ABC has been exploring many "advertising avenues" this year. An interesting question is how much Disney figured they'd lose over the long term by "alienating many" of their advertisers and viewer demographics if they ran Michael Moore's movie.

Greenwald and Digby are positing this is meant to help end the LunaXian boycotts of the bicoastal Amusement Shakedowns.

I think the idea is this: Disney shit is corny, but not in the self-conscious, ironic, or hipster kinds-of way. Straight-up, "over lips, over gums, look out stomach here it comes" corny. Even De La Soul isn't Disney corny.

And who should be able to be counted on as the biggest cornaholics in this country? The traditionalists, pining for some 1950s... well... Disneyland version of reality. But aparently one of them got seen at one of Disney's "teh gay" days, and suddenly it's all about soddomy, and how that awesome purple stuffed dragon is Satanic and pro-drug and stuff, rather than dropping a thousand dollars to get high on Snow White memories in a totally non-ironic fashion!

So there probably is a business case to be made for appealing to the Dobson zombies.

There's a lot of money to be made catering to people who can cope with complex situations and ambiguity. Even people who can't cope like to think of themselves as capable. There's a lot of money to be lost, a hell of a lot, by failing to cater to the state's ruling consensus. The panjandrums and muckety mucks of the state, across the board, prefer infantile, gullible constituents/consumers. The Dobson-style zombification program creates the perfect consumer for the state's main product: confidence.

All these media conglomerates rely on the state to protect their markets. The accolades to "competition" are fatuous and wholly dishonest. They're scared to death one of the number is going to get more than they have and they'll use the easiest tool at hand to prevent that. Paging Senator Cretin! Senator Cretin may or may not believe that giant purple dinosaurs promote sodomy, but he's happy to claim they do if that keeps the consumer's conditioning fresh.

Jon, a lot of work has gone into this social engineering program. I think it's somewhat churlish of you to gripe about it. I thought liberals were tolerant of other people's views, even if they disagreed. Evil, cretinizing power freaks and the infantilized consumers who love them have feelings too you know.

Weird, uh. I don't know if the media are conservative, but they sure seem to be Republican.

Maybe spending $30mil to help the Repubs is consistent with the requirement to make as much money as possible?

sk, Cape, Scruggs,

Corporate profit and corporate interests aren't always about selling something or marketing a product set to a specific audience. Most business is about extracting rent from a position of limited monopoly control. That's essential how oil companies make money. You want to drive your car? You pay the price for the fluid that makes it go. You want some nutritional value in your food products? You pay the vig to ADM for the synthetic vitamin package that you can mix into your batter.

I don't think it takes a genius to see that Disney needs big help on Copyright issues, (gotta keep control of Mickey and Snow White), Broadcasting rights (ESPN is now a disney property), among other things and the best way to do that is to get some credits into the old PR bank account from the political party that's most likely to uphold, defend, and extend their existing monopolies.

There was a reason that Abramoff and others came out of Microsoft's PR shop before going full blown lobbiest. Remember that not so subtle and quite bothersome anti-trust suit in the Clinton era?

There is a reason Verizon and friends are cozying up to Ted Stevens to try to push through a teired pricing model for internet service.

Monopolists know who is the sugar daddy.

I know I'm being unfair by singling out to republicans, but the official narrative is that the Dems are the populist party so when they do this they don't do it as nakedly as the republicans are doing things right now.

Yes, please quit the churlish griping. It is not seemly. We need all the entertainment we can get to help stem the slide toward immorality and social disintegration, all of which was given a huge boost by the ungodly four who dissented from the majority holding in Bush v. Gore. At all costs, the Arabs and Persians must be held at bay.

No American worthy of the name can prejudice the march of democracy by limiting businessmen's access to the Tinkerbell mansion in the Disney kingdom. The results of such access can truly be stunning, not to mention most gratifying,.

Consider Mexico. Televisa and Televisión Azteca, through their heroic efforts at protraying Chavez of Citgo fame as poised to invade Mexico, succeded in their mad desire to help steal an election and did so. More circus, less bread.

We could use more of the remedy, for times are bad and we all need cheering up. It's not really a question of feelings, but of survival of our way of life. Democracy hangs in the balance.

So when do the shareholders start standing up and pitching a fit? Isn't that supposed to be how this capitalism thing works...thekeez

They are striving for the long-term goal of big money, not the short-term goals of making little chunks of money off individual movies.

In the long-term, the corporate government (which is what capitalism has evolved into in the US) earns that big money for corporations. So, even if the corporations lose money on individual pieces of propaganda, they profit in the long-run by supporting corporate government.

I don't know if any of this is reversible, absent revolution.

No comment on the big picture question of media motives, but pulling commercials from a controversial program is a good way to protect your sponsors (and thus yourself) from a boycott. It's a lot harder to target an entire network's group of sponsors.

