defeat your enemies.”  That’s truly a message we can all relate to.

—–

And many conservatives have.  Many of us have thrown our hands in the air and opted out of popular culture completely, exhausted from enduring liberal sucker punches buried within crummy flicks about magic robots battling Dick Cheney vampire clones that we pay $12.50 to see in theaters maintained at the hygiene level of your average bus station men’s room.  You can hardly blame them for giving up.

But as tempting as it is to withdraw from the battlefield, to dig in and hope it somehow changes, surrender was never an option.  This is our culture, not theirs.  And they don’t get to control it. 

The fact is that among the detritus of American popular culture, there are voices of sanity.  Sure, they are nearly drowned out by over-praised hacks like Aaron Sorkin and over-indulged clowns like Oliver Stone.  Yet, occasionally, Hollywood has allowed positive, conservative messages to slip through.

Sure, some of them are from long ago, but we have never forgotten them.  In fact, we have embraced them and treasured them, a powerful demonstration of the fact that good commonsense messages can also be commercially viable.  Some of them are more recent as well, teachers of vital lessons that somehow the guard dogs of liberal culture missed.

The following list is by no means complete – the commenters will no doubt offer hordes of other worthies between their observations about how I am insane and/or stupid.  It is simply these ten solid conservative messages that I have found particularly meaningful – however, please note that Heat has earned emeritus status and is not found on the list.

So, in no particular order:

1.  “Evil must be confronted and defeated” – Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)

This magnificent three-part epic illustrates several great conservative lessons through the tale of Frodo, a gentle hobbit who finds himself the only hope for the world of free peoples as a wicked tyranny arises.  The various nations and races of free creatures are disorganized and confused, with some thinking they can simply hide or wait out the terror.  But J.R.R. Tolkien, who fought in the miserable trenches of the First World War and later watched the rise of Hitler, understood that there is no sanctuary from aggressive evil.  His characters, at a terrible cost, choose to march out and meet the enemy.

Of particular note is the frivolous, care-free land from which Frodo hails, the Shire, a green and pleasant realm that considers itself far from danger and immune to evil.  But, as blogger Kellie Jane Adan recently discussed, Frodo had the wisdom to see what his happy countrymen could not or would not – that the enemies of freedom will not just go away if you ignore them.  Even those who get eaten last still get eaten in the end.  The peril of freedom is that it can lead a people to forget that it comes with a price tag, and that the price is sometimes payable in blood.

It does not take a genius to see the parallels between The Lord of the Rings and the real world of Tolkien’s time, nor the parallels to our world of today.  The jihadi movement and the rogue crime syndicates masquerading as nations such as Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela make no secret of their intentions.  Still, the Western elites remain willfully blind, looking inward and caring only about their own petty personal interests.  The Lord of the Rings is a powerful rejoinder to that foolishness, and one every parent should ensure their children see and understand.

2.   “Leaders lead by example” — We Were Soldiers (2002)

America’s bookstores are filled with tedious management tomes written by college professors and CEOs, but while many of their books’ titles contain the word “Leadership,” comparing their tepid version of management to true leadership is like comparing Justin Bieber to AC/DC in terms of rocking.  If you want to learn something about what leaders do – and can put aside Mel Gibson’s personal character failures – pop in a DVD of We Were Soldiers.

A bloody and harrowing account of the ferocious 1965 Battle of Ia Drang, Gibson’s (then) Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore is the quintessential United States Army officer, the first off the chopper during the air assault and always in the thick of the fight.

Watch as Gibson surveys and assesses the situation, makes his tough decision to call in dangerous close-in air support, and then joins in the fight alongside his troopers.  Playing a cavalry battalion commander – a job I held, though not while deployed – Gibson is everywhere on the battlefield, encouraging his men, controlling the fight and most importantly (when all hell breaks loose) staying calm.

