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Among the Intellectualoids
Hugo Boss
He lords it over Hollywood’s nitwits.
Sean Penn, Danny Glover, and now Oliver Stone demonstrate that truth — and Hollywood hokum — are stranger than fiction.
Penn and Glover are masters of political disaster. And somehow, the perfect storm of their inarticulation seems best demonstrated whenever they deign to defend Hugo Chavez. What is it about this man that brings out the worst in movie star miasmas? Their recent and well-publicized comments on Mr. Chavez are hardly worth repeating. They’re more fit to be enshrined on the walls of an abandoned gas station restroom.
Nevertheless…
Penn, a man who thinks that Chavez is the arbiter of Venezuelan’s “dreams,” also thinks journalists who call Chavez a dictator should go to prison. Glover, the beneficiary of nearly $20 million in Chavez’s motion picture funding, has long admired the leader, embraced the leader, and supports him as a “brother.” Such comments belong in a satire but are inexplicably said in earnest. Penn and Glover continue to be apologists for a man who is seen for what he is — a dictatorial thug — by everyone not blinded by his dim bulb of alleged social benevolence and charm.
How dark must it be for Hugo Chavez’s charisma to brighten up a room?
This clothes-less emperor, however, who attributes Haiti’s earthquake to the U.S.’s detonation of a secret underground weapon, has claimed yet another supporter in the American trifecta of western “intelligentsia” known as Hollywood.
“He behaves well. I think he’s compensating those businesses that he has nationalized. Most peoples’ lives in this country have improved under Chavez,” said Oliver Stone recently, while promoting his new film on the Venezuelan leader. Stone continued, “[t]here is no question that the American press, the Anglo press, does not understand the way he speaks… . I’m not an expert on the local day-to-day issues, but I admire Hugo. I like him very much as a person. If I can say one thing, he shouldn’t be on TV all the time.”
Stone’s self-deprecating admission is right on the mark. Even though expertise is hardly required to understand that although Mr. Chavez talks of wealth, prosperity, and liberty, he only brings such things to those who know better than to speak out against him. That is what it is to understand the way Hugo Chavez speaks, and it’s perfectly clear.
Despite Mr. Stone’s admitted limitations, he feels confident in saying that Chavez is compensating those businesses nationalized under the strong arm of a centralized power and media grab. I’d like to hear what the victims of Chavez’ nationalization process have to say about it — the unfiltered version — if they could say one thing. Just because he opines on their well-being — or makes a movie about it — doesn’t make it so.
It is interesting, Stone’s choice of words: ”if I can say one thing.” Because, saying one thing can get you into a lot of trouble if you don’t agree with el Presidente. Just ask Guillermo Zuloaga, the president of Globovision, the only remaining television station still critical of Hugo Chavez. While other stations critical of Chavez’ methods have slowly but surely disappeared, Mr. Zuloga, who has been a constant thorn in the side of Hugo Chavez’s push for a Latin American utopia, has remained, recoiled, and repeatedly ridiculed. How is Mr. Zuloga being compensated for his exercise of speech and opinion? Mr. Zuloaga, is now being brought up on charges of harvesting a product that is antithetical to the Venezuelan-Chavez way: personal wealth, or, said another way, profit:
Guillermo Zuloaga, president of Globovision, is accused of illegally storing vehicles with the intent to sell them for a profit… . This is a gentleman who has committed a crime, and he should have to answer to Venezuelan justice,” Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said Friday. “We have already started the process. We have generated an Interpol alert for the capture of this fugitive, wherever he is. He and his son are sought by a Venezuelan justice tribunal.” The charges against Zuloaga originated in May 2009, when 24 vehicles were found on one of his properties in Caracas. According to the government, they were being kept there in violation of existing law. Zuloaga, who owns car dealerships, has said the vehicles were stored at his house as part of his business.
Imagine, a car dealer keeping cars. Imagine a car dealer who owns cars trying to sell them for a profit. How would Chavez’s view of car dealerships go over in middle, center, or even off-kilter America? Not very compensatory, I reckon.
“Oh, you just don’t get ol’ Hugo — he means well,” goes the pedantic palaver. That is probably true. He means very well. He means very well to retain power at any cost. He means very well to silence anyone not willing to agree with him — particularly in the media. He means very well to tighten his grip until he produces a clear and unmistakable sense of uniformity. And then he means very well to be a leader, free of the problems associated with adversarial discord or opposition — the kind of uniformity where unflattering movies about ex-presidents and governmental conspiracies would land you unemployed or in jail.
