Sean Penn joins protesters outside court martial

Kansas City.com ^ | 02/05/07 | Mike Archbold

[MotleyGirl70]

FORT LEWIS, Wash. - Sean Penn hunched alone over his coffee Monday in a Starbucks shop, a stone's throw from the DuPont overpass where supporters of Lt. Ehren Watada held their signs aloft and a much smaller number of foes counter-protested.

The actor had been out there with the Iraq war protesters in the chilly fog, which dampened the air but not their spirits.

Watada was inside Fort Lewis, his first day in a military courtroom for a court martial that will decide his fate for refusing to go to Iraq and for talking publicly about his reasons.

Penn was about to leave for the airport and return to the San Francisco area, where he's filming a movie. He said he knows what the outcome of the trial will be.

"He'll be convicted and go to jail," he said in a quiet voice. "I think he knows that."

Penn, famous for his work in films such as "Mystic River" and "Dead Man Walking," called Monday's rally great theater with all the elements: large banners praising Watada's courage, anti-war songs, speeches and larger than life-size puppets of President Bush and top administration officials.

At least 400 people converged on the Interstate 5 overpass and at nearby Iafrati Park, where most of the demonstrators gathered to listen to speeches from a makeshift stage. The size of the rally grew all day and protesters planned to stay until nightfall.

Anti-Watada groups were there, too. They were far outnumbered but mingled easily.

Jeff Brigham, a 20-year Army veteran from Tumwater, Wash., held his "Jail Weasel Watada" sign high.

Erica Stephen, whose husband spent a year in Iraq and is stationed at Fort Lewis, carried a sign calling Watada a traitor. She waved it at a soldier in uniform driving toward the Army post, and he smiled at her.

"He signed up and he can't pick where to go," Stephen said of Watada. "Every soldier I know is against him."

Penn said he was impressed by the turnout.

"But I'm not that surprised really when I see the 400,000 to 500,0000 people in Washington, D.C., last week (for the national anti-war rally.) So I think there is a wave beginning."

He said he came to the area because he's opposed the Iraq war since the beginning and because the Watada family invited him.

Watada supporters included numerous Veterans for Peace chapters from Washington and Oregon and other anti-violence and anti-war groups.

One of the speakers, Darrell Anderson, a former Army specialist now living in Georgia, told how he had gone AWOL to Canada in 2005 while on leave from Iraq. He said he spent 18 months in Canada and then returned to the military to settle up last October.

"They let me go," he said. "I had a Purple Heart and I told them I witnessed war crimes." His punishment, he said, was a less than an honorable discharge. He has been protesting the war and supporting disaffected soldiers across the country ever since.

"He's going to jail," Anderson said of Watada. "This is a day of mourning. He's going to jail for doing what's right."

[Tzimisce]

...he didn't punch out reporters taking his picture?

Gee I wonder why...

[san juan]

"Penn, famous for his work in films such as "Mystic River" and "Dead Man Walking," called Monday's rally great theater with all the elements: large banners praising Watada's courage, anti-war songs, speeches and larger than life-size puppets of President Bush and top administration officials."

Typical actor's reaction. Everything in life is seen as a movie. Penn is an actor, for God's sake; a mere puppet. He's never had a thought that was written down and handed to him to memorize. He's a community college dropout who majored in auto mechanics but he thinks ...no, he FEELS he's wiser than the President and all of his advisors. We should never forget that historically in theatre, "actors" were also called "fools".

[TFFKAMM]

This is the first time I've ever revealed this on FR:

I went to school with Sean Penn and graduated with him (Santa Monica H.S., Class of '78). In many ways, he was very much like the Jeff Spicoli character, albeit with an inner core of bile and meanness that the goofy stoner-surfer lacked. Even when he was a teenager, Sean was a self-righteous, spotlight-hogging, short-tempered, egomaniacal bully. Nothing he has done in the last 29 years from his legal scrapes, to his violent antics, to his absurd political posturing, has suprised me one bit.

I saw him up close very early in the game, and knew that he was headed for both public prominence and notoriety. Being a celebrity and a blowhard, he's a sucker for causes like this, where he can have his ego stroked by political groupies, and cloak his own hatefulness in righteous rhetoric.

A talented actor, but IMHO, a pathologically angry human being.

[san juan]

"Penn, famous for his work in films such as "Mystic River" and "Dead Man Walking," called Monday's rally great theater with all the elements: large banners praising Watada's courage, anti-war songs, speeches and larger than life-size puppets of President Bush and top administration officials."


TYPING ERROR: What I meant was:
Typical actor's reaction. Everything in life is seen as a movie. Penn is an actor, for God's sake; a mere puppet. He's never had a thought that was NOT written down and handed to him to memorize. He's a community college dropout who majored in auto mechanics but he thinks ...no, he FEELS he's wiser than the President and all of his advisors. We should never forget that historically in theatre, "actors" were also called "fools".

[san juan]

Thanks for your post. It certainly proves my view of actors.

[Sax]

I can take your impression at face value, I've got no reason not to. And, I don't doubt it either. I can say there are other types there on the left coast that grandstand without putting their own feet on the ground amongst the plebes which I despise to a much higher degree than this one. Perhaps that's all that I'm saying here.

If the arguement here is whether Penn's a bum, he is. Arguement over.

[TFFKAMM]

You're welcome.

