This, however, says it all:

For the record, I’ve never seen or read any of the entertainment these conservatives don’t like, so I’m not really in a position to defend the content. But when far-right Fox personalities perceive secret political messages from the Muppets, it’s a reminder that conservatives sometimes have too much time on their hands.

On principle, I guess, you can oppose conservatives warning parents about the content in movies. But it’s an indefensible principle.

Leftists hate that parents now have the information they need to go around Hollywood’s left-wing propaganda machine. That same hate drives their opposition to home schooling. It’s just a fact that the left wants our kids for those 180 days a year to brainwash them into the next generation’s Occupy Wall Street.

If you’ve been watching, the whole of the entertainment media is currently in full mockery mode over the controversy surrounding the new Muppet movie, but that’s just a symptom of their frustration and a desire to pretend they’re not frustrated. You see, the left feels entitled to the culture and, any loss of power or control freaks them out in the same way a single right-of-center cable news channel in a sea of liberalism freaks them out.

The left no longer enjoys complete control of the entertainment narrative, and they know that if Fox Business and Big Hollywood are able to get the word out and the result is parents choosing not to have their children subjected to leftist propaganda, it might affect the box office. Moreover, a loss in profits might just force studios think twice about attempting to sneak political messaging past parents, and that would be a huge loss for the left.

Hollywoodists and their entertainment-media sycophants can mock us all they want, but those of us paying attention know that, in fact, they do want to brainwash our kids, and them making fun of the word doesn’t make that fact any less true.

You’re not alone.

With the advent of do-it-yourself internet radio shows and webcasts, the number of grassroots, conservative talk show hosts augmenting the daily news stories covered by conservative kingpins like El Rushbo and The Great One is growing exponentially.  These citizen activists are effectively using new media venues to circumvent the barrage of liberal propaganda spewed by today’s so-called ‘journOlists’ and Hollywood celebs.

What is noticeably missing, however, are radio shows and webcasts that focus primarily on conservative pop culture.   Most, if not all, of the internet shows provide the hosts’ commentary on current news and politics because, like it or not, it’s what’s on most everyone’s minds these days.  But what do we conservatives have right now that is just for entertainment that is NOT laced with the ill-informed, anti-American ideology of the left?  Not much, if anything…

Until now.

What would you say if you heard that a self-proclaimed “redneck”, single, white male from Kentucky and a beautiful, accomplished, married black conservative female from Hollywood, with little in common except a love for this country,  joined forces to poke fun at all of the insanity using comedy and the arts as their weapons?

Well, buckle up, friends…that is exactly what is about to happen…on a brand-spankin’ new, cutting-edge, conservative arts and entertainment webcast called ‘the IN word’ with co-hosts Joe Dan Gorman and Sonja Schmidt.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

A show with a provocative title like the IN word just smacks of controversy and political IN-correctness run amock…and is the perfect bait to lure folks in.  And word about the IN word is getting out.

You will undoubtedly laugh out loud at the shenanigans and endearing chemistry between Joe Dan and Sonja – the Kentucky hillbilly musician and the Hollywood ‘Diva of Liberal Destruction’.  They have had a couple test runs over the past few weeks and received nothing but positive feedback.  One viewer described the show as “intelligent and silly, poignant and provocative — in short, the show is ‘fun’— a genre typically ‘forbidden ground’ for conservatives.”

The premise of ‘the IN word’ is to showcase ‘Liberal Free Conservative Arts’ and Joe Dan and Sonja (both members of BigDawg Music Mafia) will be inviting artists from our site to join in on the fun starting with conservative urban funk rocker Toots Sweet.  If their test runs were any indication of what is to come in their subsequent shows, ‘the In word’ is sure to become the most “IN” show on the internet.

Joe Dan Gorman, a conservative musician and blogger who runs his own multi-media business, was thrilled when he pitched his idea to Sonja Schmidt about the show and she accepted.  For those who don’t know, Sonja is a veteran TV Writer/Producer, children’s author and political humorist.  She hosts ‘Left Exposed’, a hit commentary show at PJTV.  Schmidt also played Michelle Obama in Laura Ingraham’s The Obama Diaries stage show and was a writer for In Living Color and The Arsenio Hall Show.

Here is what Sonja had to say about  co-hosting the IN word:

When creator, Joe Dan Gorman contacted me to join him as co-host and co-producer of a brand new webcast show called, the IN word, my first thought was *&^%&* WHAT?!  Then after hearing him out, I learned that the IN word would be slick, fast paced, contemporary and entertaining.  And rather than being yet another typical, conservative news program, the focus would be on conservative artists and entertainers from all across the nation.  I love the IN word!  The idea of a hybrid conservative comedy talk-show meets VH-1 was an intriguing idea and one I quickly agreed to do with Joe Dan, who I confess I was a bit of a fan of.  Personally, I’ve done my time at many a Hollywood award show (or as I call them, self congratulatory tributes to themselves for producing junk normal people don’t like) where the host routinely goes to the bash-George-Bush well, for a garunteed laugh.  And where celebrity awardees (before thanking all the ‘little people’ who made it possible) would take cheap shots at our military or some perceived wrong they believed America has committed.  Of course afterward they’d party like there was no tomorrow and wind up ‘drunk-puking’ in those ’smart cars’ they drove that night to prove their commitment to an eco-friendly world. Okay, just thinking about it, I’m about to drunk-puke.

