quillnews

Ordinary people rule

I finally was able to see a DVR of the outstanding The Flight that Fought Back shown on the Discovery Channel.  What a terrific piece of work, and what an important story to tell!  It was done in documentary style, fact based, and used the best of film-making narrative techniques to paint a moving portrait of the passengers on Flight 93 who would not stand still for terror. Because of the tragic consequences for the passengers involved, it was difficult to reconcile the film's excellent Media-ville qualities with the real-life events and persons depicted.  Still, seeing the heroic potential of ordinary citizens is a tonic anytime.  And it was in this context the WSJ today published a profile of Debra Burlingame, another ordinary citizen who rose to greatness in the Take Back the Memorial initiative.  Burlingame's refusal to let the events of Sept 11 at Ground Zero be hijacked by self-important narcissists for political purposes will be remembered forever.  (DC, WSJ )

NY to Tom Bernstein: Drop Dead

Ordinarily after a guy's been beat fair and square my instinct is to put the contest into the record books and forget it. And after Gov. Pataki drove the stake into the heart of Tom Bernstein's dream museum at Ground Zero, I'd thought it enough to simply say well done. Then I read the statement Berstein and the other IFC leaders issued after Pataki invited them to explore other areas for their museum. (IFC)  You know, given their record, their petulant, narcissistic lament should be no suprise, but it really was.  Their statement confirmed that their effort in fact really was an elitist top-down power play to instruct the lower-orders on how to think. The used all the passive tense verbs, the over-reliance on public process (which they dominated), how they were only doing what others asked (though in fact they were business partners with the LMDC leaders), and they actually thought because they are so rich and went to such important schools they were better suited to know what was right for Ground Zero. (Editor's aside: Like say that crowd of smart people in Pennsylvania who thought a Crescent of Embrace would be a neat name and visual for the memorial to the heros of Flight 93? When they heard the complains about that memorial's Islamic allusions, the promoters said those questioning the memorial did not possess sufficient graphic literacy to know what they were talking about. MM, PL, PL2, BC)  Was it in that spirit that the IFC also said their work was supported by the "best thinkers" on freedom? Are advanced degrees from Ivy League and other elite instutions required for a person to have adequate moral clarity? (IFC, IFC2)

Quillnews view:  These IFC guys just don't get it; the IFC's problem was that the vast majority of people who studied this proposal came to the conclusion that Bernstein and his gang could not be trusted. Simple. If you want to know why, check out the judge's ruling today in favor of the ACLU's court challenge to release all images they can find of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. (HC, ACLU, HRF)  The ACLU and Bernstein's Human Rights First are united in their tag team law suits of sedition to erode support for the US war on terror, damage troop morale, and promote UBL propaganda. Okay, maybe they don't see it that way... That's the problem. They do not acknowledge that in war time things must change. The refusal by Bernstein and the IFC to consider other locations proves his crew were less interested in a museum to freedom, than hijacking hallowed ground to use as a stage and context to promote their blather about a multi-cultural one-world blah blah blah. Get this: they said NY missed out by turning down the offer of nine universities to use the site for instruction purposes. Are we to assume that they want to turn Ground Zero over to the Ward Churchills of academe so these freeloaders with lifetime contracts can instruct visitors how Sept 11 was all so understandable and probably America's fault anyway because the US is not sufficiently sensitive to other cultures? (WS, WS2, WS3, PL) Bernstein is so deluded he thinks he should be the one to build a museum to "freedom" at Ground Zero, while he also is underwriting an international campaign to have a special US prosecutor appointed to investigate Rumsfeld for war crimes! This narcissist is just too much. As for Bernstein and his IFC, Quillnews thinks the New York Post got it just right: good riddance (NYP, NWDY, BC, BM, BM2, CQ, MM)

Pataki comes thru

Gov. Pataki made it a hat trick for New York's presidential wannabes today when he joined Rudi and Hillary in declaring his opposition to the IFC Museum at Ground Zero. (TBM) This is a good piece of news and credit to Debra Burlingame and all the 9/11 families who organized and derailed this wrongheaded idea.  (WP)  The Take Back the Memorial web site will have the latest info. (TBM)

