Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals
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The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA) was an organization of politically conservative movie workers who wanted to defend the movie industry against Communist infiltration.
The group was formed in 1944 and served as a body of supporters within the film industry that were willing to testify publicly against supposed Communists in front of HUAC. Famous members of the MPA include John Wayne, who served as president of the organization, co-founders Walt Disney, Leo McCarey, Sam Wood, and prominent actors Gary Cooper and Ronald Reagan.
[edit] Ayn Rand participation
Ayn Rand wrote a pamphlet for the Alliance, entitled Screen Guide for Americans, where she wrote:
- The purpose of the Communists in Hollywood is not the production of political movies openly advocating Communism. Their purpose is to corrupt our moral premises by corrupting non-political movies--by introducing small, casual bits of propaganda into innocent stories- thus making people absorb the basic principles of Collectivism by indirection and implication.
- The principle of free speech requires that we do not use police force to forbid the Communists the expression of their ideas--which means that we do not pass laws forbidding them to speak. But the principle of free speech does not require that we furnish the Communists with the means to preach their ideas, and does not imply that we owe them jobs and support to advocate our own destruction at our own expense.
Texts taken from The Passion of Ayn Rand by Barbara Branden, page 199.
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