As elections loom, a film-maker will rise and make a movie about 9/11. The Left will follow worshipfully in their train, and leaders in the Democratic Party will praise it. Others, meanwhile, will point to the director's long history of lying and conspiracy theories, wrapped without a hint of irony in a faux pretense of the quest for truth.
The year will be 2006, not 2004. The director will be Oliver Stone, not Michael Moore. Somewhere in the great beyond, George Santayana will laugh, darkly. Take it away, Oliver:
"Now his voice rumbled up from his chest and he began to illuminate the dark levers that move the film industry and, by extension, the world. "There's been conglomeration under six principal princes — they're kings, they're barons! — and these six companies have control of the world," he said, referring to such corporations as Fox and AOL Time Warner. His voice grew louder as his ideas took shape. "Michael Eisner decides, 'I can't make a movie about Martin Luther King, Jr. - they'll be rioting at the gates of Disneyland!' That's bullshit! But that's what the new world order is." There was a storm of applause. "They control culture, they control ideas. And I think the revolt of September 11th was about 'Fuck you! Fuck your order-' "
"Excuse me," a fellow-panelist, Christopher Hitchens, said. " 'Revolt'?"
Whatever you want to call it," Stone said.
"It was state-supported mass murder, using civilians as missiles," said Hitchens, a columnist for Vanity Fair and The Nation.
Stone wagged his head and continued. "The studios bought television stations," he said. "Why? Why did the telecommunications bill get passed at midnight, a hidden bill at midnight? The Arabs have a point! They're going to be joined by the people who objected in Seattle, and the usual ten per cent who are against everything, and it's going to be, like, twenty-five per cent of this country that's against the new world order. We need a trustbuster like Teddy Roosevelt to take the television stations away from the film companies and give them back to the people!" There was more applause, and a few uncertain murmurs. "Does anybody make a connection between the 2000 election" - for the Presidency - "and the events of September 11th?" he asked, and added cryptically, "Look for the thirteenth month!" He went on to say that the Palestinians who danced at the news of the attack were reacting just as people had responded after the revolutions in France and Russia....
Stone and large segments of the cultural Left share this much with their Islamofascist co-belliegerents. Just when you think it's impossible for them to crawl any lower, they manage to surprise you.
Read the rest, if you're so inclined. And remember two things:
- Remember that the quote above is from November 2002.
- Remember my prediction up top. Oliver Stone has been chosen by Paramount Studios to make a 9/11 movie.
I'm not even sure that's Left. The Arabs have a point? A point about a secret telecommunications bills passed at midnight? September 11th as a revolt against Eisner's refusal to greenlight a MLK movie? Watch the 13th month?
If you keep walking left, you finally reach a padded room where everyone thinks they're Teddy Roosevelt, Napoleon or somesuch. Its time to rest Mr. Stone.
Some of us recall the New Republic's Idiot Watch feature post-9/11, not to mention ACTA's compilation of statements coming from just America's academia.
They were quite convincing in demonstrating that Oliver Stone, uh... let's just say that he didn't act alone.
Also, it's interesting that Stone himself says:
Note that the "they," in this case, are the Islamists.
You may say that Stone's a dreamer. But he's not the only one.
Stone's a nutty fruitcake that also happened to make some very good movies (in the past at least. Alexander was a steaming pile of crap).
But it's worthwile to point out that the Hollywood system isn't particularly political.
You only wish Hollywood was that organized
The choice of Stone as director is a testament to just how tone deaf the people at the top of Hollywood are to the wants and needs of the audience.
Every day, my manlove for Christopher Hitchens grows a bit. I think it is absolute rejection of hyperbole and utter insistance on exacting language. Its like a bucket of ice water in todays style of bickering. Demagogues get dunked and they just stand there in utter shock, not understanding what happened but knowing anything they do at this point will make them look even more foolish.
JC: Stone's a nutty fruitcake that also happened to make some very good movies ...
I would agree with that. But Oliver Stone's JFK - which is on my list of the Most Vile Films in American History, was not one of them.
