Tag Archives | Robert Greenwald

People Joe Klein Thinks Are Stupid: Ed Schultz and YOU

By on January 11, 2011 in News 4

The irrepressible Robert Greenwald explains why Joe Klein is the stupid one in the debate about taking our troops out of Afghanistan, at Huffington Post:

…Let’s talk about stupid for a minute.

The U.S. has increased troop levels in Afghanistan every year since the initial invasion, and every year we’ve seen an increased level of violence in Afghanistan. President Obama and General Petraeus promised–twice!–that huge troop increases would help “protect the population” of Afghanistan and break Taliban momentum…

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Wal-Mart’s Competitors Help Fund Activist Campaigns

By on June 8, 2010 in News 7

StopWalMartWhen we helped Robert Greenwald distribute his classic exposé documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, we trumpeted the fact that we were receiving support from a panoply of unlikely allies, from the Sierra Club to the Petroleum Institute. It turns out that some of the megastore’s competitors have been helping out too, according to this report by Ann Zimmerman for the Wall Street Journal:

MUNDELEIN, Ill.—Robert Brownson long believed that his proposed development here, with its 200,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter, was being held hostage by nearby homeowners.

He had seen them protesting at city hall, and they had filed a lawsuit to stop the project.

What he didn’t know was that the locals were getting a lot of help. A grocery chain with nine stores in the area had hired Saint Consulting Group to secretly run the antidevelopment campaign. Saint is a specialist at fighting proposed Wal-Marts, and it uses tactics it describes as “black arts.”

As Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

… Read the rest

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Robert Greenwald Challenges ‘JFK’ Actors

By on April 29, 2010 in News 0
220px-Robert_greenwald

Robert Greenwald. Photo: Sam Smith (CC)

It’s good to see that the Hollywood hacks are paying attention to Robert Greenwald’s message to the actors in the controversial History Channel Kennedy miniseries. From The Wrap.com:

Left-wing documentary firebrand Robert Greenwald Thursday challenged actors Greg Kinnear and Katie Holmes – who were cast this week to play John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie in a miniseries about the Kennedys – to “insist on a historically accurate and politically unbiased script.”

In February Greenwald corralled a group of prominent historians including former Kennedy advisor Ted Sorenson who in a video took objection to the script, calling it a politically-motivated “character assassination.”

The eight-hour miniseries is being produced by Joel Surnow, the executive producer of the hit action-torture series “24″ and an outspoken political conservative.

The miniseries is scheduled to air in 2011 and marks the channel’s first foray in scripted drama. It is also in keeping with the network’s move to broaden its audience and attract younger viewers — a decision that seemed to pay off earlier this week when the channel recorded its biggest ever ratings for Sunday’s premiere of “America: The Story of Us.”

At the time of the historians’ broadside in Feburary, The History Channel defended the project, saying the historians had seen an early draft, and that its standards for historical accuracy “are more rigorous than the broadcast networks.”

With the high-profile casting of Kinnear and Holmes this week to play the lead characters, Greenwald again went on the offensive.

… Read the rest

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Mainstream Media Collectively Forgets Anniversary of the Start of the Iraq War

By on March 21, 2010 in News 2

Glynnis MacNicol writes on Mediaite:

Things I have gleaned from my Twitter feed [on March 20th]: It is the second anniversary of the death of Arthur C. Clarke. Things that are noticeably absent: Any mention that today is the 7th anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq.

But let’s forget Twitter for a second — though it’s a great measure of where the hive mind is focused — and turn to some more “reliable” news sources. There’s not a single op-ed in the New York Times today to mark the anniversary, or pontificate on where it all went wrong (update: there is a photo slideshow from this weekend’s Magazine). Nor the Wall St. Journal to tell us what went right. Nothing in the Washington Post either. Nor the LA Times. I can’t even find a single link on Drudge. Perhaps even more shocking is that I can’t find anything on Andrew Sullivan.

It’s almost as though where the media is concerned the Iraq War didn’t happen.