Rudi votes no on WTC museum

Not to be upstaged by '08 D presidential frontrunner Hillary, former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani, frontrunner for the '08 R presidential nod, today said he too is against Tom Bernstein's IFC museum proposed for hallowed ground at the WTC. (NYP)  So has the PBA, and a host of other NY pols and candidates (Pierro, Cox). The fat lady is half-way through the final song about this dead fish. Governor Pataki? Your TV ad about how everyone should join you by investing in your vision of lower Manhattan looks kind of lame with your shilly-shalling about the IFC at Ground Zero.  Any comment?  Or is the approval of the snarky NYT too important?  (BM, BM2)  By the way, for an understanding why Bernstein's museum at the Ground Zero is so inappropriate, read Bernstein's statement published in the Times interview:

Historically, if you look at the response to tyranny - in our view, terror being a modern variant - the only response, and the necessary response, and the crucial response is a reaffirmation of the values that are under assault. The central value here, and around the world, is freedom.

Quillnews view: the necessary response to tyranny and terror is not a museum to reaffirm values. The necessary response to the terror attack of Sept 11 is one of lethal ferocity that destroys the perpetrators.  After their destruction we can talk about it.  But at the site where thousands died at the hands of America's enemies, what is not needed is a seminar hall... where (as is stated in the IFC mission statements) "international programming (will be staged) allowing for the exploration of issues and traditions around the world, both secular and religious, and that could highlight the values of tolerance, diversity and understanding among nations."  What is needed at Ground Zero are solemn expressions of grief and a sincere gesture of respect for the losses and sacrifices of the dead. 

Hillary pokes one out like a Yank in September

Hillary Clinton, New York's carpetbagging senator, Saturday showed Rs why she is so much better a player in the big leagues than any of her competition in the Ds ranks, and why the R's are going to get their act together to keep the White House.  Hillary smacked one out of the park like a Yankee in September when she told the New York Post that she was opposed to the lefty museum proposal backed by the NYT and every other snob, striver and social-climing dweeb trying to show how important and rich they are by supporting Tom Berstein's blame American first museum at Ground Zero. (NYP) In response to a query from the NYP, Clinton said:

I cannot support the IFC. While I want to ensure that development and rebuilding in lower Manhattan move forward expeditiously, I am troubled by the serious concerns family members and first responders have expressed to me. The LMDC [Lower Manhattan Development Corp.] has authority over the site and I do not believe we can move forward until it heeds and addresses their concerns.

In the political world where Debra & Co have been working, that is about as good as it gets.  Hillary has all but pulled the plug on Bernstein's kumbaya let's all get along in a multi-cultural world where what is right and wrong is all relative but it all's America's fault anyway museum. (QN)  The LMDC had indicated it was ready for a final decision last week.  All of a sudden the final decision has been put off... Hmmm. It ain't over, but the fat lady is about to bring down the curtain on Bernstein's well-orchestrated, well- organized, well-wired and well-financed and networked run at the WTC site. Add Hillary's statement to the promise by three NY R House members - Sweeney, King, Fosella - to investigate the use of the fed's $2.7 billion for the Ground Zero. Taken together, this ought to close the pocket books of every giver in town eager to avoid being stinked by this dead fish. 

New York's other senator, Schumer, is still trying to carve a middle ground for the IFC nobs. Now that Hillary's closed the door, Quillnews is taking bets how long it will take for Charlie to head for the high grass. And now that the NYP has outed the fact that Pataki's former PR guy took a wad from Bernstein's IFC to hype the IFC script to the NYT to influence Pataki, the pressure is on a GOP guy like Pataki who has amitions to finally declare he's against this dumb museum. A Quillnews plume to the New York Post for playing hard ball with their uptown competitor, The New York Times, and tracing the NYT's wet kiss of a story about the IFC to a report leaked to them by Pataki's front man. (NYT)  Hillary, if nothing else, knows this museum is a loser for anyone who hopes to represent America as commander-in-chief, and with this public statement she's showing the competition, both R & D, she can triangulate, Sister Soljah and otherwise sell out her natural allies better than Bubba to position herself for victory.  '08 is on.  Patriots seeking to protect the memory of the honored dead of Sept 11 have to give Hillary her props. Well played.

