"I never said all actors are cattle (he did); what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle."
Posted on 02/17/2006 7:20:20 AM PST by jerod
Impeaching Bush Is 'Cause Worth Fighting for,' Actor Says By Randy Hall CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor February 17, 2006
(CNSNews.com) - Richard Dreyfuss, the actor who starred in movies ranging from "Jaws" to "Mr. Holland's Opus," told an audience in Washington, D.C., on Thursday that "there are causes worth fighting for," and one of those is the impeachment of President George W. Bush.
"There are causes worth fighting for even if you know that you will lose," Dreyfuss said during a speech at the National Press Club. "Unless you are willing to accept torture as part of a normal American political lexicon, unless you are willing to accept that leaving the Geneva Convention is fine and dandy, if you accept the expansion of wiretapping as business as usual, the only way to express this now is to embrace the difficult and perhaps embarrassing process of impeachment."
Noting that the process was established by the country's "founders, who we revere to check executive abuse with congressional balance," Dreyfuss said impeachment "is a statement that we refuse to endorse bad behavior."
"If we refuse to debate the appropriateness of the process of impeachment, we endorse that behavior, and we approve the enlargement of executive power," regardless of whoever may occupy the White House in the future, he said.
"And don't kid yourselves: No one ever gives up power, ever," Dreyfuss added.
"Now, it is not your job as the press to impeach George Bush," the actor stated. However, people in the media should "maintain the integrity of that debate" by not dismissing the topic out of hand as partisan or unpatriotic.
During his address on the subject of Hollywood's view of contemporary news media, Dreyfuss said he is not a cynic or a liberal, but is instead a "'libo-conservo-middle-of-the-roado,' and I have been for many years."
"I'm deeply in love with my country," he added. "As a matter of fact, I'm deeply in love with the country that I was taught about in school, the land of the free and the home of the brave."
Nevertheless, Dreyfuss charged that "people can sometimes be pretty thoughtless, pretty terrified and do some pretty impressive damage" when they are wrong or "are the victims of political hypnosis."
In the past, "time and distance played an amazing part in keeping the human race from killing itself," the actor noted. The need for revenge after an attack "inevitably weakened because it took a lot of time to get men into ships and move them to the right battlefield. Only those truly staunch of heart and truly zealous could keep up that hatred.
"But now, people in Kansas see the [Twin] Towers fall at the exact instant as people in Nigeria or Cairo," he said. "Instantaneous knowledge leads to instantaneous reaction, which creates a demand for an instantaneous, reflexive response."
Dreyfuss blamed part of that reaction on television newscasters, who "fill the air with the same terrible clips, the same blaring intro music, the same screaming fonts, and then the same clips again and the same screaming fonts again and again to fill up these news cycles."
"Television did this. Television created the sound bite and then shrunk it," the actor said. "Television replaced words with images so that people make extraordinary decisions based not on prose or any attempt at analysis," but on pictures instead.
The actor saved his harshest tone for those who accuse critics of the government and its officials of having a more serious motive.
"Watch me lose my sense of humor if people accuse me of treason," Dreyfuss said before mocking two of the Fox News Channel's most popular hosts. "'That's not very O'Reilly of you, Mister Smarty-Pants,' or 'What would Sean Hannity have to say about that, Mister Too-Complex-for-Your-Own-Good?'"
However, "none of this happened because of any conspiracy," he stated. "This happened because we have not paid attention to the new rules of the electronic media."
To restore true American values, the actor called for children to be taught "the tools of debate and dissent," as well as a return to the principle of civility, which he called "the oxygen that democracies require else they become poisoned and die, as this democracy will."
I'll tell you what is nuts - a movie starring Babs as a high-priced call girl. Massive suspension of disbelief needed!
As for Richard, I suppose impeachment of GWB is a cause worth fighting for when you have nothing else going on in your has-been life. Maybe he will get a few movie offers out of his activism, along with free publicity.
Oh, swell. Yet another actor I won't be able to stomach.
Dear entertainers:
In the future, just shut up an entertain. Keep your slimy politics to yourself. Most of us figure you'll vote for the wrong side anyway, but once you open your fat yaps, it's hard to find you entertaining.
Miz
Morons like this won't be happy until torture is NOT "part of a normal American political lexicon", because the Mullahs will haul him off and he'll never be seen again if he dares mention it.
Maybe as he is BEING tortured the scales will finally fall from his eyes.
"And don't kid yourselves: No one ever gives up power, ever," Dreyfuss added.
Him being such an expert on the Founders and all, you'd think he'd have heard of George Washington...not to mention all the presidents who came after him until FDR.
Dreyfuss played Duddy in "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" a film that takes place in Montreal--that's why you may think he's from Canuckistan.
Hey, they have to get their name out there somehow and we all know that acting doesn't require much intelligence.
Hey Richard, why don't you stop sculpting your own feces and get busy trying to figure out where your career went.
You know, there are some movies this guy has made that I really, really like. Close Encounters, Goodbye Girl and Mr. Holland's Opus are prime examples.
The guy can act to some degree.
However, politically he is off base.
To think that he is coming out after President Bush, and never took one look at the incredible, dangerous behaviour of President Clinton puts his credibility beyond the pale of normalcy. He is playing politics plain and simple.
Besides, he has NO CHANCE of getting any bill of impeachment passed in the House to begin with. Maybe he is convinced that after this fall's elections that the Dems will be back in power...and that is his plan.
Start now, fail. Bring it back next year, succeed.
Even if it works, it is politics plain and simple.
President Bush has done nothing that he was NOT ALREADY allowed to do through the NSA. I have come to a place of peace regarding new things at the airport.
If I am talking to someone from any of the terrorist countries, I should expect that my call will be listened to. That should not bother me IF I am sincerely in love with this land and its long history, AND want to catch terrorists.
Good actor....poor, poor political hack of the left!
Did you happen to notice that the last four letters in his last name is "fuss." Need I say more?
Did anyone his his pathetic debate against Norquist a year or so ago at Oxford?
He seemed half lit.
I too never heard him mention republic, or the judicial fiat that kept the socialist bastards in control of both houses for 44/48 years between '32 & '80, a mere 92% of the time while they stacked the courts and grew their ranks of public employees and their bloodsucking pensions.
Whining the Dems haven't spoiled near enough young minds by the self interested union big govt indoctrinators. Whaaaaahhhh!
Libo-conservo-rad my ass!
Plausible and patriotic enough sounding to dupe the uninitiated lemmings who never even read the Constitution.
Did he really fool the press, or just give 'em ammunition?
BTW - not that there's anything wrong with that! My Mom was born in Canada, and being of French-Canadian descent, I have a special affection for the Canadian people.
I will never forget that they harbored, at great peril to themselves, some of our American diplomats in Tehran during the Iranian Hostage Crisis.
You forgot BABS!
All these rats worrying about wire tapping, makes you wonder if they all have something to hide!!! Hmm, Richard, do you have some income you forgot to report???
Maybe he really was abducted by aliens.
One of our better moments under Trudeau.
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