The Path to Truthiness

Stealth Swiftboat Wearing Corporate Business Suit...

Today, Think Progress posted information on the “docudrama”, “The Path to 9/11” that will air on ABC on September 10 and 11. Written by conservative Cyrus Nowrasteh, the film is being promoted on hard-right sites across the web. (Part of a 9/11 TV blitz.) Director, David Cunningham, is hedging on the film's accuracy, asserting “this is not a documentary”, though it's being promoted as “based on The 9/11 Commission Report.” Very Truthy.

William Rivers Pitt's excellent perspective piece posted at Truthout, Clinton, 9/11 and the Facts, contrasts this “drama” with the reality of Clinton's anti-terrorism program:

The Clinton administration poured more than a billion dollars into counterterrorism activities across the entire spectrum of the intelligence community, into the protection of critical infrastructure, into massive federal stockpiling of antidotes and vaccines to prepare for a possible bioterror attack, into a reorganization of the intelligence community itself...Clinton raised the issue of terrorism in virtually every important speech he gave in the last three years of his tenure.

In Congress, Clinton was thwarted by the reactionary conservative majority in virtually every attempt he made to pass legislation that would attack al-Qaeda and terrorism. His 1996 omnibus terror bill, which included many of the anti-terror measures we now take for granted after September 11, was withered almost to the point of uselessness by attacks from the right; Senators Jesse Helms and Trent Lott were openly dismissive of the threats Clinton spoke of.

Specifically, Clinton wanted to attack the financial underpinnings of the al-Qaeda network by banning American companies and individuals from dealing with foreign banks and financial institutions that al-Qaeda was using for its money-laundering operations. Texas Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, gutted the portions of Clinton's bill dealing with this matter, calling them “totalitarian.”

In fact, Gramm was compelled to kill the bill because his most devoted patrons, the Enron Corporation and its criminal executives in Houston, were using those same terrorist financial networks to launder their own dirty money and rip off the Enron stockholders. It should also be noted that Gramm's wife, Wendy, sat on the Enron Board of Directors. (Read the rest...)

Media Matters (posted 9/1/06, 7:24pm) has more. And they plan to brainwash the children...

To Do List: Read the full article, and those that follow to get armed with the facts. Write to ABC-Disney. Call ABC-Disney. Tell them that Fox's nose-dive is contagious, and that you will boycott them and their advertisers forever if they deliberately mislead the American public by airing this “drama.” Keep your eye on Source Watch. Punish the advertisers with a vengeance. And, keep your eyes and feet on “The Path to Democracy!”