Archives for January 2005

Whitman’s sampler

From Roberto,

Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind research center did a poll of New Jersey voters, asking them to pick the best and worst New Jersey governor. The poll respondents were asked to pick from a list of the six most recent governors: Richard Hughes, Brendan Byrne, Tom Kean, Jim Florio, Christie Whitman and Jim McGreevey. Tom Kean got the highest percentage for best governor and in a shocking upset, Christie Whitman tied Jim McGreevey for worst governor. I say “upset” because even though I really don’t like the two of them, I would have picked Jim Florio, but “flim-flam Florio” was picked as third worst governor.

I would have picked “Comeback Kid” McGreevey and “Tax-the-toilet-paper” Florio for the top 2 spots. At least Whitman doesn’t have an arena named after her . . . yet. Betsy blogged about the survey, and has a link to Patrick Ruffini‘s article, comparing the GW Bush re-election to Whitman’s. Will Franklin speculates,

One wonders if Whitman wrote most of her book prior to November, expecting the President to lose, so she could swoop in and claim that she knew what direction to take the GOP. When Bush won, one wonders if Whitman had to go back and edit the book to be less embarrassing to her.

Ed Driscoll links to a photo of Whitman and Jimmy Carter laying flowers at Arafat’s grave. Not the best of company, in my opinion. Joe predicts more Whitman book tour appearances,

Watch for her upcoming appearances on Lou Dobbs, The Daily Show (oi), and, at some indefinite point in the future, check her out on Air America radio, on 60 Minutes, in The New York Times, in Michael Moore’s next film: The Evils of Fat, Rich, White Men Who Aren’t Me, in her new Prius, wherever the nearest non-fat double-tall low-foam half-caf latte can be found, and at Ted Kennedy’s next soiree.

Meanwhile, even the RINOs are in the picture.

https://faustasblog.com/2005/01/923/

Still Revulsed by Pérez-Reverte

Last January 16 I wrote about an article written by Arturo Pérez-Reverte in a Spanish newspaper. The article was supposed to be humorous, but it bombed. I was particularly annoyed by this paragraph (my translation),

But just take a look at this season. In order to arrive in Spain, the Kings must cross the Orient, as always. And that’s all f*ck*d up. They have to cross the Tigris and the Euphrates without having the American Marines liberate them from themselves, as the Marines have done with the rest of Iraq, and spraying them with bullets as they ride by. But then, if the Magi survive those sons of b*tch*s, they’ll still have to deal with other sons of b*tch*s a little nearer to us here; as they [the Magi] cross Israel they’ll deal with the sons of b*tch*s with side curls, and yarmulkes on their noggins, and rifles and Markava tanks protecting their backs; or the son of a b*tch who’s wearing a munitions vest (chaleco de cloratita note: the word cloratita is a new word to me, but in context, I take it to mean munitions vest) of the Allah Akbar variety, and so long suckers.

and posted my reaction,

Where do I start to describe why I find the above paragraph offensive? Do I start with the cultural note on the Iraqis being “saved from themselves”, as if murderous dictators were exclusive to that country? Do I look at the murderous Marines statement? Do I wonder about any depths to that anti-Americanism? How about that anti-Semitic, Judeophobic cliché, lifted right off the worst propaganda? In the interest of fairness, do I bother wonder what the average Palestinian would think of that portrayal? Do I show annoyance at the gratuitous mocking of a religious holiday? Or do I ponder the moral equivalency of it all?

Clearly I wasn’t the only one annoyed. Other bloggers wrote about it, among them Roger L. Simon, who wrote Resigning from “The Club Dumas” – More Racism from “Old Europe”. Aapparently APR’s agents and friends received a flood of emails and instant messages protesting APR’s attitude.

Pérez-Reverte has replied with El domingo que fui Goebbels The Sunday I was Goebbels (link via Barcepundit), and he’s sticking to his guns. He starts the article by saying,

Me telefonean mi agente norteamericano, Howard Morhaim, y Daniel Sherr, y algunos amigos argentinos, franceses y españoles, todos judíos hasta las cachas, para decirme qué pasa,

(my translation:) My American agents, Howard Morhaim and Daniel Sherr, and several Argentenian, French, and Spanish friends, all Jewish to the hilt, called, asking what’s the matter

Consciously or not, with this opening sentence APR starts by making sure we know

1. he has Jewish friends.

