This week, the Free Press Action Fund blasted MPAA President Chris Dodd for threatening to cut off money to politicians who dared to block the unpopular legislation.

As a result, the media reform group wants politicians who previously pocketed Hollywood cash to return those checks, or at the least send the money to a charitable cause instead.

It all started with a tersely worded statement Dodd gave to Fox News regarding SOPA, according to a press release Free Press fired off this week:

After Congress shelved two controversial Web-censorship bills, Dodd told Fox News: “Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.”

Free Press Action Fund President and CEO Craig Aaron made the following statement:

“The MPAA is so brazen in its efforts to buy legislation with campaign cash that its leader, himself a former senator, sees nothing wrong with threatening legislators on national TV. We think it’s time that Congress showed that its votes are no longer for sale. The first thing Congress must do is give back the MPAA’s tainted campaign cash or give it to charity. Congress must make it clear to the world that it won’t be bullied into supporting censorship.

“Last week’s unprecedented grassroots uprising, in which millions mobilized against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act, clearly got Washington’s attention. And we’ve since seen dozens of legislators scrambling to show they were really against these bills all along. But the real test is whether they will put their money where their mouths are by returning the MPAA’s dirty money.”

Free Press bills itself as a nonpartisan entity, although it’s stacked with plenty of liberals. That isn’t stopping it from attacking an industry which usually does its bidding, no questions asked.

The Google logo has been blacked out today. Wikipedia, reddit, Mozilla and Twitpic are all blocking access to content.  Even Star Trek icon George Takei has blocked his site.  The moves are displays of cyber-protest against the heavy-handed and ill-conceived Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

From a political and public relations standpoint, this has already been a complete and utter failure for Hollywood and their formerly formidable lobbying arm, the Motion Picture Association of America. Former Sen. Chris Dodd became the new CEO of the MPAA after he realized he would never be re-elected in his home state of Connecticut due to his personal scandals with Countrywide Mortgage and his involvement in the mortgage collapse at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So naturally, Hollywood hired the failed Senator as their man in Washington. Dodd has been the chief architect of SOPA, which was written with about as much subtlety and constitutional protocol as his equally disastrous Dodd-Frank banking law.

The merits of SOPA and the overall issue of online piracy is a worthy topic, and it can be argued that the federal government should have some hand in policing and enforcing piracy on behalf of private industries and artists who rely on royalties as a major part of their profit structure. These details can and should be debated here and in Washington DC. What is striking about today’s Internet blackout and the over-the-top reaction to it from Dodd is that this arrogant, befuddled and inept former Senator has finally figured out a way to unite the left and the right to focus their passion against a common enemy:  Hollywood. 

When was the last time left-leaning companies like Google aligned themselves with the Heritage Foundation? When have you seen left-wing think tanks like Demand Progress taking the same stand on an issue as Tea Party organizations? How often do you see Huffington Post columnists parrot talking points from the CATO Institute? Yet, thanks to the arrogance and ineptitude of Chris Dodd and the MPAA, these disparate groups are all aiming their ire at the Hollywood industry and the politicians who gladly take their donations and then push through ill-conceived legislation with the subtlety of an elephant in a ballet.

No matter how the SOPA legislation ends up, this episode should send a clear message to Hollywood and the elite few who share the same big government nanny-state desires embodied in the SOPA bill. Annoyance and anger at the pompous industry transcends ideological lines, and when an industry chooses a buffoon like Chris Dodd to handle what should be a nuanced and introspective regulation that polices piracy without stifling free expression, they deserve the black eye they are getting.

Face it, Hollywood: America is telling you to take a leap, and take your failure of a lobbyist with you.

For those of you not in the Entertainment Industry, the MPAA is the major lobbying force for the motion picture industry in Washington.  According to Wikipedia, it was started in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America.  It is primarily responsible for administering the Motion Picture Rating System which is a voluntary system to inform parents whether a film is suitable for viewing by children of various ages.  That’s right, it’s the MPAA that decides whether a film is rated “R” or “PG-13.”  This rating system began in 1968 when then head of the MPAA; Jack Valenti felt that the Hays Code was grossly out of date.  It was one of the main successes of Mr. Valenti’s tenure at the MPAA. 