Tom Bernstein - Another W crony you can't trust

Speaking of W's cronys, who can keep up with these embarassing jerks whose sense of entitlement is pulling W down like a lead life vest?  Take Tom Bernstein.  Today is a big day for a decision on his obsessively wrongheaded proposal: the International Freedom Museum at Ground Zero. Quillnews likes museums just fine. Two of my favorites are the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago, and the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History on the mall in DC. But an International Freedom Museum at the hallowed ground at the World Trade Center site to help visitors learn about the meaning of freedom? Run by Tom Bernstein, the bankroller of radical anti-American sedition who is so rich and well connected (W's business partner) he presumes his money entitles him to tell people how they should think about Sept 11?  Bizz. Forget it. The NYT has a story today about how the decision on the museum's placement by Gov. Pataki's and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the decision-making authority, is at hand today. What the NYT doesn't say is that it's editorial board endorsed the museum idea and how wired up this dumb idea is: Bernstein's business parnter, Roland Betts, also W's best college buddy, is the ramrod of the LMDC... (NYT, QN, TBM)  Quillnews view: don't give up Debra & Co. Whatever the decision today, the game is long. The price of this stupid museum keeps going up and the only thing Bernstein's enablers really care after their money is their reputations.  The feds are getting into the act, and if Congress hold hearings on the wisdom of this museum, the museum's price in lost fashion juju will go way up. The fund-raising for Bernstein's lefty play pen has already begun to falter as donors begin to question the appropriateness of Bernstein's vision.  Eventually the fashionable rich will realize their good names are being tainted by this wrongheaded idea and Bernstein's dream to turn hallowed ground into a lefty one-world teaching venue for multi-cultural relativism will end. (NSDY, NYP, USAT, BM) 

Ground Zero Sacrilege: Who does Tom Bernstein think he is?

There is evidence the reaction of 9/11 families and supporters to the plan to turn over sacred WTC acreage to anti-American propagandists is having an effect – for now. Of course, it’s hard to tell. The official text from the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, International Freedom Center and the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. reads a bit like a corporate annual report or a speech from a King about how important the affection of the people is to the health of the realm… blah blah blah.  My read: reports on Bloomberg wires says the privileged self-appointed suits who raise funds for politicians and got appointed to state commissions know they got found out. (WTC, WTC2) They are going to Albany and DC on some fence mending. They've added a few brand names to broaden the base.  They will take “one last look” to find a place somewhere else for the “museum” they think needs to be around as a “brain” to explain freedom.  Hmmm.  (HT Malkin)

Quillnews advice to 9/11 families and friends: stay on these guys like a bad rash. So far so good. (Here) The WTC Memorial guys use the words “freedom memorial international center foundation” to cover a bunch of fronts. Like nobody will remember which is which, or that a little lefty center for Ward Churchill talks can get snuck in there like nobody will notice - like say a fireman's widow and kids from Far Rockaway, Queens who may be all very sympathetic when they ride the subway to the WTC site to honor their beloved dead, but probably aren't quite sophisticated enough to really understand the elegance of the IFC's higher vision about freedom. Any hired writer can craft up a script to obscure images and impressions and refocus brands, labels and logos. So what? They can basically say whatever reads right. (IFC)  Quillnews ain’t buying it. The hands hired by B&B movie makers to draft this stuff have way too much grad school and/or legal education, and training in the language arts to be believable. It's just words.  Speaking of words, I have one of advice to John Whitehead, the socially prominent investment banker and George Schultz appointee and WW2 vet who is fronting with Tom Bernstein’s partner Roland Betts as pointman for the WTC rebuilding: next time, take a pass on using your worthy military service as part of these documents. Tell your script writers to leave Normandy out of it. Bernstein and his crowd have no business using your Greatest Generation Navy gig as hot-button psy-ops ammo in their fan dance.  As movie makers they are using Saving Private Ryan juju to advance their intellectually elitist, multicultural one-world it’s-America’s-fault-first agenda. Unworthy.

