The war and the Hollywood left

The response of the left’s Hollywood pack to Bush’s war on terrorism and his preparations for war against Saddam stirred me into reflecting on the disgusting treatment they handed out to Elia Kazan. Kazan had committed the unforgivable sin of revealing the names of Hollywood Stalinists, people who had worked to introduce the wonderful benefits of the Gulag to the American public.

I do not know a single person who has not heard of Senator McCarthy and the Hollywood blacklist, even though he had nothing to do with it. The mere mention of McCarthy’s name at any one of Hollywood’s progressive parties is sufficient to cause mass vomiting, though not the names of Stalin or Castro.

But mention the little matter of the Hollywood left-wing blacklist — the one the American mainstream media suppressed — and you will be met with disbelieving stares. Those who were on this list were anti-communists who suffered for their beliefs because they had the courage to identify Stalinist toadies. Morrie Ryskind was one such person. He was an award-winning film writer until he told a congressional committee the truth about Stalinists in the film industry. Suddenly he was unemployable.

The situation is not much different now. Not in the sense that an actual blacklist exists but through peer group pressure and the fear that if one’s Republican (fascist in Hollywood) sympathies were made known one’s career prospects would quickly come to a halt. Of course, the situation may not be anywhere as bad as this, though the film critic John McDonough has stated otherwise. Nevertheless, an atmosphere of fear and intimidation exists.

Even well-established stars fear to publicly express patriotic or — even worse — pro-Bush sentiments. The pressure to conform to Hollywood’s leftwing groupthink, epitomized by that self-appointed political commissar Barbra Streisand, is immense and menacing and is transformed, as if on cue, quickly into groupspeak.

And who are the enforcers? Displaced personalities totally disconnected from economic and political reality: people for whom politics is nothing more than a politically correct script, a substitute for thinking. For these people there are only two types of Republicans: stupid ones and evil ones.

But why would so many Hollywood luminaries permit this situation to develop? Their attitude to the American Communist Party (CPUSA) certainly helps explain their behavior. The left assiduously cultivated the myth that the CPUSA was never a threat in anyway to the US and that all those associated with it were honest people motivated only by idealism and a love of freedom.

It follows from this that it is absurd and slanderous to suggest that communists and fellow travelers would use their positions in Hollywood to promote communism. But the collapse of the Soviet empire and the subsequent opening of some the KGB’s archives has revealed the real story, the one the Left and the mainstream media has ignored. The evidence is indisputable: the CPUSA was fully controlled and financed by the Soviets. It was nothing more than a sycophantic branch of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union).

One might say that that is all history, water under the bridge and all that. And it is certainly the kind of thing Billy Crystal or Richard Dreyfus, both of whom defended those Hollywood activists who happily took their marching orders from Stalin, with Dreyfus going so far as to even libel Kazan, might say.

But anyone who thinks in terms of bygones are bygones has no idea of the Left’s capacity for hatred and revenge, especially the Hollywood Left and its fellow traveling media allies. (Incidentally, several years ago two young left-wing writers on the Sony Studio Lot got Robert Montgomery’s name taken off a building because he had been a “friendly witness” to HUAC. It was an act of political vindictiveness that neither Dreyfus nor Crystal publicly objected to).

This was made sickeningly clear when the Hollywood Left blocked the distinguished director Elia Kazan’s nomination by colleagues for the lifetime achievement award given each year by the American Film Institute and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Kazan who had directed such masterpieces as On the Waterfront, East of Eden and A Streetcar Named Desire and who had won two Oscars as a director was ignored in favor of the left-wing Norman Corman who won lasting fame for The Monster from the Ocean Floor, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, Swamp Women and other cinematic classics.

Kazan’s crime was to have truthfully told the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1952 that he and eight of his friends had been members of the communist party, from which he had resigned in disgust. Some of these men later admitted that Kazan had told the truth. Nevertheless, Kazan and not the Stalinists was turned into a political leper, demonstrating just where the sympathies of Hollywood’s politically correct really lie.

So heavy was the stench of hypocrisy that even The New York Times felt impelled to comment adversely on Hollywood’s vindictiveness. Now the same leftists are attacking Bush. Why aren’t I surprised?

Although I have taken a broad bush to Hollywood I should make it clear that not all Hollywood leftists harbored bitter feelings toward Kazan. I noticed that when Kazan finally received his lifetime achievement award Warren Beatty enthusiastically applauded him. Edd Harris and Nick Nolte's response consisted of folded arms and venomous stares. Some how there was a certain sadness there, not that they would understand my meaning.

As for the shabby way Kazan was treated on that Oscar night, Warren Beatty was one of the very few actors/Hollywoodistas who showed class and gave him a standing O.

We never watch the Oscars, so I may be wrong, but I heard that Robert DeNiro and another actor escorted Kazan to the podium when he received his Oscar.

I never get enough of posts like this about the Hollywood/Soviet alliance. Most people because of the power of the media left have no idea what the real story was, and is.

I think though there is a big difference between the twentieth century commies, and this bunch today. Not to excuse the old lefties, but they were useful idiots, and true believers in their cause. This crop are nothing but air headed posers who said nothing when Bubba made any moves. They are overwhelming driven today by a hatred for the Republican Party, and what they think it stands for. It’s almost like they think if they support the war old people will have to eat dog food, Roe v Wade will be overturned, and Jim Crow laws will be the order of the day.

I am a movie hound and have been an avid customer of movie theatres and video stores. Until now. As much as I love movies (and there are some fantastic films out there) I don't think I can give any more money to these outrageous Hollywood children who think their uninformed and liberally biased opinions matter. For me it began with Julia Roberts' rant about where to find Republicans in the dictionary. I've had enough.

Time to boycott the movies and make a point to see only those actors who actually think for themselves and don't say inanely stupid things, and to stay away from all other film endeavors. (Ed Harris; Madonna; George Clooney - keep your mouths shut!). Time to disenfranchise those who have too much money, are too powerful, and lack intelligence, character, and moral clarity!

These types of people think that under that type of regime, the leaders would see things just as THEY do and they would be the priveledged (like under the Klinton administration) while all the bad, bad Republicans would be given THEIRS!

Hollywood's infestation with commies is truly one of the great undereported phenomena of the cold war. I wonder why it is so undereported... could it be that the news media is infested as well. Well at least it should be a subject of historical significance... oh wait the schools have been likewise infested.

But back to Hollywood. To give you an idea of how widespread, and subtle the commie influence still is in hollywood. I was watching "Coming to America" last night on tv and the wedding scene came on. The song played at the wedding struck me as somehow familiar. I couldn't place it but as I listened further I remembered the scene in "Hunt for Red October" when the commies were singing the Soviet national anthem... It was the same song.

History will marvel that these people were not tried and hung as traitors.

The only reason Hollywood turned on Kazan is because he was no longer useful to them. If he was still turning out those film classics, they would have been lined up to kiss his a** on Oscar night.

I recommend people read Eric Bentley's compendium of HUAC testimony, a book called "Treason." It includes Kazan's testimony. He was deeply concerned about the infiltration of Stalinist propaganda coming out of the screen actors' guild.

Let's organize something instead just talking among ourselves. Let's get a list of Hollywood anit-war actors and actresses, make it public, and let Hollywood know that the patriots of this country will not go see any movies that have those actors and actresses in it.

We need to hit them where it hurts: Their pocket books.

We conservatives don't have time to participate in demonstrations because we are busy working to help the economy, but collectively we have most of the buying power of this country. Let's use it as our weapon.

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