Posted on 05/12/2006 8:55:00 AM PDT by doesnt suffer fools gladly
Film star and director Mel Gibson has launched a scathing attack on US President George W Bush, comparing his leadership to the barbaric rulers of the Mayan civilisation in his new film Apocalypto.
The epic, due for release later this year, captures the decline of the Maya kingdom and the slaughter of thousands of inhabitants as human sacrifices in a bid to save the nation from collapsing.
Gibson reveals he used present day American politics as an inspiration, claiming the government callously plays on the nation's insecurities to maintain power.
He tells British film magazine Hotdog, "The fear-mongering we depict in the film reminds me of President Bush and his guys".
It isn't necessarily about wealth.. there are plenty of wealthy people who understand their less well-to-do counterparts.. it's the whole Hollywood actor experience... while Mel has some conservative values, he's also not above buddying up with obnoxious liberals in order to achieve what he needs to. I'd say while Ben Stein isn't exactly "hollywood" or an actor in the complete sense, he is closer to the mark of reality.
If he is opposed to capital punishment it would be in line with contemporary Catholic doctrine.
What terrorism?
I thought you said 9-11 was just a display of power, not terrorism?
Ouch!
"Passion" is of a piece with his other bloody films
Think about it, apart from his commecial box office movies, i.e., Lethal Weapon, What Women Want, etc., all his movies have all nearly been devoted to blood and brutality.
Walter Hill and other directors got bad raps for too much blood and only doing violent movies. Mel Gibson has somehow avoided this.
I love Captain Hyperbole. He's my newest, favorite superhero.
"Gibson IS a conservative, albeit one who hates foreign quagmires."
Oh, you mean a true conservative as opposed to the liars over at PNAC and the open-borders CFR members of the administration.
Good going Mel. The truth hurts.
Not everyone supports actions against terrorists, and yes, armed conflict is not the only way to combat them, as President Bush has repeatedly stated.
I am sure that some of the supporters of the War on Terror love war death and killing as long as they don't have to take part in it. There are also a lot more people, the vast majority supporting the war on terror, who wish we didn't have our troops in the line of fire in the Middle East, who wish they didn't have to enter Iraqi homes, who wish they didn't have to man roadblocks and risk harming innocent civilians who are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There are some people in this country and around the world, mostly liberals, but some OTHERS as well, who want to take the moral high ground to avoid soiling their hands or their conscience. Other people do the moral heavy lifting, who support the actions our military takes and the policies that put them in position to take those actions. These people supporting the WOT must bear the emotional and moral burden of supporting those decisions that keep all of us, including the liberals and others safe in their homes, allowing them to live life as though untoward nothing were happening.
I say emotional and moral burden, because there are no guarantees...20/20 hindsight, armchair quarterbacks and people who are like stopped clocks with the correct time twice a day can keep their hands and consciences pristine while enjoying the benefits of those who shed blood and take the emotional risk of doing the heavy lifting. If it all turns out badly, we have to face the fact that we were wrong, however unlikely I think that is, while the prissy pantywaisted no-loads can say "See...see...we told you so."
So, I disagree with what the phrase "Lovers of the WOT" implies. No sane person LOVES it. We may take satisfaction, no matter how grim, whenever one of those Islamofacist scumbags meets their appropriate fate or is captured, but we do not LOVE sending our military in harms way.
I prefer to take the chance of being wrong, to the prospect of leaving our soldiers and fellow citizens in the lurch due to lack of support on the home front. And I am willing to stand up and say so.
Apparently he relegates Bush's response to the terrorist threat (where conservatives supports him the most) as fear mongering. This places him squarely back in the Hollywood Left camp.
Gibson seemed to be dismissing the WOT as fear mongering, not just the prelude to the Iraq invasion.
No, of course he doesn't have a duty to support President Bush. But why the gratuitous attack, comparing the President to a gang of human sacrificers?
Well, if you believe PNAC, we must have the same goal. And considering we're the ones invading countries who have not attacked us, the burden of proof is on our government as to which truly wants to "take over the world".
You're absolutely correct. Gibson's father, as far as I can tell, is a legend within that movement. If you listened to Gibson in Hannity's interviews with him, Gibson consistently took the paleo line on the war on terror, etc.
Although not Catholic myself, I've wondered why schismatic Latin Mass Catholics tend to lean toward the Constitution Party and general paleo positions as well. Some people on my campus were evangelizing for the Lefebvre Latin Mass movement and then one of the guys talked about how he favored the Constitution Party, but when I asked why, he wouldn't say.
I guess at least some support a throne and altar conservatism and see America as good only in so far as it reflects that European style of conservativism, which for them entails a rejection of free markets in particular and classical liberalism in general. Does that sound plausible?
Of course, not all Latin Mass Catholics--- for all I know, not even most--- are Paleos like either Gibson. But it's still sort of an odd phenomenon to me, since the movement encopassing magazines like Chronicles, Southern Partisan and American Conservative and to a lesser extent New Oxford Review join together the heirs to anti Catholic Know Nothings with Catholics who consider themselves more orthodox than the Pope.
I think he dismisses the "War on Terror" (much like the "War on Drugs", "War on Poverty", etc.) for what is is: a war against civil liberties and a war against American citizens.
To claim that there is a true war on terrorism with our undefended porous borders is a sick joke.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.