That’s something Messrs. Penn, Glover, Stone and anyone fond of artistic license and freedom of expression might want to consider before deigning to ”admire” a dictator. I know it’s something I’ll consider before I see one of their movies.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (35) | Leave a comment
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Melvin| 6.22.10 @ 7:03AM
You know, Hugo's useful idiots of Sean Penn, Danny Glover, and Oliver Stone keep coming back to this Country.
If they were true to their political cause wouldn't they want to live near their beloved Leftist Leader?
You know, Sean Penn, Danny Glover, and Oliver Stone don't have to be convicted of treason to be called traitors.
Of course some millionaires have always been this way, parade around for the TV cameras in front of Leftists and Communists, then go back home to their Hollywood Hills mansions.
Jane Fonda must have opened an on-line school for how to be a traitor in one easy step. Sean Penn, Danny Glover, and Oliver Stone are willing students.
Alan Brooks| 6.22.10 @ 5:17PM
Don't forget Fat Man (and that is not to say the plutonium nuke):
Mr. Fahrenheit Bowling For Columbine. He is clever: watch the Columbine flick; there is a portion where an allegedly white supremacist (they are actually merely very conservative) family is being interviewed. Half the vignette shows their two or three year old daughter walking around the room practically naked.
Moore was really intent on selling that first big flick of his, wasn't he? And picking on the elderly actor (a dignified guy shouldn't be mentioned by name in discussing a Moore film) who portrayed Moses-- Moore went all out on his first effort.
After that he could slack off with C films instead of B.
Fahrenheit 911 was ludicrous, 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' was equally artistic, and made more sense.
Oliver Stone is a hard one to figure: why would someone so talented waste his time with a film such as 'JFK'? it was as if Michael Moore got in his head.
laurie | 6.22.10 @ 7:42PM
Whenever hollywood celebrities go into politics I boycott their movies. I wonder if they realise what commercial value for the movie investors is harmed by their politicking.
Petronius| 6.22.10 @ 8:23AM
Their legs may tingle but their tiny brains have long since decayed.
Tom in Michigan| 6.22.10 @ 9:14AM
I have Venezuelan friends and colleagues (chemical engineers who have fled Chavez’ petrodictatorship, bringing their skills to Canada as the Athabasca oil sands in Alberta and the Orinoco heavy oil deposits in Venezuela demand similar expertise) who describe their former lives and the lives of the family and friends they’ve left behind as “terrible” and “living in a nightmare.”
I simply cannot imagine how Penn, Glover, Stone and all the other idiots who hold Chavez up as an idol (or, “Mi Amigo” as our ownPresident called him) can be so cosmically stupid.
skedaddle| 6.22.10 @ 9:24AM
I think the Oliver Stones of the world envy the real dictators. Hollywood types are notorious for being jerks in person and on set. Dictatorial, ruthless and they ostrasize anyone who doesn't kiss their behinds. Hollywood envies the dictators power and willingness to take the final step and just kill people who cross them.
Seek| 6.22.10 @ 1:01PM
Couldn't be further from the truth. Anyone who has ever worked in Hollywood knows that if an actor or director has a reputation for being "difficult" on the set, that person will have problems finding people to work with him. Dictators don't have too many friends in that part of the world any more than in Washington.
Tom in Michigan| 6.22.10 @ 1:58PM
Nonsense. My nephew is a well-known musician who resides in Beverly Hills and has worked with the Hollywood types for many years. He confirms what a bunch of jerks the leftists among them are. Also, our own President refers to Hugo Chavez as "Mi Amigo." So, puh-leeze don't tell us the American left doesn't think the dictatorial trash are not just "swell.'
People who have swooned over Castro (to name one Communist scumbag-may he die and rot):
Barbara Walters
Dan Rather
Maxine Waters
Andrea Mitchell
Sean Pean
Michael Moore
Dianne Sawyer
Barbara Streisand
Years ago, I myself worked with many celebrities (I produced both local and national television shows - you may not know some of these, however as I'm probably much older than you) including Jerry Lewis, Chad Everett, Ed McMahon, Jack Carter, Henry Gibson, Cloris Leachman - to name a few. They would never have cozied up to trash like Chavez and Castro but, Hollywood is for the most part polluted by deluded, leftist useful idiots today.
BTW: What's your job in Hollywood?
