September 27, 2001
When they struck, they wanted to create an atmosphere of fear. And one of the great goals of this nation's war is to restore public confidence in the airline industry. It's to tell the traveling public: Get on board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots.
Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed. ---George W. Bush, September 27, 2001
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010927-1.htmlSeptember 29, 2001
(LARRY KING) We begin tonight with the governor of Florida,
Jeb Bush. He's on the road the past few days, selling tourism and the fact that it's OK to travel on commercial aircraft. We spoke with him a little while ago this afternoon, and I asked him where he was now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: I'm at the Old Orchard shopping mall in a
Disney store in northwest Chicago. And this is the finalization -- finishing off a day of travel to Boston and Chicago, where the airports were safe and people were getting around pretty good.
KING: So the purpose of this is to show people it's OK to travel,
and the Disney being "come to Florida"?
BUSH: That's exactly right. As you know, Larry, our state is dependent upon visitors -- principally visitors by air. Without them Floridians suffer. And there are a lot of layoffs now taking place, a lot of small businesses that are being hurt. And it's important for people not to be paralyzed by the horrific acts of September 11, but return to normalcy. And in doing so, go out and take your family out to a restaurant or go to a movie, but also continue to travel, because it is a key ingredient to our economic success.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/29/lklw.00.htmlMay 6, 2004
House of Bush, House of MickeyAt the direction of CEO Michael Eisner, the Walt Disney Company is prohibiting its Miramax division from distributing a new Michael Moore documentary, "Fahrenheit 911," that is critical of the President's policies and exposes his connections to prominent Saudis. According to Moore's agent, Eisner expressed particular concern that distributing the movie "would have endangered Disney's tax breaks for its theme parks in Florida, where the president's brother Jeb is governor." Eisner's decision also illustrates his cozy and conflicted relationship with the Bush family, particularly Gov. Jeb Bush.
JEB BUSH CONTROLS 7.3 MILLION SHARES OF DISNEY STOCK: As governor of Florida, Jeb Bush serves as a trustee for the state employees' pension fund. That fund owns approximately 7.3 million shares of Disney stock. According to the Orlando Sentinel on 3/2/04, how the state votes those shares in board of director elections is "a closely watched decision with political as well as economic dimensions." In the last board election, in which Eisner ran unopposed, Jeb Bush and the other trustees symbolically withheld their support for Eisner. If the trustees were to continue opposing Eisner in future elections it could endanger his "two-decade reign at the top of the company."
EISNER TELLS JEB BUSH HOW IMPORTANT THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS TO DISNEY: Disney's agreement with the state of Florida "gives the entertainment company near complete control over 40,000 acres" in the central part of the state. Disney's theme parks operate "free from government oversight – it is in effect the government – and can do almost whatever it wants with its land." According to the 4/28/01 Palm Beach Post, Michael Eisner, in a private speech to Jeb and his executive staff, stressed he was acutely aware "the success and result of
relationship with the state is taken for granted." A member of Jeb's staff, apparently appreciative of his remarks, then asked Eisner "what more the state could do for his company."
BUSH/EISNER MUTUAL ADMIRATION SOCIETY: During the 2003 first quarter earnings conference call, Eisner cited the patronage of the Bush family to ease investor concerns about Disney's cruise lines. Eisner told analysts on the call "we were very happy that when the President and Jeb Bush's son and his wife and about 16 grandchildren went on over Christmas...they all had a very good time." In the days after 9/11, many Americans were wondering what they could do to help their country. President Bush urged the country to "Go down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life." According to the 12/11/01 Village Voice an ecstatic Eisner blasted out an e-mail touting President Bush as "our newest cheerleader."
EISNER IS A CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTOR TO GEORGE AND JEB: Eisner told reporters yesterday that he was refusing to distribute the film because Disney is "such a nonpartisan company, do not look for us to take sides." Yet Eisner has taken the side of George W. Bush and Jeb Bush against their political opponents when he contributed to their campaigns.
IMPACT OF MEDIA CONSOLIDATION EXPOSED: The fiasco illustrates the perils of excessive media consolidation – Disney is refusing to distribute a film because of the effect it may have on tax breaks for a theme park. Yesterday, Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) called for hearings into "the pattern of politically based corporate censorship of the news media and the entertainment industry." Eisner's decision comes on the heels of decisions to pull content critical of President Bush by Sinclair Media and CBS.
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=837247&ct=48110
May 7, 2004
Disney blocks release of Michael Moore documentary In another blatant example of corporate political censorship, the multibillion-dollar Walt Disney entertainment company has told its subsidiary, Miramax Film Corp., not to distribute Fahrenheit 9/11, the latest film by Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore, in North America. Disney’s actions are part of an intensifying campaign by US ruling circles to censor or silence all opposition to the Bush administration’s “global war on terror.”