And it’s an accurate portrayal, not only because the battle tracks the fight depicted in Lieutenant General (Retired) Moore’s superb book.  I actually saw LTG Moore speak at Fort Benning during my Infantry Officer Advanced Course in 1994.  Gibson may be a creep in his personal life, but he did LTG Moore right in the film.  And do not forget Sam Elliot’s awesome portrayal of Command Sergeant Major Basil Plumley – a commander is only as good as his NCOs.

We Were Soldiers demonstrates that a leader isn’t some guy at a desk at the other end of a phone line filling out paperwork.  Leaders lead.  Period.

3.  “The only colors that matter in America are red, white, and blue” – Glory (1989)

Liberals talk a good game about diversity.  But more than any other institution in America, the military lives it.  Once again, We Were Soldiers sums that up:

But that was not always true.  During the Civil War, freed blacks had to fight for their right to fight.  Glory tells the story of those incredible America soldiers and the white officers appointed to lead them.  The conservative lesson is clear – nonsense like color makes no difference; character is everything.  The 54^th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry proved its bravery in battle, not thanks to some quota or by some special dispensation by liberals who deep down think no one else can prosper without their help.  They did it themselves:

Colonel Shaw, the white commander of the 54^th was killed during the storming of Fort Wagner.  According to legend, the Confederates refused to return his body, instead burying him with his black troops.  They thought it was an insult.  In fact, there could be no higher honor for an American officer.

Glory teaches the essential conservative truth that honor, courage, and patriotism are not the province of any one race.  Now, it’s entirely possible that the makers of Glory, like the makers of some of these other films, did not think they were sending a conservative message at all.  If so, they are wrong.  Race means nothing to conservatives, but it means everything to liberals.

Keep in mind that liberals customarily assign any wrongdoing in the past to “conservatives,” as if today’s Tea Party would re-impose child labor and slavery if it had its Neanderthal druthers.  Don’t buy that nonsense.  The next time some liberal starts yapping about racism, just ask him which party, in 2010, hailed as an “icon” a KKK Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops, one who incidentally wrote these hideous words:

I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side…Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.

Hint:  Senator Icon was not a Republican (or a soldier, for that matter).

4.  “You are the check on the power of the state” — Twelve Angry Men (1957)

Set inside a jury room during a murder deliberation, a dozen jurors (played by a who’s who of great old-time stars and character actors) start off eager to convict the young defendant and go home.  However, Henry Fonda refuses to be railroaded and forces the others to confront their apathy, personal issues, and racial prejudices.

Another movie that probably thinks it is liberal, Twelve Angry Men appears to believe it is an indictment of pure prejudice.  However, what it really is is a conservative critique of the power of the state and what happens when citizens allow their own interests and biases to cause them to abdicate their responsibility to doubt their government and challenge it.

If the defendant is convicted, he will be executed – there is no greater example of the power of the state.  But as these citizens pick at the government’s case they find flaws and inconsistencies.  The government is not perfect or omniscient – far from it.  The state is as flawed as human beings themselves, and the answer is not to meekly submit to its power but to stand up to it, to limit its powers and to make it justify every exercise of authority.  That’s not anarchy or “hatred of government,” as liberals label any attempt by conservatives to rein in the leviathan – rather, that is the conservative notion that a government of men will be as imperfect as man itself.  Every citizen has an absolute duty to ensure it never slips out of control – even where he’s outnumbered by 11-1 by those who find it easier to conform.

5.  “True capitalists make America great” – It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Brought to the screen just a few years after the Depression ended, IAWL is not an indictment of free enterprise but, rather, a celebration of it.  Some quarter-wit progressives – yeah, I’m looking at you again Aaron Sorkin – think this classic Frank Capra slice of Americana makes Old Man Potter into a capitalist poster child.  More nonsense.  The track record of the policies progressives espouse being unblemished with anything like success, their opinions about this and everything else should be summarily disregarded.