2. the people complaining are Jewish.

I don’t need to go into the bigotry shown by the statement “some of my friends/best friends are [fill ethnic/religious group]”.

As to the people complaining, Mr. Pérez-Reverte is cordially invited to read this blog. Like millions of people of Spanish origin, there’s a high probability that back in the Dark Ages or Middle Ages my ancestors were Jewish/Muslim/Visigoths/Roman/Celts, even when the last 5 generations or so of my family are/were Catholic (some have strayed to other faiths or agnosticism.) It is “I” who’s complaining. I’m not Jewish. I didn’t get the article through an email chain, or through instant messaging., I read it directly from the ABC/El Semanal website. The point I want to make clear is that I’m not blindly following anyone’s lead; I’m voicing my opinion.

No, not all the people complaining are Jewish.

In the new article Pérez-Reverte mentions that some TV commenter called APR Goebbles and Himler, for which he’s right to be outraged. The woman who did so on TV should lose her job.

On to the second paragraph,

Que el 2 de enero publiqué un artículo en el que, entre otras cosas, apuntaba que en Israel hay —se sobreentiende que entre otras— dos variedades que detesto: “Hijo de puta ultra con trenzas, kipá en el cogote, escopeta y tanque Merkava guardándole las espaldas, o hijo de puta con chaleco de cloratita en la variedad Alá Ajbar y hasta luego Lucas

(my translation:) That, on January 2, I published an article in which, among other things, I noted that in Israel there are – among others, it is understood – two varieties that I hate: “the sons of b*tch*s with side curls, and yarmulkes on their noggins, and rifles and Markava tanks protecting their backs; or the son of a b*tch who’s wearing a munitions vest of the Allah Akbar variety, and so long suckers.”

As I noted before, APR uses an anti-Semitic, Judeophobic cliché, lifted right off the worst propaganda. He’s doing the Palestinians no favors, either.

Está claro para quien no sea un malintencionado, un fanático o un imbécil, que la frase no sólo alude a judíos, sino también a palestinos, aunque los fariseos escandalizados omitan esto último.

Clearly, anyone that’s who doesn’t have bad intentions (i.e., has an agenda), a fanatic, or an imbecile, would know that the statement doesn’t only allude to Jews, but also to Palestinians, even when the scandalized Pharisees omit the latter group.

Were the articles written by a less capable writer, I might not pay so much attention to the choice of words, but, coming from APR, a writer that I used to admire, I can confidently assume that each word carries weight. So let’s look at that paragraph.

For as long as I’ve been an adult I’ve been very opinionated, but my intent in airing my opinions is to open towards a dialogue. That’s my only agenda — if any. To me, both articles show bigotry. Would it be unreasonable to believe that at least some of the people criticizing APR share my concern? Does that me us “fanatics”, or “imbeciles”?

Culturally, I grew up around Spanish men who assumed that their points of view should go unquestioned, and that those who disagreed by definition were fanatics or imbeciles (or worse yet, an American woman, such as myself?). Be that as it may, the fact is that, when criticized, APR has resorted to name calling.

Incidentally, in my prior post you can see that one of the reasons I found APR’s article offensive was his attitude towards Palestinians. Palestinians would be right to take umbrage. I also submit to APR the idea that any one of his readers doesn’t have to be exclusively pro-Palestinian/anti-Jewish or exclusively pro-Jewish/anti-Palestinian. One can grieve for both sides.

Finishing the paragraph, APR resorts, again, to anti-Semitic imagery by the use of the word Pharisees, who, after all, were thrown out of the Temple by Jesus himself.