Well, Robert Greenwald did not forget: Iraq: Thousands Dead, $747.3 Billion Spent And Not Any Safer

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Robert Greenwald Attacks Kennedy Miniseries On History Channel

By on February 17, 2010 in News 0

From the very start of our home video business, we’ve worked with director Robert Greenwald, who has become a sort of Defender of the Faith for progressive politics. It speaks volumes that when Robert takes up a cause, it lands on the front page of the New York Times (story below). I have to say I’m also delighted that Robert has highlighted the problem with much of the History Channel’s programming – it’s not history, it’s entertainment with a focus on ratings at the expense of veracity:

A new mini-series about John F. Kennedy’s presidency that is being prepared by the History channel does not yet have a cast or a premiere date. Not a frame of footage has been shot. It does, however, have prominent critics who want it brought to a halt.

The critics, including Theodore C. Sorensen, a former Kennedy adviser, say they have read the scripts for the project and that those contain errors of fact and emphasis. But like a similar controversy over a 2003 television film about Ronald Reagan, the dispute over the embryonic Kennedy series seems to say as much about the enduring place of the Kennedys as a battleground in the culture wars as it does about history itself.

The mini-series, called “The Kennedys,” is the brainchild of Joel Surnow, a creator of the Fox action show “24” and an outspoken political conservative…

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Live Stream Of Obama’s State of the Union Address + ‘The Cost of War’ With Robert Greenwald

By on January 27, 2010 in News 3

President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address this evening and you can watch it here on disinformation®, courtesy of Hulu:

Right before the nation prepares to watch the President’s State of the Union Address, however, Brave New Foundation, CREDO Mobile, and True Majority will be launching its first online live stream action. Brave New Foundation will live stream “The Cost of War,” a segment of the critically acclaimed documentary Rethink Afghanistan, giving concerned citizens a chance to measure the President’s proposals against military spending in Afghanistan. Brave New Foundation Director Robert Greenwald and Political Associate Derrick Crowe will accompany the stream by live blogging the event.

Video streaming by Ustream

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DynCorp Accused Of Looting Billions Of Dollars From Iraq Contracts

By on January 25, 2010 in News 4

dis21dvdAnyone who saw the Robert Greenwald documentary Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers will know that this story about DynCorp in the Wall Street Journal is only the tip of the iceberg in corporate looting of the United States Treasury (meaning taxes paid in by Americans):

The U.S. State Department is struggling with its accounting for billions of dollars spent on police-training contracts in Iraq with DynCorp International Inc.

A report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, to be released today, says that squaring away just how the money was spent may take years.

The State Department lacks adequate staff in Iraq to closely monitor the work, its biggest contract there, according to the report. DynCorp invoices were regularly found to have errors and often lacked sufficient documentation, the auditors found. “As a result, over $2.5 billion in U.S. funds are vulnerable to waste and fraud,” the report said.

… Read the rest

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Moyers, Moore and Maddow: Alternet Ranks the Most Influential Progressives

By on December 24, 2009 in News 0

Brave New FilmsInteresting survey from our friends at Alternet. Congratulations to Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films for landing in the top 15, as many of you know, Disinformation has distributed several of his documentaries over the years, starting with Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War back in 2004 up to his latest Rethink Afghanistan. The Disinformation Podcast crew recently interviewed Greenwald about his latest film (Listen here).

Don Hazen writes on Alternet:

The three M’s — Bill Moyers, Michael Moore and Rachel Maddow — scored highest in a recent AlterNet survey* asking more than 5,000 readers to rate the most influential progressive media figures. Moyers, who scored 67.5, and Moore, with a 66.2 score, were very close. Maddow was a tad behind at 63.5.

It’s no surprise that Moyers, the moral sage, and Moore, the rabble-rouser, are ranked at the top. They have been popular with AlterNet readers for years.

… Read the rest

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Disinformation Interviews Rethink Afghanistan’s Robert Greenwald

By on December 23, 2009 in News, Podcasts 4

Disinformation: The Podcast – Rethink Afghanistan

iTunes • Direct Download • RSS

This episode features an interview with Robert Greenwald, head of Brave New Films and the director of the new Disinformation-distributed documentary Rethink Afghanistan.  We also discuss Robert’s previous films, including Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, and Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers.

Disinformation Podcast T-shirts available here!… Read the rest

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