I’m proud to say the artists who will be featured on the IN word (musicians, painters, bloggers, writers, etc.) will be nothing like the typical Hollywood types.  TIW guests are proud patriots, with a unique awareness of purpose, and an overabundance of talent.  As Joe Dan says ‘Just ’cause you’re conservative, don’t mean you’re good.’

Aside from being the first conservative arts and entertainment show, TIW is a guaranteed ‘No PC Zone’ where Joe Dan and I will be talking about stuff lots folks are thinking but are too concerned about the thought police to say out loud.  No more lamenting about how the Left has created rules for what we can say or do… and about how they’ve negatively influenced our culture for us.  We are committed to taking it all back every Wednesday night on the IN word.  And I look forward to seeing you there!

Be sure to tune in this Wednesday evening, 8 June 2011 at 11PM ET (8PM PT) on UstreamTV (its free and will stream LIVE to your computer) and join us in chat as we root for Joe Dan Gorman and Sonja Schmidt and the premiere of the internet’s first interactive, conservative arts and entertainment show.

We’re gonna party like its November 2012!

—–

Via Wikipedia:

Captain Planet and the Planeteers is an American animated environmentalist television program, based on an idea by Ted Turner and Robert Larkin III.^[2][3] The show was produced by Andy Heyward, Robby London, Barbara Pyle and Nicholas Boxer. The series was developed and co-produced by Turner Program Services along with the partnership of DiC Entertainment and ran new episodes from September 15, 1990 until December 5, 1992. A sequel series, The New Adventures of Captain Planet, ran for three seasons and was produced by Turner Broadcasting and then-corporate sibling Hanna-Barbera Productions. Both programs continue today in syndication.^[4]

The program is a form of edutainment and advocates environmentalism.

On Andy Heyward:

Andrew Heyward could tell you. He could also locate Waldo, Beany and Cecile, Inspector Gadget, Madeline, the Real Ghostbusters, Heathcliff, G.I. Joe, Gadget Boy, Dennis the Menace, ALF, Captain Planet, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Bill and Ted. Andy Heyward’s excellent adventure began at UCLA and he Scooby-Dooed through Bedrock, writing and directing many Hanna-Barbera animated classics, including The Flinstones. Currently he is the chairman and CEO of DIC (pronounced “deek”) Entertainment, producers of child content for the worldwide market. Producers of more than 3,000 half-hours of animation, Andy’s company now independently owns the second largest library of American animation in the world. Captain Planet was the first environmental superhero and raised the environmental consciousness of an entire generation of kids.

As Shapiro points out, TV has grown increasingly liberal over the past 50 years.  Although he is only 27 years old, he has been diligent in his historical research.  Moreover, because he is young, Jewish and wore his Harvard Law baseball cap when he interviewed the writers, producers and network executives, who have created the product and scheduled the programming over the years, they all assumed he was, like them, a devout leftist.

I suspect that even without the baseball cap, these limousine liberals would have probably assumed that, like everyone else who enters their well-insulated bubble, Shapiro idolized Barack Obama.  Why else would they not have bothered checking out his credentials?  After all, in spite of being a practicing attorney, Shapiro has written three previous books, all espousing his conservative values, and is a contributor to several right-wing blogs.

Even I, who personally know several of the makers and shakers in the industry, was shocked to read some of the things they had to say about conservatives.  You would have thought they were discussing jihadists, except they are generally far more respectful when referring to the people who wish to behead us.  It’s only when it comes to writers and actors with whom they have political differences, that they’re united in their desire to see them blacklisted or, better yet, dead.

The irony of course is that these are the same self-righteous characters who have carried on incessantly about the inequity of the industry’s having blacklisted Communists 60 years ago.  Hypocrisy aside, there is a world of difference that is apparent to most normal, fair-minded people, between a conservative opposing ObamaCare and a Communist tithing 10% of his MGM salary to the Soviet Union, where Joseph Stalin was starving millions of Russians to death and assassinating his political rivals.  Even the fact that Stalin had his boot on the neck of hundreds of millions of people who had the misfortune of living in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and East Germany, was of no concern to the Hollywood lefties.  It should be noted that these were the same folks who made Siberia, the hellish place to which Stalin exiled Jews and other nuisances, the tagline to a thousand benign jokes in a way they’d have never dared with Auschwitz or Buchenwald. 

I was indeed fortunate that, thanks to having been born into a Russian-Jewish home, I was raised to believe the sun rose and set on FDR.  Once something is virtually ingrained in your DNA, it’s hard to break free.  In my case, it was the combination and contrast of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan that ultimately did the trick.  But in terms of my career, it’s lucky that I didn’t come to my senses any sooner than I did.