RCV| 6.22.10 @ 5:23PM
President Obama has roundly criticized Hugo Chavez for "exporting terrorism", a criticism that led Chavez to call Obama an "ignoramus". And because idiots like Penn and Stone chummy up to Chavez doesn't mean that most liberals don't recognize what an enemy of freedom that joker is.
Seek| 6.22.10 @ 5:49PM
I was discussing the actual making of movies, not the off-camera political commentary by certain actors. Apparently, that's a distinction you and fellow political monomaniacs are unwilling to make.
P.S. I don't work in Hollywood, but I do see a movie or two a week, whether live-action or animated. So boycott me, but go see the new "Toy Story."
Tom in Michigan| 6.22.10 @ 1:07PM
I think you have hit the nail on the head.
If you are not already a psychologist, I recommend you change professions because this is the best explantation I've ever seen for the behavior of the likes of Penn, Streisand (even OTHER jerks think these two are jerks) and all the other egomaniacal leftists who kiss the asses of dictators like Chavez and Castro.
As for leftists who aren't celebrities, the left is the only place they can find acceptance because the entrance requirements to that club are so very, very low. It also gives them a venue to air childish, illogical ideas to which no thinking person would give the slightest credence.
McCarthy-esque| 6.22.10 @ 11:57AM
If this were the dreaded "McCarthy Era" Hollywood to this day drones on and on about, these idiots would have to testify before the HUAC. I agree with Melvin. Let them all live under their dictator of choice. See how long they last outside of Malibu.
RCV| 6.22.10 @ 5:14PM
Fortunately, we don't have HUAC any more to stifle dissent, even from nut-jobs like Stone and Penn. HUAC is soemthing Chavez could admire.
Nick| 6.22.10 @ 8:50PM
There was never any entity called "HUAC", brainiac.
There was, however, the House Committee on Un-American Activities. And it was started by liberals, of course.
Senator Joseph McCarthy, a great American, was a SENATOR! He had nothing to do with the House committee. Liberals know nothing about even recent U.S. history.
Joseph Kennedy, Sr., wanted Senator McCarthy to marry one of his daughters, by the way. Tailgunner Joe was good friends with Jack and Bobby Kennedy. As was Richard Nixon good friends with Jack.
RCV| 6.23.10 @ 11:50AM
Nick, I have read more history than you will ever read. Yes, it's official name was the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities, but it was known as "HUAC" to everyone. And, yes, it initially focused on Naziis and the KKK before turning to Communists. In either case, Harry Truman was right in calling it "the most un-American thing I know of."
Senator Joe McCarthy was an ignorant thug. And the fact that Joe Kennedy, Sr., the bootlegger, liked him is meaningless to me - Kennedy Sr. was a Nazi appeaser as well.
branch42| 6.23.10 @ 3:50PM
RCV,'Senator Joe McCarthy was an ignorant thug', WELL I would have to edit out that ignorant bit. According to the KGB, he was correct in his suspicions, and the Rosenbergs were guilty, ect. But yes his methods and tactics were not American, he did become a thug. But at least he stood by his positions without a finger in the air, for right or wrong. None of our crop of ninnies in DC knows how to do anything but waffle.
Nick| 6.23.10 @ 6:48PM
"[...] I have read more history than you will ever read."
Sure you have, RCV.
It was only known as "HUAC" to the ignorant. You admit I'm right, why are you trying to spin?
Also, who cares what Harry Truman thought of it? There is a good reason his approval ratings were at 21% when he "chose" not to run for re-election.
Mainly, Truman wouldn't get rid of FDR's communists in the State Department. The communists that great American, Senator Joseph McCarthy, had found in his excellent investigations. Bobby Kennedy, also, worked on those investigations.
Don't doubt me.
RCV| 6.23.10 @ 10:23PM
It was, and still is, known as HUAC, not only popularly but in both histories of the period as well as encyclopedias. If you in fact read much, you'd know that. As for Harry Truman, he was one of the best Presidents this country has ever had: his resolute tenacity saved both Greece and Turkey from Soviet domination; he helped insure Europe's reconstruction and democratization; he ended shameful segregation in our Armed Forces; and he bravely recognized Israel at its inception, for which he is justly honored in that country.
McCarthy, like you, tarred everyone he disagreed with as a "communist", ruined scores of innocent lives until he was finally reigned in by his colleagues in the Senate. Bobby Kennedy working for that bigoted drunk was not his finest moment.
Nick| 6.24.10 @ 9:12PM
RCV,
Again, only the ignorant call/called it "HUAC."
