Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Under mounting political, legal and financial pressure, Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. yesterday backed away from its plan to carry a film attacking John F. Kerry's Vietnam War record, saying it would air only portions of the movie in an hour-long special scheduled for Friday.

That "special," while a bit amateurish, was most definitely not a right-wing smear, as the howls of outrage on Freerepublic demonstrated.

Disney, however, has refused to do the responsible thing, and instead is going forward with its plan to run a factually false and inflammatory docudrama on the most emotionally charged event in our recent history, and it continues to falsely claim this documdrama is based on the 9/11 Commission Report.

Accordingly, we should treat Disney as the socially irresponsible corporation it has now proclaimed itself to be.  Moreover, as Kid Oakland pointed out the other  day it is important that we show our contempt for Disney in an organized and methodical way, so that our efforts are permanent and enduring:

A good friend of mine was chiding me for some dubiousness I had about the blogswarm of action around Disney/ABC.

I'm sorry, but as a veteran of previous blogswarms (Sinclair, Swiftboats, Tucker Carlson) I am a bit dubious. Not out of any opposition to taking action in this instance; in fact, not at all. But my reservation comes more out of a political instinct that can be expressed in these dual principles:

Outrage within infrastructure is powerful.

And the converse:

Outrage without infrastructure melts away.

Accordingly, we must assure that our efforts against Disney do not end this week, as our outrage ebbs and we focus on the latest outrage de jour.  We must keep Disney's irresponsible actions at the forefront of our minds on a going forward basis.  Accordingly, everyone here should do what I recommended you do a few days ago:

[W]hy does Disney feel it can stand its ground, while it so easily caves every time James Dobson looks at it funny?  The reason: Dobson is organized.  When he makes a threat, he backs it up with action repeated over the long term.  We, however, are far too quick to forget and start chasing a new rabbit every time a new outrage arises. This lack of follow-through ends now.  I want every Kossack to:

 1.  Write on a piece of paper the following words -- "Don't forget I must make time to punish Disney and ABC today

2. I then want every Kossack to get a piece of tape and tape that paper to the wall right beside their beds, so it is the first thing seen upon waking up.

3.   And I want every Kossack to keep that paper on their wall for an entire year.

4. Each and every day from here on out you are all drafted to punish Disney and ABC, whether it's by calling their switchboard, not watching ABC, not attending a Disney movie, or not going to Disneyworld.  

To add to the list:

1.  If you own any Disney Stock, sell it.  Make sure your money managers and mutual funds know that you want to divest yourself of ownership of all Disney Stock.

2.  Make written requests to have all Disney owned stations removed from your Satellite or Cable TV service.

3.  Write your Congressman or Senator and urge them to remove trademark and copyright protection from Disney's intellectual property, i.e. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, etc. Specifically, we must repeal the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Protection Act, also known as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.

4.  Urge Reid and Pelosi, as well as the Democrats on the House Commerce Committee and the Democrats on the Senate Commerce Committee, to hold hearings on this Disney fiasco.  Disney executives must testify under oath.

5.  Continue to boycott advertisers on Disney stations.  Remember, the boycotts will be most effective when they are deployed against local advertisers who air ads on local newsbroadcasts for ABC affiliates.

The important thing is -- this does not end today.  Don't mindless chase the next rabbit that comes along and forget what happened here.  The anti-Disney effort must continue over the long term.