/ Social Commentary

The Path to Propaganda: ABC & Scholastic Press

Sunday and Monday, ABC is airing a “docudrama” about the events leading up to 9/11.

The movie is far more “drama” than “docu,” yet is being presented as factual. For more information see the following links:

“Top Bush Counterterrorism Official: ABC‚??s Path to 9/11 Is ‚??Shameful,‚?? ‚??Straight Out of Disney and Fantasyland‚??”

“Richard Clarke Blasts Key Scene In ABC‚??s 9/11 Docudrama”

“Path to 9/11 Writer Admits Controversial Scene Was ‚??Improvised,‚?? ‚??Accidents Occur‚??“

Even Newsweek points out a number of scenes that are fiction, but played as fact.

For a conservative review of the movie–and to see just how insidious playing loose with the facts can be–check out Govindini Murty’s “ABC’s ‘The Path to 9/11′”

Even more disturbing is that Scholastic Publishers are distributing to schools a guidebook based on a movie with a troubling, at the least, relationship with the facts.

CONFIRMED: Scholastic Still Promoting Path To 9/11

I urge everyone to speak out when facts are blatently distorted and falsified or when tragic events are used for political or economic gain. I will not watch this movie. And if Scholastic propagates disinformation to children in our schools, I will not knowingly purchase anything from their company. That includes the next Harry Potter book. If you do watch “The Path to 9/11,” I would urge you to make sure you double-check the recorded facts and not assume that this fictionalized account tells, in any shape or form, the truth.

More than that, can we–and I seriously include myself in this statement–find ways to stand up to the lies, mistreatements, brutalities, blatent disregards for the constitution that make up this administration? Bush just admitted to allowing gulags to be run for and by Americans. Gulags ferchrissake! Secret state prisons with no oversight or due process.

This is not America. We have somehow stumbled into a Kafka novel, and the longer we sit still and let our so-called leaders take us down this path of violence, political repression, lies, and terror, the ideals and freedoms that this country claims to stand for will become harder and harder to recognize.

On this day..