Jack Valenti became head of the MPAA in 1966 under the insistence of Lew Wasserman who was running Universal Pictures and essentially running Hollywood at the time.  Valenti’s background was impeccable.  He was a known Washington insider and friend of both John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.  Valenti wielded much power on behalf of the Motion Picture Industry during his 38 year tenure.  He was loved by both the Washington Insiders and the Hollywood Executives.  Although a Democrat, he always had the best interests of the Industry at heart.  He served it well and retired at the ripe old age of 82.  Shortly thereafter, he passed away.

 Valenti was replaced by former Cabinet Member Dan Glickman who held the post for about five years.  Glickman retired one year ago and a search for his replacement has been going on by the Studio Executives since then. 

Finally last week, the replacement was found.  Imagine my shock when such replacement turned out to be Chris Dodd, the retired Senator from Connecticut.  Or, should I say, “The forced into retirement Senator from Connecticut.”  Chris Dodd did not run for reelection in 2010 most likely as a result of the numerous controversies during his last few years in office.  Basically, he knew he was going to lose. .. in the Blue State of Connecticut. 

The largest of those controversies involved sweetheart home loans given him by Countrywide Financial during his chairmanship of Senate Committee on Rules and Administration.  Mr. Dodd answered to the allegations about these loans by saying he was not aware he was given low interest rates or any preferential treatment by Countrywide.  However, the program under which the loans were granted should have given him notice that something was up.  Maybe, he just chose to look the other way?  In the end, we all know what happened to Countrywide; Bank of America purchased it in order to stop the mortgage lender from going under during the heart of the 2008 financial crisis. 

Of course this is the same financial crisis that was mentioned during the Academy Awards by Charles Ferguson when he won the Oscar for the documentary “Inside Job.”  His comments about the non-incarceration of the purveyors of the financial crises were quoted in the article, “The Worst Academy Awards Show” by Tim Ross.  Maybe Mr. Ferguson was thinking of Chris Dodd when he uttered those immortal words during the Oscars? (Or, maybe not!) 

Another controversy occurred during the time Mr. Dodd was Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs involved the near collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  For those of you that do not know, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the semi-governmental entities in charge of aiding lenders with home mortgages.  It is actually much more complicated, but I want to keep this article as simple as possible.  For those of you that want more information about Fannie Mae, please see the Wikipedia article linked here. 

According to Opensecrets.org, Senator Dodd was the largest recipient of campaign funds from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Needless to say, Senator Dodd vehemently denied that either one of these organizations were in trouble during the 2008 Financial Crisis.  Do you blame him?  He needed their money.  I guess he believed they were “fundamentally strong” as long as they were supplying him with cold, hard taxpayer cash. 

A third controversy involving Senator Dodd was that he reportedly received over $223,000 from AIG employees for his campaign coffers.  This is the same AIG the US Government bailed out.  It is also the same AIG that Senator Dodd amended a bill allowing certain AIG employees to still collect their bonuses after the government bailout.  As you all remember, those bonuses incensed taxpayers across the nation and members of the press that bothered to report them.  As a direct result, the Hartford Courant and New Haven Register both condemned Dodd for his actions.  One actually called for his resignation from the Senate. 

I do not want to go into detail about any other of Senator Dodd’s mishaps and/or semi-ethical behavior, one of which included the purchase of Dodd’s vacation home in Ireland at an extreme discount after helping to arrange a presidential pardon for its owner; Edward Downe, Jr.  Downe, a convicted felon for insider trading, also happened to be a partner at Bear Stearns – another company that benefited from Dodd’s strong position on the Banking Committee. 

As some point when it comes to Senator Dodd, you might as well just say, “If it smells like a duck . . . “ 

Based upon all of this evidence and controversy, how can the MPAA even consider this man for the job held by the great Jack Valenti?  What were they thinking?  Has the Hollywood Establishment gone so far to the left that they would ignore all of the warning signs about him?  In my opinion Chris Dodd is a pure example of a limousine liberal and one of the most left wing of all Senators that served in the past few years.  In fact, his rankings by the Progressive Liberal Group, Americans for Democratic Action have him at 95% or higher since 2000.

