Hello all,
A small request for help here is anyone is web-savvy. Looking at the list of supporters from various sites, T-Mobile, USA comes up as an advertiser of Sunday’s event.
As most of you know, I reside in Germany and am an active member of Die Linke/Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus (PDS) as my political party. So that’s my disclaimer, I’ve always said that I am a socialist.
Nevertheless, I’ve read disturbing news, without evidence, that T-Mobile USA is supporting advertising for the upcoming or perhaps cancelled “Path to 9/11”.
Whether it is cancelled or not is irrevelent. What matters to me, is if T-Mobile actually supported this piece of propaganda in the first place.
T-Mobile is a part of T-Mobile/Deutsche Telekom Germany. Now think about it: a German firm with a connection to it’s American counter-part supporting, through advertising, a propaganda film designed to put the right wing back into power in the United States. Something is wrong here. An international conglomerate affecting US politics?
The scandal here would be so enormous as this is so much like 1933: (Leni Riefenstahl in 1933, she directed the short film Der Sieg des Glaubens (Victory of Faith), an hour-long feature about the Nazi party rally at Nuremberg in 1933 (released on DVD in 2003).
So what I am trying to do, is research and ask help for web-links confirming the T-Mobile transaction. I will then take it to higher-ups in the Party for discussion (we have a voice in Parliament in Berlin). I am having problems finding the links, but this is what I wrote to T-Mobile, USA:
“Dear T-Mobile USA,
It has come to my attention that T-Mobile USA will support advertising for the ABC Docudrama “The Path to 9/11”. I wish to confirm if this is true or not.
Not only am I a T-Mobile customer, but I am also an active member of Die Linke/Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus (PDS) NRW. If it is true that a company associated with T-Mobile, DE is supporting an obvious propaganda film intended to influence US politics, then it is our duty here in Germany, considering the history, to bring this matter into the realm of political discourse. I am sure you understand the sensitivity and complexity of this matter and would not want to make a mountain out of a molehill, therefore an affirmation or denial of advertising support would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much,”
If anyone has any other information, it would be greatly appreciated.
-JD
From what I understand, and there are many front page supporting pieces at dkos, there is NO advertising for this piece. And although ABC claims they are the funding source of this $40 million piece of crap. . .it seems that the funding came in the back door by a right wing religious group associated with the producer (?) and the writer or writers of this BS. As with everything from the Religious right wing wacko’s, and BushCo, nothing is straight forward and you have to research everything to really find out who the players are.
Read the front page offerings at DK and you will learn much.
So T-Mobile is not a direct sponsor of this, as it has no sponsors other than ABC, supposedly. T-Mobile no doubt advertises on ABC so is an indirect sponsor as are all the many others who advertise there.
I read those at Orange as well and I thought I understood ‘no adverts’ but then I saw a list of sponsers and T-Mobile was one of them (thank God not Volkswagen) as sponsors who bought time “ahead of schedule’ but don’t necessarily get credit or airtime during the showing. ‘IF’ that’s the case, we need to know about it (I mean us in the PDS so that we can shuffle this to the biggies who deal in the Bundesrat/parliament). I was confused on this, therefore the plea for help.
JD, the lists of sponsors are lists of those who advertise on ABC, but there are no “This program is brought to you by. . . .” Sponsors. In other words, there is no sponsor or sponsors that are paying ABC to associate them with this broadcast or picking up the tab to air this.
Obviously, I have no idea who’s right, but as of today CNN is reporting that ABC will run this propaganda with “limited commercial interruption”, so there’s a possibility that there are commercial sponsors.
hey how are you?
Hangin’ in there, got the rope marks to prove it. Heh. How you doin’, chocolate ink? Been a while since we ran across each other.
ha..I’m just hangin in there also(as usual health problems are a daily obstacle-for all of us here who are disabled)
I’ve been posting more today than usual….and as always it usually means I’m being extra pill powered but enough of the boring health crap..just nice to see your moniker here ..been wondering about you. Are you still thinking about a publishing business or am I way behind on your aspirations?
I’ve actually spent the whole summer in that really difficult part of chronic illness where I’m starting to internalize not only the extent of my limitations (ie, no publishing biz for me as I just cannot do the work required), but also that this is probably a rest of my life dealio instead of a temporary hardship. It’s been fuckin’ rough. You know.
lol @ “extra pill powered” — whenever I have more than one errand to run, I take more thyroid medication than I probably should. 🙂
I’m really sorry about the publishing deal…that sounded like such a great idea but yeah I do know how it goes. Some days you feel half way good and think you can do stuff normal people do then bang you find out you can’t. I’m winding down for the day-pills wearing off and don’t want to take any more..so I’m getting ready to read a nice mystery to take me away from all this. Great to ‘see’ you. (I take thyroid medication also)
Hi JD…I’m not web savy at all about any kind of internet research but I will see what I can find.
