With the Path to 9/11 DVD, the Samizdat may come to America
We note the intense efforts of the Democratic Party and the Clinton Administration to censor or cancel the movie, The Path to 9/11. In addition, govenment officials have obliquely threatened ABC with adverse government action under the Communications Act of 1934. The most peculiar thing about this attempt at censorship, coercion, and prior restraint is that the movie already has been distributed to some people as a DVD.
The furor by the Clintonians and the institutional Democratic Party is very interesting. It could have a number of sources, one of them benign, many of them not. Whatever the source of the outrage, none of the outcomes for the censorship proponents seem very good, since the director’s cut DVD has already been released to some people throughout the country. If ABC heavily edits the movie to eliminate elements offensive to the government officials, those scenes will be made available no doubt on the internet for side-by-side comparisons. If ABC cancels the movie entirely, so much the better. Woe betide the American who ever listens again to this group of Democrats as they declaim on the sacred rights of free speech — and furthermore, the DVD will still be out there.
Just for fun, let’s take a look at a worst case scenario, in which the movie is changed in ways that definitively alter its meaning — that would turn the existing DVD’s of the original movie into gold overnight. They would be pirated; they could be sold on eBay for hundreds of dollars perhaps. Then what might happen? What could be the next phase of government repression, we ask? How eager could their corporate lapdogs be to carry out their masters’ wishes? Will ABC attempt to recover and destroy all copies of the director’s cut DVD? Will they sue anyone who posts passages on the internet? Will the brave Senators Reid, Durbin, Stabenow, Schumer, and Dorgan try to pass a law to throw the offenders in jail?
In the bad old days of the Cold War, the Samizdat (самиздат) was a clandestine publishing system within the Soviet Union and Societ bloc countries, by which forbidden or unpublishable literature was reproduced and circulated privately. Authors from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to Milan Kundera found their way to millions of readers via Samizdat. Depending on the degree of censorship and political correctness ultimately imposed upon ABC, it is possible that the name Cyrus Nowrasteh could be added to the list of banned authors.
Obviously, we don’t expect things to get that bad, but the outrage of the Democratic government censor wannabes is highly instructive. Do they think the public is so stupid that it can be swayed by a few minutes of this or that? Are they that thin-skinned that they think one mini-series among the millions of broadcast hours each year will make some difference? Do they treasure propaganda that highly, and fear its loss so much? Are they right about the public and propaganda? Perhaps many Americans are so weak-minded and impressionable today — but if that is true, how do they have the stamina to sit through a five-hour mini-series, let alone get up to vote in November?
UPDATE
One amusing footnote to this Democratic intimidation is that that Democratic Senators cited above threatening ABC cannot use the word “principle” correctly.
September 8th, 2006 at 10:59 am
Once the riflemen in our Revolutionary War “shot their wad” they needed to go
about the tedious reloading process. Problem for the LEFT/DEMS & their entertainment
and media minions is they have no ammo left to reload. We now have them
on record proclaiming the power of images flashed on a screen, be it the TV,
the computer or the “silver screen”.
Last night the “AnalogKid” in a guest posting at AceOfSpades made this point humorously:
Left’s Sense of Humor Missing, 9/11 Dramatizations “Damnably Serious” [AnalogKid]
Clinton didn’t say that “damnably serious” bit. But he would have if this was a Jane Austen Novel.
He also didn’t say, “Get Bin Laden now, dammit - we have a country to protect.” But he would have if this was a scene on The West Wing.
And I am well informed that Madeleine Albright didn’t appear in a camasole and fuzzy slippers with a nightcap for her Pakistani lover in order to tell him that Hellfire missiles were targeting Bin Laden in Afghanistan. But she would have if this had been a scene of Dangerous Housewives.
Isn’t it interesting how many times we’ve heard that Hollywood is all about dramatizations and entertainment when the lesson conveyed is pro-left, pro-Democrat, pro-liberal? “Don’t take that seriously,” we are admonished, “It’s poetic license, darling.”
Now we have the 9/11 movie that will air this Sunday. It certainly appears that ABC’s head Iger is caving to pressure brought by the Clinton Foundation’s Bruce Lindsay. Why? Because the dramatization paints the Clinton Administration accurately. Of course, efforts at “It’s just a dramatization” somehow fall on deaf ears when you’re trying to tell it to someone who really understands the power of memes and mass communication.
