DC: Populated by political stenographers who can’t seem to tell the difference between a hero and a villain. Stunned when the general public can.

Two thumbs up!

Both places are filled with people who have huge egos and are busy creating and promoting myths.

Although as far as I know the myths that Hollywood folks are busy creating do not result in hundreds of thousands dead, injured and millions displaced based on a “pack of lies.” The results of the myths that Hollywood produces do not result in young American men and women injured for life as a direct consequence of the myths that they dream up.

Myth and fantasy makers in both places.

Actually know there are also good folks in both places too.

So true

Aw, geez, Jane. You’re going to upset WaPoo’s efforts to make Rahm a folksy hero. He’s just so lovable, you know. Casting was perfect on that one! /snark

Hollywood: Rewrites great novels to make them fit the director’s vision

DC: Rewrites great legislation to make sure that money flows into campaign war chests and fits the lobbyist’s vision.

Hollywood: Has temperamental directors, stars and others completely out of touch with reality

DC: Has Jim Bunning

Citizen Leen:

Both are owned by the same oligarchy…and no matter the audience or the politics, the owners make money off the product somewhere down the line.

Not sure whether raucus laughter or projectile vomiting is a more appropriate response to this morning’s Rahm story.

Jane, you are horrible! All of those good people in the DC MSM are driven only by a deep seated quest for truth and justice. Therefore, they carefully report the news as it is given to them, and fact check very deeply to make sure that they are on the right track. Someone that leaks to them anonymously must be telling the truth because to be named would be costly. We know that the elected officials in DC got there based on their angelic natures and pure backgrounds. It would not do for them to lie to their constituents, and to make backroom deals enriching the corporations and moving their base closer to poverty.

Unfortunately, one is fantasy based, and the other is reality.

Jane you are so good at 7:29 am.

How long is Obama going to keep this loser around?

Why, honestly, would any journalist write a story like Rahm’s. Isn’t the truth so contrary that printing Rahm’s drivel would create cognitive dissonanace?

Jane/All have you seen the clip/interview of Senator McConnell? She socks it too him. Challenges him. Over at Crooks and Liars

McConnell Says Republicans Will Work With Democrats on “Insurance Reform”

Candy Crowley actually points out the Republicans hypocrisy on the use of reconciliation and also asks McConnell a question you don’t hear too often which is whether the public might like not being thrown off of insurance rolls or having their payouts capped if the health care bill does get passed. Of course we don’t get any follow up when he doesn’t respond to those specifics and trots out the tired lines about tort reform and cuts to Medicare, by which he means Medicare Advantage.

Par for the course all he’s saying is that if the Democrats will just adopt all of Republican’s ideas for “reform” they’ll play nice and work with them. Yeah, sure you will Mitch.

And even though Crowley asks McConnell if this is all just a political calculation on his part, she doesn’t ask him why anyone should actually believe that the Republicans would work with the Democrats on anything.

It would really be nice to see these guys knocked off of their talking points and challenged on whether they’re telling the truth or not, but if it’s a Republican on any of these Sunday bobble head shows you aren’t going to see it.

Transcript via CNN.

CROWLEY: Let me start with your ending position after the summit. And that is, start over again. Short of that, is there any way the president can reconfigure this bill that would get your support?

MCCONNELL: I don’t think so, Candy. I mean, this is a massive overhaul of one-sixth of the economy. Republicans just don’t believe that half-a-trillion dollars in Medicare cuts and a half-a-trillion dollars in new taxes and possibly higher insurance premiums for all of those on the individual market is the definition of reform.

We — we had a chance Thursday actually to display some of our brightest, most knowledgeable Republicans. I thought it was actually very good for us because it certainly refuted the notion that Republicans are not interested in this subject and not knowledgeable about it and don’t have alternatives.

And we laid out a number of different things that we think will make a lot more sense, to go step by step to fix the cost problem. And also, it’s important to remember, the American people do not want this bill. They have paid a lot of attention to this issue. They have focused

Jane

You! Nailed! It!

Good lord, this is the truth, and I hope something can be done.

Thank you, for being you, Jane.

