Jeffrey Imm Articles

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While we continue to struggle to defend the inalienable human rights of equality and liberty against Islamic supremacism, we must recognize that we also have an internal struggle within the free world against fifth columnists ideologies that seek our and their own (suicidal) destruction. Such fifth columnist ideologies include the relativists, who as I have previously addressed, seek to undermine a defense of equality and liberty with the idea that such inalienable human rights are of "relative" value to other supremacist and totalitarian ideologies.

In addition to such relativism, there is the darker fifth column ideologies of nihilism and anarchism which have continued to gain popularity among some youth and some in the left wing of politics. Such dark ideologies of hopelessness and rejection of organized government are a toxic brew in a world and a nation that desperately needs respect for humanity, human rights of equality and liberty, and shared societal values of hope and community.

The fifth column ideologies of nihilism and anarchism may seem distant threats to American national security to some, and more of a philosophical debate than a security issue. But we must not underestimate the threat and danger of these toxic ideologies to a nation that must be unified in its national defiance against Islamic supremacism. As relativism deflects the threat of Islamic supremacism and equates the human right of equality as merely a "relative" ideology not worthy of defense, nihilism attacks the very worth of humanity itself - arguing that "nothing really matters."

Nihilism (which comes from the Latin word "nihil" meaning "nothing") is promoted to our public and to our children that humanity has no innate value, no purpose, no meaning. Nihilism rejects all values and morality, offering instead a dark vision of hopelessness and defeatism that the human existence itself in pointless and meaningless. The anti-values ideology of nihilism finds a symmetry with the anti-government ideology of anarchism.

Anarchism argues against organized government. In the 19th century, anarchists created a "nihilist movement" to use violence with a shared belief that terrorist violence against its political enemies represented a "propaganda of the deed." Anarchist terrorism remains a continuing problem for the United States and the world, especially in Europe. In December 2008, an anarchist group bombed an international press organization. Anarchist terrorism has a long and bloody history in America stretching from the anarchist assassination of President McKinley to continuing anarchist terror bombings and threats today.

Increasingly, such dark ideologies of nihilism and anarchism are being promoted by mass media organizations with global influence over the thinking of their viewers. In our struggle to defend the inalienable human rights of equality and liberty, we must also confront those defeatist mass media organizations that seek to undermine our citizens, our youth, and our values.

Such corrupted mass media and entertainment corporations are increasingly reaching mass audiences in America and around the world with these dark ideologies. We must reject such efforts at toxic indoctrination of the public by such mass media and entertainment organizations to undermine the free world from within.


The Recent Roots of Postmodern Ambivalence on Shared Values

Societal law, order, and structure is dependent on shared mores and values.

In 21st century America, we have a world that has fractionalized communities, declining power of moral institutions, and fractionalized communications. Several generalized factors have had an impact in this: (1) Americans' lives are less community dependent, (2) communications are fractionalized due to the Internet and cable television, (3) too many nuclear families have disintegrated, (4) we have limited community functions, (5) an emphasis on materialism has replaced too many of our values and priorities, and (6) association with values-based and religious organizations has declined in many parts of the nation.

Such fractionalization leads a significant number to believe that they live in a depersonalized, even in a dehumanized society, even when such fractionalization is by their own choices.

But nature abhors a vacuum even in social consciousness. So we have seen the artificial heightening of the influence of mass media and mass entertainment organizations among some areas of the public. It does not matter that such mass media does not influence all of America, as it merely needs to continue to fuel the anger and contempt of a segment of America to widen the fractionalization of American society.

In a nation where there is increasingly less "community," such "community" is found in circles of mass media and entertainment that reinforces negative societal beliefs including the perception of a dystopia in America - the opposite of a utopia. A dystopian society, the opposite of a utopian society, has been defined as "one in which the conditions of life are miserable, characterized by human misery, poverty, oppression, violence, disease, and/or pollution."

Such fractionalization, polar political division, and eight years of massive discontent with the Bush administration among half of the society, are factors in such dystopian illusions. Furthermore, homeland security measures have led a part of the national population to perceive that they face a nation with widespread oppression, regardless of the fallacy of such perceptions.

Such a belief in a virtual reality of America as a dystopia is supported by this breakdown in real community functions and the replacement of such communities with the promotion of the toxic ideologies of nihilism and anarchism in our society by media and academia. Fueled by pro-nihilist, pro-anarchist elements in the mass media and academia, such discontented individuals are frequently reinforced in their perceptions that America is a dystopia and that homeland security measures designed to protect them are a form of "fascist oppression."