In fact, Potter is only a “capitalist” in the way that Chrysler, General Motors, and AIG are “capitalist” enterprises – he’s the face of a conglomerate tied in with the government (remember how he offers to send the police over to “help” during the panic?) and with other big businesses (remember how he takes over the town bank?).  He is the power structure; the form he takes is “capitalist” only when it suits him.

Potter is not merely about money but about control over others and their lives – and like the liberals we deal with today (including the ones who make most movies), he has nothing but contempt for regular people. Throw in the word “transfats” or “guns” and Potter might as well be zillionaire Michael Bloomberg decrying the refusal of the masses to conform to his personal vision of how they ought to live their lives.

If alive today, Potter would find himself welcomed to the table with his liberal Democratic co-believers, pausing from making more mischief only to welcome their newest lobbyist, former Senator Chris Dodd.

Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey is the true capitalist, working hard at the Building & Loan his father started not only to support himself and his family but to help his community.  He doesn’t ask for (or give) handouts.  His pride comes not from making money (though he apparently does okay, which is cool) but by being the guy responsible for helping so many hardworking Americans earn homes. That’s not unusual – when I talk about my business, I talk not about my AGI but about how many people I employ.  In fact, the whole point of the movie is that Bedford Falls is a better place because of George Bailey – and, by extension, the country is better because of similar true capitalists.

IAWL is a warning about how self-styled elitists will use every lever of power at their disposal – big business, big government, or whatever – in order to control the lives of others.  Old Man Potter no more represents capitalism than Aaron Sorkin represents sobriety.  As IAWL teaches, we need to be on our guard and in the faces of these creepy petty fascists every single minute of every day.

Stay tuned for Part II.

Or at least, doesn’t take seriously.

After the cliched warning to not rush to judgement, Tommy says, and I quote:

Why would Portland, of all places, be the site of a terror attack? The “People’s Republic of Portland” – so dubbed for its liberal ways – seems so utterly different from New York, Mumbai, London, or the other places that one associates with terrorist attacks. Portland is so much smaller, light years from the figurative front lines.This is a laid-back city where the red-hot rhetoric around terrorism, Islam, the “ground zero mosque,” and the like runs cooler.

So, because Portland’s a leftwing haven with homemade fliers for guitar lessons stapled on every Peet’s Coffee wall – terrorists should skip us, and focus only on the big, boring cities without all those great organic cafes. Heck, they probably don’t use cloth bags or read Chomsky (stuff jihadists care about).

And since Portlanders find red meat topics like terrorism so unseemly – our enemies should totally dig us! We love Bill Moyers!

Damn, these folks are dumb. They think their behavior is at the root of other people’s actions. And that, if you’re nice, terrorists won’t kill you.

These jacknuts don’t get that no matter how liberal you are, you represent everything terrorists hate, and your touchy-feeliness only makes them hate your sogginess more. Your clogs don’t help.

Trust me – terrorists have more respect for the “red-hot rhetoric” of Dick Cheney than a naval gazing goof like Tom. And closing your eyes to Islamic jihad, in favor of contemplating the dent in your consciousness is why the terrorists may come for you first.

Because you’re annoying.

TONIGHT:

Pat Caddell

Jill Dobson

Kinsey Schofield

my mom

Like Hollywood itself, founded early in the 20th century by immigrant Jewish imagineers of the American Dream, the prominent U.S. inventors of comic strip heroes Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Captain Marvel, Hulk, and Captain America, were Jewish dreamers who promoted and projected American success. 

Blair Kramer wrote of Superman: 

After Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 and proceeded to distort Nietzsche’s concept of Superman, (Siegel and Shuster) decided to rethink their own concept of Superman’s character. They changed their Jewish-created Superman to a force for good. Possessing superhuman powers, Superman leaped tall buildings in a single bound and bullets bounced off his chest as he lifted automobiles and ripped steel doors from their hinges. In the first issue, Superman even rescued battered wives from abusive husbands. 