In that spirit, lets focus on movie impresario Tom Bernstein and his role in this affair. His name is on all these documents somewhere, and he is the signer of the over-the-top term paper about how pure the museum’s intentions are: this letter to the Stefan Pryor, president of the LMDC, where Bernstein's business partner, Betts, is the ramrod. As lawyers who work down the hall from each other at Chelsea Piers, Bernstein and Betts know the written record keeps it all clean. What is said in private, of unspoken intentions, past commitments, what their pal Bush 43 may be saying? No evidence of that stuff here. Bernstein’s letter goes to Pryor…

I’ve looked at Bernstein before and still can’t figure out how he has the brass to think he can function in the WTC role he's chosen. (QN, QN1) The question on the IFC initiative is: can Bernstein be trusted?  He’s a Bush Ranger fund raiser. He is a movie and land development partner of Betts, President Bush’s best pal from Yale. The trio invested in the Texas Rangers baseball team that made all of them, including Bush, millions. Betts and Bernstein as Manhattan developers and men about town are part of that set of special persons who all want to serve on the do-gooder boards that need mega-fund-raising for good works. That’s all fine. But Bernstein is also a committed driver behind the ACLU & Human Rights First assault on the US war effort that borders on sedition. Please note:  Bernstein, a chief fund raiser and cheerleader is on the HRF's board whose Exec Director Michael Posner is an IFC Advisor! Say what?  The HRF website that attacks the US war effort provides a helpful Arabic text, and petition demanding a commission and special prosecutor to investigate and harass Rumseld, the Defense Department and create a distraction during wartime.  He apparently is blind he is doing UBL's Lesson 18 bidding while America's volunteers are serving to protect freedom and defeat tyranny, which includes avenging 9/11 by hunting down and killing the perpetrators and enablers of the worst attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor!  See that's what's underway,Tom.  The American people are at war and will not rest until victory. (QN) A few questions:

1. Is Bernstein so above it all that he thinks he can get away with this double-dealing, disassociative duplicity or that his important relationships and bank accounts assure him there will be no consequence to this double game? 
2. Do the rules of what is acceptable, appropriate and decent not apply to him?   
3. Why did he believe he could spear head a museum at the WTC site while at the same time underwrite a law suit and propaganda campaign that, among other things, formally accuses Rumsfeld of war crimes and also provides a helpful Arabic translation online? 
4. How can this guy who wants us to believe this also be the architect of this?
5. Has Bernstein's sense of entitlement eliminated his sense of shame?  Or are those from the lower orders simply not learned and rich and sophisticated enough to see Bernstein has the ability to do what he wants and that his money and connections will enable him to continue to have it all?
   

Quillnews question to Bernstein: Like your pal, the president says: Are you with the US in the war against tyranny, or are you with the terrorists?  You and your do-gooder lawyer pals can sue the government if you want and take the consequences.  But don’t expect free people to let you build a museum to your vision of freedom in the name of the honored dead on hallowed ground. Not on this watch…

Ground Zero Film Proposal: “Downtown vs. the Boroughs – an Upstairs Downstairs movie for today!” (Part 3)

With the back-story elements in place, the Quillnews movie development memo for Betts and Bernstein would begin its front story dramatic arch:

Opening Scene:  After the destruction of the World Trade Center the initiatives to rebuild the site required a variety of private investment, philanthropic activities, and government actions to merge, finance and balance the various interests. Among the many volunteers in this initiative were nearby Manhattan entrepreneurs, Betts and Bernstein.  Betts became president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which is in charge of the rebuilding effort.  Bernstein became co-founder and chairman of the International Memorial Foundation, which the LMDC has designated can build a Memorial complex will honor those who died and the sacrifices of many and renew our commitment to celebrate life.  Say the organizers: “The creation of the Memorial and Memorial Center and new cultural buildings on the World Trade Center site will be a powerful symbol of resiliency, inspiration and hope in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Cultural programming on the site of the World Trade Center will remind us of our common humanity and reaffirm our democratic values.”  Helping raise funds for this will be the WTC Memorial Foundation, on whose board Bernstein serves.