Mass Media Giants' Promoting the Anti-Value Ideologies of Nihilism and Anarchism to Youth

While the cacophony of blatantly anti-American movies that have been failing at the box office, some media giants have chosen a more nuanced approach to promoting anti-American political ideologies in films and other media. Some media are now turning to the economic crisis as a new way to blame America for the worlds ill's. Other media have turned to under-the-radar promotion of fantasy tales to our youth, with a uniquely toxic and anti-American spin to them.

Time/Warner, Inc.'s Warner Brothers ($11 billion in 2007 revenues) has focused its business in a niche market with television, books, and films targeting teenagers -- our impressionable youth.

What is disturbing is the political messages and ideologies that Warner Brothers is increasingly promoting to this youth market -- especially in the case of stories promoting nihilism and anarchism. Incredibly, promotion of nihilism and anarchism is not viewed as socially unacceptable by the Warner Brothers' management in promoting fantasy stories and products to our children.

In 2006, Warner Brothers sought to promote British author Alan Moore's series of DC Comics graphic novels "V for Vendetta." Moore's "V for Vendetta" series glamorizes anarchist terrorists in a future United Kingdom that has become fascist. The "hero" of Moore's novels is an anarchist terrorist "V." The terrorist "hero" is responsible for stabbings, murders, and leads terrorist bombings around London, including the destruction of Parliament and Downing Street. Warner Brothers decided to elevate Moore's political propaganda novels into a mass media film in March 2006, which ends by using the London Underground subway system to create a train bomb to destroy the United Kingdom government. The film slurs Christianity with Nazism, creating a conservative Christian as a fascist leader and showing a fascist symbol as a cross. The Warner Brothers-produced novels and film targeted an impressionable teenage audience with this messages promoting anarchism, attacking Christianity, and glamorizing terrorism, ignoring a real and continuing threat of anarchist terrorism in the world. By using a fantasy story to promote such a political ideology, Warner Brothers has been largely shielded from any significant criticism on this.

In 2008, Warner Brothers once again reached out to a British inspiration for fiction, this time taking an iconic American heroic character "The Batman," and leveraging that character's long history of positive messages with our youth to promote a film about moral ambiguity with a major character that glamorizes nihilism. In the vision of British director Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight," the message sent to our youth is that there is just a thin line between good and evil. "The Dark Knight" portrays its antagonist, "the Joker," not as a multilayered or a camp character, but as a psychopathic nihilist that advocates anarchy, stating "I am an agent of chaos," and who wants to see "the world burn." This stabbing, bombing, psychopathic character becomes the central character of the Warner Brothers film, which was merely rated PG-13, and is virtually glamorized in the film and the subsequent mass-merchandising campaign. Shouldn't it be disturbing to parents to see a psychopathic character glamorized by a mass-merchandising campaign of posters, t-shirts, masks, costumes, "action figures"? Did parents line up to by their children "action figures" of this knife-wielding psychopathic character? Our children, our youth deserve better attention than this. This film, glamorizing a psychopathic nihilist, has received numerous Academy Award nominations.

A grim postscript to this was reported in Belgium on January 23, 2009, where a young man (Kim De Gelder) reportedly with makeup and a wig to resemble "The Dark Knight's" character the Joker broke into a nursery and repeatedly stabbed helpless babies, killing two and maiming several. Thousands marched in Belgium in protest of this atrocity on Sunday, January 25, 2009.

In March 2009, Warner Brothers will have yet another British-based film offering that attacks the very concept of heroism, attacks America, and promotes nihilism. Warner Brothers has published a series of graphic novels from British author Alan Moore entitled "The Watchmen," portraying a story with a "hero" that chooses to launch a terrorist attack on New York City killing millions of innocent people. As one reviewer has stated about "The Watchmen" series, "[i]n short, the underlying worldview present through much of Watchmen is that of nihilism or what I refer to as the hopeless worldview. Nihilism sees life and existence as meaningless and undirected." As another states about "The Watchmen" series, "it's philosophy of nihilism and anarchy was its underlying message... This all reflects the author's ideology of anarchy and nihilism." Warner Brothers plans to release the film version of this story on March 6, 2009.

The use of fantasy and fiction as a vehicle to promote hatred, bigotry, terrorism, nihilism, and anarchism is not a sufficient basis to be excused from social responsibility.

Those who have continued to fight Neo-Nazism in America are well-aware of the Nazi National Alliance's William Pierce's use of this tactic of spreading Nazi political propaganda via the fictional book "The Turner Diaries." It was this same "Turner Diaries" fiction that helped inspire Timothy McVeigh to launch his terrorist attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. "The Turner Diaries" were "just fiction" too.

A global multinational corporation with the ability to reach mass audiences must be held to a higher standard of social responsibility by the American public. So far, however, Warner Brothers has continued to use its vast resources as a subsidiary of Time/Warner, Inc. to publish media and books that glamorize terrorism, anarchism, and nihilism. Warner Brothers may view such glamorization as being "hip," but in reality their efforts to promotion such toxic messages are degrading and demeaning to a civilized society.