APR continues,

Pero es que, además, ni siquiera utilizo la palabra judío, pues no me refiero a quienes pertenecen a esa religión y usan la dignísima kipá —el gorrito mosaico—, sino a un grupo concreto que vive en Israel. Ese “ultra” con “escopeta y tanque Merkava guardándole las espaldas” alude a los colonos armados, extremistas y fanáticos, que, criticados por sus propios compatriotas y enfrentados al gobierno israelí, al que acusan de blando —y ser más duro que Sharon tiene tela— agravan el conflicto con su cerril intransigencia.

But that also, I didn’t even use the word Jew, since I don’t refer to those who belong to that religion and wear the very worthy yarmulke, but also to a particular group living in Israel. That “ultra” with “and rifles and Markava tanks protecting their backs” refers to the armed, extremist, and fanatical colonists, who, when criticized by by their fellow countrymen and confronted by the Israeli government, which they regard as being soft – and it takes a lot to be tougher than Sharon – aggravate the conflict with their intransigence.

APR didn’t need to use the word Jew. He already had used, as I said before, the necessary imagery. As to the second sentence, José Cohen explained in his blog the wrongs of equating the State of Israel and Jewish orthodoxy. José also correctly pointed out that Pérez-Reverte does not pretend to be anti-semitic. He is just a product of a society.

The next paragraph dwells into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and I won’t examine the details since I am not knowledgeable enough. Undoubtedly the Palestinians have suffered, and continue to suffer. Pérez-Reverte mentions how thirty years ago he helped pull Palestinian children from a a building that was bombed by the Israelis, which must have been the most heartbreaking of tasks. However, the paragraph’s final sentence stands out,

Respecto al holocausto y el antisemitismo, tampoco me toquen la flor. Esa atrocidad ocurrió hace más de medio siglo, la recordamos todos muy bien, y no justifica lo injustificable.

As for the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, don’t go there. That atrocity took place more than half a century ago, we all remember it very well, and it doesn’t justify the unjustifiable.

The Holocaust is not simply something isolated and remote that “took place more than half a century ago”, in some far-away place. There were dozens of concentration camps, right in the middle of Europe, within driving distance of major cities.

We don’t “all remember it very well” at all: it took all of 60 years for the UN to acknowledge the Holocaust this week.

Much of the current conflicts in the Middle East have roots in the Holocaust. As you can read in the following article, Nazi Roots of Palestinian Nationalism

The Mufti`s hatred of the West was matched only by his hatred of the Jews. It is not a coincidence that Germany suddenly abandoned the policy of expelling Jews and adopted far harsher methods a short time after the Mufti arrived in Germany. When Haj Amin came to Germany again, the Nazis decided to execute the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem.

“The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry,” reported Eichmann`s deputy, Dieter Wisliceny. “[He had] played a role in the decision to exterminate the European Jews. The importance of this role must not be disregarded…. The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry.”

We do not know if al-Husseini played a major role in shaping the Final Solution. “There is, however,” wrote Joseph Schechtman, “abundant first-hand evidence of the part the Mufti played in making foolproof the ban on emigration (of Jews out of Germany).”

When the war ended, al-Husseini returned to the Middle East as a hero. On October 1, 1948, he was proclaimed the president of the government of All-Palestine. The government was fictional, however, because it did not control any land and was recognized by only a handful of Arab nations. In 1959 it was dispersed by its sponsor, Egypt.

By that time, however, another member of the al-Husseini clan was planning terror. Around the same time that the All-Palestine government was disbanded, a man by the name of Muhammad Abd al-Rahman ar-Rauf al-Qudwah al-Husaini – better known as Yasir Arafat – was busy organizing Fatah, which would go on to become the main faction of the PLO

Arthur Chrenkoff wrote on the fallacy of the Palestinian claims of genocide:

In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe was 9.5 million. By 1950 it was only 3.5 million. The total Palestinian population in 1933 was somewhere around 950,000 (mostly Muslim, some Christian) – it is now around 4.5 million. Based on the same rate of growth, the Jewish population of Europe could be 45 million today. I’m sure the European Jews of the yesteryear would have wished that the Germans had waged the same sort of “war of extermination” on them that the Israelis are apparently waging on the Palestinians today.