Quillnews comments: given Betts and Bernstein’s movie-making skills, business and social connections, their charitable and business successes you have to wonder, among other things, what kinds of videos will be in the new Memorial center and what will the messages be?  We can assume that it will not be like those flag burning thugs in Queens. But will it be like the Human Rights First/ACLU video Bernstein help engineer that used seditious anti-American images to accuse the Bush appointee responsible for waging war of torture, and demanding that another Bush appointee name a special prosecutor to investigate?  They say no.  The IFC vision reads: “International Freedom Center has reached out to an extraordinary roster of scholars, educators, museum directors, and cultural leaders who provided their input and expertise. Exhibitions, lectures, films and other programs will be developed in partnership with leading arts, cultural, media and academic institutions such as the Aspen Institute, NYU, WNYC Radio, and New Visions for Public Schools.”

Various Scenes:  Hmmm.   It is quite a list of big shots involved in the WTC redevelopment.  The sister of the pilot whose plane was flown into the Pentagon Sept 11 wrote a moving essay in the WSJ this week. She fears the worst. (LGF)  For the movie about this conflict, I’d have a series of scenes depicting the rebuilding efforts in lower Manhattan.  I’d suggest images of handsome, well-dressed persons at private luncheons at university clubs, mingling  congenially at receptions at museums and in galleries overlooking private parks, perhaps images of quiet phone conversations by the principles involved who take a private moment away from their days at the investment houses and private equity firms. In responding to unlearned complaints from the lower orders, these attractive well-meaning people would assure each other their intentions are the best and for the long term legacy of the memorial, that funds are coming and that various public pressures are being managed properly. A good line one of the principles can say to another: "our man from the Wall St. Journal will take of it."  (WSJ)

Quillnews comments:  If a Hollywood screenwriter was writing a story treatment for a proposed project for Betts and Bernstein’s Silver Screen consideration, any pro would certainly juxtapose the images of those punks burning the flag in Queens (exercising their free speech), with the ACLU images of Rumsfeld from the prisons pictures and work up the dramatic tension of the moment.  I mean, come on.  You have President Bush, his best Yale pal in Betts and his younger Eli buddy, and you could get all wrapped up in this dramatic tableau of personal private loyalties, public betrayals, differing world views, the debating points about when to push for human rights and when to push for international security, when to show mercy and when to wield lethal justice.  It would be a great film. In Media-ville. We have the good guys in Queens, the venal rich bad guys in Manhattan…  Uh-oh.  Cut cut cut! The script is going to need some work. 

Here I believe we have to stop. Betts and Bernstein are not the right guys to do this film. Any honest film maker would cast these guys in a light they would never see for themselves – private privilege unknowingly selling out their country to the enemy because they refuse to confront evil and its dangers, and because they happen to believe their world view is superior. This is a well-worn story line.  For references one can look to 20th Century Europe. Like I said, this story line for a film these guys would pay to have made would need work. 

