On the eve of the 2004 election, I had a business lunch in Manhattan with the author of a book I had optioned for the big screen. Up until then, I had no idea how liberal he was. As a matter of fact, this was when I was just starting to understand the differences between myself and many of the people in my life. I’d just flown in from L.A., so despite the highly politicized climate left behind in Hollywood, in good old New York the election was a non-topic … until his cell phone rang.
This is what I overheard him say: “He’s going to back us? Yes! That’s F@$%^ great! We’re going show these Republicans how we play. They’re not even going to know what hit them. We will do some serious damage because this is war now — we’re playing for keeps!”
OK, those weren’t his exact words, but you can believe it was something like that and I cannot stress enough the tone of real hatred in his voice. I was taken aback, as I often was by the odd display of being completely unreasonable when it came to politics which seemed everywhere then.
When his conversation ended I asked him, “I guess you don’t like Republicans very much do you?” His eyes looked down on me with disgust as he realized I was not on his side — this after years of putting money in his pocket and developing his book into a film. Because he was so irked that I didn’t share his world view, we decided to agree to disagree, until a dinner a couple of months later when the “Blame Bush” mantra had taken full effect on everyone without a mind of their own.
When I asked why he was suddenly relocating to Washington D.C., his girlfriend accidentally spilled the beans by referencing some political parties he’d attended in the Hamptons. He snapped at her, “No one is supposed to know about that.” Then I, who by now had a fully awakened political mind, chimed in, “What, did you go to George Soros’ house?” I was only fishing, half-guessing based on news about Mr. Soros’ political activities. He nodded “yes” and then changed the subject back to our movie. But after more red wine and a little prodding he told me what the endeavor was. Mr. Soros had agreed to fund a liberal propaganda spin machine called Media Matters for America.
Apparently, at his Hampton parties, Mr. Soros gathered young disenfranchised liberals and used their displeasure with the Bush administration (intensified by the MSM, 24/7) to further his own socialist desires for America. The whole mantra of Media Matters is “correcting conservative misinformation in the media.” In other words, spinning the spin so that it’s spun back to their spin. Yeah, you read correctly — a meaningless site with no value other than to create more confusion as to what is real news and who’s telling “the truth.”
Reading news “analysis” on the site is like trying to keep your eye on the nut in a shell game. How a bunch of Harvard educated men and woman can be reduced to confusing a spin site with high brow commentary is a marvel of the left’s power to use the self-righteous to confound the rest of us.
Media Matters has been very effective, too. One of their most infamous successes was breaking the Don Imus show by focusing all their spin-spun magic on an Imus quote referencing a girls’ basketball team. The domino effect was particularly frightening when you consider that then candidate Barack Obama called for Mr. Imus to be fired for saying something disrespectful but not out of the context of liberal pop culture (unless you happen to be white and conservative).
Media Matters is only one example of how the liberal grass roots movement has been well watered and cared for by rich caretakers who use their money, power and influence to invest in a future they desire, not one that’s best for all people. The media and entertainment world quietly vets and weeds out young conservatives so that we can’t disrupt the slow browbeating of the pop-culture addicted public with entertainment of substance that may awaken their better senses.
Truth is, we conservatives have no real backing other than core beliefs we know to be universally true. Where’s our David Geffen?
I’m calling on wealthy conservatives everywhere to please step forward and donate to the grass roots of the Republican Party. Fund our version of websites like Media Matters and MoveOn.org. Let’s get a conservative movie fund going and actually produce some indie films like “Fireproof” and then self-release so we can tout their financial success as front page news. We need to set up shop outside of Hollywood and bring back the studio system in some way. We need to create our own movie stars and pop culture heroes. In short, we need to create our own free Hollywood. Sound impossible? It’s not. If we build it…
If we act now, the liberal dream machine can be brought down. When conservatives storm the pop culture battlefield, unified and financed for the fight, it will be a shock and awe to the Left that will take them generations to recover from.