When America entered World War II after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Superman’s character evolved into a combat hero. He destroyed Nazi armor, Japanese submarines and everything else that was thrown at the Allies. In fact, the cover of a 1944 issue of Superman featured the Man of Steel throttling Hitler and Tojo by the collar. 

Kramer further notes: 

Despite his superhuman powers, Superman shared some characteristic traits with a majority of American Jews in the 1940s. Like them, he had arrived in America from a foreign world. His entire family = in fact his entire race – had been wiped out in a holocaust-like disaster on his home planet, Krypton. Like German Jewish parents who sent their children on the kindertransports, or the baby Moses set adrift in the bull rushes, Superman’s parents launched him to Earth in hopes that he would survive. 

And while the mild-mannered Clark Kent held a white collar job as a reporter by day, the “real” man behind Kent’s meek exterior was a virile, indestructible crusader for justice. This fantasy must have resonated among American Jews, who felt powerless to help their brethren in the death camps of Europe. 

Superman obeys the Talmudic injunction to do good for its own sake and heal the world where he can. Siegel and Shuster had created a mythic character who reflected their own Jewish values. 

But the heroic vision of a confident defense of liberty, and the World War II era celebration of American strength, did not last long in Hollywood, or in the comics. By the 1960’s, new age shapers of our culture became its severest critics. Many artists, academics, and news analysts came to despise the establishment, and turned against the American founding, free enterprise system, and traditional foreign policy.The left has been moving farther and farther away from admiration, or even tolerance, of the Judeo-Christian roots and national mission of the United States ever since. 

At the extreme left fringe, Oliver Stone, along with Code Pink activists and religious leftists like Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright, go so far as to side with our enemies. Some travel to stand by terrorists in Gaza, tyrants in the Middle East, and dictators in Central and South America. They drink their liquor, smoke their cigars, and pronounce themselves opponents of American foreign policy.

Fortunately, most Americans still roll their eyes, and laugh at Michael Moore’s claims that health care in Cuba is better than in the United States, which produces medicines for the planet and significantly cleaner hospital bed sheets than the disgusting conditions throughout Castro’s hell-hole. 

Sadly though, when radical American stars cover for human rights abusers, ignore the suffering of millions under Jihad, and collaborate with autocrats, they dampen the hopes of dissidents and freedom fighters. Sean Penn could have reversed years of boneheaded moves by standing up for the Green Movement students protesting the Mullahs and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Council in Tehran. 

In fact, where was anyone from Hollywood, much less the White House, in June, 2009, during one of the most compelling human rights moments since 1989’s Tienanmen Square? 

There is not much new here. Stalin had his apologists, Mao had his defenders, and so did Pol Pot and many other mass murderers. 

The liberal imagination has long promoted utopianism, socialism, progressivism. These belief systems all promote the power of the government over the individual, control by the state over the entrepreneur, elite hostility to personal liberty and achievement, economic re-distributionism over private property rights, and an aggressive agenda to control the hearts and minds of children in society. Urban moms and dads are noticing: Who is against school choice and competition today ?

Another major feature of the left is extreme antipathy to Jews. Voltaire and Marx were bitter Jew-haters, labeling the Jews as capitalists and particularists, and religionists faithful to a Creator greater than the State. 

Socialism and communism, all about group-think and uniformity, became brutal opponents of Jewish identity and culture, memory and education. In its fullest form, the USSR locked away Jewish teachers, denied the celebration of Jewish holidays, and came to harshly oppose the Jewish state of Israel. 

This is all well understood. But no matter. With his contempt for western civilization, Oliver Stone has found a global marketing niche: anti-American media product.  He has a new documentary celebrating the Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, he is working with Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and he wants to let everyone know that “Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years.” 

