The gulf between Hollywood hypocrites and the oil spill

In case anyone is questioning it, celebrities are terribly concerned about the Gulf of Mexico. Actor Sean Penn has said he "cares about New Orleans." Actor Brad Pitt has spent days in the region assisting with relief efforts. And Jamie Foxx has raised more than half a million dollars to help those living in the area put their lives back together.

Oh, wait: That was in 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - when George W. Bush was President.

Back then we saw A-listers come out in droves to shout about the man in charge, draw attention to the need for assistance and help marshal resources in the relief effort.

Angelina Jolie, who has often mentioned her love of New Orleans in interviews, sent letters to members of Congress and the White House. Penn visited the wreckage on a tugboat, with a shotgun (photographer in tow). John Travolta personally flew supplies to the area on his private jet, while dozens of more famous faces donated to and participated in a nationally aired telethon.

Now that the gulf faces a crisis that's poised to be potentially worse down the road for the region, Hollywood celebrities are not only absent from the area - they are practically silent. Unlike after the earthquake in Haiti in January, there hasn't been an overwhelming response of donations, large-scale fund-raisers, contribution-driven Web sites and hotlines or public service announcements encouraging Americans to do all they can to help out the fishermen or the oil-drenched ducks.

Not because celebrities don't want the media attention, but because their guy, Barack Obama, is in the middle of the mess.

On Sunday, at the MTV Movie Awards, which are famous for their red-carpet political talk, you never would have known that the country was being hit by arguably the largest environmental disaster in its history - because any mention would have reminded viewers that the horror movie is still happening and Obama is still playing the role of supporting actor.

At a benefit concert in 2005, Kanye West proclaimed that Bush doesn't care about black people.

If that logic is correct, I guess Obama doesn't care about pelicans. Or fishermen.

It doesn't take much to stretch your mind to imagine the scene if this disaster were happening under Bush's watch. We'd see a concerned George Clooney, standing arms akimbo, surveying the damage, giving thoughtful nods (with a beard, of course, because he's on an expedition) and talking about how we need to move away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible. In the background, we'd see Alicia Silverstone scrubbing off ducks with Dawn, reminding us all about the inseparability between animals and the environment on a federal level.

Because it's not Bush, we hear bupkis. (For the record, I called the offices of celebrities. Penn has no plans to visit the gulf this time around; Jolie's and Clooney's offices didn't return my calls.)

A handful of notables have stepped up, but they have done so with little fanfare. Lenny Kravitz and Mos Def held a small-scale benefit concert in May, and Pamela Anderson said she is "working with" the International Bird Rescue Research Center. But as Hollywood political activists go, these are C-listers - and they are hardly trying.

Remember how quick Tinseltown was to blast Bush for his response? The stars said nothing about the current President's lag time on the leak. And it's not as though the public isn't concerned about the White House's reaction; 69% of those surveyed in an ABC News-Washington Post poll conducted June 3-6 rated the federal response to the Deepwater Horizon spill negatively - a higher percentage than faulted the response in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Never mind that; the bigwigs in Tinseltown have their buddy Obama's back. They funneled millions to his presidential campaign and have a vested interest in having him at the White House. How else are they going to get tickets to the annual Correspondents' Dinner?

The back scratching is mutual. Obama - who hasn't talked with BP CEO Tony Hayward - has reached out to "Avatar" director James Cameron. And not long after, one of the only celebrities to even mention the catastrophe, Spike Lee, encouraged Obama to "go off" - and the President listened. The next day, the always-cool Obama told Larry King he was "furious," and days later he exclaimed that he was looking for asses to kick.

I don't expect celebrities to have the answer on how to plug the hole, but they have tremendous access to mass communication channels, a surplus of passion and the ability to sound the alarm and raise money for relief efforts. Nauseatingly, they use their talents selectively based on political convenience, proving once more that the role they play best is hypocrite.

Liberal hayday was back in 1960s, and the current crop desparately wanted a cause as “noble” as they had back then. United Colors of Beneton, I want to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony type stuff.

Bush made some decisive foriegn policy decisions in the early 2000s and had the conviction to see them through.

Similar to the current, I eat meat from a supermarket, but don’t like to think that there’s an industry slaughtering animals to provide this type thought, they have the same uber-sheltered mentality when it comes to humankind’s lowest common denominator types, and how power and human weakness works when it comes to violence as a political tool, both for and against us.

The poor fools are completely out of touch with how the natural world and the world of man works and would just as soon betray the efforts our nation rather than own up to reality. Humankind is never going to overcome it’s darkest elements, it can only recognize and confront them with a clear perception.

The real world is a hard and dangerous place, with pockets of relative stability. They’ve allowed the privledge and success bought by earlier generations to completely skew their perceptions and responsiblities that would attempt to maintain this.

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