What also needs work is the their sense of reality in real-life.  Unlike in Media-ville where the dynamics and good and evil can be carefully controlled and calibrated, the real-life Betts-Bernstein cabal is displaying a dangerous lack of judgment and perspective in war time.  Their secure, private world of entertainment financing, sports, good works and public service and philanthropy is all very polite, in just the kind of protected privileged and elite confines in which smart guys raised the way they were would live.  They may think it is just fine to boast of being pals with Bush, have made millions making movies and later in the baseball business with him, and donate their time to human rights causes, including (in a protected legal brief) accusing Rumsfeld of being a criminal torturer during a war which, among other things, protects their privilege.  This is fair game in their world it seems. A lawyer and former Dow Jones guy named Richard Tofel who Bernstein hired to be president of the IFC, said Thursday: 

Freedom, we have learned time and again, is not a gift from our parents to be put on a shelf and admired. It requires work in our own time, work each of us can do and all of us must do.  Nor is the story of freedom one which began in America--or one that can end here. Ambassador Martin Palous, who fought for freedom in his own Czechoslovakia, now serves the free Czech Republic, and is also one of the more than 35 scholars of freedom who have advised the International Freedom Center, put it this way: "9/11 is a story of courage, hope, and freedom: the courage to make the decision to go into the buildings to save someone, the hope to start anew after disaster, the wish to base our society on free will in the context of a pluralistic public sphere. It was a moment of truth in the story of freedom, and it connects the United States with democratic revolutions around the world, which share this quality of believing in the possibility of new beginnings." Out of the tragedy of September 11 came a renewed civic spirit, and the International Freedom Center will work to sustain that. This is work that can unite people of goodwill everywhere.  To be sure, the International Freedom Center will host debates and note points of view with which you--and I--will disagree. But that is the point, the proof of our society's enduring self-confidence and humanity. Moreover, the International Freedom Center will rise above the politics of the moment. It will not exist to precisely define "freedom" or to tell people what to think, but to get them to think--and to act in the service of freedom as they see it. And it will always do so in a manner respectful of the victims of September 11.

Quillnews’ reaction:  Gaak!  Oh, my. Rise above the politics of the moment, say like producing a TV spot that calls for a special prosecutor to see if Rumsfeld is a torturer?  The IFC, whose architects find it okay to accuse their country’s leaders of dishonor during wartime and wants to ensnare the government fighting that war in a special prosecutors quest for misdeeds, will pursue goals “to get them (vistors to the WTC site) to think and to act in the service of freedom..”  Hey, you know, who asked them?  Do these sanctimonious twits know the future of America’s national security, the defender of freedom, is at stake?  More importantly, do they know who they are dealing with?  In this case, I’m not referring to the jihadists.  (Update: Cavuto) The people I believe Betts, Bernstein and the rest of the downtown do-gooders need to pay attention to the people on the street corner in Queens who are still patiently wishing for someone to stop the jihadists, and to the families of the Americans who continue to serve, to fight, to sacrifice and to volunteer to protect liberty. This patience and toleration won’t last forever while rich people fight over clauses in court. And it will not last if the threat to America’s freedom grows or, heaven forbid, in the event of another attack on the homeland.  Being Yale grads and members of the Council on Foreign Relations, I would encourage Bernstein and Betts to study the works of Walter Russell Mead WRM. America’s Jacksonians are fighting this war. They don’t do nuance or have patience for artful interpretations of complex events in polite settings. They would destroy such a setting in a heart beat to defeat the enemy. In pursuit of this enemy, Americans at war hunt for traitors, thrown stones, call names, and will kill enemies and tolerate nothing but victory. 

Part 1, Part 2

Ground Zero Film Proposal: “Downtown vs. the Boroughs – an Upstairs Downstairs movie for today!” (Part 2)

In the film treatment background memo Quillnews plans to submit to Betts & Bernstein, I’d first describe some back-story elements to set the stage, and offer comments and concerns about the nature of the scene’s development and potential for dramatic tension.  Here's a list:

