What Would Abbie Hoffman Do To Stop The Koch Brothers?
Robert Greenwald is something of an expert on Abbie Hoffman, having directed Steal This Movie!. He’s also behind the Koch Brothers Exposed campaign.
Robert answers his own question at Huffington Post:
He levitated the Pentagon, brought down Lyndon B. Johnson, shamed Richard Nixon, challenged Wall Street and pioneered a cultural revolution.
Sometimes I still hear his Brooklyn meets Boston accent when I think about Abbie Hoffman, his family or his legacy. I directed Steal This Movie to capture what I consider to be Abbie’s greatest gift: using satire and culture to impact and inspire people to take action. Steal This Movie was the last narrative film I did, and Abbie inspires me to this day…
First Day of Libya Strikes Cost More Than $100 Million
Here we go again … Robert Greenwald points out the insane financial cost of yet another preemptive war (never mind the human cost), at his blog on the Rethink Afghanistan site:
President Obama’s decision to participate in the strikes in Libya has already cost U.S. taxpayers “well over $100 million,” according to the National Journal. The Journal also relayed that, “the initial stages of taking out Libya’s air defenses could ultimately cost…coalition forces between $400 million and $800 million.” The administration launched this new war (and yes, it is a war) with no official congressional authorization, little public debate and with a vague, possibly even non-existent, endgame in mind. It’s as if the lessons of the last decade are completely lost on policymakers in the United States.
Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile (Approximate cost: $756,000 in 2011 dollars).
Congress and the President should be ending the wars we were already in, not starting new…
Robert Greenwald Vs. The Koch Brothers
Robert Greenwald, the leading activist documentary director, has his sights firmly lined up on the increasingly controversial brothers Koch. The first of a series of short films from Greenwald’s Brave New Foundation appears below, and he explains why this is top priority in a blog at Huffington Post:
Today Brave New Foundation announces our latest campaign. A campaign where we will take on one of the single greatest threats to our democracy: The Koch Brothers.…
People Joe Klein Thinks Are Stupid: Ed Schultz and YOU
The irrepressible Robert Greenwald explains why Joe Klein is the stupid one in the debate about taking our troops out of Afghanistan, at Huffington Post:
…Let’s talk about stupid for a minute.
The U.S. has increased troop levels in Afghanistan every year since the initial invasion, and every year we’ve seen an increased level of violence in Afghanistan. President Obama and General Petraeus promised–twice!–that huge troop increases would help “protect the population” of Afghanistan and break Taliban momentum…
Wall Street Fat-Cats Flip Public Service Workers the Bird
If you believe the mainstream media, the economy is recovering, jobless claims are down and things are looking up in 2011. Don’t Believe The Hype! Activist filmmaker Robert Greenwald and the team and Brave New Foundation lay bare the reality of the hardships still facing the millions of victims of the plunder of Main Street by Wall Street:
Wal-Mart’s Competitors Help Fund Activist Campaigns
When we helped Robert Greenwald distribute his classic exposé documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, we trumpeted the fact that we were receiving support from a panoply of unlikely allies, from the Sierra Club to the Petroleum Institute. It turns out that some of the megastore’s competitors have been helping out too, according to this report by Ann Zimmerman for the Wall Street Journal:
MUNDELEIN, Ill.—Robert Brownson long believed that his proposed development here, with its 200,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter, was being held hostage by nearby homeowners.
He had seen them protesting at city hall, and they had filed a lawsuit to stop the project.
What he didn’t know was that the locals were getting a lot of help. A grocery chain with nine stores in the area had hired Saint Consulting Group to secretly run the antidevelopment campaign. Saint is a specialist at fighting proposed Wal-Marts, and it uses tactics it…
Robert Greenwald Challenges ‘JFK’ Actors
Robert Greenwald. Photo: Sam Smith (CC)
It’s good to see that the Hollywood hacks are paying attention to Robert Greenwald’s message to the actors in the controversial History Channel Kennedy miniseries. From The Wrap.com:
Left-wing documentary firebrand Robert Greenwald Thursday challenged actors Greg Kinnear and Katie Holmes – who were cast this week to play John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie in a miniseries about the Kennedys – to “insist on a historically accurate and politically unbiased script.”
In February Greenwald corralled a group of prominent historians including former Kennedy advisor Ted Sorenson who in a video took objection to the script, calling it a politically-motivated “character assassination.”
The eight-hour miniseries is being produced by Joel Surnow, the executive producer of the hit action-torture series “24″ and an outspoken political conservative.
The miniseries is scheduled to air in 2011 and marks the channel’s first foray in scripted drama. It is also in keeping with…
Mainstream Media Collectively Forgets Anniversary of the Start of the Iraq War
Glynnis MacNicol writes on Mediaite:
Things I have gleaned from my Twitter feed [on March 20th]: It is the second anniversary of the death of Arthur C. Clarke. Things that are noticeably absent: Any mention that today is the 7th anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq.
But let’s forget Twitter for a second — though it’s a great measure of where the hive mind is focused — and turn to some more “reliable” news sources. There’s not a single op-ed in the New York Times today to mark the anniversary, or pontificate on where it all went wrong (update: there is a photo slideshow from this weekend’s Magazine). Nor the Wall St. Journal to tell us what went right. Nothing in the Washington Post either. Nor the LA Times. I can’t even find a single link on Drudge. Perhaps even more shocking is that I can’t find anything on Andrew Sullivan.