Warner Brothers' messages of anger and moral ambiguity may find resonance with a teenage audience, but by promoting the ideologies of anarchism and nihilism, they offer only a bottomless pit of despair, hopelessness, and rage to impressionable youth.



The Assassination of the Soul

Nihilism is not a belief structure - it is an anti-belief structure. Nihilism does not believe in anything, or respect any value in humanity.

Nihilism is nothing less than an assassination of the soul, of human worth, and of human hope.

An anti-life, anti-value ideology such as nihilism that views that humanity has no value, no purpose, no meaning is suicidal to a civilized society. We don't have to agree on what humanity's value, meaning, or purpose is, to recognize that those who promote nihilism are wrong.

The promoters of nihilism view it as the ultimate "secularism," claiming that -- by believing that humanity has no value, no meaning, no purpose -- it equally rejects all religions and all value systems.  But what nihilism truly does is reject all hope in the purpose and the value of humanity itself.

Nihilism serves as the mirror image of brutal Islamic supremacism. While Islamic supremacists feel empowered to do anything or kill anyone for their perceived supernatural cause regardless of logic, reason, or decency, nihilists feel empowered to do anything -- or in the example of the Warner Brother's "Joker" nihilist character - kill anyone -- simply because of the absence of all morality and conventions. Both Islamic supremacism and nihilism provide an endless excuse for brutality and crimes against humanity. Both ideologies represent an anti-life evil to human society. Both are driven by an absolute hatred of and contempt towards humanity itself.

Similarly, anarchism is not a political ideology, but it is an anti-political ideology. Anarchism does not respect organized government; the goals of anarchism's "political movement" are merely to undermine, destroy, and crush organized political movements and government. It seeks to destroy, not build. Therefore, it is not surprising when anarchist movements seek violence as a form of political expression, promote bombings as their idea of art, and disruption of the free press, political parties, and governments as its form of expression.

When such toxic ideologies are promoted by a multibillion dollar, multinational media corporation based in America, we must not ignore the impact of this on our cause to defend equality and liberty. We must speak out against this and hold such corporations accountable for their actions.



Why We Must Challenge Anti-Life, Anti-Value, Anti-Social Ideologies

In working to defend equality and liberty from the threat of Islamic supremacism, we cannot ignore the efforts by those to spread defeatism, hopelessness, and anti-social values among our public. We cannot merely appeal to the conscience and attention of the public to fight Islamic supremacism and ignore that organizations like Time/Warner, Inc.'s Warner Brothers are attacking the soul and future of the free world.

Just as we would seek to protect our youth from Islamic supremacist propaganda, we must also be responsible in protecting our youth from nihilist and anarchist propaganda.

Warner Brothers is aware of the complaints about such violent films with negative, anti-social messages. They simply don't care about such complaints. But the American public doesn't have to accept Warner Brothers' social irresponsibility. Our family security matters. Our youth are our responsibility. Our public deserves better than this.

First, we must have social accountability for Warner Brothers in their publications and films where they glamorize terrorists and psychopaths. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has a ratings system for films. The MPAA rating of NC-17 is for those films that "most parents would consider patently too adult for their children 17 and under" to view. We must call upon the MPAA to demand that all films that glamorize terrorists and psychopaths have an NC-17 rating to protect our children. We must also ask the MPAA to revisit their anticipated R rating for Warner Brothers "The Watchmen" film, in lieu of this need to protect our children, and issue it with an NC-17 rating when it is released on March 6, 2009.

Second, we must ask the management of Time/Warner, Inc. why it has abrogated its social responsibility to America's youth in allowing the mismanagement by its subsidiary Warner Brothers. We should write Mr. Jeffrey Bewkes at Time/Warner, Inc. and demand that he take action on Warner Brothers' mismanagement and that he call for an end to Warner Brothers' promotion of pro-terrorist, nihilist, and anarchist messages to our youth.

Third, we must ask our Congress if it values the future of America's youth enough to protect it from such foreign-based propaganda promoted by Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers' CEO Barry Meyer was a significant donor to the Democratic Congressional campaign committee. Regardless, we must demand that our elected congressional representatives investigate Warner Brothers' activities in its media and films in glamorizing terrorist activity, promoting nihilism, and promoting anarchism to our youth.

America's youth are our future. They deserve a future of hope, of respect in humanity, and of respect for a civilized society and government. We must confront the propaganda peddlers of hopelessness, of contempt, and of hate for humanity and tell them enough is enough.

Fear No Evil.

[Postscript - see also Sources documents for additional reading and background information.]