Even though the TV movies I wrote weren’t political, it probably wouldn’t have saved me from being ostracized.  After reading “Primetime Propaganda” and discovering how very much Gene Reynolds, Allan Burns, Leonard Stern, Grant Tinker, Gary David Goldberg, James Brooks and Larry Gelbart, despised conservatives, I have to assume that I would never have had the opportunity to write episodes of  “McMillan & Wife,” “MASH,” “Mary Tyler Moore,” “Family Ties,” “Rhoda,” “The Governor & J.J.” or “Bob Newhart.”

Oddly enough, I broke in during the late 60s, writing a bunch of “Dragnet” scripts for Jack Webb.  The fact is I didn’t have to conceal my true feelings in order to write for the show that Shapiro ranks as the fifth most conservative series of all time.  Even back then, I was pro-cops and pro-military.  Somehow, in spite of my upbringing, I managed to be a registered Democrat without being a complete bonehead. 

I now recall that a few minutes after my first “Dragnet” episode aired, an acquaintance, writer Harlan Ellison, phoned me.  In lieu of “Hello,” he snarled, “I never knew you were a fascist!”  Then, in typical left-wing fashion, he hung up.  It’s very possible that was when my politics began evolving.  It is, after all, a prime example of the sort of fair and open-minded discourse I’ve come to expect from liberals.

Although Shapiro quotes me a few times (pages 69, 77 and 244, for those discerning readers too cheap to spring for the book), he left out — perhaps because I forgot to mention it — the one time I encountered political blowback during my TV writing career.

In 1990, I foolishly turned 50.  I say “foolishly” because if there’s one thing TV hates more than conservative writers, it’s aging ones.  Liberals oppose bigotry and discrimination unless, of course, they’re the ones doing the discriminating.

My mood over the next several years ranged from bleak to suicidal as unemployment led inevitably to the sale of our condo, the cashing in of my life insurance and, finally, to bankruptcy.  In 1999, though, through dumb luck and a series of quirky circumstances, I landed a spot on the writing staff of the Dick Van Dyke series, “Diagnosis Murder.”

The rest of the writing staff consisted of three male, left-wing, middle-aged yuppies.  The producer had hired them back in June.  By December, they decided they were working too hard and insisted that another writer be brought on board.  What they didn’t know was that they were inviting a viper into their midst.

When they discovered that I was not only a Republican, but that I despised Bill Clinton and had every intention of doing whatever I could to keep Al Gore from succeeding him, they made me feel about as welcome as heat rash.

To be fairer to them than they were to me, their attacks consisted mainly of witless jibes and juvenile ridicule, mainly questioning the intelligence of anyone who would even consider voting for a conservative.  For a while, it saddens me to admit, I took it because I really needed the paycheck.

Then one day, as if a huge light had been switched on, it occurred to me that they needed me.  I worked harder and longer hours and, what’s more, wrote better than they did.  That morning, taking the bit in my teeth, I interrupted their sophomoric prattle long enough to announce that the good times were over, and that they would have to either find a new target or grow up.

I explained as patiently as I could that I wasn’t opposed to bi-lingual education because I was a bigot, but because it holds Latino kids back academically and makes them hate school so much that they can’t wait to drop out.  Which, as we all know, they do in record numbers.

I told the three brats that if I was in favor of capital punishment, it wasn’t because I was bloodthirsty — or at least not just because I was bloodthirsty — but because, as a conservative, I naturally empathize with the victim, not the murderer.

Furthermore, I went on, throwing down the gauntlet, if any or all of them wished to debate any issue under the sun, I’d be more than happy to oblige.  Nobody accepted the challenge, but from that day on, the not-so-good-natured ribbing came to an end.

By the time the 2000 presidential election rolled around, we were all getting along just fine.  They even gave me a pass when Bush defeated Gore.  After all, by then they knew I was a lost cause.  Instead, like sharks smelling blood in the water, two of them turned on the third.  It seems the lunkhead made the fatal mistake of confessing that he’d voted for Ralph Nader.

I recall wondering at the time how he could have been so dumb as to admit he’d deserted Gore in his time of need.  But no sooner was I trying to solve that mystery than a little voice in my head that sounded a lot like Jackie Mason was screaming: “How could he have been so dumb?  Schmuck, he’s a liberal!”

But if you look closely, what we’re being told is that it’s patriotic to take away people’s liberties with ObamaCare, truly American to spend our children and grandchildren into oblivion, and wholesome to punish prosperity.

In a nutshell: Government-enforced equality over individual liberty is baseball, hot dogs, mom, and apple pie!

This is all about 2012, folks. All about couching Obama’s extremist message and failed policies into something the independents he lost in 2010 can tolerate.  Everyone together now: Thanks Hollywood!

But this isn’t 2008 and we are on to you this time.

Fishbowl DC:

MSNBC debuted new “Lean Forward” ads today featuring the network’s four primetime hosts: Chris Matthews, Lawrence O’Donnell, Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz.