Jane.. could we please have some exposure of the supposed “heros?”

How much money has Harkin gotten from the insurance industry?

What about the Vermont deal that Bernie Sanders got for his support of this horrible senate bill, as mentioned by McCain at the health insurance summit?

America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and we will say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/remarks-by-the-president-at-cairo-university-6-04-09/

It’s a very sad state of affairs when American citizens aren’t afforded this same courtesy by the White House when it comes to health reform and fighting for the public good.

Still waiting for that change I can believe in.

- Tom

It is not only Rahm who is “heroic”, as the term is already being applied to Yoo, Bybee and the small army of their “helpers” and the term “true patriots” is being bandied about, as well.

And as others, here at FDL, have pointed out the aims of Hollywood and Washington sometimes find “common ground” as in the person of Jack Bauer, for example … and so on.

Such virtue as there may be, and it cannot be much for either, but such as there is most, surely, reside among the palm trees as the cherry trees in DC look more and more like un-quaking aspen.

DW

The word “politics” is derived from the word “poly”, meaning “many”, and the word “ticks”, meaning “blood sucking parasites”

And stunning is as stunning does: The DC insiderocracy requires a low-information public environment, that’s why an unrestricted free speech platform like the read/write Web is so often seen as Teh Eeeevil.

Hi Jane (and anyone else who wants to respond),

Carolyn Maloney is doing a town hall on Sunday, and I shall attend. Is there anything in particular you’d like me to ask or tell? My agenda item is public option, within the more general context that it is overwhelmingly popular and that as Ds get more like Rs, meaning away from what voters want, the Ds will lose elections.

When the PO is publicly favored and Rahm’s senate bill is overwhelmingly loathed, Rahm’s got some nerve trying to pass off the lie that the President just hasn’t listened to Rahm enough…

Is this article meant as a lightening rod for progressive vitriol so O is left alone? Are we being played here?

Old Yeller made me cry….Obama makes me cry, sick to my stomach, regretful, wish for a new Political Party and not believe in America or hope or change.

Carry on. Give ‘er hell! … or heaven, as you will. Return safely and tell us what “reception” you found.

I trust that you will be your usual self. Therefore I’ve no worries.

DW

Jane! One of your best. Keep it up, Hon! :o)

Is there anything in particular you’d like me to ask

I’d like to hear an answer to this question: Why is the Democratic party so timid/spineless? (Obviously, you can euphemise in whatever way seems appropriate.) There are majorities in both chambers, and given the very real potential for a power shift in November, why isn’t the party trying to “get while the getting is good?”

You’ll very likely get a stupid, rambling, anything-but-a-real-answer response. When that happens, bore in. Don’t let her off without answering the question(s).

Maloney votes right often enough. She’s just so wishy washy. I’m more interested in what the other attendees have to say, than what Maloney sez. She’s stacking the deck against audience feedback by having a whole bunck of speakers in a 2 hour session: U.S. Small Business Administration
Fiscal Policy Institute
General Contractors Association
America Works of NY
SEEDCO
Manhattan Chamber of Commerce

Maloney is the epitome of spineless.

“Still waiting for that change I can believe in”

Check your pockets. That’s as close as you will get.

The answer will probably be the line about not enough votes…R’s and Blue Dogs are obstructing blah blah blah. At that point it may be useful to ask her opinion of Democratic Leadership and its (mis)use of huge majorities.

Earnest political deliberation or outright bullsh*t, it’s nearly impossible to tell these days, isn’t it?

At the movies today it’s increasingly hard to discern the CGI too. But then James Cameron never said the Navi were real. Unlike the current admin and substantive HCR.

The difference between DC and Hollywood …

Hollywood knows how to run the government when it’s on TV or in The Movies.

DC has absolutely no chance of doing it with actual elected people.

Then I depend upon you, eCAHN, to gauge the turbulence, despite the “transparent” attempt to orchestrate obsequious complacency.

I know you are well up to such a task.

Frankly I already feel sorry (not really) for those who have not yet met our most-formidable eCAHN.

