For many people, Dr. Suess’ “The Lorax” is a timeless children’s classic. Environmental themes aside, the story is a wonderful soliloquy of two people on opposite ends of a discussion refusing to budge until both of them end up with nothing. But leave it to certain people not only to miss the point, but pull stunts like putting it on the banned books list for the “crime” of being an environmentalist's allegory, or creating propaganda such as Truax to counter it (?) on behalf of the poor industrialists. Now that a movie is coming out, it appears that Fox Business Network is picking up where the old campaigns left off - with Lou Dobbs sounding the charge. He put together a panel of three other like-minded pundits on Tuesday (2/21/12) and laughed heartily when one of them suggested "fighting back" by leaving as much litter on the movie theater floor as possible.

In a segment entitled Is Hollywood Indoctrinating Your Children? because you know… Republicans never indoctrinate or exploit children, Dobbs entered with his best rushed voice: “And now an unmentionable that you won’t hear about anywhere in the liberal national media… or really, all the national liberal media... Hollywood is once again trying to indoctrinate our children. Two new films out this year, plainly with an agenda, plainly demonizing the so-called 1% and espousing the virtue of green energy policies… come what may.”

He went on to introduce The Secret World of Arrietty, which is a Japanese re-boot of the 1952 children’s novel “The Borrowers,” and the upcoming Lorax, which was written in 1971. Both books have been around for decades, so… what’s the problem?

“Where have we heard this before? Occupy Wall Street, forever trying to pit the makers against the takers, and President Obama repeating that everyone should pay their fair share in dozens of speeches since his State of the Union address last month.” Dobbs alleged. After playing examples, Dobbs sneered “Wow, fair share. The president’s liberal friends in Hollywood targeting a younger demographic using animated movies to sell their agenda to children.”

Yeah, Lou, because, yet again… the right is soooo above that themselves. I’m having no problem finding these examples. What I am having trouble finding is you calling them on it. Double standard, maybe?

Dobbs then introduced his guests: Steve Cochran, Matt Patrick and Dom Giordano. He started with Cochran, asking how he feels about “this insidious nonsense.” Wow, no bias there…

Cochran replied, “Not so much worried, because I know the people in Hollywood and, frankly, they’re not that bright…” (met with a chuckle) “Too many times… too many times we give up parenting to other people and it’s our job to parent, and it’s our job to course correct if our kids are getting a message we don’t agree with in our own household. So, taking your kid to a movie like that, it’s probably because you want to see that message to begin with. I just don’t think Hollywood’s got that kind of power in the big picture, and I refuse to allow parents off the hook to say they do.”

Giordano agreed, but said parents need a break. “I remember when Nickelodeon starting doing this… The Muppets were at the National Press Club and they had this Muppet that’s happy at school to get, I think it’s three meals a day now. So, I agree with the premise it’s the parents, but give us a break. Give us a safe harbor occasionally.”

Giordano continued, “What we’re doing is we’re creating Occu-Toddlers. Here’s what I would recommend. If you want to go see the movie - and we all know what the agenda is - buy, like, huge tubs of popcorn, ram them in your face, they’re all made of paper… you crinkle it all up you throw it on the floor. You walk out, you spend all kinds of money on stuff, and you leave it on the floor! You know what I’m saying? I mean, you go into the movie theatres and you actually fight back against this message. We don’t need any more Borrowers, we don’t need anymore occu-toddlers, Lou!”

You’d expect Dobbs to object to the idea of trashing a theater over a movie, but he was too busy laughing. Instead, Cochran was the one who spoke up. He said that his first job was in a movie theater and that cleaning theaters “isn’t a whole lot of fun.”

“Have a little bit of fun!” One of the other men called out.

Classy.