Right-Wing Terror Film Delivered To Swing-State NY Times Readers

This past Sunday, in presidential-election swing states across the country, the New York Times came bundled with a dvd of the documentary "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," a controversial film on the threat terrorism. The documentary is set for release to retail outlets this week -- the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks -- but has been shown at college campuses for nearly a year now, presented largely by Jewish student organizations and as part of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, the national "conservative campus protest" organized and sponsored last fall by militant right-wing author David Horowitz's Freedom Center.

The dvd was an "insert" with the Sunday newspaper, contracted no doubt with the New York Times marketing department as an advertisement the way coupons for local stores are often inserted in nationally distributed publications. The editorial side of the paper likely had little or no knowledge that the controversial dvd would be included with the paper. The provenance of the film remains somewhat mysterious. The film website lists only the filmmakers, Wayne Kopping and Raphael Shore. The dvd packaging included with the Times lists the producers as Peter Mier and Raphael Shore, and states that the project was "conceived by" Peter Mier. At this point, it is unclear who planned and paid for the film's bundling with the New York Times and its distribution to homes in election-year swing states. An entity called "The Clarion Fund" is listed with contact information below the credits.

Arriving at the doorstep together, the package-- New York Times with the Obsession terror dvd-- was alarming. The film is made to appear as a news-style documentary and includes splashy sell-lines that shout "As seen on CNN and FOX News by more than 20 million viewers worldwide." Indeed, the incendiary packaging is a reflection of the contents of the film. The "O" in "Obsession" is formed with the Islamic crescent moon and a star, and the closing "N" is tricked up with a silhouette of an automatic rifle. Soft focus-images of Middle Easterners, the World Trade Center, a firefighter on a ladder and the American flag all bathed in golden light.

In addition to showing the film for his "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," Horowitz has distributed the film as part of the Freedom Center's larger Terrorism Awareness Project. As he puts it at the Freedom Center website:

After conferring with students from several universities who were concerned about both the ignorance about the objectives of Islamic fascism among their fellow students and also the "unholy alliance" between campus leftists and jihadists seeking to undermine the War on Terror, the Freedom Center has launched a Terrorism Awareness Project. This Project will provide conservative students with an intellectual toolkit containing all the elements of the truth about jihad: a speakers' bureau featuring figures such as Steve Emerson, Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer; DVDs of films such as "Obsession" that dramatically underline the threat we face..."

On the packaging included with the Sunday Times, in small print, beneath the dvd, there is a list of all the publications that included the supplement with delivery. Designed to "change the way you look at the world," the film was bundled into newspapers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire and Virginia. It also came with national publications like the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Wall Street Journal and the Jewish World Digest.

In one light, the film can be seen as a study in unwitting irony. In discussing how terrorists are recruited, interviewees in the film relate that Islamic terrorism is made possible by politically whipped up fear. One talking head says: "One of the main ways to get people to be willing to fight and endanger their lives and to hate the west is to present the war as an act of self defense..." Another one says: "There has to be a good reason to do jihad... the best reason is to defend themselves. There is an enemy out there who wants to get us. America wants to get us. Nothing could be done wrong by Arabs. It's always the west. "

In effect, the documentary flips these comments on their head. Aimed at voters in the battleground states the week of September 11, the film is more than a scare tactic or a campaign ploy. It smacks of classic propaganda, boosted through this clever marketing deal by association with the authority of the New York Times brand. The point is to frighten viewers and, it seems clear, to frighten American voters across the country in order to raise security concerns ahead of all other issues in the election.

As witnessed in the Iraq, calling a nation a democracy doesn't make it so. At a time when more and more hard-working Americans are losing their homes than at any time since the Depression, when American citizens cannot afford health care, when wages are not keeping pace with the cost-of-living, when jobs that built the great middle class have been shipped overseas, and when speculators raise the price of gas while reaping record profits -- the Republican Party (or those who now control the Republican Party) are doing everything they can to distract voters from the issues that matter.

The election this year is a fight to protect democracy as we know it. We are responsible for our democracy; it will last only as long as we are good stewards. We face dangers from "terrorists" within, people who will stop at nothing to hold on to power. The policies of the last eight years are moving us more and more into a nation of two distinct classes: the wealthy and the poor, with the middle class falling into poverty. The American taxpayers will now bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while the executives who engineered this mess are giving themselves multimillion dollar severance packages--without conscience. McCain-Palin's former economic advisor, Phil Gramm, helped engineer the de-regulation that is responsible for home foreclosures.

American citizens have been the victim of an elaborate and well-planned con game for the past eight years and the game will be in full play this week. Anytime American citizens can be frightened and manipulated into voting against their best interests, they have been conned.

Comments

[barackobama4prez]

A little fear-mongering???

[RhinoCrossing]

True or not, it doesn't negatively impact Obama. It will give him a bump. He is the clear choice to lead our nation if there is another terrorist attack. McCain will simply act tough and stupid.

[cordyc]

I live in a very Republican, rural county in California, heehaw. David "hate" Horowitz came and did a major fundraiser for one of our county supervisors. At the recent election, he went down to a resounding defeat by a unknown, untested, liberal leaning college professor.

I think that the majority of Americans are now wise to the pathetic scare tactics of the fanatical right.