But there’s something different about the ads this time around. They’re directed by Spike Lee, and Oscar-nominated Matthew Libatique, who worked on “Black Swan,” served as the director of photography.

According to a press release, the ads were “all shot completely unscripted” and will appear on television, msnbc.com, and in movie theaters across the country this summer. Separate print ads will run in “major publications.”

Full piece here.

And so it was no surprise when in 2002, Soros turned over stewardship of his documentary fund to Robert Redford and the Sundance Institute.

As Dr. David Yeagley, an American Indian author and political commentator wrote,

“On September 16, 2002, Robert Redford proudly announced at a press conference that he was launching a Sundance International Documentary Fund with $4.6 million in seed money from George Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI). The new fund would underwrite films aimed at “promoting social justice and social change.”

In effect, the Soros Documentary Fund simply changed its name to the Sundance International Documentary Fund. Diane Weyermann, who had directed the “old” fund for Soros, stayed on to direct the “new” fund for Redford.

The deal helped both parties. Redford got access to Soros’ money. Soros got to camouflage his propaganda operation under the apple-pie image of Robert Redford and the respected Sundance label.”

Today, the Soros Documentary Fund now operates under the name Sundance Documentary Fund and is managed by the Sundance Institute.  The program provides about $3 million a year in funds to documentary filmmakers.  As of 2009, the Fund had provided over 500 grants to projects from 57 countries, according to the Sundance website.

A few of the other documentary films financed by Soros include “Which Way Home” and “My American Dream,” films aimed at achieving amnesty for illegal aliens, and “An American Soldier“, which portrays military recruitment in an aggressive and negative light. The complete list of films funded through the Soros/Sundance Documentary Fund from 1996 to 2008 is lengthy and likely includes others with which you might be familiar.  In a piece for Capital Research Center’s Foundation Watch in 2008 titled “George Soros, Movie Mogul: ‘Social Justice’ Cinema and the Sundance Institute“, journalist Rondi Adamson provided an excellent write-up on the Soros – Sundance connection and reviewed a variety of documentaries and other Soros-inspired Hollywood movie slants. 

Granted, many of the films may have no political agenda, but it would be naïve to assume that the shared goals of like-minded liberal partners to Soros play zero part in the selection of films to receive funding.

For years Soros has been skillfully executing his own blend of transference, labeling free market defenders “market fundamentalists” and accusing the right of practicing the very methods of Newspeak and propaganda that he pretends to condemn.  Liberals today repeat his words as though they’ve been scripted.  Despite his progressive political beliefs, this is not a man who simply wants to influence political policy to protect his Utopian vision of an Open Society.  For Soros, this seems to be more about influencing a global collective of governments to behave as HE wants them to behave, to protect his own investments and views.  Just as many criticize the U.S for any foreign intervention by military, Soros intervenes by way of investment – and he does so without any regard for the sovereignty of these countries.  As he says in this Open Society Institute video from 2007:

“What I am doing in Central Asia is what I have done in other countries as well – is empower people living in the country to promote these ideas of open society.  I know that I’m an outsider, I have no real understanding of the region, I have no particular solution to offer for the problems of the region.  All I can do is help the people there to help themselves.”

Of course, it’s no surprise that in the very same regions featured in Soros’ video, only two months ago – three years since that video – a spontaneous uprising of the people has been sparked against their government in Kyrgyzstan.  And what a surprise – they blame the U.S.!  Meanwhile, Soros merely breezes past the information in the second part of that video about his own investments in nearby Kazakhstan oil fields, and his intentions to use that investment to influence those governments.  He also never makes mention of his institute’s 2005 publication Covering Oil: A Reporter’s Guide to Energy and Development, intended to train journalists in Central Asia on how to report on petroleum development, complete with sample questions and sample stories.  I’m sure that his influence on American media and film in demonizing petroleum production has helped his Central Asian investments quite a bit.  How convenient.

While all of his rhetoric may sound noble to so many and his intentions charitable, Soros’ views are in actuality at odds with the intent of America’s founders.  That’s why many Libertarians and Conservatives simply don’t see eye to eye with the philanthropist.  Soros has stated on numerous occasions that there is an inherent conflict between Capitalism versus Open Society, again, calling free market supporters “market fundamentalists” while admonishing the capitalist system of the United States as one that ignores the common social needs.  It is for this reason that Soros constantly preaches that significant government involvement is necessary; while he praises his own efforts in private philanthropy to affect social change, he views government as the permanent arbiter of selecting, financing and enforcing such change, and he dismisses any possibility that private citizens can and will meet the social needs of our fellow citizens as our nation’s founders intended. 

Such a view defies the spirit of our founders and soils the praises from those, like Alexis deTocqueville, who once marveled at the American citizens’ affinity to fellow community members and their needs.  It’s this spirit that becomes less and less familiar over time as more government intervenes in taking over the social responsibilities once held by families, communities, community centers, churches and other places of worship, local companies, and neighbors.