Back-story element Number 1: In 1968, Yale classmates Roland Betts and George W. Bush waved good-bye as Betts went to Harlem to teach school, and Bush went to Texas to serve in the Air National Guard.  Bush, whose history is well known, stayed best pals with Betts.  After several years in public schools, Betts wrote a book, graduated from Columbia ‘78 and practiced entertainment law with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison where he met Tom Bernstein, Yale ’74, Yale Law ’78.    Betts and Bernstein formed Silver Screen Management, Inc. and would raise $1 billion from 140,000 investors to form limited partnerships to produce for Walt Disney Inc. 75 movies. Betts also ran International Film Investors, Inc., which produced and financed numerous films including, "Gandhi" and "The Killing Fields."  In 1984, Bernstein produced the "Sakharov" for HBO, the honored show at the seventh Annual Awards for Cable Excellence, winning four major awards including Best Movie or Miniseries.  In all, Betts was responsible for financing 100 films.  Throughout his legal and motion picture producing career, Bernstein remained committed to human rights issues, organizing the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, which later was renamed Human Rights First and on which he still serves as president.   

Back-story element Number 2: In Texas, Betts’ pal George W. Bush was seeking to make his mark.  His oil ventures were dry holes.  In 1989, Betts invited Bush to join the ownership group that he and Bernstein were forming to take over the Texas Rangers baseball team.  Bush became leader of this group, made his mark and fortune, and used both to create a political career that began when he was elected Texas governor in 1994.   Meanwhile, Betts and Bernstein formed the company that revitalized the Chelsea Piers on Manhattan’s Westside.  Betts serves as Chairman, and Bernstein as president of Chelsea Piers.

Back-story element Number 3:  The net is abuzz with the obnoxious images of young men dressed in fatigues and jihad head scarves stomping, cutting and burning an American flag while they shouted Islamic slogans, condemning the US as terrorists, calling on Muslims to not be afraid and saying the US is the true enemy.  This is a thoroughly obnoxious performance and done in day light in the open for all to see and to ignore.  Internet chats report the incident likely occurred at the corner of 74th St. and 37th Ave., Jackson Heights, Queens and that a few uniformed cops were on duty to say to any Queens patriots that might show up with a ball bat to give these jerks an lesson: “Let’s keep it moving and let’s have no trouble here…”  To the credit of the patient citizens of Queens, nobody was attacked.  But the jihadists did get the shocking anti-American video images they craved and will no doubt use to promote their ideas that America should be destroyed and its citizens killed.  (Malkin, WND, JW, Powerline, LGF)

Quillnews wonders:  For now this kind of anti-American sedition is still legal.  The manufacturing of enemy psy-ops ammo for use in Media-ville without context or perspective has been done.  No violence against its perpetrators for their treasonous provocations has been tested in court as to what constitutes justifiable homicide. No legislature has authorized deputies to hunt and kill these traitors – yet.  No volunteer militias have taken it upon themselves to do so because their government won’t – yet.  Human rights and civil liberties groups would no doubt object vigorously.  But Quillnews is mindful of how the US was settled – by the people first. Law and order and justice came later. If jihadists and their wannabe pretenders continue their murderous assaults on free people, Islamic imams continue to preach death and tolerate jihad talk, my guess is that kind of stunt won’t be tolerated on a street corner in Queens or anywhere else much longer.   

Back-story element Number 4: Elsewhere on the net is another evocative – and much better produced – video that is also troubling and far more serious-minded.  It shows the obnoxious images taken by the Abu Ghraib guards on the night shift in their abuse of prisoners. These images are widely recognizable because the MSM and anti-American propagandists has been repeatedly used them to as the dominant visual image of the American war effort in Iraq.  (Unlike the flag burning images in Queens, say; which have yet to be reported by MSM). The camera then pans back from these images as they multiply over and over until the camera pans so far back the viewer sees these hundreds of images fuse into a one photo image of Donald Rumsfeld.  Get it?  Then the video shows images of Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr., and other demonstrators for human rights in front of court houses and uses the same moving camera technique to have all these human rights demonstrators merge into one image of the Statue of Liberty.  Okay, got it.  Prisoner abuse by Rumsfeld bad vs. human rights demonstrators going to court for Lady Liberty good.   

