The Left-Wing Stranglehold on America
Reprinted from November 19, 2008 Current Newspapers of Atlantic County.
By Seth Grossman, Political Columnist
“Barack Obama and the Democrats already control all our national television networks and the political content of our Hollywood movies and pop culture. . . The powerful NEA and NJEA teachers unions. . . proved what a great job they did in indoctrinating our young people” Seth Grossman, Current Newspapers. 11/12/2008.
“This is way over the top”. Shelley Grossman, his wife. 11/13/2008.
My wife muttered that when she read my column last week. She also gave me a look. After 30 years of marriage, I knew what it meant. “How could you write something like that? Now everyone will dismiss you as a right-wing conspiracy nutjob, even when you write something that makes sense!”
In all fairness, I got the idea for last week’s column from someone else. It wasn’t from the “Watch out for the black helicopters!” crowd. It was from Moshe Feiglin, a talk radio host in Israel.
In his book “The War of Dreams”, Feiglin explains something that often puzzled me. “When the Left wins the elections, it quickly implements the ideology of the Left. When the Right takes power, it also implements the ideology of the Left.” Why?
Feiglin offers a simple explanation. He compares the forces ruling his country to “a powerful hand, grabbing the state by its throat.” He says the strongest digit is the thumb-this is the cultural elite – the national movie and TV producers, celebrities, publishers and writers of books and newspapers, etc. Three other strong fingers are the index figure – the elite of career civil service government employees (including public school teachers and administrators), the middle finger – the elite of career judges and prosecutors, and the third finger – the elite of big business – what we Americans call the Wall Street crowd. Each of these four powerful elites supports and enables the others.
According to Feiglin, the smallest and weakest of all the fingers is the pinky – the political elite. “This elite has little power. . . When it opposes the other four elites, it always loses. In order to survive, politicians are totally dependent on the ‘good will’ of the stronger elites”.
Moshe Feiglin is very active in Israeli politics – but he warns his supporters that winning elections is only one of many steps needed to save the country.
We in America can learn a lot from him. When I wrote last week’s column, I had just seen Iron Man, a typical Hollywood adventure movie for ten year olds.
When I was a kid, Superman and the other superheroes fought for “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.” But in Iron Man, the American Way was the enemy, at least Hollywood’s depiction of it. The hero, played by Robert Downey, Jr, fought the evil corporate culture of “Stark Industries.” This American corporation brought death and destruction to the otherwise peaceful folks in Afghanistan, by selling them advanced weapons for obscene profits. The American military is shown as routinely covering up and lying to the American people.
Similarly, the movie W, which ridiculed President George W. Bush went far beyond Primary Colors, which ridiculed Bill Clinton in 1998 and The Candidate with Robert Redford which spoofed all politicians in 1972. “W” also ridicules American patriotism, believing Christians, and anyone who thinks the fanatic mullahs of Iran are dangerous, and should be contained.
Hollywood movies do more to influence public opinion than anything said or done by any candidate. Am I so wrong to think that most Hollywood movies today favor candidates on the Left?
During the last election, young people in and just out of school voted overwhelmingly for Democrat Barak Obama. For two months before that, almost every public school registered its 18 year olds to vote, and did all sorts of election projects. None of this was done for the primary elections in February, or any state, county or local elections. Or for other key issues like hocking our NJ highways, etc. Why?
During the month before the election, the NJEA and NEA teachers unions bombarded their 200,000 members in New Jersey with mail, e-mail, and telephone messages like this:
“Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the most important election in your life is just a few days away. . . NJEA PAC endorses. Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, and . . . Congressman Frank LoBiondo.”
Am I so wrong to think that when politics is brought into our public schools it is to indoctrinate students for a particular candidate or agenda?