;~DW

Heh. I second that. Pity the fools…

Get her to support holding KSM trial in SDNY

Have to guage the real time situation to determine how to phrase a Q. It’s often wise to make it as neutral as possible to let the responder project all of her baggage on it. (You’ve observed that here often.) But if I have only one shot, I might make it statement-question.

Please ask:

“Why is taking money from interests you and you collegues legislate to control not both breaking your oath of office, and accepting bribes”?

Oh geeze. I’ll do that if I have a second shot. You can come too, whether she’s yours or not. It’s 2-4 on Sunday, Hunter College, room 714. Then you can ask her yourself.

Jane, the conclusion is twofold:

1. Only the critics differ. Hollywood critics are more prone to tell it as it is?
2. “Life really does imitate art.”

Another difference is that in Hollywood, English is the spoken language. In D.C. kabuki is the spoken language.

In both, you have a lot of people who should know better following bad scripts. In both, monster size egos abound. Both prize atmospherics over substance, and both think any defect in their product can be fixed by marketing or blowing something up more spectacularly.

Plainly the Radical Leftist Barack Obama has gone too far despite Rahm Emanuel’s better instincts and pointed out pathways going forward best advice.Barack Obama ignored Rahm and now must suffer. Suffer he will too.

The D Party is so Far Left they must suffer in November 2010 elections for being totally Far Too Radical.

Luckily Americans have the White Hat Boys Boehner,Cantor,McConnell and realists like Kit Bond and Jim Inhofe to steady the course WashingtonDC must remain on going into this 21st century.

Americans want more Asian land wars,want Israel to wipe out the Palestinians and we sure as hell do not want our First Class Top Shelf AHIP run American Healthcare Most Excellent System tampered with.

Good thing Barack Obama understands that AHIP must be kept happy and took that foolish and really stupid “single payer health plan” idea off the table very early on. The R Party really rewarded him for doing so too. Now the Radical Democrats must ditch this silly thing called a PO too. Far Too Radical for America such Radical government meddling in Americans healthcare is. Just look at how bad Social Security and Medicare turned out. Pure Radical Disasterism.

Those Super Radical Democrats are pure poison for America it is plain to see and thank the Good Lord the sane,always reasonable R Party knows how to put a White Hat on.

Thank the Good Lord American political media know who wears the Black Hats and who wears the White Hats and is brave enough to stand up for what is right and true. Rahm Emanuel surely faced tough sledding getting the Washington Post to see his side of the Obama WH story and print it today.

Especially being he has Israeli connections. Americans know how that tilts the table. Hard for Israelis to get a favorable slant in American media. The Washington Post and The New York Times seldom give Israel favorable press as any real American knows. Lucky for Rahm Emanuel he got his story in the Washington Post today. Real lucky. The Washington Post has high standards about and over who gets on it’s pages. Thank The Good Lord.

E., ask her if she is looking forward to the results of the advisory council obamarahma is putting together to bring the deficit down? This council will inevitably attack SS and Medicare by calling them entitlements (they were paid for by FICA), and not review the MIC payments with the goal of reducing them. You might even ask her why she doesn’t push back by pointing out that entitlements are payments you get without having contributed to the supply. I would also like to know how she feels about the company formerly known as Blackwater continuing to get contracts through its new subsidiaries. I know she can’t do anything to stop much except challenge things as they are and hope that “change you can believe in” will come about. Sorry to be so long winded. Frelinghuysen won’t come up to my part of his district anymore.

Snark becomes you, arrow, when such mood is well upon you.

Most impressive.

;~DW

We are a crossroads between opting to become a European-style socialized democracy or to remain a more free, American democracy that values individual rights as embodied in our Constitution. The health-care reform debate has become the most divisive issue for this very reason.

IF the majority of Americans were comfortable with transforming our country to fit the Democrats vision of a more collectivist nanny-state, the health-care reform envisioned by progressives would have passed early, with bi-partisan support.

Americans, by a majority DO NOT WANT what the Democrats and the President are offering. The current bill DOES NOT reduce costs which has always been the number one concern of voters who want reform, but are happy with the quality of their care and satisfied with their current plans.

