Posted on 03/04/2003 7:28:30 AM PST by Happy2BMe
Why does our popular culture seem so consistently hostile to the values that most Americans hold dear? Why does the entertainment industry attack religion, glorify brutality, undermine the family, and deride patriotism?
"I think America has no experience with terrorism or even with war. In Europe, we know a little bit more about these things."
--Peter Gabriel
"Bush is a racist"
--Danny Glover
"I don't see us winning the war. We have made enemies of one billion Muslims."
"As dumb as this administration is, they don't look ahead. They don't know where any countries are...They don't really know much about anything."
"Now you have people [in Washington] who have no interest in the country at all. They're interested in their companies, their corporations grabbing Caspian oil."
-- Gore Vidal
“In my country the atmosphere is poisoned. Unbreathable for those of us who are not on the right. So thank you for inviting me to this festival and allowing me to leave there for a few days.”
-- Jessica Lange
"So when I see the American flag, I go, 'Oh my God, you're insulting me.'"
"'We're here, we're queer!' -- that's what makes my heart swell. Not the flag, but a gay naked man or woman burning the flag. I get choked up with pride."
-- Janeanne Garofalo
"I believe he thinks this [war against Iraq] is a war that can be won, but there is no such thing anymore...We can't beat anyone anymore"
-- George Clooney
"[Bush is a] sad figure: not too well educated, who doesn't get out of America much. He's leading the country towards fascism... he wouldn't understand the word fascism anyway."
--Larry Hagman
"It is inappropriate for the [Bush] administration to trump up a case in which we are ballyhooed into war."
But, a few years earlier:
"...the bottom line is that I think it’s appropriate for the international community in situations like this to intervene [in Kosovo]. I am in favor of an intervention. On some level you have to say that at least somebody [Clinton] is doing something."
-- Mike Farrell
"I think war is based in greed and there are huge karmic retributions that will follow. I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies."
- Sheryl Crow
"I don't really view communism as a bad thing."
- Whoopi Goldberg
"America has never paid any attention to other people"
-- Richard Gere
"I'm saying that the moral climate within the ruling class in this country is not that different from the moral climate within the ruling class of Hitler's Germany."
-- David Clennon
"Colin Powell's committed to come into the house of the master. When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture."
-- Harry Belafonte
"Oh my God"??????? Please. Is she telling me she accepts the "under God" part of the Peldge but not the rest. Hmmmmmmmm. Just a little inconsistant don't ya think. Does she realize that her statement is a prayer to the God she doesn't begin to know. So sad.
Sean Penn
I say that one attributed to Bono originally. I would hold off on any asskicking until it can at least be credited to the correct individual.
Oy! Did she convert to Judaism ?
Ben Affleck, BS Streisand, George Clooney, Rosie O'Ego, Oprah Winfrey, Spike Lee, Klinton, Fred Durst(Limp Biskit), Danny Glover.
Gone are yesterday's patriotic celebrities. Men like Clarke Gable, who walked from the wealth and safety of stardom to earn the pay of an Army Air Corps photographer during WWII, or Jimmy Stewart, who put his career on hold to fly combat bomber missions where the risk of death was among the highest of the war. And they did this in order that Hollywood's unpleasant children of today can actually have the undisputed right to speak as they please. And speak they do.
Consider Harry Belafonte, whose main claim to fame was being one of the first black persons to sing Calypso on American radio. He seems to think that makes him superior not only to the rest of us, but to the highly educated National Security Advisor, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, and Secretary of State Colin Powell, two individuals who have achieved some of the highest and most demanding positions in black history. Belafonte would rather hobnob with Fidel Castro than be associated with the America that gave him his break. When he visits Cuba, Castro welcomes his rant against America. But does Belafonte seriously expect us to believe that Castro would allow him down there to speak openly against corruption in the Cuban government? Now he's telling us it's U.S. leaders who are, "filled with evil." Should we laugh at this guy or weep?
Then there's Hollywood hunk, George Clooney, who claims “we can't beat anybody anymore.” May we suggest he speak for himself on that one? Especially the next time he visits a public bar without his bodyguards. Fat chance, of course.
And there's West-Wing Martin. You know, Ramon-Estavez Sheen? He's that icon of liberal activism, and the 'real' American President — since George W. Bush is considered an illegitimate heir who's usurped the throne. And he's become the self-appointed spokesperson for the anti-American peace movement of the 21st Century. From the Mid-East to Europe, from South America to Singapore, from the Korean Peninsula to the Philippines, the world is choosing up sides against American inspired liberty and democracy in a way not seen since the late 1930's. And Sheen wants us to become sitting “Duck Soup” pacifists. May we be forgiven if this seems as astonishingly irrational as a woman offering to turn the other 'cheek' (as it were) after the attack of a violent rapist?
Now Sheen's activism is clearly genuine, if not perhaps misguided, so we can charitably assume he sincerely means well. And he did have the chutzpah to publicly call George W. Bush “a moron.” But in his own words, Sheen allowed that he personally doesn't “have the kind of intelligence or the makeup to be a president.”
Which brings us to our point.
Incredibly, in a 2001 BBC interview, Martin Sheen insisted that the only original things of importance that the U.S. has ever exported to the rest of the world were “Alcoholics Anonymous and Jazz Music.”
"I wrote NBC advising that I expected them to keep a pretend president from appearing in photos standing in front of the Presidential Seal. Sheen has not asked the American people to vote for him, has not been elected by voters, does not have the power of the Presidency and, therefore, must not stand in front of the Presidential Seal trying to usurp such power in the minds of dummies.
You will note this is a picture widely used as Sheen rants against the war.
"
I say Clancy's idea needs it's own activism thread - energize for truth.
Any takers?
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