Instead of encouraging a return to our true American roots, Soros’ money is spent on propaganda, the very practice of deception that he decries.  Among such efforts, the billionaire funds film and video that often depicts issues in a very slanted, one-sided way, by delivering a pre-packaged opinion to the viewers and intentionally appealing to the humanitarian nature of Americans, without presenting the truth to the other side or the unintended consequences of any proposed actions.

Soros has for years now opined that Americans have become very used to “pre-packaged thought” because our media only serves us information that is pre-packaged for us, and has called our political media coverage a “packaging industry”, comparing it to the Ministry of Truth, where Winston, the hero of 1984 worked.  For someone who throws such Orwellian rhetoric around and points his accusatory propaganda finger so often, the man certainly does more than his part to fund America’s biggest propaganda machines with a lot of his Capitalist-earned cash. 

To be continued in Part 3.

Part 1 can be found here.

Patrick Courrielche’s kickoff article exposing major university faculty and graduate students’ Cry Wolf Project is alarming. Each installment in the series has only made it more so.

CWP’s solicitation for policy briefs designed to construct politically driven narratives is a confession of academic malpractice. As Kurt Schlichter has pointed out, its participants’ intentions are unethical, insubordinate, and potentially illegal.

The CWP email shows its players to be intolerant of varying viewpoints in the pursuit of their ideological ends. The fact that they are offering colleagues and grad students money to predetermine outcomes proves their intent: to tell partisan political stories:

Drier-Email –

What are they afraid of?

We pay the bills. We want our children to receive comprehensive, legitimate educations as advertised by the schools we choose; educations in which multiple viewpoints of issues are honestly presented, empirically considered, and respected by professors. We do not want our schools to act as political parties and centers for ideological indoctrination.

But, the Cry Wolf Project is in violation of joint policies adopted by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU). From the Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure:

As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.

From the Statement on Professional Ethics:

Professors, guided by a deep conviction of the worth and dignity of the advancement of knowledge, recognize the special responsibilities placed upon them. Their primary responsibility to their subject is to seek and to state the truth as they see it. To this end professors devote their energies to developing and improving their scholarly competence. They accept the obligation to exercise critical self-discipline and judgment in using, extending, and transmitting knowledge. They practice intellectual honesty.

In soliciting the creation of political propaganda through their schools and the facilitating organizations that receive public funding, CWP scholars abandon their ethical principles.

Nationwide university regulations, education codes and tax law strictly prohibit the unauthorized use of school resources for partisan political purposes. There are formal complaint procedures that can and should be initiated immediately against the Cry Wolf Project.

The project’s Request for Proposals was sent from Professor Dreier’s Occidental email address, and presumably communicated to and from the other schools’ servers. This creates the impression that Occidental, UCSB, Harvard, Yale, et al. endorse the plan by which Dreier & Co. intend to carry out the project. How prevalent is it that our tuition and tax dollars fund similar activities?

The Zinn Education Project is a notorious example. Its ‘guerilla-warrior’-in-chief, the late professor Howard Zinn, publicly instructed participants to violate education codes as he channeled Saul Alinsky:

Don’t obey the rules. You have to play a kind of guerrilla warfare with the establishment in which you try not to be fired. You have to depart from the curriculum… outside the lines that are set for us by the school administration, or the politicians.

With the high cost of tuition, people must practice due diligence in choosing schools. Universities not only promise an excellent education, but also the practice of good, legitimate intellectual values and principles we want to instill in our students’ young minds so that they can be successful, productive citizens in our American civil society.

The actions of the Cry Wolf committee and the schools associated with its participants should cause parents and taxpayers to reassess their very dear investments in these institutions.

President Obama, touted as one who “embodies diversity,” attended three CWP schools: Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard, where he was recalled as being an “even-handed leader.”

I got into politics at Occidental. I made a conscious decision to become involved in public policy.

That decision would lead him to Columbia University and his first exposure to community organizing, “I really wanted to see New York and become more involved in politics.”

Obama of course later enjoyed his own teaching stint as a University of Chicago law lecturer; the same university’s alumni association once awarded CWP coordinator Peter Dreier a distinguished Public Service Award.

In his Hampton College commencement address last month, President Obama stated:

[So that] all those checks you or your parents wrote to Hampton will pay off… now that your minds have been opened, it’s up to you to keep them that way. It will be up to you to open minds that remain closed that you meet along the way. That, after all, is the elemental test of any democracy: whether people with differing points of view can learn from each other, and work with each other, and find a way forward together.

Mr. President, as an even-handed leader who embodies diversity, do you believe the Cry Wolf Project meets your elemental test of democracy? Or is it “just words? Just speeches?”

“Intellect loses its virtue when it ceases to seek truth and turns to the pursuit of political ends.” – Robert H. Bork

As I left the theater however, I found myself quite disappointed. Not because my conservative “propaganda sensor” was going into overdrive. No, I pretty much knew what to expect based on Cameron’s resume and the synopsis of the film I read eight or ten years ago. I was disappointed because the film, with it’s cheesy, hippie message left me feeling empty and unaffected. I thought about all the films I’ve seen, films that cost a fraction of Avatar’s budget, that were so much more effective emotionally. Even if I didn’t agree with the political message.

