Posted on 11/30/2004 2:50:23 PM PST by WuzaDem
Picture this:
Somewhere in the world, a filmmaker creates a short documentary that chronicles what he perceives as the excesses of anti-abortion activists. An anti-abortion zealot reacts to the film by killing the filmmaker in broad daylight and stabbing anti-abortion tracts onto his body. How does the Hollywood community react to this atrocity? Would there be angry protests? Candlelight vigils? Outraged letters and columns and articles? Awards named in honor of their fallen comrade? Demands for justice? Calls for protection of artistic freedom? It’s a pretty safe bet that there would be all of the above and much more. And all of the anger would be absolutely justified.
So I’m trying to understand the nearly universal lack of outrage coming from Hollywood over the brutal murder of Dutch director, Theo van Gogh, who was shot on the morning of November 2, while bicycling through the streets of Amsterdam. The killer then stabbed his chest with one knife and slit his throat with another.
The presumed murderer, a Dutch-born dual Moroccan-Dutch citizen, attached a 5-page note to van Gogh's body with a knife. In it, he threatened jihad against the West in general, and specifically against five prominent Dutch political figures. Van Gogh’s crime? He created a short film highly critical of the treatment of women in Islamic societies. So, again I ask, where is the outrage from Hollywood’s creative community? I mean, talk about a violation of the right of free speech!
Perhaps they are afraid that their protests would put them in danger. That, at least, is a defensible position. If I were Michael Moore, I would much rather rail against George W. Bush, who is much less likely to have me killed, than van Gogh’s murderer and the threat to creative freedom he brings. Besides, a man of Moore’s size would provide a great deal of “bulletin board” space.
Maybe they think it would be intolerant of them to criticize the murder, because it would put them on the side of someone who criticized a segment of the Arab world. And, after all, we are often reminded that we need to be more tolerant of others, especially if they’re not Christians or Jews.
There’s another possibility; one that seems crazy on the surface, but does provide an explanation for the silence, and is also in keeping with the political climate in Hollywood. Is it just possible that there are those who are reluctant to criticize an act of terror because that might somehow align them with President Bush, who stubbornly clings to the notion that these are evil people who need to be defeated? Could the level of hatred for this President be so great that some people are against anything he is for, and for anything he is against?
As nutty as it sounds, how else can you explain such a muted reaction to an act that so directly impacts creative people everywhere? Can you conceive of a filmmaker being assassinated because of any other subject matter without seeing a resulting explosion of reaction from his fellow artists in America and around the world?
As I said, it’s a nutty-sounding explanation, but we live in nutty times.
Thank God all those years of working with Vanna have not turned his brains to mush.
Ol' Pat can sure use those vowels.
He makes a very good point that I somehow missed in regards to the Dutch film-maker's death. He's in the Hollywood elite's industry, he makes a pro-women documentary, but where is Susan Sarandon's condemnation of the Muslim who slaughtered him?
There really wasn't a whole lot of outrage in the journalism world about the execution of Daniel Pearl either. If he had been a liberal New York Times reporter killed by a right-wing militia member, we would still be reading about it today.
"If I were Michael Moore, I would much rather rail against George W. Bush, who is much less likely to have me killed"
...Well, right NOW, anyway....
To me this is one of the most disturbing aspects of the left's criticism of Bush. They would be perfectly willing to let the women of Afghanistan return to the days of being beaten in the streets for letting the birkas slip--or to be executed in a stadium for the mere accusation of adultery--if it made Bush look bad.
While they were whining to be allowed to exercise their "freedom of speech" to oppose the efforts of the US and its allies in Afhanistan and Iraq (and of course no one was stopping them) they were in effect trying to rob the people of those countries of that same freedom.
The deafening silence from Hollywood over Theo Van Gogh's murder doesn't surprise me one bit. These hypocrites don't care how many people suffer as long as their own political agendas are being served.
Bottom line...some men are too powerful to mess with....
Pat Sajak, stated his case eloquently. Democrats have no Political common sense.
A lust for power has a muting effect on socialists when it is deemed unwise to be seen as supporting a liberal president.
ping....
In 1968, Pat left Columbia after only three years, joined the U.S. Army, and was promptly sent to Vietnam. After a few months as a finance clerk, he was transferred into Armed Forces Radio and given the morning show on AFVN in Saigon where he yelled, “Good Morning, Vietnam!” for a year and a half. He finished his military career at the Pentagon in 1970. More...
Does this mean that westerners can construe his, and others like him, warnings and assume that this is a personal declaration of war against us all and that if we see him first, or others of the same persuasion, we are free to accelerate his assumption of room/ambient temperature?!!
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