It's so typical of Stone, when he decided to do a JFK conspiracy movie and had hundreds of barking moonbats to chose from as "advisors", that he managed to pick out the two rottenest apples in the entire barrel: Jim Garrison and Fletcher Prouty. He has an uncanny instinct for untruth.
Yeah, I can tell you, Joe, all of my leftist friends and I are really geared up for this new 9.11 flick. Can't-f'in-wait.
How's your Jew-conspiracy to rule the World going, by the way?
Jews? The Jews are going to rule the world?
I thought it was the Mormons. Or the Masons. (Rats, now I can't remember. It started with M, though ... of that I'm sure. Maybe the Mennonites?)
Anyhow, I'm surprised to hear it was actually the Jews all along.
Oh, hey, I remember; it's the Movementarians! Man, I hate those guys.
A lot of our most respected leftist academics talk exactly the same way that Oliver Stone does about the terrorist "revolt." Anything to tear down the globalist corporatist structure of oppression. To make an omelette you must break eggs. There are no civilians in Islam or on the left. All must receive marching orders and be constantly vigilant for demolition duty. This is not a game.
You may say that Stone's a dreamer. But he's not the only one.
I'd rather quote Pink Floyd:
Unlike the typical anti-American Left rant, Stone weaves a personal narrative that conflates his own experiences in the film industry with 9/11. Its as if an accademic complained about a tenure tract, while shouting the towers must come down.
I do see the leftwing world view too, but I think the personal stuff makes him diagnosable. Look over here Paramount, I'm giving you an out. At least Moore's movie was cheap and humerous; Stone's movie will be expensive and boring.
i'm not very excited to see this movie, and i'm as left as they get. i think it's going to draw in the people who like to wallow in tragedy (the right), rather than those who are trying to fix what's broken (the left).
Jami: Was Michael Moore's movie an exemple of how constructive the Left can be?
yes. he's trying to stop violence.
wallowing in 9/11 is only meant to make people afraid and angry.
really, by now, we should all have just gotten smart.
stone's a lunatic, but so is hitchens. 9/11 was neither a revolt, nor state-sponsored. it was just hate-filled sh**heads. our country could have joined together to purge the world of hate-filled sh**heads who want to kill innocent people.
instead a wacko 1% rallied round the sh**heads, and y'all rallied round the flag and tried to convince each other that "you're with us or against us."
and the sh**heads roam free while new sh**heads kill innocent people in iraq.
god bless us.
Jami
You can not be serious? Stop the violence. The best way to stop the violence is change the culture of backwardness and oppression that foments the radical islamsist to commit violence in the name of Allah. Sometimes using violence to bring about that change is needed. And the difference is when we use violence to make the change, the end result a better society. Witness Germany, S. Korea, Japan. Islamic nutjobs use violence to enforce thier view of the world which is brutal. Witness Afghanistan, Iran etc. Michael Moore would not know truth if it bit him in the a**.
jami, You unstated assumption is that the Sh** heads, as you call them, are only doing it because, well, they're sh**heads. Based on this, you assume some other approach is required to remove their threat.
Your assumption is incorrect. The Jihadists, including Al qaeda, have a ideology. They a strategy to emplement their goal of restoring the Muslim Caliphate. Do you disagree? If so, please detail how.
Also, instead of only saying our current approach is wrong, how about suggesting a better approach and defend it with facts?
"9/11 was neither a revolt, nor state-sponsored."
It was executed by Al qaeda, who, it turns out, were indissolubly linked with the Taliban govt of Afghanistan. I think that is what Hitch meant by state-sponsored.
How soon we forget.
Afghanistan has conveniently disapeared down the memory hole of the left, particularly those who opposed invading it. That little position should preface everything they say ever again, its unfortunate that those same appeasers still get taking seriously in some circles.
In fact, Osama Bin Laden had been named Minister of Defense by the Taliban government of Afghanistan earlier in 2001.
The Left is not only not trying to "fix" anything, but many on the Left are actively supporting terrorists.
As usal the perceptive Wretchard was there first:
Read his essay The Ichneumon Wasp
"liberals" who obfuscate the events of 911 are no worse than "conservatives' who do the same. they are guilty of treason at the very least.