[Josol]

The Republican politicians and so-called Evangelical preachers pray and feed on this paranoia. Sarah Palin is the epitome of this. She represents the so-called ‘average mom’ and she is selling that her way of life needs to be protected (by god and guns) against all the ‘liberals’ foreigners and environmental realities. It’s a vicious cycle. The Republicans are like a “group personality disorder” and they need help, but they are determined (and frightened) in their ways until they destroy the world in which Jesus will come down and save them anyways.

[miocid31]

is this for real?

[Fenianheart]

Thank you for this article. I received this dvd in the mail and I was furious. I'm glad this is being addressed. I think too little attention is paid to the fact that many people in this nation are very easily influenced. Someone I know recently suggested that T. Boone Pickens ought to run for president, after just seeing his BS comercial. It doesn't take much to persuade those who pay little attention.

[charleydan]

T. Boone Pickens a fellow Republican of mine.

I wonder if you would have said that if your dad lost his job over his stock raiding in the eighties. Hollywood made a movie of this with, I think it was Michael J. Fox.

Go buy companies and close the doors and sell everything and walk away with a few million. Then go find another and do it all over again.

A few companies CEO's put there houses and assetts up for collaterral to borrow more to pay Pickens off and kept their company doors open. So not all rich white Americans are trash, but many do have compassion.

Yeah, Pickens is a guy to be trusted. Yeah, Right.

[gage]

There was one in my latest National Review, too. I live in Texas. i haven't watched it yet, but I remember when it came out. It's supposed to be good.

It's good to be aware of how radical movements of all kinds are nurtured and spread. This movement is being funded with the giant transfer of wealth flowing from the developed nations to the KSA, Iran, and the other Gulf states.

[citizenofmars]

actually Al Qaeda and other "anti-Western terrorists" are funded by the CIA with drug $$$. We have to keep terrorists going or we won't have any 'enemies' to scare USA voters with. We are mass manipulators, and direct the course of all these wars using proxies pretending to hate us. They work for US, just like Mohammed Atta, OBL, etc. It's so easy to manufacture patsies! Recruiting is easy, and the patsy never knows what hit him until his "handler" (the one with all the big plans) says "tag, you're IT" and you're off to a foreign prison to be tortured into insanity.

[lbrillante]

A new tactic that is utterly disturbing. However the McCain campaign has sunk so low with the new ad on Obama and education has sunk so low it has proven that McCain is unworthy of the office of president of the united states. Clearly McCain will try to win this election at any cost!

[citizenofmars]

Rove is running his campaign...

[KOisGod]

Mordechai Shiblikov Said

"Ladies and gentlemen, stay close to your loved ones, find something in this life about which you can be passionate, or maybe just enthiastic, batten down your hatches and if you don't have the means to get out of this country, give some very serious thought to what you will do when it all goes down."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/09/10-3

[indyleftist]

So I wonder how this one stacks up to other republican favorites such as "Birth of a Nation"

[DelvinMcGee]

Funny...if it wasnt so ignorant. The republicans free the slaves, remember, and the southern democrats opposed integration.

How short is your memory?

[MajorKong]

Yes, and then a lot of those southern Democrats switched parties and became Republicans in response to desegregation.

After LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act he said "We just lost the South for a generation".

Read up on Nixon's "Southern Strategy" sometime.

[ggirl00]

Let's see how many fringe n-u-t-s buy into this one. Have we learned anything over the past 8 years?

[AzRealProgressive]

Obviously a lot. Tune in sometime.

[outsidein]

I can't believe this type of hate speech is accepted by papers like the NYT and WSJ. It concerns me to see the state of America this way. Frankly, the term Islamic Fascism in itself is offensive! If we do not speak out against this, we are supporting it. I encourage everyone to forward this article and refute the spread of this DVD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMf9oBpvI0o

...watchin it all go up in a cloud of smoke.

[AzRealProgressive]

You call it hate, others call it the truth or close to it. Something you need to learn pal, because you disagree with the thoughts or speech of another citizen, does not make it hate speech.

[zendem1]

First of all, we aren't pals.

[live by the golden rule]

Yes it does make it hate speech if it attacks a whole group of people based on their race, gender, national origin, etc.

[RhinoCrossing]

True or not, it doesn't negatively impact Obama. It will give him a bump. He is the clear choice to lead our nation if there is another terrorist attack. McCain will simply act tough and stupid.

[outsidein]

the truth? slanderous allegations tying fear to one of the world's largest religions is not truth, it espouses hatred and ignorance about a world we would be much better off talking to rather than talking about. this is not even subversive, the issue at hand here is that threats can be anywhere and all Muslims are potential suspects, there is no burden of proof except excessive media 'obsession' with Middle East conflict (which has, in fact, been spurred largely by the west).

Go read a book, pal.

[The Keeper]

The problem is that people aren't always smarter than that.

At the risk of sounding stupid, I'm going to quote the movie Men In Black: "A single person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals." When you talk to your friends and neighbors, they are critical thinkers and think things through carefully. However, I've worked in a phone bank and called hundreds of people anonymously, and I can tell you that there are people who are that dumb.

[NJmikeV]

Look him up. David Horowitz is obsessed.

[citizenofmars]

he's obsessed with the $$$$$$$$$$­$$$$$$$$$$ the Mossad pays his lying butt....

[yodaveg]

It's a polemic. Doesn't seem to violate any election laws. I cast my vote in favor of freedom of speech here.

[citizenofmars]

I can't sell a copy of 'Mein Kampf" on eBay, but the freaking NYT can distribute this hate-filled filth?

[biffstein]

Yes, yes!!! let's ban them!!! no, no, wait!!! Let's burn them!!!!