Harry Truman was a failed haberdasher and a doofus. He was part of the corrupt Pendergast democrat machine of Kansas City. I hate to repeat myself, again, but there was a reason Harry's approval rating was 21%.
You should have watched Glenn Beck today. M. Stanton Evans was his guest. Mr. Evans wrote a great volume about Senator McCarthy and how he was right about the communist infiltration of our government, under the Polio Prince.
gene hauber| 6.22.10 @ 2:16PM
THE ROAD FROM GROSS ACADEMIA TO ELITE INTELLECTUALISM IS PAVED WITH STUPIDITY.
THE ROAD TO WISDOM IS PAVED WITH LEARNING.......................GENE HAUBER MAY 2010
LISTEN TO YOUR INATE INTELLIGENCE FOLKS AND NOT TO THE PURVEYORS OF LIES,(THE DEMOCRATS).
GOD BLESS YOU.
honorar| 6.22.10 @ 4:14PM
How dead must a head be to view Venezuela as superior to America? I will answer my own question...very dead.
RCV| 6.22.10 @ 5:12PM
It's little wonder that Stone and Penn are enamored with that thug, Hugo Chavez. Stone has no judgment whatsoever: his JFK conspiracy theories were off-the-wall and decepetive. And Penn seems to like any dictator, whether in Iran or Venezuala or Cuba. The pair of them are pathetic.
Nick| 6.22.10 @ 8:34PM
Penn and Stone are also liberal democrats, like yourself, RCV.
You may want to rethink your worldview.
GavInTucson| 6.22.10 @ 11:15PM
In defense of RCV... I still differentiate between hard-core leftists and liberal democrats, though I have to admit that I've been seeing that difference shrink over the last 40 years or so.
RCV| 6.23.10 @ 11:40AM
You have myopia, Nick. The world isn't binary, black and white, left and right. There are big differences between Marxists, Bolsheviks, Socialists, and even among Liberals. Sarah Palin and William Buckley and Ayn Rand aren't the same. You don't have any idea of what my world view is, but let me tell you some things: I am strongly committed to rights of free expression, to freedom of religion and conscience, to democratic (with a small d) and republican (with a small r) rule. I dislike injustice, the strong preying on the weak, irrational hatred and intolerance. I have very close friends who are libertarians, conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats and democratic socialists (I know to you that's an oxymoron). I think about my worldview every day, and read widely on the left and right.
Nick| 6.23.10 @ 7:03PM
RCV,
"There are big differences between Marxists, Bolsheviks, Socialists, and even among Liberals."
There are differences, although, they aren't that big. Especially from way over here on the right. The only things lefties argue about is the best way to control everyone's lives.
I'm glad you think and read about these things. Too bad your fellow reactionary liberals don't do the same. All they care about are the ends justifying the means and covering their fellow liberals backsides.
haroushani| 6.22.10 @ 8:11PM
Even before Chavez, V-la was a shithole country. If you compared it o Chile at any time after Pinochet left power, the contrast speak words for the beneift of free markets, free minds, and a state without government monopoly on valuable resources.
T1Brit| 6.23.10 @ 6:19AM
The reason people like Penn feel so comfortable with Chavez is because they share so many personality characteristics. They speak the same language and think the same way. It is the world view of the egomaniac narcissist. They have long ago stopped being self-critical - they are interested only in what feels good to them - what confirms their floodlit wide-screen image of themselves and despise anybody who tried to spoil the me-festival - including those assholes who insist on talking about 'truth' and 'reality'.
Todd| 6.23.10 @ 11:42AM
What is with Hollywood? They back Hamas, Hugo Chaves, Hezbollah and say how illegal the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is. They say Europe is so great and every couple of years France has riots were cars are bombed and people are killed. This is done by not so Fundamentalist Muslims. Just last week I learned that four of the five largest school shootings have happen in countries that do not allow gun rights. Gasp Europe. Germany and England. Colinbine was number four.
Judianna| 6.23.10 @ 1:27PM
My late husband was from Venezuela and my first visit there was in 1972. It was a third world country with a dictator for president and it still is. Most of the population in Maracaibo was so poor they sent the children out into the streets to beg. One neighborhood was a shanty shacks built out of rusted cars, parts of corrgated steel buildings, cardboard, and located over a garbage dump. Now we have our own loveable dictator and when he begins to confiscate the properties and fortunes of those schmuck actors, reckon Hugo and Tio Fidel will take them in?