The only conclusion I can draw is that the Hollywood left have become so blind that they would rather choose a strong left winger with a questionable past than to keep looking until they find someone who has a righteous and clean record.  In the meantime, they will preach constantly about the alleged racism and ethical improprieties of the right.  Once again, it is nothing but Hollywood hypocrisy; pure and simple.

During the 1990s, the Democratic Party raised $8 million per campaign cycle from the Hollywood contingent.  By the way, that’s three campaign cycles every year.  Some of the biggest Hollywood donors included David Geffen, at $200,000 per year; Jeffrey Katzenberg, who clocked in at $125,000 per year; ABC Family network head Haim Saban, who coughed up $250,000 per year.  Organizationally, Disney led the way with $1 million per year, and AOL Time Warner followed suit with $500,000 per year.  According to one estimate, Hollywood gave the Democratic Party “contributions roughly equivalent to what Republicans received from their friends in the oil and gas industries.”  In return, Hollywood got what it wanted: favors.  The 1996 Telecommunications Act got rid of restrictions on cable pricing without doing anything about local government-created monopolies, leading to skyrocketing cable prices and profits. Meanwhile, President Clinton instituted a “research and development tax credit,” according to film scholar Ben Dickenson, worth $1.7 billion to the industry.  

Such warmth continues today.  As of June 2010, 73 percent of entertainment industry donations during the 2010 election cycle had gone to Democrats. Comcast – a supposedly conservative company — had given approximately $1.3 million to Democrats and $756,000 to Republicans, a 64-to- 35 percent advantage to the Democrats. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) grabbed $329,800 in Hollywood donations. Not surprisingly, Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), who chairs the House Commerce and Energy Committee, which has jurisdiction over communications issues, gathered $82,500 from the industry. 

Things just got worse.  Now, the Motion Picture Association of America has selected former Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) to head up its lobbying effort in Washington D.C.  Dodd follows in the footsteps of former Clinton Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman.  But Dodd makes Glickman look like a piker when it comes to graft.  Dodd is the same man who regulated the mortgage industry while receiving sweetheart mortgage deals from Countrywide.  Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo took points off of Dodd’s mortgage and lowered his fees.  Meanwhile, Dodd was supposed to ensure that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac didn’t assume too much risk.  As we all know, Fannie and Freddie ate up all the risk, forcing them into nationalization.  Dodd should have been impeached from the Senate.  Instead, he’s going to be the chief lobbyist for the movie industry. 

“Senator Dodd is a battle-tested leader whose reputation as a strong leader on major issues facing this country has prepared him to serve as the ambassador for the movie business,” cheered Fox Filmed Entertainment Chairman Jim Gianopolous.  By the way, Dodd will receive $1.2 million per year to help relieve taxpayers of their money. 

The movie industry is in trouble right now because, like too many other American businesses, it has lived off of government bloat, kowtowed to unions, and expected consumers to pick up the slack.  Despite rising ticket costs and a decent slate of movies, Hollywood’s revenue dropped this year; its attendance was down more than 5 percent from last year.  Fewer and fewer movies are produced because production costs are so high.  The industry’s solution: go to the government for help. 

In the short term, it will probably work.  In the long term, it’s doomed to fail.  Over the next ten years, watch as the American movie industry – as iconic as the American automobile industry, only with more cultural power – fades into oblivion with the help of people like Chris Dodd.

The hypocrisy of this is evident when we consider that some of the more prominent members of SAG – actors like George Clooney and actresses like Julia Roberts – are die hard liberals who supported Obama’s campaign of “hope” and “change.” After all, like the CEOs at all those “awful” corporations, the amount of money A-listers like Clooney and Roberts make is many, many times that of the average actor or crew- member working on their films.

