Banned by Mickey Mouse

[Ivo Skoric]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/05/national/05DISN.html

In WW II Mickey Mouse used to symbolize the American liberty and 
pursuit of happines - as opposed to the grim, totalitarian regimes of 
Hitler and Stalin that ruled their populace by fear and pain. Today 
it symbolizes everything that went wrong in the US after September 
11.

As if one painful event gave that nation the right to inflict pain on 
everybody else with impunity.

This also shows how the censorship really works in the USA. Michael 
Moore's new documentary "Fahrenheit 911" - allegedly harshly critical 
of W Bush regime - is not banned by the State, but by the corporate 
owner (Disney) of its distributor (Miramax). 

This makes the US different from the totalitarian regimes of the past 
- but not in substance: it just uncovers that there is a high degree 
of confluence between top corporate officers and high government 
officials, a sort of the revolving doors between public and private 
sector at the very top. 

And that cozy little circle of rich and powerful (oligarchs, they 
would be called, if this was Russia), is now tightening their rows, 
locking the gates of their gated community, and putting the story 
about their deceit deep in the vault.

Very carefully we should wait for the next Disney's release and then 
simply boycott it at the box office. When a multi-million dollar 
project releases with no revenue, Disney's executives may start 
thinking differently about where their loyalties should be: to the 
ever more rotten government or to the public that buys movie tickets.

ivo