The Los Angeles based Simon Wiesenthal Center, named after the famed Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter, issued a press release on July 26, 2010: 

WIESENTHAL CENTER CALLS ON ENTERTAINMENT COMMUNITY TO BLAST OLIVER STONE FOR HIS BELITTLEMENT OF THE HOLOCAUST AND ANTI-SEMITIC REMARKS 

In London’s Sunday Times (July 25, 2010), Stone claimed that the Holocaust is overemphasized in our culture because Jews “control the media” and that “Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people.” 

“Oliver Stone is bent on trivializing the Nazi Holocaust and “contextualizing” both Hitler and Stalin as not-such- terrible-guys with whom we should empathize, said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center. “He parrots the anti-Semitic chorus led by Iran’s genocide-wannabe Ahmadinejad, by attributing the world’s focus on the Shoah – in his money quote, sure to be enshrined in every Islamist Google search (to) “The Jewish domination of the media….”

“We hope that Oliver Stone’s reckless and outrageous rhetoric will be condemned by his peers in the entertainment community,” Cooper concluded. 

Three questions arise, one for Hollywood, one for American consumers, and one for Jews. 

a) Will Hollywood begin to reject Oliver Stone and his fellow travelers who stand beside, apologize for, and party with America’s enemies? 

b) Will US audiences reject Stone’s anti-Americanism and Jew hatred? Will we vote with our feet, wallets, and viewing choices and deny Stone our market share? 

c) Will American Jews continue their incremental political awakening and reject the left, which is hostile to Israel, Jewish identity and nationhood, and support American counter-terrorism policies that are necessary in the face of the third Jihad, a political ideology bent on conquest over women’s rights through Shariah law, over modern religious freedom and pluralism, and over secular, humane values as well. 

Perhaps. But while some still hope for the women’s movement, gay rights advocates, and the self-proclaimed human rights community to begin standing up to the genital mutilation, honor killings, and religious based murder that marks radical Islamism, many others have stopped expecting much moral action or thought from the bright lights of American culture. 

Prolific Hollywood film director and screenwriter Oliver Stone makes controversial movies, often criticized for their historical inaccuracies and invention, seeking not truth but dramatic story.

But Stone figured out long ago how to leverage radical politics into profits. He succeeds because his ideology has an audience. He may not reach the American majority, but his movies pays the bills and keep him going. 

Stone is a fantasist. A modern cartoonist. A dreamer of dark dreams. 

Just know, though, that he takes the other side of the American dream. Instead of fighting Hitlerism, he insults Hitler’s victims with Nazi rhetoric about Jewish power and influence and control of the media. Instead of complimenting anti-communism, he apologizes for Stalin. Instead of standing up for freedom and human rights, Stone reaches out to the holocaust denier and promiser of genocide, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 

And instead of celebrating free market capitalism, which provides him his wealth and platform, he mocks it. A frequent drug user, Stone even managed to promote the terrorists FARC in the Colombian drug wars.

Stone’s biggest fantasy is that somehow he is the necessary story teller, the one who speaks truth to power. 

But he should be pleased, not angry. His worldview has won. 

President Obama bows to Saudi Kings, repeatedly apologizes for America, rejects American Exceptionalism, hugs thugs, and abandons and offends friends like Honduras, Poland, the Czech Republic, India, Israel, Panama, Columbia, and South Korea, and many more. 

Obama has adopted the Arab narrative regarding Israel, and the third world narrative of America’s original sins, colonial power and nefarious empire building.

The Obama doctrine features the simultaneously absurd claims that the United States was not founded as a Christina nation but was somehow instead deeply benefited by Muslim influence. He never quite got it that President Jefferson had a Koran, but it was underlined to study how and why to defeat the Barbary pirates in the Tripolitan wars of the early 19th century. 

Mr. Stone is therefore not alone in his post-American and anti-American worldview. He should stop his tortured “truth-teller” shtick. He is the zeitgeist. 

Stones even gets to have his own foreign policy. He is writing and producing his own “secret” history of the United States, coming to the small screen near you this fall. 

