Posted on 07/29/2006 1:28:31 PM PDT by COUNTrecount
Yeah, but Mel's cuter so it's okay. And he made a Christian movie. (/sarcasm)
Wow. wow.
When I learn something like this about someone it changes the way I see them. I don't follow Hollywood stars offscreen lives but I've enjoyed many of Gibson's films.
I won't see his work the same way now- because he made an eloquent apology to the police officers, his family and friends and un-named others yet was unable or perhaps unwilling to stand and offer that same heartfelt apology to Jews, by name.
He said something to cover his ass. Words mean very little when you've driven 40 miles over the speed limit, jeopardized lives by driving drunk, revealed a strain of anti-semitism that many of us were afraid was there but were hoping wasn't, and insulted law enforcement officers who were trying to protect him from himself.
He should do what Eisenhower made George Patton do after he slapped a soldier for complaining of battle fatigue:
Gibson should apologize to every member of the LA Sheriff's Department individually and personally, he should publicly disavow each component of his father's anti-semitism, and he should apologize, publicly and personally, to a representative group of Jewish leaders and Shoah survivors.
He should also make some large donations to designated Jewish causes that fight anti-semitism, and to a law enforcement charity designated by the LA Sheriffs' Department.
I will also wager that his wife has been humiliated by this, but what he has to do to resolve that is up to her.
Was Hitlery drunk when she went on her FJB tirade?
I have no idea.
Oh, and Mel's statements were way worse than calling a Jewish guy "Jew".
Seems he was trying to misrepresent who he was. Wow...what makes folks do that.
Seriously, maybe you can tell us.
Public anti-semitism has been relegated to Neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, certain sects within Protestantism, and pockets within Catholicism.
Gibson knows he couldn't get away with his Jew hatred in public, so he suppresses it.
Until he deals with his real feelings and attitudes towards Jews, these expressions may surface again if he gets a few shots under his belt.
I was looking for a more "personal" answer. I'm sure you have some personal insights. I wasn't asking you for advice, as if you were my local deacon or anything like that.
Jane Fonda's biggest films came in the years AFTER she aimed an anti-aircraft gun at US jets. And she took 30 years to apologize. By that precedent, Gibson, who'll be booked for televised apologies starting next week - I bet - has a long life and many movies ahead of him.
I was a correctional officer at a maximum security prison for four years. One of the officers I worked with I'd gone to High School with a decade before & I just remember him as being a pudgy, quiet kid who sat in the back. At the prison, 10 years later he was still pretty much a pudgy, quiet kid--and a neo-nazi. He had the tats, would often spout out something seemingly random about Jews. Most, if not all, of what he said was vicious, hateful--& rather pathetic.
I doubt if he'd even met a Jew, & knew nothing about them beyond what he'd read in skinhead mags & hatesites. He was more a cartoon of a neonazi (& I've worked with plenty of the Real Thing who were on the other side of the bars--& if you want to look into the eyes of pure, utter, soulless evil, look at the modern incarcerated skinhead. With the murderers, the child molesters, the crooks, the dealers, you could see some glimmer of humanity, however diluted--some remorse, some repentance. Not so with the skinhead, the neonazi. Not the ones that I knew.)
(Incidentally, most of the officers I worked with were white & rural, as am I, and the inmates were disproportionately black and hispanic, yet I didn't see much in the way of racism. Almost all of the officers I worked with were professional in dealing with all inmates. I expected racism & was glad to be wrong. Nonetheless, there was a fair amount of anti-Semetic & anti-Islamic talk, which I think may have had something to do with the fact that we worked with blacks & hispanics all day--& night--but there were no Jews or Middle Easterners in the prison. It's easier to hate a group when you see nothing but caricatures & never see the face of an actual human being.)
With the neo-nazi officer, he was pathetic, idiotic, but human, with kids & a couple of failed marriages, his body marked up with the emblems of a failed philosophy built on madness & homicidal scapegoating. I hope he figures out what, indeed he hates.
With Mr. Gibson, I don't know. I've had my battles with the bottle myself, & it tends to bring out the worst. I worked for a few years in the Film Industry in New York & have worked with some pretty big stars--I know it's cliche, but when the camera stops rolling, they're just regular people with regular problems, with the additional problem of constant scrutiny.
It is true that Jews do traditionally vote Democrat (to their own detriment--people do not always act in their own self-interest), though in recent years, statistically, there is a very small, but slow creep in the numbers toward the Republican Party.
Another example where voting history does not make logical sense: It is also true that for decades, Blacks have voted in the 90+ percentile for Democrats, but what have the Democrats done positively for the Black culture?? Very little. Actually, in reality, the Republicans have historically done more for Blacks, and there is some very slight awakening to this fact, but the demonization of the RNC and the ignorance of the truth continues.
You are making the mistake of thinking that decades long voting patterns are all logic-based, but sadly, they are often just not. These voting patterns instead tend to be more of a tradition carried on from one generation to the next, with little current up-to-date hard-nosed analysis ...
Lol...agreed! ;-)
I agree but have to address the size reference. BAC is the measurement of the percentage of alcohol in your blood, hence size has nothing to do with the degree of intoxication between differently sized people with the same BAC. IOW, a 6' 200 lb man is just as drunk at .12 as a 5'4" 150 lb man would be.
That said, yeah, .12 BAC is not usually Out-of-your-mind-'Honey-did-I-ever-tell-you-about-the-time-I-hit- on-your-kid-sister?' drunk. He has to have some other demon's chasing him for this kind of behavior to be so close to the surface.
He hates Jews.
Gibson could also be manic-depressive, given his well-documented mood swings.
What exactly did Gibson say?
Just finished watching Passion of the Christ. I think Gibson should watch his own movie personally. It's the best film I've ever seen.
Why should we care what the LAMEstream media covers - they clearly want to take down our president on a daily basis. And what he said wasn't just bad - it was atrocious. You even pleaded on another thread that Jewish people should join the conservatives because the left hates them. Not so true, is it? You better get your stories straight, ladyinred.
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