Too many politicians — both Democrat and Republican — have forgotten that they are not royals who get to make decisions with no repercussions based solely on what they want, and screw what the little people think. Politicians are supposed to be public servants. They’re supposed to be representing the interests of their constituents, and that clearly isn’t what they’re doing with Obamacare.

Well said. If OBAMACARE was a movie it would be a flop.

This.

‘Morning, Indie;

Ya sound more like a lefty with every comment ya make.

Are you concerned about that?

;~DW

Razzie?

Hollywood the movie process seems more than a bit like DC the politician front. Playing a good guy is just a question of the role, practicing one’s lines and the attempt to entertain an audience in order to get a later payoff.

In order to get things done there are all sorts of questionable back room deals done by both camps.

Hollywood movies never make money, in part because cost accounting is very creative. In DC, military and TBTF spending is a creatively proposition as well, DC just loses track of larger sums.

The one obvious difference it that Hollywood stars will sometimes spend some of their own money to help people in desperate need. DC Politicians, on the other hand, never use their own wallet except in the rare decision to invest in their reelections.

My question would look like this:

In 2006 and 2008, people elected Democrats and gave them the Presidency and the largest majorities in Congress in generations. They wanted change, real change. But the Democrats didn’t even try. Instead we have gotten more of the same, like the wars, the bailouts, and the sellouts in healthcare. We are told to like it, that it is hard or that we don’t understand, that Democrats, despite having the votes, don’t have the votes, and that the Republicans, despite not having the votes, have them. The people elected Democrats to govern, not to come up with excuses. Quite simply, the Democrats have failed in basic governance. Why should anyone vote for a Democrat or believe, at this point, anything one has to say on anything?

Well, whose money is in them there pollytishun’s wallet?

The larger part of it, I mean.

;~DW

I doubt if I’ll have more than one try. I think that the SS situation is for a later fight. But I’m also going to try to catch her one-on-one after the meeting where I might get a better chance, in which case I’ll bring it up. It’s never too early to let them know we’re watching.

That is THE question, Hugh, the BIG ONE.

Democrats will IGNORE it, as they consider that ONLY “extremists” could harbor such notions.

DW

Democrats, despite having the votes, don’t have the votes, and that the Republicans, despite not having the votes, have them

Nicely put.

Rahm is overrated, especially here, where you expect people to know better.

We are a crossroads between opting to become a European-style socialized democracy or to remain a more free, American democracy that values individual rights as embodied in our Constitution.

Curiously, my Constitution doesn’t have the same rights as yours, like

1. The right to be poor
2. The right to be jobless
3. The right to be homeless
4. The right to be sick

No doubt you would like to do away with the evil socialist programs of Medicare and Social Security too. Thanks but no thanks. I prefer the Constitution the Framers actually wrote, not yours.

This post is just .. . …. well, SO JANE! Bravo!

Anybody remember the ‘hero’, or protagonist, in ‘The Candidate’? He was played by Robert Redford. He gave idealistic sounding speeches. Once in office he became a tool of the reactionaries who had compromised him.

I don’t mean to suggest that there is a direct parallel here. In Obama’s case, he did not have to be compromised. He was a convinced center-rightest from the get-go. He just didn’t talk like one. We have to get over the notion that Rahm is the Villain who is leading our guy astray. It is the Big O himself who is the villain in this piece.

I think you won’t find many people here who think Rahm is leading O astray. Most understand that O is the central problem and Rahm is more a symptom. However, Rahm is also a problem in his own right because he is so viscious.

Washington creates it’s own reality while Hollywood helps us escape it. Meanwhile we get our news on the Comedy Channel……..

The choice between a European style state and neo-liberal hell is a false choice. What we need is a return to the spirit of FDR’s progressive era reforms. People felt plenty free under FDR.

On the other hand, this tasty freedom being doled out by Republicans, media and Democrats has been genetically modified and is no longer fit for human consumption.

Yes, I think you are quite right. Most people here, at FDL, do see O as the central problem. But many people elsewhere keep trying to place responsibility for governance on something or somebody else. I don’t know how long rational people can keep this up.

I do think that ‘O’ is a good nick for the President. Or maybe ‘the big O’. It is resonant on several levels.