Back to Pérez-Reverte:

De cualquier modo, el mecanismo no es nuevo. En los doce años que llevo tecleando esta página, ha pasado muchas veces, y volverá a pasar. Cuando de fanáticos e imbéciles se trata, da igual que uno mencione a israelíes, a palestinos o a taxistas. La diferencia es que, cuando digo que un taxista es un ladrón y un sinvergüenza y los taxistas protestan porque insulto al gremio del taxi, la cosa queda en esperpento. Lo otro tiene ribetes más sombríos, pues prueba que quienes viven de ser víctimas, rentabilizando cada ocasión, se frotan las manos ante supuestas conspiraciones, enemigos y odios, sean judeófobos, nacionalistófobos, o capullófobos. Aún así, lo peor no son los manipuladores que sacan partido de esa murga, sino los cantamañanas que, ingenuamente, se dejan llevar por ellos al huerto.

Anyway, this is nothing new. In the twelve years I’ve been writing this page, it’s happened many times, and will continue happening. When it comes to fanatics and imbeciles, it’s all the same if one’s talking about Israelis, Palestinians, or cab drivers. The difference is that, when I say that a cab driver’s a thief and a bastard and the cab drivers complain to the taxi drivers’ union, the thing ends there. The other stuff has darker edges, since it shows that those who live from playing the victim, cashing in on each occasion, rub their hands [with glee] at each prospective conspiracy, enemy or hate, whether it’s Judeo-phobe, nationalistc-phobe, or whatever-phobe. Even then, the worst are not the manipulators that gain from it, but the fools that naively go along and get taken for a ride.

We’re not talking about unionized cab drivers, and some of us simply write freely, out of our own volition, not cashing in, neither playing the victim nor victimizing anyone.

I have emailed a copy of this and my prior post to APR’s agent. I invite a dialogue from all visitors to this page, and from APR or his representatives, if they would honor us with their comments. But I urge you all to realize, that, when people are complaining about something they read it’s best to examine the point they try to make than what it is to dismiss their opinions as coming from “fools that naively go along and get taken for a ride”.

Reasonable people can disagree, and still maintain respect and civility. Otherwise, we are all fools.

https://faustasblog.com/2005/01/922/

In rememberance

Allentown man recalls months at Auschwitz

He saw his parents led off to die. Sixty years ago, Soviets liberated the Nazi death camp in Poland.

For his part, Jacobs works to ensure that new generations will know what happened to Jews during World War II. He talks to hundreds of students every year about his experiences after the Germans invaded his native Poland in 1939.

At that time, Jacobs was 13. The fact he was as young as the students he talks to really makes an impact on them, he said. He gets letters from students who say they won’t forget his story.

”They will remember what I said for the rest of their lives,” he said, gratified that he could make a difference.

While it was the R Russians who first arrived at Auschwitz, this article highlights anti-Semitism in Russia:

Earlier this week, a group of nationalist Russian lawmakers called for a sweeping investigation aimed at outlawing all Jewish organizations and punishing officials who support them, accusing Jews of fomenting ethnic hatred.

In Poland, a recent survey indicated that only about half of the population was aware that the majority of Auschwitz victims were Jewish — a holdover mentality from the Communist era, when official historical accounts sometimes played down Jewish suffering in the Holocaust.

During Communist rule, a plaque that stood at Auschwitz- Birkenau failed to mention that Jews were killed there.

Russia’s not alone in that; as VP Cheney said, the Holocaust “took place not in a remote section of the globe, but in the middle of Europe.”