I can’t help but be bothered by the arrogance of such people who, although making tens of millions of dollars per movie, vote for a man who campaigned on tax increases. In other words, after going on TV talk shows and letting their little hearts bleed about the plight of the poor or the pain of the hungry, they vote for tax increases on average Americans instead of just reaching into their own pockets to correct fixable problems overnight. 

And SAG as a union is guilty of this. It’s not just Clooney or Roberts. If you want proof, just look at where the whole of Hollywood’s money went during the 2008 election cycle. During that year, “the Motion Picture Production and Distribution industry…gave $14 million in political contributions,” of which “89% went to pro-tax Democrats.” 

Again: Why can’t these pompous people just pull out their wallets and leave mine alone? 

Of course they show their true colors when asked to bear the tax burden themselves. This was evident last year when New York’s Gov. David Patterson tried “to help close the state’s $7 billion budget deficit by canceling a 35% tax credit for films shot in the Big Apple.” None other than SAG member Alec Baldwin said: “If these tax breaks are not reinstated into the budget, film production in this town is going to collapse, and television is going to collapse and it’s all going to go to California.” 

What the former Mr. Basinger has said here is surprisingly logical. Now why can’t he understand that if Obama’s tax hikes are passed, budgets across the country – both municipal and personal – are going to collapse? 

The problem is that Baldwin and the rest of the prominent members of the SAG, who only represent a small percentage of overall SAG membership, are out of touch with reality. Therefore, while their esoteric circle of actors and actresses rack in money hand over fist, the little people (whom the SAG is supposed to protect) simply go on doing thankless jobs for a relatively small penance.  And while these Hollywood big shots cry about poverty, hunger, the environment, and a host of other issues, they don’t particularly want to pull out their wallets and write the kind of big checks that could fix the problem. It’s all just so much “blah, blah, blah.”

A new three-year study of the Top 25 movies released in 2006-2008 earning the most money overseas shows that international moviegoers prefer clean movies with strong or very strong Christian, moral and/or redemptive content and values.

This study is significant because it matches our annual study of the Top 25 Movies at the Box Office in America and Canada and the top home video sales annually, and because Hollywood now makes more money overseas than it does in the United States.

The Movieguide® study found that 20 of the Top 25 movies overseas in 2006-2008, or 80%, contained strong or very strong Christian, moral, redemptive, and even biblical content, earning $8.39 billion out of $10.59 billion total, or 79.2% of the money among the Top 25.

That’s an average of $419.5 million per movie!

A couple of the best examples are “Spider-Man 3″ and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” both of which actually made it into the Top 10 movies overseas in 2006-2008.

“Spider-Man 3″ has a very strong Christian worldview with very strong redemptive themes, where the hero goes in repentance to the foot of the Cross to shed his sins. The new “Indiana Jones” movie shows the hero rejecting the evil tyranny and mind control of Communism and ends with a brief church wedding scene that quotes the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 19 and Verse 24 of Chapter Two of the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament!

None of the Top 25 movies overseas in 2006 to 2008 were R-rated, but nine of them were rated G or PG. Also, only three of the Top 25 had more than 25 obscenities and profanities, only three had any depicted sexual content, only two had any sexual nudity in them, only four had any very strong action violence, only five (20%) had any drug references, and only 10, or 40%, had any scenes of drunkenness or alcohol abuse.

Moviegoers clearly prefer clean movies with strong Christian, moral, biblical, and redemptive content. They want good to triumph over evil and justice to prevail. They want to be inspired.

The following chart lists the kind and percent of moral, theological and political content Movieguide® found in these Top 25 Movies:

Top 25 Movies at the Overseas Box Office, 2006-2008 

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Besides “Spider-Man 3″ and the “Indiana Jones” movie, the study also included such top movie releases in 2006, 2007 and 2008 as “The Dark Knight,” “I Am Legend” (which had a several Christian worldview), “Wall-E” (which had a very strong redemptive Christian worldview focusing on a heroic example of the Christian definition of love), “Ice Age: The Meltdown,” “Prince Caspian” (based on a Christian novel), “Iron Man,” “Transformers,” and the last two “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies (both of which contained overt Christian references at the center of an ultimately redemptive plot).