I think the problem is in the interpretation provided by our very own Mad Max of common sense: Glenn Beck (aka Max Pain).

From my computer’s dictionary:

The term “socialism” has been used to describe positions as far apart as anarchism, Soviet state communism, and social democracy; however, it necessarily implies an opposition to the untrammeled workings of the economic market.

Socialism is not a concrete philosophy of fixed doctrine and program; its branches advocate a degree of social interventionism and economic rationalization (usually in the form of economic planning), but sometimes oppose each other. A dividing feature of the socialist movement is the split between reformists and revolutionaries on how a socialist economy should be established. Some socialists advocate complete nationalization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange; others advocate state control of capital within the framework of a market economy.

American started out as a European socialist satellite. The point of contention that arose being taxation without representation not the abolition of government and it’s necessary dependency upon taxes. Socialism generically, being about paying taxes and using that money into things which support the social good. Public education, roads, police, firemen and even the military are all paid for based on the same assumptions. There probably have never been any non-socialist states that weren’t essentially totalitarian and even in those cases taxes were still paid; the money simply was not redistributed. Laissez-faire (free of state intervention) logically leading to those people and businesses with the most money and power taking control of a weakened government structure for personal advantage.

The current problems with many governments, including the European Union and ours, are not in their social democratic tendencies but rather the opposite. The tendency to protect the powerful, connected elite and their corporate institutions via the public coffers. Socialism is the cure for the corporatism that is hiding slyly behind the mask of capitalism. The massive waste in government is in the front-door and back-door bailouts to corporations as well as a failure to enforce regulatory rules around fraud.

Regulatory agencies and the rule of law being socialist constructs.

Hehe :-) Love ya, Jane

In 1960 ….

Hollywood: Inherit the Wind was released

D.C.: JFK was elected president over Nixon by the smallest margin of victory in that century.

Irony: JFK’s 1,000 day presidency is known as Camelot.

Wasn’t “Slumdog Millionaire” a British film not Hollywood?

And a progressive, insightful, articulate female fighting for the every day person…

Priceless.

(((Jane))) :)

Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies
By David L. Robb (Author)
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Prometheus Books (April 30, 2004)
ISBN-10: 1591021820
ISBN-13: 978-1591021827

From Publishers Weekly

Every year, Hollywood producers ask the Pentagon for help in making films, seeking everything from locations and technical advice to Blackhawk helicopters and nuclear-powered submarines. The military will happily oblige, it says in an army handbook, so long as the movie “aid[s] in the recruiting and retention of personnel.” The producers want to make money; the Defense Department wants to make propaganda. Former Hollywood Reporter staffer Robb explores the conflicts resulting from these negotiations in this illuminating though sometimes tedious study of the military-entertainment complex over the last 50 years. Robb shows how, in the Nicholas Cage film Windtalkers, the Marine Corps strong-armed producers into deleting a scene where a Marine pries gold teeth from a dead Japanese soldier (a historically accurate detail). And in The Perfect Storm, the air force insisted on giving the Air National Guard credit for rescuing a sinking fishing boat, instead of the actual Coast Guard heroes. Even seemingly flawless recruiting vehicles had troubles: in Top Gun, the navy demanded Tom Cruise’s love interest be changed from a military instructor to a civilian contractor (fraternization between officers and enlisted personnel being a no-no). At its worst, the author argues, the Pentagon unscrupulously targets children; Robb reveals how the Defense Department helped insert military story lines into the Mickey Mouse Club. To help, Robb suggests a schedule of uniform fees by which producers could rent aircraft carriers, F-16s and the like. It’s an intriguing idea, though producers can go it alone: as Robb points out, blockbusters Forrest Gump, An Officer and a Gentleman and Platoon were all made without military assistance.

Before dismissing the European way of governance read today’s entry in Zmag.org which details that European workers are in the midst of a Europe wide strike against neo-liberal government and corporate/financial imposed austerity measures that have come about from the bailout to the financial sector. The strike has spread to Germany, France and UK including pilots, transit workers and vast public sector workers.