The documentary, whose title is a spinoff from Ray Bradbury’s dark novel about censorship under a future fascist state, examines the White House response to the September 11 terrorist hijackings and the close personal and financial links between the Bush administration and Saudi Arabia’s bin Laden family. The film, which also includes interviews with American soldiers opposing the US occupation of Iraq, follows Moore’s popular documentary Bowling for Columbine.
snip
According to the New York Times, Disney told Miramax that Moore’s documentary was too contentious and would be bad for business, endangering in particular the tax breaks it receives for its theme park, hotels and other ventures in Florida, where Jeb Bush is governor. “It is not in the interest of any major corporation to be dragged into a highly charged political battle,” a senior Disney executive told the newspaper. Miramax has said that Disney is “misapplying” its power over the subsidiary and wants to negotiate a deal.
The Times reported that Disney executives said the tax breaks had nothing to do with its decision but that the company “catered to families of all political persuasions and the Moore documentary could alienate viewers.” These denials are disingenuous, to say the least. The family Disney is really concerned about the Bush clan and their political supporters.
Moore has vowed that his film will be released in American cinemas before the presidential election this year.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/may2004/moor-m07.shtml September 5, 2006
Disney and The Dobsonitesby digby
Are Disney and ABC becoming willing tools of the right wing? Or are they simply currying favor with James Dobson and the far right out corporate necessity? Either way, something very strange is happening in Mouseland.Earlier this year, you'll remember that they cancelled, at the last minute, a reality TV show called "Welcome To The Neighborhood" which featured a gay couple competing for a house. The NY Times reported:
snip
(Stephen McPherson, the president of ABC Entertainment) very slickly avoided the question of whether it was pressure from the religious right and implied it was done for the benefit of gays, which is not credible --- particularly since we know that he hired a religious cultist to direct his 40 million dollar mini-series "The Path To 9/11" written by a well known, far right wing writer.
David Cunningham, the young director, is the son of a famous leader of a controversial evangelical youth ministry called Youth With A Mission. It has been heavily criticized over the years for its authoritarian teachings and cultlike attributes. Cunningham's alma mater is the YWAM "college" called the University of Nations, which teaches filmmaking as a way to spread the gospel. Some members of the group even worked on the film.
Cunningham has worked with other members of the religious right in Hollywood with the intention of spreading the word. His previous film, received ecstatically in the Christian right community, was called "To End All Wars"* produced by Jack Hafer, a fellow religious rightist. Cunningham was chosen as one of the 30 emerging voices who are the "future of the American church" by Charisma Magazine. He's quoted saying:
“My life's mission is to challenge and shape culture through film.”
snip
But it is more than a little bit odd that ABC chose this particular creative duo to develop and film a hugely expensive six hour mini-series about the political culpability for 9/11. You'd think they could have found some people who were less politically invested in a particular point of view than these two.
It's even more odd that they have gone such great lengths to advertise it as being based upon the bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report when, in fact, they optioned two other books as sources for the film, one of which is widely touted on the right. Therefore, the series is quite obviously a compilation of several sources and the product of the worldview of its rightwing creative team. In other words it is a work of fiction. To advertise it as being "based" on the 9/11 Commission Report is a fraud on the public.
And now they have announced that they will not show advertising on this big 40 million dollar investment and will distribute it for free to 100,000 educators around the country and on i-tunes. It's basically a gift to the Republican party and the conservative movement.
What is going on over at Disney/ABC? Are they selling out their shareholders to a small shadowy group of Hollywood rightwingers because they share their worldview? Or is it just a gambit for Disney to keep Focus on the Family on their side as they roll out the "Narnia" franchise? Has Disney been so successfully mau-maued by the religious right that they are now in the business of blatantly propping up the Republican Party on its behalf?
Whatever it is, it's quite clear that they are determined to make the nation believe this work of fiction is a credible depiction of the events leading up to 9/11 when it is quite clearly a biased political drama written with the intention of making the Clinton administration culpable for the attacks in the minds of Americans. They chose people with a politiical
(sic) and cultural agenda to make this film and have been dishonest in promoting it.
snip
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_digbysblog_archive.html#115741601128096709 September 10, 2006
Mickey Mouse's Karl Rove, Zenia Muchaby Matt Stoller
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.snip
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/9/10/22035/2310 Do we need any more proof that this nest of vipers needs cleaning out, followed by dissolving these media conglomerates and re-instituting media regulation?(Emphasis added)
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