A big problem with the film is the simplistic and superficial way that it tries to convey its themes. I think a lot of the conservative critics of the film have made a mistake by analyzing it in a similarly simplistic way.

I made the point in an earlier post that when filmmakers add subtext to their screenplays they often inadvertently add conservative messages and themes. These themes and messages are universal, they cut to the very core of humanity and appeal to our basic instincts and emotions. Leftist thought is predominantly contradictory. It is overly emotional on the surface, but attempts to deal with issues from a theoretical and intellectual perspective. “We need to save the polar bears, so let’s establish a complex and unfair wealth redistribution system.” Enough said.

While simplistically trying to attack American corporate greed and take pot shots at the Bush administration, Cameron accidentally reinforced many conservative beliefs and advocated many conservative policies.

Avatar is one of those films written by fifth graders for third graders.

But what if an eighth grader takes a look at it?

There is the evil corporation and its mercenary force made up of ex-Marines. The corporation follows a “profit at all costs” mentality in its pursuit of “unobtanium” (see, I told you, fifth grader). We are led to believe that it is this cold-hearted greed that leads to the massacre of the Na’Vi.

Even Cameron knows that “greed” is a weak motivator for a character. I can be “greedy” all I want, but so what? You have to do something to amass power and wealth. Ahhh, power. Isn’t that what the cardinal pursuit of the antagonists really is? Power and ego? The bloodthirsty Marine commander is full of power lust and an ego bigger than his biceps. Even Giovanni Ribisi’s sniveling bureaucrat is an egomaniac.

So the real villains are egomaniacal, power hunger, bureaucrats. Now, if you weren’t in college during the 1960s, you can quickly deduce that the main “hive” of these types of people isn’t in the corporate boardroom, but in Washington and every state capital. Politicians, not businessmen, are more likely to be ego driven sociopaths bent on domination. Hence, the conservative and libertarian dislike and distrust of big government.

Most films that portray corporations as “evil” fall into the same trap. A bunch of accountants sitting around debating spreadsheets and profit margins doesn’t make for thrilling drama. Evil corporate types are really ego driven, power freaks.

Cameron’s film hypothesizes that egomaniacs with unchecked power are a bad thing. I agree Jimbo! Does that mean you will join me in voting against Obama in 2012?

The corporation is dismissive of the Na’Vi. They refer to them as savages. They think that their society and their technology makes the Na’Vi no match for them. They do not live in fear of the Na’Vi.

This actually reinforces the leftist notion of non-white societies. Conservatives carry no such notions. White people, or America as a whole, always have to help the poor, brown savages who are incapable of democracy or self-sufficient economies according to the left. If you want to hear racism “straight up” just listen to your average, leftist, white politician condescend to the black and Hispanic communities.

Make no mistake. I think Islamic fascists are savage scumbags, but I don’t dismiss them or the threat that they pose. I don’t think George Bush did either. But Barack Obama sure does. Just listen to his speeches, especially the one he just gave about that knucklehead underwear bomber.

So, Jimmy C, you think that it is wrong and dangerous to condescend to foreign, non-white cultures? Me too! I’ll forward you those emails from Sarah Palin’s PAC.

And about the Na’Vi. Like most fifth graders, Cameron endows them with a nobility and honor that he thinks the Native Americans possessed. Fine, whatever. What is important is that he presents an “idealized” society. A society based on respect for the planet and the creatures that inhabit it. In one scene, Neytiri kills some freaky Doberman looking thing and then cries about it later. She had to kill it because it was attacking Jake. To save one life, that she deemed more important, she took another.

The entire Na’Vi society is based on a code of honor and achievement. The members must “prove” themselves to the tribe by accomplishing things like riding dragons. When Jake tames the big mofo dragon, a great accomplishment, he is rewarded by being made the leader of the tribe despite the fact that Tsu’tey was next in line to be chief.

Cameron’s idealized society is one based on individual achievement. When individuals take great risks, they are often rewarded over people who have seniority. Fairness is determined by accomplishments, not by rules. There are winners and there are losers amongst the Na’Vi and they manage to be a happy society. Oh, and when they are forced, they kill to protect themselves and their loved ones, an action that they don’t take lightly. They have honor and nobility. They have strong traditions.

Sounds good to me. In fact, it sounds a lot like the conservative view of what America stands for. I’m in. Hey, Cameron, beers at my house, I TiVo’ed Glenn Beck for you.

Of course, Cameron never intended to explore these themes or send these messages. But, the number one thing to remember about leftist ideas, propaganda and policies is that they produce unintended consequences. The conservative throughput of Avatar is not unlike the economic fallout produced by “Cash for Clunkers.”

Yes, Avatar is annoyingly preachy in its attempt to spread hippie notions about the military, the environment, and the motivations for war. Yes it is condescending to non-white cultures and further explores the already tired idea of the white man who immerses himself in a foreign culture and experiences their plight through their eyes.

