| MAY 26, 2013 |
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US Foreign Policy and the power of Lobbying Groups |
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Our
guest:
Soraya
Sepahpour-Ulrich
www.OpedNEWS.com
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SORAYA
SEPAHPOUR-ULRICH |
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an Iranian-American
researcher, essayist, and commentator with a focus on US
foreign policy and linkage politics -- the influence of
interest groups.
An antiwar activist and a proponent of social justice,
Soraya has been a guest on various radio and television
shows including NPR, BBC Persian, KPFA Berkeley, CNN,
al-Jazeera, and RT. Her essays are published on numerous
internet publications and are often translated into
various languages.
Soraya was educated in Iran , England and France . She
has a Master’s in Public Diplomacy from USC Annenberg
for Communication and Journalism and the USC School of
International Relations. Highlights of her career have
included internship at the offices of US Congressman,
Adam Schiff (2003), Assistant to 2003 Nobel Peace
Laureate, Shirin Ebadi (2006), and one on one interview
with Iranian President Ahmadinejad (2010). |
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Contact:
sorayau@earthlink.net
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Video:
CrossTalk: Taunting Tehran
CLICK ON
IMAGE TO WATCH VIDEO |
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Video:
Also watch the
Ahmadinejad-Sepahpour interview |
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Argo’s Oscar Win -- Hollywood’s ‘Coming Out’ |
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REF:http://www.countercurrents.org/ulrich260213.htm
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Foreign policy
observers have long known that Hollywood reflects and
promotes U.S. policies (in turn, is determined by Israel
and its supporters). This fact was made public when
Michel Obama announced an Oscar win for “Argo” –
a highly propagandist, anti-Iran
film. Amidst the glitter and excitement,
Hollywood and White House reveal their pact and send out
their message in time for the upcoming talks surrounding
Iran’s nuclear program due to be held tomorrow -
February 26th.
Hollywood has a long history of promoting US policies.
In 1917, when the United States entered World War I,
President Woodrow Wilson’s Committee on Public
Information (CPI) enlisted the aid of America’s film
industry to make training films and features supporting
the ‘cause’. George Creel, Chairman of the CPI believed
that the movies had a role in “carrying the gospel of
Americanism to every corner of the globe.”
The pact grew stronger during World War II, when, as
historian Thomas Doherty writes, “[T]he liaison between
Hollywood and Washington was a distinctly American and
democratic arrangement, a mesh of public policy and
private initiative, state need and business enterprise.”
Hollywood’s contribution was to provide propaganda.
After the war, Washington reciprocated by using
subsidies, special provisions in the Marshall Plan, and
general clout to pry open resistant European film
markets[i].
Hollywood has often borrowed its story ideas from the
U.S. foreign policy agenda, at times reinforcing them.
One of the film industry's blockbuster film loans in the
last two decades has been modern international
terrorism. Hollywood rarely touched the topic of
terrorism in the late 1960s and 1970s when the
phenomenon was not high on the U.S. foreign policy
agenda, in news headlines or in the American public
consciousness. In the 1980s, in the footsteps of the
Reagan administration’s policies, the commercial film
industry brought ‘terrorist’ villains to the big screen
(following the US Embassy takeover in Tehran – topic of
“Argo”) making terrorism a blockbuster film product in
the 1990s.
Today, whether Hollywood follows US policy or whether it
sets it, is up for discussion. But it is abundantly
clear that Hollywood is dominated by Israelis and their
supporters who previously concealed their identity.
According to a 2012
Haaretz article “from
the 1930s until the mid-1950s, Hanukkah never appeared
on screen. This was because the Jewish studio heads
preferred to hide their ethnic and religious heritage in
attempting to widen the appeal of their
products[emphasis added]. Jews were thus typically
portrayed as participants in an American civil religion,
whose members may attend the synagogue of their choice,
but are not otherwise marked by great differences of
appearance, speech, custom, or behaviour from the vast
majority of American”. This is no longer the case.
In sharp contrast to its past, Hollywood “celebrated”
Israel’s 60th “birthday” [occupation] with a Gala called
“From Vision to Reality”. Israeli TV blog wrote of the
Gala: ‘Don’t
Worry Israel, Hollywood is behind you’. Actor
Jon Voight said: “World
playing a dangerous game by going against Israel”.
Israeli businessman and Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan,
was a longtime
weapons dealer and Israeli
intelligence agent who purchased equipment
for Israel's nuclear program (the book, “Confidential:
The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon
Milchan,” written by Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman,
recounts Milchan's life story, his friendships with
Israeli prime ministers, U.S. presidents and Hollywood
stars).
It is important to understand Hollywood not only in the
context of a multi-billion dollar industry, but the
propaganda aspect of it and as one of the most powerful
and universal methods of spreading ideas through visual
propaganda. “Propaganda is defined as a certain type of
messaging that serves a particular purpose of spreading
or implanting a particular culture, philosophy, point of
view or even a particular slogan”. With this capability,
Hollywood owns the world of ideas on a scale too large
and too dangerous to ignore - see this excellent example
by Gilad Atzmon -
Hollywood and the Past.
To read further visit:
http://www.countercurrents.org/ulrich260213.htm |
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To read more articles by
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
visit her
OpedNEWS page
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Video:
The Path
to Restoring America
(click on
image to play video) |
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Watch last weeks
radio guest and meeting speaker KrisAnne Hall |
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