Don't forget to tell your local punk-ass Sinclair-owned network affiliate just what you think of the broadcasting conglomerate's decision to air the distinctly partisan Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal as news. The "film" focuses on Kerry's 1971 Senate appearance, at which he presented vets' accounts of American atrocities in Vietnam, testimony that some former POWs now allege prolonged their captivity. That was when Kerry, a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, was so charismatic and articulate that he scared the bejeezus out of Nixon. Apparently, he still has some Republicans resorting to dirty tricks.
Sinclair - the nation's largest owner of television stations, many of them in electoral swing states - ... whose executives have been among the largest media contributors to President Bush, has said the documentary deserves to be seen because it is news, and as such does not fall under federally mandated equal-time provisions for political candidates.
People, this is not news. Check out this "poll" on the
Stolen Honor Web site.
What is your opinion of Sinclair Broadcasting's intent to air Stolen Honor on all 62 of their television stations, during prime time, October 21 –24?
-The DNC is worried the truth unearthed in Stolen Honor will negatively impact Kerry’s presidential race.
-After the CBS scandal, partisans on both sides of the political spectrum should applaud truthful journalism.
-Forces are at work to keep the public from seeing this moving and powerful account of Kerry’s betrayal.
-Sinclair Broadcasting should air Stolen Honor as intended.
How about "None of the above" -- can I pick that? Also, asshats, "impact" is still not a verb. Why are "forces" never "at work" to enforce grammar rules?
As you may have gleaned, this sort of transparent politicking makes the cinetrix cranky. But it also reminded her of other testimonies later twisted to protect the interests of big business. So this afternoon, she watched the 1977 Oscar-nominated documentary [narrated by John Huston] Hollywood on Trial, which looks at the stretch from 1947 through the early 1950s when the specter of the House Un-American Activities Committee cast a dank shadow across the land.
HUAC's obsession with loyalty oaths and rooting out a predefined notion of "truth" is depressingly familiar. Even more disheartening, the sort of principled courage displayed by the Hollywood 10 -- Dalton Trumbo, Alvah Bessie, Howard Biberman, Ring Lardner Jr., Lester Cole, Adrian Scott, John Howard Lawson, Samuel Ornitz, Albert Maltz, and [initially] Edward Dymtryk -- seems increasingly rare today. In archival footage, the accusation is levied time and again: "Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?" [Howard Da Silva much later recounted a friend's sassy answer: "We're not allowed to tell."] The testimonies that went beyond a yes or no answer were drowned out by J. Parnell Thomas' overactive gavel. Now Sinclair hopes to promote the same sort of chilling effect on the democratic process by flouting the equal-time requirements and impugning Kerry's character.
It's always about something else. And by something else, I mean money. Here's the thing: the blacklist was as much a product of the trade-unionist movement of the 1930s as it was a response to any perceived Red Menace. The same day the Hollywood 10 received contempt of Congress citations, the studio heads met at the Waldorf-Astoria to announce that "We will forthwith discharge or suspend without compensation those in our employ and we will not re-employ any of the 10 until such time as he is acquitted or has purged himself of contempt and declares under oath that he is not a Communist." What good corporate citizens! Of course, by self-policing, the studios hoped to avoid federal regulation of the film industry, then under investigation by trust-busters for its vertical integration.
The cinetrix was given her copy of Hollywood on Trial by the doc's editor and coproducer, Frank Galvin, back when she was a wee, smart-mouthed sprog working at a video store. The film lost the 1977 Oscar to another documentary about trade unionism, Barbara Koppel's Harlan County, U.S.A. In both films, the same old song is sung:
Come all you good workers,
Good news to you I'll tell
Of how the good old union
Has come in here to dwell.
CHORUS:
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
My dady was a miner,
And I'm a miner's son,
And I'll stick with the union
'Til every battle's won.
They say in Harlan County
There are no neutrals there.
You'll either be a union man
Or a thug for J. H. Blair.
Oh workers can you stand it?
Oh tell me how you can?
Will you be a lousy scab
Or will you be a man?
Don't scab for the bosses,
Don't listen to their lies.
Us poor folks haven't got a chance
Unless we organize.
It's still the same old song today. Yes, the airwaves are born free, but
everywhere they are in chains. For now, anyway. Sinclair is gambling on deregulation during a second Bush term lining its pockets. Broadcasting
Stolen Honor is its loyalty oath. But that's not news, either.
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