Posted on 02/15/2003 7:09:24 AM PST by aculeus
If you're a hugely bankable Hollywood star, there are certain expectations of you. Maintain your profile, toe the line and keep schtum about politics. George Clooney, on the other hand, is hollering his disdain for his government and its dumb war plans, and he's directed his own, somewhat risky, film. Interview by Sally Vincent.
[Fanmag fluff snipped.]
"The question is," he goes on, "do we go on murdering each other, or are we going to take time out to ask ourselves why we're so angry in the first place? I get mad at someone, then I find out more about why they did what they did to make me mad, and the anger disperses. We get angry because we don't have enough information." His mousseline is now neatly stacked on the side of his plate. All tidied away.
"It's the head guys who really tick me off," he says. "You dumb down at the top, so what does that do to the bottom? Who's going to stand up for us now? I just want someone smart to stand up and shout, 'Bullsh**!' They tell us we're going to war and no one's saying 'Bullsh**' loud enough. And the language! Listen to the language! 'Evil.' 'Evil'? 'Nexus of evil'? 'Evil-doer'? That's my favourite, 'Evil-doer'! What's wrong with their vocabulary: couldn't they come up with 'schmuck'?"
This makes me laugh uncontrollably. I wonder if he'll mind if I gobble up his mousseline. "Look at us," he cries, "we're the guys who marched into France and liberated them, handing out stockings and chocolate. And we've slowly become all the things we fought against. How'd it happen?"
I feel the soul of America is at large. The words of Walt Whitman beat in my brain. "O Captain! My Captain!" I bleat. Clooney looks at me sideways. "We're so smart we don't even try to elect a leader. We elect someone to manage our country. Bush was elected, or sort of elected, on the issues of school vouchers and welfare reform. When the big one hit, we found we didn't have a leader at all. What did Bush do on 9/11? He ran away and hid. Even Reagan knew more about leadership than that, and he was as bad a symbol of America as I can think of, off-hand. But at least he's been in enough cowboy movies to know he had to come out and stand on top of the rubble and be seen shaking his fist or something. What has it all come down to? Selling things on television, is what. The three-second soundbite. We don't have any great speakers any more, we don't have great television any more, we don't have great films any more. Everything's knocked out by committee. That's how it is. How we deal with everything. That's politics. You turn on the TV for the news now and what do you get? 'Showdown in Iraq!' it goes, like it's a game. The news is a f***king game show. They're selling us a pre-emptive war and no one says, 'Bullsh**'. It's a conglomerate decision, all rounded off to make it palatable so we'll swallow it, believe it. But it's a lie. Of course it's a lie. We've been lying to ourselves since Vietnam. And if you say that, if you stand up and say no to the war in Iraq, immediately you're being 'unpatriotic'. But if you don't, if it's not you, who the f**k's it going to be?"
O Captain! My Captain! "It's not my place. I'm not a big, like, yogi guy, I'm just a stoopid film star. Stooooopid, goofball film star."
"Big guru guy," I say.
"Big guru guy," he says.
....
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
BTW, it's okay if you provide a source link when you're posting.
George, these terrorists aren't mad at us, they are just following God's wishes to convert or kill us.
If you want to get along just submit to Islam. -Tom
A singularly useless idiot.
I wonder if this is how that little slimeball would have handled Adolf Hitler. These people are so stupid, I can't even believe it.
All this is their right, of course. But when people like Clooney make major bucks by selling violence their insipid banter against violence falls on deaf ears here.
Last night - I believe that it was on O'Reilly - a drama critic was talking about the negative effect that people like Clooney and Sean Penn are having on their own careers. He also mentioned Jane Fonda and Barbra Streisand. He could also have mentioned Ed Asner, whose career has been in the toilet for years for his pro-communist stances.
Penn apparently had a verbal agreement for something like $10 million to do a movie and after he went to Iraq the offer was withdrawn. He's now suing - and will probably lose.
We are facing people who got mad at us and decided to destroy two buildings in New York, another in Washington, D.C., and another that they weren't able to reach. The only thing that has "dispersed" is the dust cloud left by the fall of those buildings. Actually, they've been destroying our planes and buildings for over twenty years. They are trash and scum, and Clooney wouldn't have the freedom to spout his nonsense if there weren't people willing to use force to fight these people. Clooney certainly has the right to say what he's saying, but a country that is worthy to keep its liberty will be made of people who recognize that Clooney is stupid.
Clooney: "I'm not a big, like, yogi guy, I'm just a stoopid film star. Stooooopid, goofball film star."
Give the guy credit -- at least he admits to having the IQ of a stalk of celery.
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