Posted on 02/05/2007 7:57:54 PM PST by 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."
did anyone hear this dumbass uneducated moron speak about this on Fox News?
his grammer was that of an idiot
You wrote, "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."
I hear you, believe me. I work in the arts and guess I'm the token conservative in an otherwise far-left-liberal milieu. It's fun being me, though. My peers always assume everyone within earshot believes as they do. The expressions on their faces when I declare my support for the war, love of free enterprise, hatred of socialism, and admiration for the President?
Priceless.
ARRRRGH! You've just pushed my pet peeve button!
Ahem...when criticizing someone's G-R-A-M-M-A-R, check your S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G!
Are Sean Penn's acting prospects this bad that the only way he can get any face time on the telly is by showing up at a protest?! I thought winning an Oscar meant something?
I long for the days of Joe McCarthy
sorry my phonetics typing missed ,, this guy can't speak english
ANderson is talking as if someone forced him into the military. He VOLUNTEERED.
What a whiner: I hated the army ( stamps foot), I hated Iraq ( stamps foot).And now I am gonna make you pay ( stamps foot)
What a gurly man. And the press makes icons out of this filth. I would sooner read about the daily acts of heroism in Iraq,perpetrated by our sodiers with wanton abandon.
I have a distant cousin who starred in several television sit-coms and played a major role in "Northern Exposure". My impression of him was that he was a complete professional and that his career literally consumed his life. He was an actor, and he worked at it 24/7. A nice guy, BTW. It carried through and you could see it reflected in his work.
It is equally understandable that if a person is a total @ssclown like Sean Penn, it would carry through in every aspect of his career. Sean Penn is a poster boy for @ssclowns. If there was an association for them, he would be President, or more in line with his ego, chief diety.
They are all living in a pretend world.
Calypso Louie loaned them his abbacus.
He makes grown men want to puke.
For fun, he pretends, he knows what he's talking about.
Penn does make "lofty statements", one where he's full of himself. A guy that can't skipper a motorboat and he attack's other's efforts?
For all his fame, fortune and connections, he could never win George Bush's job, so what makes him think he's qualified to offer job advice for a job for which he doesn't qualify?
Film Actors Guild. If only FAG President Alec Baldwin would get impeached.
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