Was it CBS that was forced to give Showtime the movie about Reagan because right wingers threw a fit that James Brolin ("Mr. Barbra Streisand") was playing Reagan?

Jonathan, this biased analysis overlooks the fact that Michael Moore is considerably overweight.

Come on guys. Disney is fully controlled and has been since Walt's days. This is nothing but a zionist propaganda arm. They made a movie about freemasonry for chrissakes! (National Treasure) Making it out to be heroic.

[Pardon a little bwa-ha-ha-ery]

Walt Disney is a Zionist Stooge in bizzaro world only. Back in the real world, this:

"In the immediate years before we entered the War there was a small, but fiercely loyal, I suppose legal, following of the Nazi party...There were open meetings, anybody could attend and I wanted to see what was going on myself. On more than one occasion I observed Walt Disney and [Disney's lawyer] Gunther Lessing there, along with a lot of prominent Nazi-afflicted Hollywood personalities. Disney was going to meetings all the time."

...ends up inspiring this:

"Roger Meyers senior, the gentle genius behind Itchy and Scratchy, loved and cared about almost all the peoples of the world. And he, in turn, was beloved by the world, except in 1938 when he was criticized for his controversial cartoon, 'Nazi Supermen Are Our Superiors'."

And really, once something is referenced by The Simpsons, it's pretty hard to claim you never heard of it.

Bin Laden set out to battle the Infidels and all he got was a lousy Mickey Mouse T-shirt.

A minor $30 million investment by Disney in the 9/11 Flim of Lies will get them back (conservatively) $3 billion in revenue from copyright extensions and other corporate-guarantee-of-profit bills which will be passed by their sock-puppets in Washington.

That 30 mil is an investment which will (if the Repubbies retain control of the Houses) return 10,000 per cent. A return, which, by the way, is so extreme that it's not capitalistic; it is a magnitude of return which can only be defined as "theft".

All the self interest comments may be true, but what if... the leadership is simply conservative? As in, they buy the line that the country was saved by the strong hand of our current president? I don't know if I think that Walt Disney is run by coolheaded machiavellians who, looking calmly at both sides of the issue, decide to lean right because it will get them IP money. If they leaned left and helped the Dems by making a movie that showed Bush calmly cutting brush while CIA guys followed him around, begging him to read the big memo that Bin Laden was planning to attack ("We shortened the words, Mr. President. There are no hard words in the whole document") what happens -- the Dems come in and they say, oh, we are ideologically opposed to rewarding businesses that helped us?
I don't think that's the Democratic party we've ever seen. Does anybody remember Hollings (D), known as the Senator from Walt Disney?
So perhaps ... those corporate honchos are believers.
I know, it is too simple. Yet it may be the case that a considerable part of the upper 1 percentile believes and acts like Cheney. Maybe the image of Limbaugh's audience being blue collar gulls, while the white collar folks really know what is going on is a crock.

"No one could have predicted that terrorists would fly dumbo jets into buildings"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Go4E9ABQfI

What will all this controversy amount to when terrorists pull off another major attack? With the enemy planning the next phase (it is only a matter of time), with the whole mideast falling deeper into chaos than ever, how will anyone be able to rationalize why the US government's concern now is over horse slaughtering?

Clearly there are people that don't want the 9/11 motives known.
ABC's movie just lied saying that bin laden said the attacks would continue "until you convert to Islam"
this movie is very ugly propaganda

what bin Laden has said has been crystal clear.

"We swore that America wouldn't live in security until we live it truly in Palestine. This showed the reality of America, which puts Israel's interest above its own people's interest. America won't get out of this crisis until it gets out of the Arabian Peninsula, and until it stops its support of Israel." -Osama bin Laden, October 2001

"... the Mujahideen saw the black gang of thugs in the White House hiding the truth, and their stupid and foolish leader, who is elected and supported by his people, denying reality and proclaiming that we (the Mujahideen) were striking them because we were jealous of them (the Americans), whereas the reality is that we are striking them because of their evil and injustice in the whole of the Islamic World, especially in Iraq and Palestine and their occupation of the Land of the Two Holy Sanctuaries." -Osama Bin Laden , February 14 , 2003

The 1996 fatwa the movie misrepresents actually says things like "It is incredible that our country is the world largest buyer of arms from the USA and the area biggest commercial partners of the Americans who are assisting their Zionist brothers in occupying Palestine and in evicting and killing the Muslims there, by providing arms, men and financial supports."

No one should be suppressing the facts.

What motivated the 9/11 hijackers?
The video shows the 9/11 Commission Hearing where the question "What motivated them to do it?" was finally asked. See FBI Special Agent Fitzgerald explain the motive. This testimony was kept out of the 9/11 Commission Report and no recommendation was given to address the main motive for the 9/11 attacks.
SCANDAL: 9/11 Commissioners Bowed to Pressure to Suppress Main Motive for the 9/11 Attacks.