A Movieguide® study of the Top 25 movies overseas in 2005, 2006 and 2007 showed very similar results to the new three-year study.

Of all the forms of influence, the one the Chinese Communist Party wields most effectively is, ironically, money.  Money’s impact can be most clearly seen from Hong Kong to Hollywood and, surprisingly of late, Sacramento. 

The transfer of Hong Kong to mainland Chinese control in 1997 offers a clear case study.  Prior to 1997 and a few years afterward, reporters in Hong Kong would often break stories about official corruption in China, poor living conditions for average Chinese, riots and workers’ protests.  In 2002, Reporters Without Borders started ranking press freedoms worldwide.  Hong Kong rated 18th – the highest level of press freedom in Asia.  Then Chinese conglomerates closely connected with the Chinese Communist Party began buying media outlets in Hong Kong.  Reporters knew that, if they wanted to remain employed, they had to behave themselves by not writing stories critical of the Chinese government.  Press freedoms quickly plunged in Hong Kong, with its free press ranking slipping to 39th in 2005, then 58th in 2006.  

Hollywood’s kowtowing to China is most easily understood in light of the Chinese Communist Party’s angry reaction to 1997’s trio of films critical of the Chinese government and Hollywood’s hunger for profits and intellectual property protection.  

Hollywood, a town that prides itself on being provocative and independent, has been anything but on the issue of China.  Hollywood’s one year of misbehaving in the eyes of Beijing, 1997, brought the world “Kundun,” “Seven Years in Tibet,” and “Red Corner,” and promptly earned lifetime bans from China for Brad Pitt, Richard Gere, Martin Scorsese, and David Thewlis.  Since 1997, Hollywood has been, for all intents, silent about China.  Not that there isn’t plenty of interesting material, from the sorry state of human rights in China, to China’s brutal crackdown on Tibet, its intimidation of the democratic government on Taiwan, the terrible toll of Chinese pollution (not only local air and water pollution, but China is now the world’s greatest emitter of greenhouse gases while one-quarter of particulate pollution in the L.A. basin emanates from China), and, most ominously, China’s rapidly growing military power and the apparent will to use it.   

After the release of “Kundun,” “Seven Years in Tibet,” and “Red Corner,” the late Jack Valenti, the 38-year president of the Motion Picture Association of America, went on a full-court press to restore Hollywood’s access to China.  In 1997, he assured Chinese authorities that mere films cannot “disrupt or collapse a culture richly fertilized by several thousand years of historical glory,” and should not “interrupt the long range beneficial interests” between America and China.  Late that same year, Valenti told the Chinese Minister of Radio, Film and Television that individual films only exert a very brief though loud repercussion on America’s collective imagination.  Chinese Communist Party concerns were that these brief repercussions would have a longer impact appear to be borne out by the fact that the Dalai Lama’s stature was enhanced by “Kundun” and “Seven Years in Tibet,” making him a more effective spokesman for the cause of human rights in Tibet.  

Since film in the People’s Republic of China is tightly-controlled by Communist Party authorities, they indulge in the error of mirror-imaging, seeing Hollywood as an agent of the U.S. government.  Chinese officials said 1997’s films were made to demonize China and that the negative images about China were in line with America’s ideological agenda, conforming “entirely to the national interests and overall strategy of the U.S.”  Brad Pitt, Martin Scorsese, and Richard Gere would certainly be surprised to hear that they were, or ever have been, agents of the U.S. government.  

As the Clinton Administration labored hard to normalize trading relations with the PRC, Hollywood labored along with the White House.  An unprecedented lobbying effort by Hollywood and big business resulted in the granting of Permanent Normal Trading Relations (PNTR) with the PRC on October 10, 2000.  The following year, China achieved World Trade Organization (WTO) accession.  These actions significantly opened the Chinese market for Hollywood’s product while strengthening intellectual property protections against the notoriously high levels of Chinese pirating.  