What’s chic and out of the mainstream today are honorable artists and critics who actually admire America and whose criticisms, liberal or conservative, sincerely come from love of the nation which grants so much cultural, economic, and religious liberty. They are the counter-cultural heroes now. 

However the political world turns, Hollywood directors, political and cultural cartoonists, and even Museum curators will continue to develop their own fantasies. 

At the entrance to the Jewish Museum Berlin, there is a large sculpture of Superman, upside down, with his head smashed into the ground, blood everywhere. It’s another statement against American leadership, goodness, nobility, service, and liberation. 

It is also a deep insult to the American spirit and nation, and the heroes of D-Day and their sacrificing homeland countrymen of World War II, as well as the rescuers of the Berlin Airlift of the late 1940’s, and the American leaders, from JFK to Ronald Reagan, who stood by a free Berlin and shouted “Tear Down This Wall”. 

Oliver Stone would be pleased. His mother was French, his third wife is Korean; only his disappointed Jewish father was the American he came to despise. 

Stone has become the anti-John Ford, who was the greatest director of American cinema, featuring strong Western heroes, like John Wayne, who were lovers of our land and were honorable truth-tellers. 

Stone is the anti-Ronald Reagan, the Hollywood actor and good-natured mid-Westerner who fought tyranny and opposed the evil empire of the Soviet Union. 

And Stone is the anti-Superman. He is the alienated artist, the leftist radical, the promoter of Stalin, the buddy of Chavez, and Castro, the apologist for Shiite Jihad. 

He is now also the Jew-baiting cartoonist of today, seeking alliance with those who fight not for, but for the destruction of, truth, justice, and the American way.

[Ed. Note: Earlier today, director Oliver Stone issued an apology for his remarks through his publicist.]

Yet despite the Daily Star’s perversely hopeful tone, there was no violent reaction in the UK from said fanatics, nor was there one in the United States after the episode originally aired here last Thanksgiving weekend (in a grimly ironic twist, the same weekend as the devastating mass murder and mayhem committed in Mumbai by a band of – wait for it – Muslim fanatics, or as the culturally sensitive media preferred to call them at the time, “gunmen”). So why no Muslim fury over The Simpsons?

In the episode “Mypods and Broomsticks,” Homer Simpson believes a local Muslim couple are terrorists planning to blow up the Springfield Mall. It turns out, unsurprisingly, to be a misunderstanding; no plot is being hatched after all. As a spokesman for London’s Sky1 reassuringly sums up, “At the end of the show, all the issues are resolved and Homer realizes the error of his ways.” In other words, Homer was wrong to suspect Muslims – despite seeing them unload dynamite in their garage, despite hearing them discuss blowing up buildings, despite finding the schematics of the targeted local mall on their computer, and despite the fact that, in the real world, Muslim fanatics do have an impressive track record of blowing up innocent civilians.

The moral of the toon: coming forward to protect your community from a possible terrorist attack by Muslims, even with an abundance of probable cause, marks you as a buffoonish bigot. So, contrary to the Daily Star’s claim, the episode did not poke fun at Islam, but at Homer. Simpsons creator Matt Groening explained to Sky1: “Cartoons deal in stereotypes. We try to be sensitive.” Well, sensitive to the murderous rage of Islamists, anyway, since the episode ridicules the stereotyping of Muslims as terrorists, while stereotyping Homer as an Islamophobic, paranoid, ignorant American.

Thus CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, ever-ready with a quick denunciation of any criticism of Islam or any association of it with terrorism, instead whipped out a statement approving of the episode’s plotline and congratulating the show’s creators “for tackling the disturbing phenomenon of Islamophobia.” If I were CAIR, I’d be much more concerned about tackling the disturbing phenomenon of violent jihad committed by fanatics who have supposedly hijacked my religion (then again, CAIR is currently tackling revelations that it is a Muslim Brotherhood front group committed to replacing American democracy with Sharia and theocracy). What if Homer Simpson had been right, and the Muslim couple intended to murder and maim hundreds at the local mall? I guess CAIR would rather that he keep quiet and stifle his Islamophobia than act on reasonable suspicion, report the possible bombing to the authorities, and save countless lives.