BTW, that wasn't my only contact with movie actors before they became famous. I once sold beer to an underaged Daphne Zuniga when I was running the under-the-table alcohol franchise at UCLA's infamous Co-op Housing Association, and she was a mere Theatre Arts major who'd just done a tiny part in a grade-Z stinker called THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD, filmed at the CHA. (Think of a cross between a third-rate dorm and a fourth-rate commune, and add a dash of ANIMAL HOUSE, and that was the Co-op in the glory days of the late 70s and early 80s...)

[TFFKAMM]

Understood. I think Penn is much better at communicating that common-touch image than a lot of actors, but believe me, it's just another role for him.

[Sax]

I have wondered about how career actors approach their personal lives. Where, and if, the acting ever stops, and if they themselves understand where that division is. Hell, the only thing I've got on my homepage is in complete contrast to that (ironically penned by a playwright.)

[blondee123]

So this is what "has been" and "out of work" actors do for fun!!!

[san juan]

This is what actors think 24-7:

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,..."

William Shakespeare - All the world's a stage (from As You Like It 2/7)

[Sax]

Yeah, and without an audience, or the promise of one, where are they then?

[kcvl]

Darrell Anderson

HALIFAX--US Army Specialist Darrell Anderson hated his seven months in Iraq. He hated the people he was fighting against, hated the people he was fighting for. There was hate between soldiers. And hatred against the Iraqi people. Anderson hated facing death every day. Knowing people who died made him hate even more.

"You stub your foot, you're going to hit something. You ruin your life, you're going to kill someone," the stocky 22-year-old Kentucky man told a crowd gathered at Dalhousie University in early March.

HALIFAX--US Army Specialist Darrell Anderson hated his seven months in Iraq. He hated the people he was fighting against, hated the people he was fighting for. There was hate between soldiers. And hatred against the Iraqi people. Anderson hated facing death every day. Knowing people who died made him hate even more. "You stub your foot, you're going to hit something. You ruin your life, you're going to kill someone," the stocky 22-year-old Kentucky man told a crowd gathered at Dalhousie University in early March.

Anderson joined the U.S. Army in January 2003 to get money for college.

"There are no weapons of mass destruction. Innocent people are being killed every day. It's a war about money -- to keep money in rich people's pockets. There is no way I can believe in that. I still believe in my country, but I can no longer be a part of the Army or that war," Anderson said.

[TFFKAMM]

I grew up around a lot of "creative" people -- writers, artists, actors, musicians, etc. As a result, I have a lot of tolerance for their personal oddities and peccadilloes, but very little for their antics in the political field.

Truly, I believe that to really listen to and follow one's Muse, one has to be fairly crazy. The vision and energy required to produce a great performance, a serious piece of art, or a full-length novel requires a certain level of detachment from mundane reality, and a single-minded commitment to creation that can have all sorts of ugly side-effects: alcoholism, drug abuse, sexual perversion, crime, you name it. Look at the life story of any actor, author, artist, musician or (shudder!) dancer you admire, and you'll see the pattern.

The real troubles start, IMHO, when said Creative Person misinterprets their own abilities, and begins to apply this sort of approach to areas outside of the artistic realm. The point about "celebrity activists" like Penn that has been made many times, is that they treat politics as just another role to adopt, or piece to create, and expect the same unquestioning adulation in that field that they're used to getting from fans. It's both comic and tragic to see someone like Barbra Streisand demand that her ignorant political spewings be taken on par with her stunning vocal performances, and then recoil in horror when the rabble have the temerity to talk back. "Shut Up and Sing," indeed...

[LegendHasIt]

Sounds like anderson is just a plain old 'H8ter' Maybe he ought to grow up a little.

And these weasels that just join up for college money would be wise to look for other sources to finance their further education.

[san juan]

Anderson joined the U.S. Army in January 2003 to get money for college.

So another disguntled jerk joined the military to get a free ride to college and then freaked out when he found out it wasn't a free ride after all. Other than that, I don't understand the point of this post.

[Sax]

Your third paragraph here rings especially true, well stated. Babs is up there with the worst in those regards. In fact, I must admit there is a perverse pleasure that I enjoy when it's obvious this realization has begun to set in with those lofty, artistic types.

Everyone's got certain gifts or talents, but when it's all said and done they're just a joe like everyone else.

The tragic thing is that the real gifts to the world often go unnoticed to the majority. We all know them, we all cherish them.

[tina07]

todays stars are playing something, least of all heroes.

[L.N. Smithee]

It's rarely noted that Sean Penn is a classic "red diaper baby," the son of an actor/director on the "Hollywood blacklist."

Many of the allegedly formerly "blacklisted" either are well-known, non-controversial figures in the showbiz community or had their reputations rehabilitated in subsequent years before their deaths. In fact, I dare anyone who is a fan of movies or television to say they haven't admired the work of at least one person on that list. Meanwhile, there are powerful, vengeful vultures ready to pounce on anything churned out by the likes of John Milius or Lionel Chetwynd.

Ain't it funny how things turn around? (That's a rhetorical question.)

[L.N. Smithee]

I once sold beer to an underaged Daphne Zuniga

Even in her 40s, Daphne Zuniga is a hot-hot-hottie and a good actress to boot. She was a scream in Spaceballs. She was wasted in The Fly II and other stuff far beneath her caliber.

However, as you might expect, she's a leftie too. She's tight with that crockpot Robert F. Kennedy Jr. But it seems her main focus as an activist is regarding mercury in fish, having been the victim of mercury poisoning due to a fish-rich diet.