Blurring the line between sports, arts and politics

BrooklynDodger saw "Good Night, Good Luck" the other night. Competes with Crash for the best movie of the year.

It brought to the Dodger's mind the thought that despite the crushing right wing dominance of discourse these days, in those days people went to jail, were disbarred and were blacklisted from their professions. There were no media outlets permitting writers to get around the corporate dominance in movies and broadcast. That reversal of fortune happened at a time of apparent progressive strength - New Deal transformation of social welfare, an ongoing wave of industrial union organizing, much of the right discredited for Nazi sympathies, an influx of less than elites into universities, etc. Nevertheless, the Red Menace trumped quite a bit. Maybe the downward trend in progressive influence dates from before the 1968 Nixon election?

Still not to the point, David Straithern and George Clooney in 1950's suits were really on. Clooney is the new Paul Newman-Robert Redford-Warren Beatty. He can do action and he can do politics. Some critics were down on the black and white, but the Dodger thinks it put the filmed action in the same frame as the kinescopes. Tobacco addiction was fully on display.

Now to the point. Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, was listed as a producer. What was Cuban's name before it was Cuban. He made his dough in internet and computer services, and now is invested in movie production and owns Landmark Theaters [where the Dodger saw the film, actually.] As barriers to entry into media and film have been reduced, so has right wing corporate control been reduced from dictation to dominance.

The Dodger now has to add the Mavericks as a rooting interest in basketball, after the Knicks, the Pistons, whomever is playing the Lakers.