I can't disassociate the right-wing takeover of America from the tragedy of 9/11.  Within 24 hours, the security lapses Bush allowed on that day were used to push tax cuts for the wealthy, and our business elite used 9/11 as an opportunity to steal from investors and undermine American markets.  The event was used to justify a ghastly and immoral war, and to concentrate power in the executive branch at the expense of the idea that is America.  The press has been completely cowed to the point of uselessness, and the Republican Party turned into a group of cruel and treacherous eunichs who consistently call for a security state.

I am by nature a hopeful person, and I can see paths out of where we are, a way for America to restore its moral universe.  But to me, someone who didn't really know anyone killed in the towers, I am compelled to remember the events of 9/11 by Bush's call for all of us to go shopping in response.  Progressives will spend our lives working to fill that moral vacuum, but many of us will need to be held to account for not speaking out, for being silent and cooperative in the travesty that continues to this day.  Like with Katrina, it is a silent rage I feel, an anger that these people I deal with every day mock the country I love, and do it while wearing the flag, while behind closed doors they engage in the organized evil political Bacchanalia that destroyed Rome.

The American people must rise up and reclaim the country, in bars and over dinner tables.  If that doesn't happen, and the country continues its obsession with the security state and the clearly fraudulent war on terror, that day is the end of America.  I don't believe that this is the case, I think we can take back our party, our churches, and our country if we want to.  But evil is banal, and evil is hypocritical, and evil lives deeply in our hearts and in our culture.  I took this picture at Pier 39 in San Francisco, and to me, it's what we're fighting, the feel-good sense of self that lets us ignore our blaring moral sirens.

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Wow, this movie sucks.  It's boring and badly shot.

Update: I figure it's good to lay out some strategic thoughts. This story will die in two days or so. I would hope Disney/ABC apologizes, but I don't think they will. This whole episode has been thoroughly embarrassing for them, from the shoddy quality of the movie to the libeling of various Clinton officials. They really threw away their brand.

Still, we have to face the fact that Disney/ABC decided that they are now a right-wing propaganda outlet. That's fine. It's also fine to let our representatives and candidates know that Disney is no longer competent as a trustee of the public airwaves, that the broadcast flag is a terrible idea, that copyright extremism is a problem, that allowing media consolidation is no longer appropriate, and that Disney needs to allow reality show writers to become part of the writers' guild and cut writers in on internet and DVD royalties. Those are all fine things to do.

Moving forward, the issue is Bush and Bush alone. Though allies in what passes for our wretched media may cover for him, he is a weak coward who rules through fear. It's the job of every honorable American to stand up to the fearmongering dishonesty of the right-wing.

Update again: Man this really is a piece of shit.

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 Well it looks to me like we've got a full blown wingnut as EVP of Corporate Communications for Disney, a woman by the name of Zenia Mucha.  Mucha has a long and impressive history in media, and is in charge of

claims that Miramax hid the funding for Fahrenheit 9/11

George Pataki nickamed Mucha 'the Director of Revenge.'

Razor-sharp and acid-tongued, Mucha, 47, was named Disney's chief communications officer less than two years ago, after starting with the company's troubled ABC unit. In short order, she has carved out a place as one of Chief Executive Michael Eisner's closest advisors in a brutal battle with those who would unseat him...

Under Mucha (pronounced MOO-ka), Disney scrapped a posture in which queries were often dismissed with a flat "no comment." Executives now are pushed to challenge all comers -- although few are a match for the frequently profane chief communicator, who is quick to unleash her inner pit bull on critics and the reporters who give them voice.

Earlier in her career Ms. Mucha served first as director of communications and then as senior policy advisor to Governor George Pataki of New York State, where she earned a national reputation for her expert communications and political skills. She joined Governor Pataki in 1994 and is widely credited with helping the former State Senator achieve the recognition necessary to win the gubernatorial election. Ms. Mucha counseled Governor Pataki on a broad range of public policy and other issues. She also successfully positioned him for his first re-election campaign as Governor.

The New York Times observed: "Ms. Mucha's official responsibilities were defined as press relations, scheduling and correspondence. But her portfolio has expanded to include virtually every major decision made by the Governor." Upon her departure from New York State government to join ABC, The New York Times added that Ms. Mucha's absence "deprives Mr. Pataki of someone who was not only the most influential member of his inner circle, but also his most forceful advocate before the press and with leaders of the State Legislature, as well as other politicians."

Prior to joining the Pataki administration, Ms. Mucha served as press representative and then communications director to former United States Senator Alfonse D'Amato. Ms. Mucha managed Senator D'Amato's two successful re-election campaigns, in 1986 and 1992.