Najibullah Zazi

Admittedly, those are cartoon characters in the service of comedy writers whose aim is to give the topic a light treatment; but they nonetheless reinforce the default PC position that only stupid bigots draw a connection between Islam and terrorism. In the real world, meanwhile, Osama bin Laden and his ilk are busy making that connection themselves, and political correctness won’t save you from them.

“Mark, this is all very fascinating,” I hear you say,“but doesn’t Obama’s election mean that America is now safer and more ‘well-liked’?” (A concept I previously bashed here) “Won’t our Islamist enemies respond more peacefully and diplomatically to his flaccid ‘open hand’ policy and his many cringe-worthy expressions of pro-Islam sycophancy?” First of all, no less an authority than bin Laden himself has made it clear that he considers Obama no different from his predecessor. Second, since Obama has taken office, over 40 American-born Muslims or converts have been arrested for plotting terrorist attacks here and abroad, including Najibullah Zazi, a Denver-based Muslim who apparently is connected to al Qaeda and at the center of what could have been a catastrophic terrorist plot; Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, for attempting to car-bomb a Dallas office tower; and Muslim convert Michael C. Finton, who planned to blow up a federal building in Springfield (Illinois, not the one in The Simpsons). Even as I write this, Tarek Mehanna and cohorts, apparently desirous “to participate in Islamist holy war,” were arrested in Massachusetts for plotting to attack a mall in the U.S. Are all Muslims terrorists? Of course not; indeed, the fundamentalists have no qualms about targeting Muslims who aren’t onboard with the notion of embracing Sharia and a worldwide Caliphate. But make no mistake, there are untold numbers of Islamists here in America, and many of them want to kill you.

What can you do about it? Join a great activist organization like Brigitte Gabriel’s ACT! for America, buy The Citizen Soldier Handbook: 101 Ways for Every American to Fight Terrorism by my friend Michael Mandaville and put his action items to work, or simply keep your eyes open and trust your instincts. The LAPD recently rolled out a community awareness program called iWATCH, a neighborhood watch service designed to nip terrorist plots in the bud by providing citizens with a hotline to report suspicious activity. Seems a little long in coming - nearly ten years after an alert customs officer arrested Ahmed Ressam at the Canadian border and foiled the “millennium LAX plot” in late December, 1999 - but better late than never. Skeptical, pseudonymous police officer “Jack Dunphy,” pointing out that iWATCH bluntly warns against ethnic profiling, believes the program will be hamstrung by political correctness. He may be right; time will tell. In any case, if only programs of this sort were promoted as frequently on television as Obama’s volunteerism propaganda (which includes nothing about combating Islamic terrorism), Americans would become more conscious of a local role they can play in the war-formerly-known-as-the-war-on-terror.

“The price of freedom,” said Thomas Jefferson, “is eternal vigilance.” Not willful blindness, not political correctness, not naive complacency, but vigilance. While the current administration has its hands full demonizing its critics, winning the praise of dictators worldwide, and embracing anti-American radicals and Sharia supporters, radical Islam continues to wage war against us on our own soil. It’s up to each one of us ordinary Americans, us Citizen Soldiers, to throw off the yoke of political correctness, disregard trumped-up accusations of Islamophobia or racism, and help law enforcement protect our communities and our country from the enemy among us.

This one’s for the writers and artists who tell the truth about the enemy, using the enemy’s own words and actions against them.  As for my own work, find out why it led a troll to actually post this at my blog:  “People like you are the reason why I won’t be sad when we all die in a nuclear holocaust.”