Quillnews aside:  This is why films are so terrific and why they are such a Media-ville feature.  They tell the story quickly and have such potential for dramatic tension.  This particular film was produced by the ACLU and Human Rights First as part of their law suit filed in March in federal court in Illinois against Donald Rumsfeld over “US Torture Policies.”  The legal director of the ACLU is Steven Shapiro, who is also on the board of Human Rights First, whose executive director Michael Posner, demands Attorney General Gonzales to appoint a special independent counsel to investigate Rumsfeld and the Bush 43 administration for its war policies. Standing behind this lawsuit against Rumsfeld is Tom Bernstein, co-chairman of Chelsea Piers, founder and president of Human Rights First.

Quillnews preliminary summary:  Here we have the major elements in place.  The elite network of clubby partnerships, the making of fortunes and creation of social and political positions. Then you have the flag burning in Queens and tolerance shown on a Queens Street corner to a provocative flag burning. Then we have the law suit brought against Rumsfeld by Bernstein and his do-gooders.  Blending between these two visual elements we now have the relationships between Betts and Bush and now Bernstein and his human rights crusade and how it all is conflicting in this mélange of private loyalties and betrayal.   Presidential leadership, war decisions, human rights, accusations of torture, calls for special prosecutors.  What a mix.

Part 1, Part 3

Ground Zero Film Proposal: “Downtown vs. the Boroughs – an Upstairs Downstairs movie for today!” (Part 1)

Quillnews has found a movie development deal to submit to Roland Betts and Tom Bernstein, longtime partners in film, sports and now the Chelsea Piers, for their consideration in their new roles as the private sector’s tag team of beneficence in the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. (QN)

These two guys and their network of pals have wired up the downtown development plans pretty good. (WTCMF, LMDC, IFM, IFM2)  Betts, as boss of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., in overall charge of the project, granted Bernstein’s charity, the International Freedom Museum, the job of creating museum exhibition spaces, an educational and cultural center already boasting commitments from nine of New York City's, the nation's and the world's leading universities, and a robust service and civic engagement program all devoted to advancing the cause of freedom.  Their vision for the museum has caused quite a stir lately – particularly because Bernstein’s artistic vision might be influenced by his anti-war political views.  Bernstein is driving a lawsuit in federal court charging Rumsfeld with torture and demanding a special prosecutor be appointed by AG Gonzalez. Their website also has a helpful Arabic language version. 

Betts and Bernstein have vast experience in movie production. Back in the day, this pair of entertainment lawyers and Yale grads formed Silver Screen Management, Inc., and other film production firms who together and separately produced 100 films, including Beauty & the Best, Petty Woman, The Little Mermaid, Three Men and a Baby, Ghandi, The Killing Fields, Sakharov.  Betts and Bernstein were also business partners with George W. Bush in the Texas Rangers ownership group.  Betts is a personal pal of the presidents from their days together at Yale.  In the WSJ today, the guy Bernstein hired to be president of the IFC, a lawyer and former Dow Jones guy named Richard Tofel, wrote: 

A year ago tomorrow, a new institution called the International Freedom Center (ed note: Bernstein’s) was formally designated by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. (ed note: Betts) as one of the four cultural institutions for the World Trade Center site, all to be operated under the aegis of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation (ed note: Bernstein). But some ask why such an institution--including museum exhibition spaces, an educational and cultural center already boasting commitments from nine of New York City's, the nation's and the world's leading universities, and a robust service and civic engagement program all devoted to advancing the cause of freedom--should be placed at Ground Zero. It is a serious question, and it deserves a thoughtful response.  The answer can be found in our society's proudest traditions and its deepest aspirations.

This caught Quillnews’ eye, and stimulated the idea for a film treatment. Tofel said the answer to the question can be found in the society’s proudest traditions and its deepest aspirations.  You know, he’s right.  Having some modest experience in this area myself as a participant in promoting PBS dramas, let’s put the story together around a modern 21st century of Upstairs Downstairs. We can have the film positioned around the divergent and perhaps conflicting mind sets present in Queens and in Manhattan – particularity in the world views in the why and how the US fights the war on terrorism.

Part 2, Part 3