Additionally, Barcepundit sent this article (in Spanish) El gueto polaco de Lodz: Vivieron felices, pero engañados… También les mataron (The Lodz Ghetto: They lived happily, but deceived . . . They were killed, too) The article’s about Henryk Ross’s photographs. From Chris Boot Publishing,

In terms of its scope, all other photographic records of ghetto life pale in comparison… [these photographs] have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of ghetto life…” Thomas Weber

By turns poignant and deeply shocking, a unique historical document, as well as a crucial body of evidence.” Sean O’Hagan, The Observer

Henryk Ross (1910 – 1991) was a Jewish press photographer in Poland before World War II. Incarcerated by the invading Germans in the Lodz ghetto, he became one of its two official photographers. His duties afforded him access to photographic facilities which he used to secretly photograph the atrocities of Lodz, while also recording scenes of domestic life among the ghetto ‘elite’. As the Germans began the liquidation of Lodz in 1944, Ross buried his 3,000 negatives. Surviving the Holocaust, he recovered them and, from his post-war home in Israel, circulated images showing the horrors of Lodz. But until now, the bulk of his photographs remained unseen, including many of the milieu of the ghetto police. For an audience accustomed to dramatic photographs of Holocaust suffering, the quiet, domestic scenes he recorded are poignant and sometimes shocking, challenging us to rethink what we understand about ghetto society. With a foreword by bestselling Holocaust expert Robert-Jan van Pelt, and with an appendix of original documents, the book is introduced with an informative, illustrated essay by historian Thomas Weber.

As a final note, New Sisyphus today writes, The New Mein Kampf: Zarqawi Speaks

In the long run, we have hope. Because, like the Nazis before them, the Islamic leaders keep ruining the efforts of Western appeasers and cowards by continuing to bluntly state the bloody obvious: that they want to kill us and destroy our way of life.

Then, as now we fight for democracy.

https://faustasblog.com/2005/01/921/

In rememberance: The January Blogburst

The Holocaust, symbolized by Auschwitz, the worst of the death camps, occurred in the wake of consistent, systematic, unrelenting anti-Jewish propaganda campaign. As a result, the elimination of the Jews from German society was accepted as axiomatic, leaving open only two questions: when and how.

As Germany expanded its domination and occupation of Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, the Low Countries, Yugoslavia, Poland, parts of the USSR, Greece, Romania, Hungary, Italy and others countries, the way was open for Hitler to realize his well-publicized plan of destroying the Jewish people.

After experimentation, the use of Zyklon B on unsuspecting victim was adopted by the Nazis as the means of choice, and Auschwitz was selected as the main factory of death (more accurately, one should refer to the “Auschwitz-Birkenau complex”). The green light for mass annihilation was given at the Wannsee Conference, January 20, 1942, and the mass gassings took place in Auschwitz between 1942 and the end of 1944, when the Nazis retreated before the advancing Red Army. Jews were transported to Auschwitz from all over Nazi-occupied or Nazi-dominated Europe and most were slaughtered in Auschwitz upon arrival, sometimes as many as 12,000 in one day. Some victims were selected for slave labour or “medical” experimentation. All were subject to brutal treatment.

In all, between three and four million people, mostly Jews, but also Poles and Red Army POWs, were slaughtered in Auschwitz alone (though some authors put the number at 1.3 million). Other death camps were located at Sobibor, Chelmno, Belzec (Belzek), Majdanek and Treblinka.

Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army on 27 January 1945, sixty years ago, after most of the prisoners were forced into a Death March westwards. The Red Army found in Auschwitz about 7,600 survivors, but not all could be saved.

For a long time, the Allies were well aware of the mass murder, but deliberately refused to bomb the camp or the railways leading to it. Ironically, during the Polish uprising, the Allies had no hesitation in flying aid to Warsaw, sometimes flying right over Auschwitz.

There are troubling parallels between the systematic vilification of Jews before the Holocaust and the current vilification of the Jewish people and Israel. Suffice it to note the annual flood of anti-Israel resolutions at the UN; or the public opinion polls taken in Europe, which single out Israel as a danger to world peace; or the divestment campaigns being waged in the US against Israel; or the attempts to delegitimize Israel’s very existence. The complicity of the Allies in WW II is mirrored by the support the PLO has been receiving from Europe, China and Russia to this very day.

If remembering Auschwitz should teach us anything, it is that we must all support Israel and the Jewish people against the vilification and the complicity we are witnessing, knowing where it inevitably leads.

