George Rebane
President Obama correctly chastised Sony for not releasing ‘The Interview’, its comedy critical of the North Korean tyranny and its idiot dictator. And the FBI has now formally identified North Korea as the hacker that initially embarrassed Sony by releasing its internal memos to the world. And now it has again embarrassed the electronics and entertainment giant by scaring it into withdrawing the film. This is not a good precedent for the world’s liberal societies.
The press is full of chastisements of Hollywood for being gutless, and recommendations abound for alternative of releasing the movie. One of the more attractive ones for me is for Sony to release it on the internet and really make it available worldwide. Another is to also make a Korean subtitle version of it and put it on reproducible DVDs. But whatever is done, its release should go forward.
Perhaps our own Congress can even step in and pass a law that limits lawsuits against theaters, distributors, networks, and media producers who may be subsequently attacked by terrorists launched by countries or organizations opposing the ideas expressed in productions they don’t like. No country or cabal should be able to stop the dissemination of ideas in our society by just threatening to whump us.
This also brings up the entire notion of online publishing, and who gets to control what is made available on the internet. My own strong feeling is that the US should henceforth maintain all the modes of control that it still has on every aspect of internet operations. The last thing we need is to have some international commission (with questionable membership and agenda) start dictating internet protocols, access, and content.
On a related note, while the President was all for Hollywood maintaining its first amendment rights, a reader (here) pointed out that the same administration was not so supportive of the producer of the anti-Islamic video that Team Obama initially claimed caused the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans. That filmmaker was jailed.
And segueing from that to another reader who points out (here) how the Common Core curriculum standards incorporate Islamic concepts and syntax, but remain anathema to anything relating to Judeo-Christian practices.
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