Back in mid-1920s, film producer Sam Goldwin [Schmuel Gelbfisz] tried to interest his fellow moguls in an "investment with a purpose." It was Goldwin's idea that he and his colleagues [Goldwyn would have undoubtedly been more comfortable calling them his lahntsleit] should purchase some distant, sparsely inhabited desert island. According to Goldwyn, they would then divide the purchase price -- whatever it might be -- equally amongst the natives of said island, in exchange for the right to make the islanders the "bad guys" or "villains" of all their future movies! Not surprisingly perhaps, Goldwyn's fellow moguls turned him down flat; to them it was utter meshugas -- insanity. What's worse, from that point on, they considered Goldwyn himself meshugeh ahf toit -- crazy as a loon. But as g'mahtert -- as farfetched -- as Goldwyn's scheme was, it did address a serious problem: society's need to blame the blameless, to make targets of the innocent.
Goldwyn simply couldn't live with the filmic stereotypes of his day; most if not all movie "heavies" were portrayed as Gypsies, pawnbrokers as Jews, drunkards as Irish, and drug addicts as Chinese. Although he may not have had the ability to put it all in words, he obviously understood the great power film had to shape both thinking and prejudice. By suggesting that he and the rest of the moguls purchase that as yet unidentified island, Goldwyn may have been amusing, but in his own way, was being deadly serious. He was highly sensitive to the fact that he and virtually every other major producer was a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe. He was terribly concerned lest the Jewish community in general and the "motion picture minyan" in particular, become targets of blame during times of frustration, crisis and confusion.
Nonetheless, despite his perceptive intentions, Goldwyn's fellow moguls -- Mayer, Zukor, Fox, Selznick, Thalberg, Cohen, Loew, Warner and Lasky -- considered him ah leytz un ah pyeahtz -- both a buffoon and a clown.
Despite having less than a grade-school education and frequently coming off like a baggy-pants comedian, Samuel Goldwyn possessed an innately sophisticated understanding of the link between tough, uncertain, changing times and racism, bias and prejudice. He also grasped what tremendous power the "flickers" had to influence taste, style and people's "understanding" of the world around them. To his way of thinking, it was better to "blame it all on the folks of Tristan de Cunha" [who were going to be well paid for being the targets of blame] than to place real people in real harm.
Sam Goldwyn was right. In tough, rapidly-changing, challenging times (such as ours), some people seek to affix blame and then do something about it. They are the ones who see change as inherently evil; as the desired, self-conscious product of malevolent, internationally-connected conspirators. Sam Goldwyn took his role as a shaper of public opinion very seriously; he sought to exercise both restraint and even-handedness. Despite the fact that the term "mass media" did not yet exist, he -- along with his lahnsleit -- had just of much of an impact on society as the modern shapers of opinion, people like Limbaugh, Hannaty, Savage, O'Reilly, Gingrich, Beck and Buchanan.
Because of the fact that they always need to blame someone, to inflame the already confused and whip up the fires of frustration, people like James von Brunn seek to "cleanse" the world of those they see as "pernicious vermin." Now, I am not blaming the "Fox Phalanx" for von Brunn's atrocity; they are not the proximate cause of him taking a rifle into the Holocaust Museum and killing guard Stephen Tyrone Johns. They are obviously not responsible for the many decades this man spent as an obviously deranged, vicious, anti Semitic, Holocaust-denying bigot who firmly believed that Jews exercised malevolent control over virtually every aspect of American society, culture and economy.
But while they were not the cause of this 88-year old psychotic mess doing what he did -- or of Dr. George Tiller being shot point-blank in the head by "anti-abortion activist" Scott Roeder -- they nonetheless do bear responsibility for their words. As much as a Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly may take valuable air time to deplore Dr. Tiller's murder, they are the ones who spent months -- if not years -- referring to him as "Tiller the Baby Killer." O'Reilly once told his rapt viewers that Tiller "destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up the birth date for $5,000." No, O'Reilly never told anyone to kill Dr. Tiller, but what did he expect his viewers and listeners to think? That O'Reilly was being hyperbolic? That he was merely exercising his First Amendment right to speak and was really nothing more than an entertainer? I wonder. Certainly those with microphones have advertisers. And where there are advertisers, there are demographic charts. And where there are demographic charts, there's a finely-honed understanding of precisely the sort of person who is watching or listening . . .
