[CitizensTruth] Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed opens on Friday, April 18th

[Hal Snyder]

Wow. I just watched the trailer.

Absolutely beautiful cinematography.

The message is not so beautiful, I think. Ben Stein, former  
speechwriter for Nixon and Ford, takes a bold stance defending  
intelligent design in the face of a vindictive scientific community  
that will brook no deviation from neo-Darwinism.

Why, Ben Stein asks, do we have freedom of speech in this great  
country in every other area but this? Maybe he missed Kristina  
Borjesson's book about censorship in journalism, "Into the Buzzsaw"
<http://www.freedomofthepress.net/intothebuzzsaw.htm>

or Mark Bowen's "Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on  
Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming" - I encourage  
people to check out this segment of Democracy NOW:
<http://i2.democracynow.org/2008/3/21/ 
censoring_science_inside_the_political_attack>

or the recent passage in the House of Jane Harman's H.R.1955, the  
"thought crimes" bill.

This looks like another instance of a widely-used right-wing tactic:  
invoke an enemy (see Naomi Wolf, step 1), then accuse that enemy of  
everything you are doing - terrorism, intolerance, lack of  
patriotism, etc. It distracts the people in the middle and puts any  
potential opposition on the defensive. You set up a bogus frame and  
lure dissenters into it. George Lakoff reminds us that negating a  
frame reinforces the frame. "I am not a crook."

I'm reminded of David Horowitz and his campaign on campuses across  
the country promoting the freedom to stamp out leftists and  
dissidents. See the video:
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/the-demons-of-david- 
horow_b_71441.html?page=6>

Getting back to Ben Stein, I think he is messing with us.

Hal


On Apr 8, 2008, at 8:05 AM, Robin Migalla wrote:

> Hello Everyone,

>

> "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" looks like an interesting film  

> about suppression in science:

>

> http://www.expelledthemovie.com/home.php

>

> I see it's playing in lots of theaters.

>

> Cheers,

> Robin

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/citizenstruth/attachments/20080408/586fb47d/attachment.htm>