The result: record profits in China for Hollywood and not one serious film critical of the PRC in a dozen years.  As with Hong Kong’s journalists, Hollywood is performing self-censorship, ever mindful of offending the Chinese Communist Party and risking a cut-off of a growing goldmine.  

Americans might have the right to be upset with Hollywood’s self-censorship regarding China if other American institutions were brave enough to stand up for the truth in the PRC.  Unfortunately, even political institutions, such as the California legislature, are increasingly influenced by a pervasive, consistent, and heavy-handed pressure from China’s diplomatic corps, many of who have been seen prowling the halls of the Capitol in Sacramento in recent weeks.  Why are representatives of the unelected national socialist government in Beijing spending time in Sacramento?  They are trying to stop Assembly Concurrent Resolution 6 (ACR 6), Dalai Lama and Tibet Awareness Day, by Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee (R-San Luis Obispo).   ACR 6 is almost a word-for-word, repeat of last year’s resolution on the same topic, itself, significantly toned-down from Mr. Blakeslee’s original draft, ACR 119.  ACR 6 is supposed to come up for a vote on Monday, March 16 even as the diplomatic representatives of the undemocratic Chinese Communist Party are trying to prevent a vote in an elected American body.  

On March 11, I received a faxed letter from the PRC’s Consul General in San Francisco.  The letter urges me to not support ACR 6.  Other members of the Assembly received similar letters.  Support of ACR 6 would hurt “the Chinese people’s feelings” while “sending a wrong signal to the separatist forces” according to the communist diplomat.  The letter also cites the huge amount of trade and investment between California and China, as if to imply that this could be at risk. 

If the letter represents a stick, then many California lawmakers have been enjoying Chinese carrots.  A number of the Democrat lawmakers trying to block ACR 6 have recently enjoyed junkets to China and have dined at the home of the PRC’s Consul General in San Francisco.  

Judge William P. Clark, former Chief of Staff to Governor Ronald Reagan as well as Reagan’s Deputy Secretary of State and National Security Advisor commented on the PRC’s unusual diplomatic effort in a letter to Mr. Blakeslee on March 12.  Judge Clark wrote, “I do not recall any case of foreign consular officials lobbying at our state level in such a blatant and aggressive way… Notwithstanding matters of propriety, the fact that such actions occur in relation to a resolution recognizing the 50^th anniversary of the flight of the Tibetan religious leader in the aftermath of an unprovoked invasion by the armed forces of Communist China is not merely ironic, but indeed tragic.” 

Judge Clark’s letter highlights a growing trend by the PRC to influence U.S. politics directly and through proxies, such as American business.  David Szady, recently retired as the FBI’s chief of counterintelligence operations said, “The Chinese, like every other intelligence agency or any other government, are very much engaged in trying to influence, both covertly and overtly.”  In 2005, Rudy Guerin, another FBI counterintelligence official, warned that the PRC was enlisting U.S. corporations to do their bidding, even augmenting their diplomatic efforts with corporate lobbyists. 

That China’s diplomats are sparing no effort to influence a vote in Sacramento should come as no surprise to anyone who has more than a passing interest in the emerging Asian superpower.  I attended a rally in support of human rights in China and Tibet last year in Santa Monica.  The PRC’s consulate in Los Angeles sent me a letter, dated May 1, telling me to cease being concerned about basic human rights in the world’s most populous nation.  It closed with a warning that my actions might hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.  I responded with a letter of my own, stating, “…your government has consistently shown itself to be unworthy of the longsuffering and noble people of China.” Further, that, “I innately understand, as an American, that liberty is our strongest ally and that any great people, when truly free, are our natural friends.”   

The PRC’s envoys did not respond.   

As Ling Bai’s character, PRC defense attorney Shen Yuelin said in “Red Corner,” “In China, we hold the welfare of the state above that of the individual.”  The statement takes its full meaning when one realizes that the “state” is synonymous with “Chinese Communist Party.”  And therein lay the challenge to Hollywood filmmakers and Sacramento lawmakers: why kowtow to a one-party, fascist and revanchist regime, a regime unworthy of its people and a threat to its neighbors?