Kaloogian's Hooligans:
Going After Moore and the First Amendment
by Kurt Nimmo
www.dissidentvoice.org
June 17, 2004



 

Now that Move America Forward has changed hands, it is time to look at the new owner. WHOIS reports the new registrant and administrator as Howard Kaloogian.

So, who is Howard Kaloogian?

Kaloogian is a lawyer who previously "served" three terms in the California state legislature. He is off to the right of Bush, if that is possible.

Kooky Kaloogian is perfect for the job of denying Americans the right to see Michael Moore's latest film, "Fahrenheit 9-11." He has plenty of experience. Kaloogian was behind the successful effort to intimidate CBS and stop the network from running the miniseries "The Reagans." For some reason Kaloogian believes this was a victory for free speech.

"Hundreds of thousands of Americans recently exercised their right of free speech and persuaded CBS Television not to run a mean-spirited and false miniseries about President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan," Kooky wrote on the BushCountry web site. "The liberals who are crying foul don't really believe their own spin that this populace uprising is censorship. They just cannot believe that there has been such strong opposition by the American public to seeing a prominent conservative leader defamed by liberal slander."

It wasn't enough for Kooky and his pals to urge folks to simply not watch the program -- they wanted to make sure nobody saw it, even if they wanted to. This may not be censorship in the true sense of the word -- the government stepping in and stopping CBS from showing the series -- but it is the next best thing: a former government official mobilizing people to harass CBS until they backed down.

No doubt CBS was worried. Remember the "Brooks Brothers" riot in Florida that prevented a recount of the ballot in 2000? Same thing here. CBS spinelessly caved in to Kooky and his pressure tactics. No telling what sort of phone calls, letters, faxes, and email the big wigs at CBS received before they threw in the towel. I don't know if death threats were sent to the executives at CBS, but I wouldn't doubt it. Rumors are now flying fast and furious that theater owners are receiving death threats.

Heck, I've received threats -- not death threats per se but threats of physical violence -- for saying unpopular things on a weblog that only has a few thousand visitors. I blame guys like Kaloogian for these threats because they're out there every day stirring people up with their us-versus-them, you're either with us or with the terrorists, far right-wing dogma. Guys like Kaloogian the Hooligan, David Horowitz, Rush Limbaugh, Daniel Pipes and Michael Savage incite violence against people who disagree with them. Horowitz and Savage in particular rant and rave continually about the "enemy within" and the scary thing is millions of people either listen to them or read their books and visit their web sites.

Instead of political debate, they want war. According to the former Stalinist Horowitz, "Politics is war conducted by other means. In political warfare you do not fight just to prevail in an argument, but to destroy the enemy's fighting ability. ... In political wars, the aggressor usually prevails. ... You cannot cripple an opponent by outwitting him in a political debate. You can do it only by following Lenin's injunction: 'In political conflicts, the goal is not to refute your opponent's argument, but to wipe him from the face of the earth.'" (See his "Full-Contact Politics" on the AIE web site).

Considering how these modern day political neanderthals operate, it's not a stretch to speculate that many theater owners will back down and not run Moore's film. I mean, who wants to get wiped off the face of the earth? Or have his theater trashed?

As it now stands, the Kaloogian cadres -- or those who carry their water and believe their nonsense -- have made sure the film will get an R-rating and thus millions of people will be prevented from seeing it.

Remember, Kaloogian's arm twisting organization, Move America Forward, has called Moore's film "a recruiting video for al-Qaeda," in other words Moore is a terrorist. It should be more than obvious by now what far right-wingers like Kaloogian and Ashcroft want done to those they consider terrorists. Or, for that matter, those who disagree with Bush.

Finally, on his weblog, Kaloogian pretends to be surprised by a "handful of emails from those who support Michael Moore who are dismayed that we are speaking up. I wonder why they are so afraid of the opinion of the American public?"

It's not the "opinion of the American public" we're afraid of -- it's the fact Kaloogian claims to speak for nearly 300 million Americans and at the same time wants to deny them the right to see a movie.

Howard Kaloogian, why are you afraid of those who disagree with Bush?
 

Kurt Nimmo is a photographer, multimedia artist and writer living in New Mexico. He is author of Another Day in the Empire: Life in Neoconservative America (Dandelion Books, 2003). To see his photo work and read more of his essays, visit his excellent “Another Day in the Empire” weblog.

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