Wow, she was his 'most forceful advocate before the press and with leaders of the State Legislature, as well as other politicians.'  And she was the communications director for D'Amato?  

Innocently tuckd into her resume is her work for George Pataki and Alfonse D'Amato, two tough politicians from New York.  D'Amato was known as an utterly ruthless operator,

Read these quotes from Zenia Mucha and tell me she wasn't enjoying axing Michael Moore's film from distribution and going after him personally.  This is a cold-blooded vicious PR expert speaking.  

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So I've been trying to figure out what's going on at Disney.  I'm still not sure why they are sticking with this right-wing propaganda piece, but it's becoming a little clearer who has been ordering everyone to lie about it.  Zenia Mucha is the EVP of Corporate Communications for Disney Corporation, in charge of all media relations, financial communications, employee communications, and corporate positioning.  She is clearly a big part of how Disney handles sticky corporate situations, including the fights with Miramax over Fahrenheit 911, where she sparred with the Democratic Weinstein's for six months in the press.

What possible incentive could she have for trashing Disney's brand and losing money on an ad-free propaganda piece that helps the conservative movement?  Maybe this incentive.

Governor George Pataki insists he's not thinking about the 2008 presidential race, but his denials seemed a little hard to believe with the sudden reappearance by his side this week of Zenia Mucha, the tough-talking political operative who left Albany in 2001 to become the top flack for Disney's Michael Eisner. As a longtime aide to Senator Al D'Amato known for colorful rows with the press, Mucha was dispatched to shore up Pataki's faltering 1994 campaign against Mario Cuomo and was widely credited with engineering his surprise victory. Her ability to keep Pataki--and everyone else--on message is thought to have helped spur his rise from unknown Peekskill state senator to governor and onto George W. Bush's short list for vice-president in 2000. (Dick Cheney, head of the selection committee, selected himself instead.) When Eisner lured Mucha to the Mouse with an extravagant salary, many of her associates nevertheless were certain she'd return to politics; her reemergence is viewed as a sign the governor is getting serious about 2008. Tight-lipped as ever, Mucha insists she's merely taking a week off from her day job to "help out." But friends say she's planning a return to New York as head of Pataki's national campaign.

Mucha was Eisner's protege, not Iger's.  She came into Disney's empire in 2001, recruited out of New York politics, where she had enormous power as advisor to a very detached Governor Pataki, who nicknamed her the 'the Director of Revenge'.  Before that, she was Communications Director for a very nasty and effective conservative Senator, Al D'Amato.

Eisner was a terrible CEO of the Magic kingdom, and he left behind a real mess.  Wow.

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One thing that's striking to me this week is how the right-wing was utterly destroyed this week.  They lost HUGE on Bolton.  They lost badly on Specter's dishonorable FISA bill.  And the kickoff of the war on terror campaign, the ABC movie 'Path to 9/11', has been seriously derailed as a fraudulent piece of propaganda.

The right-wing has thrived on making it painful to oppose them, and profitable to be with them.  Though Disney's executives are probably mostly pro-business Democrats, you can see how the company's tax rate dropped from 2001-2003 every year under Bush.  By 2003 the company was paying no taxes at all - Democratic supporter or not, it's nice to be an executive where your company is paying less and less in taxes.

By contrast, this week, Disney's brand took a massive hit because the company got sloppy and its internal controls were revealed as weak to non-existent.  Not only is the film openly fraudulent, but it's apparently really really bad.  Like, loser, expensive afterschool special schlock bad, the kind of bad that makes me kind of glad I couldn't get an advance copy.  Right-wing death cultists make shitty directors, apparently.  And more significantly, Disney's executives were personally embarrassed, their happy little spa-drenched personas chided by no less than Bill Clinton.

That's new.  What's also new is how Disney got no backup at all from the right-wing.  No Republicans in office came to the company's defense, the RNC offered no online petition, and there was little to no internet organizing on behalf of ABC's film.  Virtually no right-wing pundits defended the network, or the film in any meaningful way.  The open disloyalty to right-wing allies is a really bad decision on the part of the right, since it means that if you back the right-wing, it's not clear that they will back you.  In such a situation, talented people considering a movement career will simply say 'I don't need this shit, I'm going to go make money in the private sector'.  

This kind of incentive system is how movements are destroyed.

So anyway, to recap, the right-wing suffered three big defeats today, on wiretapping, the ABC film, and Bolton.  And their new kickoff advertising campaign from shill group Progress for America doesn't have the regular echo chamber backup.  The networks aren't even cutting away to Bush's stupid speechifying.  

Losers.

Update: This is interesting. The right-wing punditocracy is turning on Disney. That's loyalty.

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