But Cameron is a good enough filmmaker to understand that his preaching and personal beliefs alone do not make a good movie. In his quest to create identifiable characters and emotionally impact his audience, he inadvertently tapped into the very lifeblood of conservative thought and principles.

In many ways, an in-depth analysis of Avatar exposes it as a stealth conservative manifesto wrapped up in leftist gobbly gook.

I give it two thumbs up!

As a side note, I debated about writing this. While I do not feel the need to hide my political beliefs I’ve never written disparagingly about anybody that I respect as much as James Cameron. His body of work (specifically The Terminator films and Aliens) is part of the reason why I am a filmmaker. The way he deals with studios and the “suits” makes him the William Wallace of filmmakers.

But look, he started it.

To spend a half a billion dollars on a movie who’s thematic fiber is as flimsy as one of Howard Zinn’s undergrad’s term papers is borderline criminal. I may admire and agree with Mr. Cameron’s business practices and filmmaking skills, but politics is a different matter.

So, should we ever meet Mr. Cameron, let’s discuss the semi vs. motorcycle chase scene from T2 or Ripley vs. the Queen in Aliens. Let’s leave your lame politics out of the action movies.

You know, like you should have done with Avatar.

In Jerry Maguire, the key conflict was Jerry’s realization that he was putting a pretty facade on the moral deterioration within his profession, and was in fact complicit in it. It took an injured hockey player’s young son telling him to fuck off and a bad dream for Maguire to realize the true ugliness of who and what he had become, especially when measured against the high standards of his idol and mentor, agent Dicky Fox. Those troubling events created in Maguire a perfect storm of revulsion, introspection and a commitment to reaffirm the basic principles of his profession, which he laid out in his memo “The Things We Think and Do Not Say.” In truth, he had me at hello. Tom’s a hottie!

Like Jerry Maguire, I too started out in my chosen profession with the highest of ideals, which were sparked by a boundless love of the great stories, writers and filmmakers that inspired me. Like the best of them, I am totally dedicated to the pure craft of storytelling in film. It is all about The Story, which is bigger than all of us. That treasured craft has been handed down to us throughout human history, from Homer to Shakespeare to General Lew Wallace, Jules Verne and L. Frank Baum.

It is no surprise that epic stories like Wallace’s Ben Hur and Baum’s Wizard of Oz were made into films, or that so many of us treasure those movies like they were our own. Over time the greatest film stories become a part of us, interwoven into the very fabric of our culture and society, even our very personalities. Today in Hollywood that pure craft, though thriving on many fronts, is in deep trouble on many others. Like Jerry Maguire, I am witnessing the progressive corruption of the highest ideal of what my profession should be all about: the pure craft of storytelling in commercial film and TV.

More and more that pure craft is being poisoned by ideology, propaganda and malicious intent to insult or denigrate audience members whom certain creative film artists vehemently dislike. Tells, ideological plot points that are dead giveaways as to exactly where the story is going, ruin the viewing experience by instantly killing all tension and suspension of disbelief. How about taking viewers and audiences where they’ve never been before? It’s called high concept. Look into it.

Be it left or right, politics is artistic and box office poison. The low ratings and receipts bear me out. Bathrooms and kitchens are separate for a reason. It’s not very smart to shit where you eat. In the long and glorious history of storytelling on film in Hollywood, these developments are both modern anomalies and creative pestilences which offend me to my very core as a pure apolitical storyteller dedicated heart and soul to my craft. Who would dare tell Picasso he has to put Green in Guernica?

And the only health care I want to see pushed on film is Nurse Ratched, Dr. Giggles and Batman giving Dr. Crane a dose of his own medicine! Writers are artists, too. So, as a screenwriter, I’ve drafted my own memo. I may not always succeed, but I will do my damndest to uphold the oaths I now put forward to the American people, my fellow creative film artists, and to film fanatics everywhere on 3 Rock. Consider this my Jerry Maguire Mission Statement for Hollywood:

1. I promise to adhere to the finest principles of pure storytelling which have riveted men, women and children around campfires since the dawn of time. Those principles have endured across the years, decades, centuries and millennia for very good reasons. They will endure long after we and Hollywood as we know it are gone. That is our great responsibility to our past, present and future.

2. I promise to proffer the greatest respect to my audiences and fellow film artists regardless of ethnicity, religion, creed, gender, sexuality or belief system. We all want the same thing: great film.

3. I promise to respect the intelligence, dignity and sensibilities of my audiences and fellow creative film artists in my work, regardless of how stupid, misguided or insensitive they may be in real life.

4. I promise to bring the best of my talents and abilities to bear in telling the greatest and most compelling four-quadrant stories with the widest possible appeal for all. Box office tells the tale.

5. I promise I will not write any script or work on any project with the intent to advance any race, creed, religion, ethnicity, belief system or non-violent ideology over any others. Basic moral themes and conflicts are universal. We are all ultimately human on the most basic and visceral of levels.

6. I promise I will not allow my personal ideological or political beliefs to infect my work. The story is bigger than I am. Where the story leads I must follow, irrespective of all other personal political or ideological considerations. It should always be about telling the best possible stories on film.