If you’d like to participate in today’s blogburst, here‘s the information.

https://faustasblog.com/2005/01/920/

Despicable

Robert Byrd’s attacking Condoleeza Rice. Power and Control has some background information on the former KKK recruiter. TFS Magnum read my thoughts:

Suppose an African American were to be nominated for Secretary of State by a Democratic Administration and 2 Republican Senators voted against that nomination. What would the news media be saying? What would NAACP say? What would the Democrats be saying? (Hint – the word starts with an “R.”) So why the resounding silence? Oh, that’s right, Democrats can’t be racist (a priori, only conservatives are racist, liberals just believe that minorities need “help” to compete in America.) These votes are just everyday political infighting. Funny, but I don’t think the media would accept that if it was coming from the other side of the senate floor.

At least some Dems are speaking out, among them Andrew Young

Black Democrats expressing support for Rice included Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor, congressman and United Nations ambassador in the Carter administration.

“Condoleeezza Rice not only deserves the support, but the country needs a strong, wise secretary of state with a bipartisan mandate to help establish democracy not only in Iraq but around the world,” Young said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Young also suggested that the nation is not well served by having Democrats chip away at Dr. Rice’s integrity just as she is about to take her place on the world stage

Michael King has more on the story.

https://faustasblog.com/2005/01/918/

Oscars nominations in

and I realized I haven’t seen any of the five nominees for Best Picture. Cindi Adams (yes, she’s still around) has a point,

MY close circle of avid movie-going friends on the Oscar noms: The actors all wonderful, wonderful, marvelous perfect. The films? Two women and two gentlemen pals left “Sideways.” Didn’t know why there was such a movie and thought Giamatti not enough to look at for another half hour. “The Aviator”? Too long. No real character delineation in the Howard Hughes role. One couple walked out on it. Ditto a lady publisher. “Ray,” Jamie Foxx, excellent. But the film lasted longer than Ray’s whole life. My friends got twitchy. They wanted 20 minutes hacked out. Flawed “Neverland,” all agreed, was good, not great. “Million Dollar Baby” had superior Morgan Freeman, Hilary Swank performances. But in today’s clime they needed something that was less of a downer. Translation: Not the best bunch of movies they’ve ever seen.

According to the Internet Movie Database, The Aviator clocks in at 170 minutes; Sideways, 123 mins; Ray, 178 mins; Million Dollar Baby, 137 mins.

(Eternal Sunshine’s only 108 mins but I’ve had it with Jim Carrey.)

Of that list, the only two films that interested me were The Aviator and Ray, and those are 3-hr movies. Unfortunately, recently I haven’t had the time to dedicate an entire afternoon to either Howard Hughes or Ray Charles, so I’ll have to wait until they’re out on DVD. (Now that I’ve heard more about Sideways, I’ll have to “go see”.)

Maybe Hollywood if would realize that people outside the 18-25 demographic have demands on their time and released shorter films geared for grownups, theater sales would improve. It can be done.

https://faustasblog.com/2005/01/917/

Holocaust memorial opens in Paris

From the BBC

A stone wall engraved with the names of 76,000 Jews who were deported from France to Nazi death camps during World War II has been unveiled in Paris.

The “Wall of Names” memorial is located at the entrance to the French capital’s newly renovated Holocaust museum.

Some 11,000 of those deported from 1942 to 1944 were children. Nearly all were killed – mostly at Auschwitz in Poland.

This is a positive step. As reported in the France2 news two nights ago (go to right sidebar, Editions du JT 23/01/2005 – JT 20h, 5 minutes into the program) nearly 60% of the French non-Jewish people sent to concentration camps survived while only 3% of French Jews survived. The Holocaust was essentially hidden from the French public for many years, starting with the 1945 exhibition ordered by Charles DeGaulle, which talked about the death camps but not the extermination of the Jews. In the 1950s Le Monde Illustré was the first newspaper to reveal the truth, by publishing photos of the Maidenek camp. Even then, a photo of a French guard at the only French concentration camp, Struthof-Natzwiller, was censured from the 1955 Alain Resnais film Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog).

