Did you know that in 1967, in order to get Disney World, the Florida legislature made Disneyworld a city by itself—no elected officials, just the Disney Board of Directors—no authority watching over them.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!“Back in 1967 when Disney World was just a gleam in Mickey’s eye and states around the country were vying for Walt Disney’s approval to build his second theme park, the Florida legislature passed the Reedy Creek Improvement Act, which gave the Walt Disney Company a special carve-out, making it a self-governing enclave.
The Act gave Disney “the ability, the power to build a nuclear power plant, an airport manufacturer, distill and distribute alcoholic beverages and lots of other things,” said Dr. Richard Foglesong, author of Married to the Mouse in an interview with a Florida TV station last year.
Disney has since become an extraordinarily powerful media conglomerate and is now using that power to advance an agenda at odds with the beliefs and values of a large percentage of its customer base. So many Florida Republicans, sick and tired of Disney’s nauseating virtue signaling, want to strip Disney of its special status, making the company subject to reasonable oversight from Orange County.
Disney, by being an enclave, saves itself taxes, regulations and the need to follow the law! Time to end this special privilege. What do you think?
WAR! DeSantis Suggests Ending Disney’s Special Self-Governing Status
BY RICK MORAN, PJ Media, 4/1/22
Back in 1967 when Disney World was just a gleam in Mickey’s eye and states around the country were vying for Walt Disney’s approval to build his second theme park, the Florida legislature passed the Reedy Creek Improvement Act, which gave the Walt Disney Company a special carve-out, making it a self-governing enclave.
The Act gave Disney “the ability, the power to build a nuclear power plant, an airport manufacturer, distill and distribute alcoholic beverages and lots of other things,” said Dr. Richard Foglesong, author of Married to the Mouse in an interview with a Florida TV station last year.
Disney has since become an extraordinarily powerful media conglomerate and is now using that power to advance an agenda at odds with the beliefs and values of a large percentage of its customer base. So many Florida Republicans, sick and tired of Disney’s nauseating virtue signaling, want to strip Disney of its special status, making the company subject to reasonable oversight from Orange County.
Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor and potential GOP candidate for president in 2024, hasn’t yet given the plan his full endorsement, but he’s sending a clear message to Disney to stick to making kids smile and entertaining families—and stay the hell out of politics.
DeSantis continued, “I think what has happened is there’s a lot of these special privileges that are not justifiable, but because Disney had held so much sway, they were able to sustain a lot of special treatment over the years.”
DeSantis said that Disney has “lost a lot of the pull that they used to have” over the company’s reaction to the parental rights law and said he thinks that’s a “good thing for our state because the state should be governed by the best interest of the people.”
“I would say any special privileges that are in law I would like to get rid of generally,” DeSantis added. “I think in this particular case with Disney, I just don’t think you have very many people in the legislature anymore who are going to be able to defend a lot of what has been done over many years to really have them almost govern themselves in some of these things. That was probably never appropriate to start, but is certainly not appropriate now at this point.”
There’s a reason that DeSantis is tiptoeing around the issue of Disney self-governance: The Walt Disney Company is the largest GOP donor in the state of Florida. For that reason and others, the author of Married to the Mouse thinks the threat by Republicans to revoke Disney’s self-governing status is political “March Madness.”
“If you ask me whether it’s politically possible to take these privileges away from the Disney company, I don’t think so,” Foglesong said. “I think that cooler minds will prevail and that this is really a shot across the bow to try to bring the Disney company, Mickey Mouse if you will, into line with Governor DeSantis. I thought it was more of March Madness of the political kind, the thought that the Republican Party, which used to be the party of business, would want to take on of their biggest donors.”
Even the threat of revoking their self-governing status has to be giving Walt Disney Company board members a case of the willies. But at least the company has been put on notice that there are limits to DeSantis’s patience with their woke advocacy, and if they’re not careful, Disney customers and fans are going to be taking their business elsewhere.
About Stephen Frank
Did a Mouse just build a better trap? “Indoctrinate,” brainwash, coerce, gaslight, teach, and feed the hearts and minds of children at a very young age, make it look “Fun” and exciting. Advertisements on TV are doing the same to kids and adults. Have you not noticed suddenly on TV, all the multi-race families and Gay commercials? Carry this diversity theme through their college years to destroy any culture of a nation. Brainwashing children is easier than adults and takes less time. By the time they are in their mid twenty’s, or sooner; you own them. The Schools and Colleges have been doing this for years to your children. This is why we are where we are in this country. Socialism, moral break down, cultural collapse, on so many levels. You can take down a country without firing a shot…by buying off its leaders and teachers unions. Throw in a manmade Pandemic, and you speed up the process with fear and intimidation.
Oh how I wish California was once again a red state.
Remove their special status immediately. The insulated bosses at Disney need to join the real world. I bet none have read the bill they object to and most send their children to private schools to be truly educated not indoctrinated. (They might be surprised, however, as they probably don’t read the or check what is being taught there either)
I never knew about Disney’s self-governing status until today.
I can see why it was established – to avoid exactly what’s going to rain down on their heads if they continue their woke war with Florida. Nothing like facing a passel of state, county and city bureaucrats when you need to get anything done. And the corporation is California-based! Double trouble.
By the way, two neighbors just told us they were never taking their big families to Disneyland again. Both always buy expensive passes; one guy and his wife are former Disney employees from years ago. (I can’t join their boycott since I have not been there for over forty years and the last movies I saw were the Toy Story originals. I always even as a kid thought the Disney comics/books/movies prettified original tales like Snow White.)
But I do like to see more eyes opening to what gender-confused “activists” are doing to the country.
Orlando is a city. Is Disney World in Orlando? What the bee jibbers is going on down there?
I taught all nine of my grandkids all about what this woke stuff means. I taught them to conquer it through their study of history so they will not be fooled by American Marxism.
When a topic comes up about a woke issue, I ask them how will you know what the truth is? They replied, “Ask Papa”. They are a lot smarter than they look.