7. I will not allow others to infect my work or corrupt my pure storytelling with politics, ideology or propaganda, or to maliciously target for insult or denigration certain segments of my audiences.

8. I promise that I will do my utmost to work in harmony with those creative film artists who may not share my most righteous and ultimately correct core personal, political or ideological beliefs, but share in the dream of creating great stories for the screen. The story is bigger than all of us.

9. I will never blackball, or attempt to have blackballed, a fellow creative film artist based on his or her own personal beliefs. Film artists’ creative talents and merits, not their belief systems, should determine their place in film and TV. This is America. Besides, didn’t we go through all this already?

10. I promise I will never blame any audiences if a story I write is produced and bombs at the box office. We creative film artists alone are responsible for our celluloid failures. I will take full personal responsibility and blame only the writers, actors, directors, producers or studios that screwed it up.

These guidelines are not the be-all end-all, but I do believe they are a good start. There are, of course, notable exceptions to some of these rules in the arena of  satirical and political comedy, nonfiction and documentaries. I’m talking straight-up creative TV and feature film production here.

To be clear, I am not trying to impose restrictions here. Just the opposite. I am trying to unbridle creativity to whole new levels. Ideology is a straitjacket which suffocates artistic creativity. It’s killing the craft of storytelling and turning off a whole lot of audiences needlessly. Worst of all, it’s costing millions of viewers and truckloads of money. How self-destructive can you be?

Whether this mission statement is taken to heart in Tinseltown in the spirit in which I have presented it is not up to me. I can only take the Hollywood horses to water. I can’t make ‘em drink it. But sometimes you just gotta hang your balls out there, because doing nothing is not an option. Just as it wasn’t for Jerry Maguire. Many thanks to Cameron, Tom, Renee and Cuba for showing the way. Hell of a story, Jerry Maguire. Made a ton of dough too! And no politics. Get the Big Picture now?

And who knows? If studios and creative film artists remove politics from the celluloid equation, renew emphasis on the pure craft of compelling human storytelling, and open the doors to all with the brains and talent to be there, it may just spur a new Golden Age of Hollywood. Can’t be bad. Hope Springs Eternal on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. I love Hollywood! Show me the money! End memo. Oh, and please don’t politicize SpongeBob and ruin it for me. I’d have to shoot you.

Michael Dukakis riding around in a tank destroyed his presidential run. So is the power of imagery.

When I was a teenager a street artist named Robbie Conal put up grotesque pictures around Los Angeles of Ronald Reagan and his cabinet members like James Watt and Ed Meese.

These images had power over the long term and many street posters by Conal, other artists, a left-wing media and academia all worked in aggregate to change West LA which was Reagan’s home district to the left-wing bastion of “people’s republics” communities it is today. I am not asserting that Conal alone had this affect, but in interviews from the mid-eighties, Conal clearly stated that it was his goal to change public perception and public opinion with his art.

That brings us full circle with what’s happening today. Patrick Courrielche’s pieces here on BH blew the lid off of the Obama administration’s support of NEA grants to leftist artists who would harness art, image systems and ideas into political action and power to move the President’s agenda forward. I found this support in action today at the corner of Sunset and Mandaville Canyon in Brentwood California. Yes, this is the same Brentwood made famous by an ex-NFL player and his decapitated ex-wife.

It is an image of the “Monopoly Guy” demanding health care. I have seen this poster at some other locations in West LA too and this artist, who signs his art “Alec,” if that’s his real name, has done some other pictures of “Monopoly Guy” grousing about the economy. This one is at a shopping center in Malibu.

It will be interesting to find out if Alec received NEA funding for these efforts. The first problem I see if he has gotten money from the NEA is that he is committing vandalism by posting graffiti on public property and to rub salt in the wound, doing it on the public dime. He would also be receiving taxpayer money to influence electoral issues. It may be OK to use public money to support art for the public good (I don’t think so, but some do) but the public good is art in a museum or in a public square that is commissioned and approved by the community. It should also support good, high quality art, not graffiti or cheap posters.

The most insidious thing about this graffiti vandalism is that it works. It does influence elections, public perceptions and the zeitgeist of popular culture. When a lie is repeated enough it becomes true in people’s minds. The political left understands this and utilizes these techniques. To adequately compete, those of us on the right must learn to be versed in Alinsky, Soviet propaganda and Machiavelli so we can fight for these ideas in the trenches of popular culture. It is not easy, though. When you have reason, it is hard to fight emotion because emotion lends itself so easily to image systems and simplistic ideas and phrases like “War is not the answer,” “Bush lied, people died,” and “No blood for oil,” etc.

Perhaps we on the right need to use the “Monopoly Guy” image and marry it to a phrase like “No taxation without competent representation”? You know what, I kind of like that one!

The bottom line is that image has power. We had better learn to fight this new form of political warfare with the weapons our opponents have mastered. Like gasoline, matches and empty glass bottles, the raw material for these weapons are cheap and accessible. The battlefield has changed, we must adapt or we will lose.