Pretty hard to believe that ABC is footing the bill for this whole thing..networks are out to make money no matter what and that just smells to high heaven that they are being so altruistic-I don’t buy that for a New York minute.
Hi Ink, thanks. This could be a big deal. Not that I believe there is a nefarious effort for supporting propaganda. I believe they just go with advertising their company and don’t care about or are even aware of content until someone complains.
Still, the power of a logo, merely associated with something like this, well like an old manager of mine used to say:
“Perception is reality”
Hi JD.
I don’t know if t-mobile is a direct sponsor of PT911. I was told by a t-mobile CS rep that t-mobile would be advertising the day of the show. That they were aware of the controversy but considered it a dispute between republicans and dems.
Was looking to see if anyone else had gotten a similar response.
I’m still waiting for a CS answer, but I think from our side it is worth looking into. It really depends on the level of involvement. I don’t believe for a minute that it is a cabal, just regular advertising and they just don’t know what the subject matter is. Still, it could be as little as an embarassment to a huge scandal, depending again, on the level and timing of the advertising.
Hi JD,
WOW! It is wonderful that you might be able to bring this up for open discussion within the German Government. Or, that is what I understand from your comment:
Please correct me if I am misinterpreting your meaning.
The document, I believe you are referring to, is a list of companies that normally advertise daily at the ABC Network. They are not necessarily tied directly to the movie “The Pathway to 9/11”. It is still a good idea to know who they are, as American broadcast companies are funded directly by the HUGE amount of advertising dollars paid by these companies. A front page blogger at the blog, FireDogLake, who uses the pseudonym “Patchtuc”, produced a list that was on several sites. The list is below-I have put the parent company next to the advertising name where I knew it. Patchtuc’s comments are in italics.
Per Patchtuc Copied from Benjamin Lybrand at 09/05/2006 – 5:53pm Here is the list of advertisers:
Lunesta (sepracor) – info@sepracor.com
Healthy Choice (ConAgra)
Bayer
Benefiber (Novartis) – media.relations@novartis.com
Aveeno
Lipitor (Pfizer)
Smart Balance (No direct link: click on “Customer Service”)
Office Depot
Glad Plastics
Aleve
Edward Jones Investing
Hyundai Motors – swpark@hyundai-motor.com
I’ll post more advertisers later as I watch more ABC.
UPDATE: So I just got finished watching The World According To Jim for two hours. My brain feels like mush, but it was worth it because I got a ton of new advertisers to contact. The extended list is below the fold
:
Chevrolet Motors
Quaker Oats
Lipton Tea
Ford Motors
Red Lobster
Kellogs
Papa Johns – Pizza Restaurant
Aflac (Insurance)
Nissan Motors
Best Buy
Wishbone Salad Dressing (Subdivision of Lipton)
Carls Jr.
Lysol
T-Mobile
Land Rover
Verizon
Mazda
Iams
Home Depot
SC Johnson Company – Glade products
Frontline Pet Care – 1-800-660-1842
Burger King – 1-800-522-1278
Please be aware that the name of the product may be part of a subsidiary, or division of the parent company. So if you do not find contact information under the brand name, you may have to google to find the parent company.
Thanks for being such an asset to this site. It really helps to know that our cousins in Germany can take such strong action.
Thanks Grandma M,
That helps and I am still trying to find specifics out. Doesn’t seem to be many answers coming from CS.
Don’t get me wrong. I participate in local politics and support for the Left Party, a new party of old and new leftists (in the European sense), mostly in organization, logistics, etc. Grassroots if you will. The difference is that the Left Party (Die Linke/PDS) is also represented in local and federal parliament and has a voice in the Red/Green coalition. If there is anything to be found I will just turn that information over to folks higher up the food chain than I. I’m still a little ways from attaining citizenship so all I can do is vote in only local elections. But it’s neat that as a legal resident I can still vote, even if I’m limited to local politics.
If there are any links with T-Mobile USA and advertising support, even if T-Mobile USA is a separate company, they still use the company trademark. Their form of “mouse ears” if you will. People over here love Michael Moore, if that gives you any indication of what kind of fire this could spark if true. Especially considering 20th century German history; a corporation supporting a propaganda mouth piece just would not go over well – then add this on top of the secret prison scandel, wow!
But I have to find evidence first, if there is any.