From the New Zealand Herald:
Less than 24 hours after accusing the Walt Disney Company of pulling the plug on his latest documentary in a blatant attempt at political censorship, the rabble-rousing film-maker Michael Moore has admitted he knew a year ago that Disney had no intention of distributing it. The admission, during an interview with CNN, undermined Moore’s claim that Disney was trying to sabotage the US release of Fahrenheit 911…and lent credence to a growing suspicion that Moore was manufacturing a controversy to help publicize the film, a full-bore attack on the Bush administration…
In an indignant letter to his supporters, Moore said he had learnt only on Monday that Disney had put the kibosh on distributing the film, which has been financed by the semi-independent Disney subsidiary Miramax.
But in the CNN interview he said: “Almost a year ago, after we’d started making the film, the chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner, told my agent he was upset Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it.”
Did they recently pull the plug—one year ago? Perhaps Kerry is Moore’s script writer.
…A front-page news piece in The New York Times was followed yesterday by an editorial denouncing Disney for censorship and denial of Moore’s right to free expression.
Moore told CNN that Disney had “signed a contract to distribute this [film]” but got cold feet. But Disney executives insists there was never any contract. And a source close to Miramax said that the only deal there was for financing, not for distribution.
You have a contract Mr. Moore? Well show us the contract.
Cartoon by Cox and Forkum
Legally, only the government can censor someone in the anti-freedom sense of the term. Censorship is when someone initiates force to physically prevent you from expressing your views, such as when Moore’s hero Fidel Castro imprisons and tortures pro-democracy protestors in Cuba, or when the U.S. government’s fines Howard Stern for making comments they do not like, or when a “peace protestor” in Berkeley shouts down a pro-Bush speaker to prevent him from expressing his views.
Disney’s refusal to promote the Time’s pet monkey is not censorship–it is their inalienable right–just as it is the right of the New York Times–the so-called “champions of free expression” (if you expressing the views of the Far Left) —to refuse to publish my comments. (In their latest round of published letters all of the letters were pro-Moore.)
Disney actions are not a sign of “cowardice” but a sign of courage by standing up to the Far Left who seeks to destroy the difference between true censorship–committed by the government, violent student rebels, and the Mafia–and the right of a company to decide how it spends its own money. The only one guilty of “craven behavior” is the New York Times for perpetuating and encouraging Moore’s farce.