It’s almost as though where the media is concerned the Iraq War didn’t happen.
Well, Robert Greenwald did not forget: Iraq: Thousands Dead, $747.3 Billion Spent And Not Any Safer
Robert Greenwald Attacks Kennedy Miniseries On History Channel
From the very start of our home video business, we’ve worked with director Robert Greenwald, who has become a sort of Defender of the Faith for progressive politics. It speaks volumes that when Robert takes up a cause, it lands on the front page of the New York Times (story below). I have to say I’m also delighted that Robert has highlighted the problem with much of the History Channel’s programming – it’s not history, it’s entertainment with a focus on ratings at the expense of veracity:
A new mini-series about John F. Kennedy’s presidency that is being prepared by the History channel does not yet have a cast or a premiere date. Not a frame of footage has been shot. It does, however, have prominent critics who want it brought to a halt.
The critics, including Theodore C. Sorensen, a former Kennedy adviser, say they have read the scripts for the project and that those contain errors of fact and emphasis. But like a similar controversy over a 2003 television film about Ronald Reagan, the dispute over the embryonic Kennedy series seems to say as much about the enduring place of the Kennedys as a battleground in the culture wars as it does about history itself.
The mini-series, called “The Kennedys,” is the brainchild of Joel Surnow, a creator of the Fox action show “24” and an outspoken political conservative…
Live Stream Of Obama’s State of the Union Address + ‘The Cost of War’ With Robert Greenwald
President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address this evening and you can watch it here on disinformation®, courtesy of Hulu:
Right before the nation prepares to watch the President’s State of the Union Address, however, Brave New Foundation, CREDO Mobile, and True Majority will be launching its first online live stream action. Brave New Foundation will live stream “The Cost of War,” a segment of the critically acclaimed documentary Rethink Afghanistan, giving concerned citizens a chance to measure the President’s proposals against military spending in Afghanistan. Brave New Foundation Director Robert Greenwald and Political Associate Derrick Crowe will accompany the stream by live blogging the event.
DynCorp Accused Of Looting Billions Of Dollars From Iraq Contracts
Anyone who saw the Robert Greenwald documentary Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers will know that this story about DynCorp in the Wall Street Journal is only the tip of the iceberg in corporate looting of the United States Treasury (meaning taxes paid in by Americans):
The U.S. State Department is struggling with its accounting for billions of dollars spent on police-training contracts in Iraq with DynCorp International Inc.
A report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, to be released today, says that squaring away just how the money was spent may take years.
The State Department lacks adequate staff in Iraq to closely monitor the work, its biggest contract there, according to the report. DynCorp invoices were regularly found to have errors and often lacked sufficient documentation, the auditors found. “As a result, over $2.5 billion in U.S. funds are vulnerable to waste and fraud,” the report said. Auditors examining three major…
Moyers, Moore and Maddow: Alternet Ranks the Most Influential Progressives
Interesting survey from our friends at Alternet. Congratulations to Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films for landing in the top 15, as many of you know, Disinformation has distributed several of his documentaries over the years, starting with Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War back in 2004 up to his latest Rethink Afghanistan. The Disinformation Podcast crew recently interviewed Greenwald about his latest film (Listen here).
Don Hazen writes on Alternet:
The three M’s — Bill Moyers, Michael Moore and Rachel Maddow — scored highest in a recent AlterNet survey* asking more than 5,000 readers to rate the most influential progressive media figures. Moyers, who scored 67.5, and Moore, with a 66.2 score, were very close. Maddow was a tad behind at 63.5.
It’s no surprise that Moyers, the moral sage, and Moore, the rabble-rouser, are ranked at the top. They have been popular with AlterNet readers for years. Moyers’ current show, “Bill…
Disinformation Interviews Rethink Afghanistan’s Robert Greenwald
Disinformation: The Podcast – Rethink Afghanistan
iTunes • Direct Download • RSS
This episode features an interview with Robert Greenwald, head of Brave New Films and the director of the new Disinformation-distributed documentary Rethink Afghanistan. We also discuss Robert’s previous films, including Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, and Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers.
Disinformation Podcast T-shirts available here!
Congressman Reads ‘Rethink Afghanistan’ Petition Against Escalation
Congressman Alan Grayson reads the “Rethink Afghanistan” petition in the United States House of Representatives on December 15, 2009. The petition from Brave New Foundation, Credo Mobile and True Majority calling on Congress to vote against any bill to fund troop escalation in Afghanistan was signed by over 100,000 people.
The Rethink Afghanistan DVD is available here now, and in good video stores nationwide.
The Fox News War: What’s the Upside for Obama?
Five years after activist director Robert Greenwald woke the country up to the Republican Party agenda of Fox News Channel with his bestselling documentary OUTFOXED: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, Linda Feldmann suggests that President Obama and his team shouldn’t be raising the issue in this essay in the Christian Science Monitor. I’m not so sure; although Greenwald & co. made it obvious to the media that FNC was essentially a propaganda tool for the RNC, the message seemingly hasn’t seeped in deeply enough for the average American TV viewer:
The Obama administration has taken a fair amount of grief for its campaign to marginalize Fox News, saying the cable network is “not a news organization” but rather “the communications arm of the Republican Party.”
Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus, not a fire-breathing conservative, calls it “dumb on multiple levels” – a distraction from policy messages, a boost to Fox ratings, and,…