In Europe people don’t fuck around when their well being is sacrificed to profiteers. Interestingly the strikers are reacting to austerity measures being imposed by governments currently headed by the left as well as by the center and right. Showing that corporate dominance is not easily reigned in.

Missed this earlier:

But having done time in both places…

Quite the checkered past. Do you have J A N E tattooed on one of your hands?

I find anything coming out of Hollywood these days to be highly lacking in creativity…..The great TV shows like Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke have given way to reality TV. Lack of creativity to cheap programming in Hollywood these days. Hollywood is a contributing factor to the dumbing down of America, and acting as a full partner in promoting government propaganda. In many ways, Hollywood is FULL OF MORE UGLY PEOPLE than Washington, D.C., and vice-versa, of course.

Hollywood is not putting out and has been held hostage to ratings and image as much as Washington, D.C. For example, there are too many anti-Arab racists in Hollywood of which Bill Maher is one of the biggest anti-Arab racists. Yes, I bet the plastic surgeons are busier in Hollywood these days than ever. People like John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi do enjoy their botox treatments as well.

Explaining to Jason Meath, “Hollywood on the Potomac” NBC television witer/producer Jonathan Shapiro, said that “there is no difference between Hollywood celebrity and political celebrity. … The same skills that get you all the way to the White House are virtually the same to succeed in Hollywood.”

What have you got against the nanny state? Been reading too much Jonathan Edwards lately?

The difference between Hollywood and Washington?

I’ll get back to you later with the answer…..

Isn’t it funny how the networks have embraced Sarah Palin even as so many claim to “loathe her stupidity.”

Again, cheap programming……cheap politicians….cheap Hollywood actors….

I prefer plays/theatre and art showinngs instead of Hollywood movies and keeping an eye on local politicians than just focusing on the sluts/whores in Washington, D.C.

As for the movies nominated for Oscars this year—I couldn’t care less. The Oscars are also full of politics as well…..I learned this was I was in the sixth grade……

If you go to see one movie make sure to see the one with Leo DiCaprio called “Shutter Island”. The story line is intriguing and his performance is very good, even Oscar caliber.

As in much else the end product is only as good as the ingredients. This explains the abysmal caliber of our government.

Oh, I spent 3 years living in Europe. Taken as a whole it’s a failure. There’s plenty of inequality and there’s a general feeling that anyone who is rich either inherited the wealth or stole it.

That’s not to say that all nations in Europe are failures, some have policies which we could learn from. But taken as a whole, it’s no model to copy.

As an interesting contrast to the WaPoo puff piece, see this from the February Rolling Stone on how Obama and company [particularly Rahm] shitcanned the volunteer organization they had so effectively constructed during the campaign:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31961846/no_we_cant

Sorry for the late reference, but the Feb. 18 issue of RS just got here. I think they send it from the Mainland by canoe.

DC: When the villain’s misdeeds are exposed and they fail to achieve their objectives, the DC press hails them as heroic

A picture that tells this story . . .

My recollection is that Jackie referred to her personal life with Jack as Camelot after his death…saying that she knew it couldn’t last forever. It was not a reference to his Presidency.

Correct. Theodore White’s work is referenced in the JFK presidential library archives

http://www.jfklibrary.org/jfkl/Templates/ArchivesFindingAid.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRNODEGUID=%7b16FB9A20-3EB1-414E-9A18-031DB5B809E3%7d&NRORIGINALURL=%2fHistorical%2bResources%2fArchives%2fArchives%2band%2bManuscripts%2ffa_white_theodore%2ehtm&NRCACHEHINT=NoModifyGuest#Series%2011.%20Camelot%20Documents.

Maybe to get true reform legislation not merely labeled as such which is really scam-free and without direct or indirect individual middle class mandates I propose a Washington DC/Hollywood solution in keeping with theme of this topic.

All the members of Congress especially Senate members & Executive branch need to watch the two movies right before swearing-in.
1. Christmas Carol: To know money (campaign & lobbying contributions) is not the most important thing in the world.
2. Les Miserables: Service to others ( I meant common public not corporations here) is not only self-satisfying but has so much power that it can even shame blind law.