Then too there is Rush Limbaugh, who has repeatedly:
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Accused President Obama of being "more dangerous than Al Qaeda"
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Proclaimed that "He (Obama) has one thing in common with God -- he does not have a birth certificate"
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Announced that "Socialism is the Obama vision for America"
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Said repeatedly that he hopes the president fails
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Has termed the president's recent trip to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Germany "The International Apology Tour" in which he "proclaimed that America is a Muslim nation," and flat-out said that "The president equated the Holocaust with what Israel is doing to the Palestinians."
As Samuel Goldwyn or your Tante Ruchel would have said: NARISHKHEYT!!
What are we to understand Limbaugh's (or O'Reilly's, Beck's, Shnitt's or Savage's) motivation to be? If its higher ratings, then shame on them; they have placed their own narcissism far above the safety and security of the President of the United States and millions of utterly innocent, blameless people. If they truly believe what they are saying about Obama, abortionists, and all those folks they tar with the brush of "liberal" or "progressive" then what in the Hell do they expect their acolytes to do? Just sit back and continue being angry and frustrated? Doesn't Rush, like the rest of his conservative talk show brethren, bear some responsibility for the effect their words have?
Sam Goldwyn must be turning over in his grave.
I have spent the better part of the past 36 hours monitoring various conservative radio talk-shows in order to hear what they have to say about von Brunn's attack at the Holocaust Museum. In many cases, the hosts and commentators -- Schnitt, Savage, Van Susteren and Levine most notably -- have gone to great lengths to deathlessly inform their listeners/partisans/true believers that "There are just as many -- if not more -- crazy, violent, murderous whack jobs on the Left as on the Right." They want their listeners to know that they are not -- God forbid -- singling out conservatives for blame or opprobrium. And, unbelievably, Rush Limbaugh actually blamed the recent growth in anti-Semitic rhetoric on President Obama, Progressives and -- who else? -- Liberals. He actually went so far as to characterize James von Brunn as . . . ready for this? . . . A LEFTIST!
Permit me to quote his narcissistic rotundity at some length [emphasis added]:
Very predictably, ladies and gentlemen, the media, the American left, is trying to score some political points as a result of this tragedy at the Holocaust Museum . . . and as predictable [sic], they are trying to blame this on me, other conservatives, and right-wingers. It's the traditional approach taken by the American left.
The facts of the case, however, are such that if we want to start assigning blame for this beyond this nutcase Jew-hater . . . and notice that very few people actually want to do that. They want to claim this guy didn't have the ability to act on his own. He only could act if he was inspired by somebody.
Well, who did he hate? He hated both Bushes. He hated neocons. He hated John McCain. He hated Republicans. He hated Jews, as well. He believed in an inside job conspiracy of 9-11. This guy is a leftist if anything. This guy's believes [sic], this guy's hate stems from influence that you find on the left, not on the right.
Now, this Jew hater who killed yesterday was a nut . . . . It is not helpful when a political party and a president and leaders of Congress engage in a very dangerous political game that creates anxiety, hostility, and down-right hate among citizens.
The Left runs our government. It is creating a very dangerous climate, folks, on purpose, for the purpose of distracting us so that they can accomplish their socialist games . . .
Sorry Rush, but you've got it all wrong. Sorry Greta, you're having perpetual brain cramps; sorry: President Obama is not some alien bent on destroying America; he is not being guided by the "dangerous Communist operative" William Ayres or viewing society through the eyes of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright -- who just the other day told an interviewer that "my son" the president is a captive of all the Jews who surround him.
Yes, the Constitution does give all of you the freedom and protection to call the president "Nobama" and "Mr. Teleprompter," and to "knowingly" inform your audience of what his "true" motivation is. Yes, you all have the legal right to blame everything from 9/11 to the current state of the economy on "liberals," "leftists," and "socialists." No one has the right to stop you from calling anybody anything you wish, just so long George Carlin's "seven little words" are not employed.
But know this:
Words do carry consequences just as certainly as Constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms require responsibility. Just because you possess powerful microphones that doesn't make you political scientists . . . just entertainers with big mouths, outsized egos and one hell of a lot of chutzpah.
Now there's a truth Sam Goldwyn understood.
©2009 Kurt F. Stone
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