This isn’t “poetic license, darling”:
Clintons Won’t Be Able to Hide This Damning 1998 Video of OBL
Damning CIA drone video footage from 1998 of Osama bin Laden that aired on NBC News in March, 2004.
From NBC News on March 17, 2004!
Osama bin Laden: missed opportunities
NBC News has obtained, exclusively, extraordinary secret video, shot by the U.S. government. It illustrates an enormous opportunity the Clinton administration had to kill or capture bin Laden. Critics call it a missed opportunity.
In the fall of 2000, in Afghanistan, unmanned, unarmed spy planes called Predators flew over known al-Qaida training camps. The pictures that were transmitted live to CIA headquarters show al-Qaida terrorists firing at targets, conducting military drills and then scattering on cue through the desert.
Also, that fall, the Predator captured even more extraordinary pictures — a tall figure in flowing white robes. Many intelligence analysts believed then and now it is bin Laden.
Hope you’ll read both.
September 9th, 2006 at 12:04 am
Bill’s Bites
The webmaster’s blog-within-a-blog. Continuously updated and bumped, newest items at the top. 02:18 Meltdown: Dean, Berger, Albright,lefty historians demand “Path” be edited cancelled Nothing else will do at this point, it seems:Former national se…
September 9th, 2006 at 3:51 am
Great article! We need to show these Senators, Stabenow is unfortunately from my own state, that this in completely unacceptable. How dare they intimidate ABC. How clear is the double standard now? We have had to put up with so many lies, and blatant hatred of Pres. Bush and conservatives in the media that this is refreshing to see their own ideology come back to haunt them. I believe they have always used the ‘poetic lisence’ card.
Thank you and please continue to show us what the truth is.
September 9th, 2006 at 4:42 am
THE CLINTONS DURING THEIR EIGHT YEARS STUCK A DAGGER IN THE HEART OF AMERICA AND NEEDLESS TO SAY THEIR NOT DONE YET.
September 9th, 2006 at 4:43 am
Sandy “Burgler” says “Path” needs to be “Yanked”. Next to Lewenski, he’s the “Master of “Yank”—-He “Yanked” documents from our National Archives, destroyed a few, and was never held accountable. For anyone else—Jailtime!!! HOW CAN THIS MAN EVEN BE ABLE TO ADD HIS COMMENTS ON NATIONAL ISSUES???? AND WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE FROM THE REPUBLICANS???? IS TALK RADIO THE ONLY PLACE TO GO???? IS THERE ANY WONDER WHY THE REPUBLICANS COULD EASILY LOOSE BIG-TIME IN NOVEMBER??? WHERE ARE ALL THE TOUGH AND STRONG CONTENDERS THAT AREN’T AFRAID TO CHALLENGE AND RE-CHALLENGE???? MR. “NICE GUY” CAN’T WIN VOTES IN TODAYS’ POLITICS!!! GET TOUGH OR GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!
Sam Gaylord
September 9th, 2006 at 9:52 pm
[...] From Dinocrat.com by way of The American Thinker: With the Path to 9/11 DVD, the Samizdat may come to America [...]
September 16th, 2006 at 11:30 am
I loved this movie. I would buy the dvd in a heartbeat. I tried to record both parts on my dvr but, the recording was interrupted by our illustrious President Bush and my dvr shut down at 10:00pm unbeknownst to me. As a result, I missed recording the last 20 minutes of part 2. As for the dems, well, if the shoe fits then they have to wear it right? Imagine if anyone had had the b_lls to stand up to these people before 9-11. 3,000 lives would have been saved.
June 6th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Although I did see “the path to 911,” many people that I know did not. I have been trying to find a dvd of this miniseries and it doesn’t seem to be available. Were the Dems successful in keeping this from being released on dvd? Did ABC cave in to Clinton’s threats? I think this program needs to be released before the 08 election even if it is a docudrama. Obviously there is enough truth to set off the Clintons.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
It’s now a YEAR later, and STILL you have not released this movie (The Path to 911) to the public! Can you say, “commie-pinko organization”? Please, get off your high horse and your love of Hillary-the-bitch, and let us have the movie. It, at least, has legs I want to see moving forward into the realm of public discourse, where Hillary’s legs be damned.