Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. Am I going to have to sic the paperboy on you again?
Posted on 06/06/2008 3:29:57 PM PDT by TheBlueMax
John Cusack's Imaginary War Profiteers
By Steven Zak FrontPageMagazine.com | 6/6/2008
From the safety of his stateside home, actor John Cusack has produced, co-written and stars in a movie, "War, Inc.," deriding firms like Blackwater, whose employees, at great personal risk, provide a service to their country in time of war. Since they make money, he brands them "war profiteers" who deserve to be treated as criminals.
In an interview in the Los Angeles Times, Cusack assails corporations that profit during war. "Corporations have privatized the war to the point where the war itself is the cost-plus business," he rants. "They're using the State Department as an ATM."
He rails on: "They should be sent to prison. They should be convicted. Their ideology should be shamed. We should revolt against them. We should mock them." And so he made a film to do just that.
The film -- which Cusack wrote after the brutal murders of military contractors in Fallujah inspired him to insult them -- is about a corporation that destroys a fictional country in a privately-run war, then rebuilds it, even gluing back limbs on people after it has blown them off.
The whole point is supposed to be that war is nothing but a corrupt profit-making scheme. Forget al Qaeda's numerous promises -- and efforts -- to kill millions of Americans. Forget 9/11. And while you're at it, forget World War II, during which numerous companies -- including arch-villains like Hershey's chocolates -- provided wartime goods and got paid for same. For Cusack, military conflict is but "a protectionist racket for the government's favorite corporations to make money off the war."
The war-profiteering charge, often expressed in vapid slogans like "no war for oil," is fundamentally dishonest -- pacifism in disguise. Rather than admit to a philosophy that opposes fighting even in self defense or in defense of others -- which would mean declaring openly that Americans should have sung Kumbaya after Pearl Harbor and that the US should have left the Jews in Buchenwald, Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen to their own devices -- pacifists hide their anti-war animus behind bogey men who supposedly revel in, and profit by, death. They've made such scoundrels out of people of all political persuasions, from Dick Cheney to Diane Feinstein, and of companies ranging from Halliburton to Boeing -- war-profiteers all.
That much war criticism is but misdirection to hide a brand of America-loathing pacifism can be seen in the common left-wing charge that the Iraq war is a diversion from the "real war" in Afghanistan -- coupled with liberal antipathy to the Afghanistan effort as well, which, you know, is all for the benefit of Texas oil interests that want to lay pipelines and such. Smoke and mirrors.
The war-profiteering bit of sleight of hand boils down to this: Some people or entities profit during war. Therefore, such people or entities must be the cause of war, which serves only to enrich them.
If you watched closely, you could see the trickery: Yes, people respond to demand and provide needed goods and services in wartime. It doesn't follow that wars are started so that such people can make a buck.
Do Cusack and his fellow travelers think it a crime for people to be paid for their wartime labors?
How about the soldiers who put their lives on the line? They get paid. Or farmers who grow the food those soldiers consume? Or truckers who transport that food? Or people who make the troops' boots and clothes? Or workers who build military vehicles? Or journalists who write about the war (including the one who interviewed Cusack in the Times)? Greedy war profiteers all? To suggest so is about as rational as Obama's plan to have tea with Ahmadinejad.
But if you can't beat 'em, you join 'em. So, seizing the opportunity of war, Cusack has produced a film he no doubt hopes will make a profit. Sure, Cusack thinks war profiteers "can go to hell." Except for Cusack, who ridicules them all -- all the way to the bank.
Someone needs to make a movie called “Anti-War, Inc.” about a bunch of two-bit, Hollyweird punks who exploit the efforts of the men and women in the U.S. military in order to make themselves rich.
Once again, I seriously recommend that Blackwater Security and other such companies purchase a Caribbean island to set up as their headquarters.
The time is soon coming when the Democrats will do anything they can to destroy these companies, so unless they can protect their assets out of US jurisdiction, they, and by extension, the US military, will suffer.
Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. Am I going to have to sic the paperboy on you again?
There are a great many Americans who, used to a soft, cushy, well-fed life in comfortable surroundings, would greatly profit from an extended stay in some third-world sh*thole, just so they might see that the many blessings they take for granted, and which have been bestowed upon them by others - at enormous personal risk and sacrifice - are only to be had at considerable cost. If they cannot find it within themselves to acknowledge the infinite debt they owe to such people, they might then at least be moved to keep their effing mouths shut and refrain from brainless, unwarranted, and utterly wrongheaded criticisms.
Same disgusting clown caught sucking face with one of Kerry’s daughters during campaign 2004. No doubt it had the potential to be profitable relationship for a career in the dumps ACTOR had Kerry been elected.
Too bad, I really liked the movie High Fidelity...cross that one of the list.
Of course he'll convieniently forget about UN corruption and the billions pilfered. Or Russian and Chinese (and German and French) involvement in providing Iraq with banned military supplies before the recent war. Or French involvement in all of Iraq industries before the war, the reason for stonwalling the war in the first place. They didn't wan't the gravy train to end.
two dollars!!
So this half-wit hates people who capitalize on war, so what does he do. He makes a movie to say just that. Does he plan on letting people see this movie for free or is he planning on charging admission? What a putz.
Cusuck is a physical and moral coward who has no “psychological” choice but to ridicule those whose examples highlight his own inadequacies.
I guess John is giving all the proceeds of this flick to charity, right? I mean if he makes money that would mean he’s profiting off of the war, right? And we know he wouldn’t do that.
Actually, most of these people were against the war in Afghanistan too. It only became the "good war" when we were ramping up to go into Iraq.
It will go back to being the bad war as soon as we pull out of Iraq. Seriously.
This is right on the money. You have him, and a host of others, dead-on.
Hollywood's output doesn't sell so well in the US these days. Its hard to take these guys seriously as action heroes, when so many people have the real thing in their family.
The toughest and the coolest actor looks pretty lame when you put him up against your nephew in the marines. There is just no comparison. They are not even in the same league.
They just come off looking butch.
Hopefully this effort will result in another whole bunch of Hollyweird money down the drain.
Flop city for another Hollyweird leftist...
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=warinc.htm
WAR, INC.
Domestic Total as of Jun. 5, 2008: $82,755
*snort*
Actors: John Cusack
Hilary Duff
Marisa Tomei
Joan Cusack
Dan Aykroyd
Ben Kingsley
*****
Hillary Duff?????
No wonder it blows.
It's not as if Hollywood wasn't trying to make a profit off the war with their films "Stop Loss," "Lions for Lambs," "Jarhead" and other crap that's come out in the last year or two.
John Cusack is my favorite actor—has been since I saw “The Sure Thing” in 1985. He does have a flair for playing the slightly off balance, but honest, everyman. It really does floor me that he is a leftwing nutjob. I have read other things about him that lead me to believe he is a less than great person (he is best friends with Robbins/Sarandon, he was arrested for drunk driving, and has a history of shoplifting). In some cases, one simply has to separate the artist from the art.
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