Arthur writes that The UN contemplates Holocaust,

It’s not that we don’t know what the Holocaust was, or what its lessons are – it’s just that whenever next crisis comes by we do too little too late because to act forcefully and in time seems too difficult, too costly and too messy. The problem is not ignorance. Cowardice, “realism”, indifference, yes; anything but ignorance.

If you’d like to participate in Thursday’s blogburst, here‘s how.

https://faustasblog.com/2005/01/916/

Redford says he won’t move to Ireland,

or so they were saying in this morning’s news. I guess Glenn Beckwon’t be sending him there yet.

Redford claims he never said he’d move to Ireland, but this BBC news article contradicts that,

In the run up to the US presidential election last week, Hollywood veteran Robert Redford was asked what he would do were George W Bush to be reinstalled in the White House for four more years.

“I’ll probably be in England, no Ireland,” said Redford. Visiting or living asked the BBC reporter? “Living,” replied the Oscar-winning actor.

Must be that the Sundance business is doing too well to leave behind, vis-a-vis the tax breaks in Ireland. Even the Restoration Hardware guy’s joining the fun: Restoration Hardware founder leaves to head Redford firm. The politics are thriving, at least. Or are they?

There was much applause from the audience of 1,300, even as most everyone present understood that this premier American film festival already goes at its unifying mission as if it were a lone blue trout trapped in a vast red fish tank.

Liberal sentiments are no guarantee of successful filmmaking, as was exemplified by “Trudell,” a gaseous documentary about the radical poet-philosopher at the hub of American Indian activism for three decades.

Dr. David Yeagley questions Redford’s politics:

Is Robert Redford different from any other Hollywood liberal? His politics don’t appear to be distinguished from the most radical Leftist in Los Angeles. Is there some other unique notoriety about Redford that exempts him from criticism, or gives a free pass to use the Indian name “sundance” to validate his anti-American views?

Dr. Yeagley in a prior post states,

Redford himself has produced not a single Indian script or film. The Sundance Institute does not produce either, for anyone. The Institute is a brief, professional educational opportunity for those accepted, for those who have already completed their work, but want finishing touches, i.e., to make acquaintances with those who can “produce” their work. There is no stipend involved. One is provided a hotel room for a short duration of tutelage under professionals.

The Sundance offers misleading impressions about it’s “work” for Indians. Under “Programs,” one finds a “Native American” category. Yet, to apply, one submits his entry to the general application, for a decision from the board. Bird Runningwater, who heads the “Native American Initiative,” has no say in who is awarded a stipend-less fellowship to come to the Institute. The Institute looks like is has an Indian program, but it really doesn’t. They may as well have a Lithuanian Initiative, a Somalian Initiative, and have a token representitive, like Runningwater. Apparently Runningwater is the sole salaried beneficiary of the Institute. Yes, the Institute offers a giant step forward for Indiankind. Indeed. There is simply no special effort for Indians. The Institute offers only a fraudulent impression of interest.

The Institute lists a few Indians “who have gone on to have their feature films produce,” and they include Greg Sarris (Federated Coast Miwok), writer/producer of GRAND AVENUE; Chris Eyre (Cheyenne/Arapaho), director/producer of SMOKE SIGNALS, SKINS and SKINWALKERS; Shirley Cheechoo (James Bay Cree), screenwriter/director/producer of BEAR WALKER; Randy Redroad (Cherokee), screenwriter/director/producer of THE DOE BOY; and Sherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur d’Alene), screenwriter/director/producer of THE BUSINESS OF FANCYDANCING. Was this because they ‘did time’ at Sundance Institute? Is there any connection at all? “Gone on…” is the key phrase there. They were essentially already “there.” The institute’s influence for Indians is miniscule.

And how many Indians do attend the Institute? How many “fellowships” have been given? Is there a quota, a racial agitation clause, like every Leftist institution has? Forty Indian writers and directors have attended in the last twenty-three years. That’s two a year, average. Sounds like a pretty low quota for an Institute with an Indian name, and a special “Native American” program

Learn about Dr. Yeagley’s efforts to reclaim the Sundance.

https://faustasblog.com/2005/01/915/