The Academy Award speech we should have heard

[igloo]

The Academy Award speech we should have heard

Mar 7, 2006

by Dennis Prager ( bio | archive | contact )

Here's a speech we would like to hear from an Academy Award winner:

I thank you for this wonderful award. Receiving an Academy Award gives the recipient an almost unique opportunity to speak to hundreds of millions people around the world, so I would like take this once-in-a-lifetime moment to say this:

First, I want to thank my country, the United States of America. Every one of us here has this country to thank for enabling us to live lives of unprecedented freedom and unimaginable affluence. Too many of us forget that no other country in history has offered such opportunities to people in our profession or in any other profession, for that matter.

Second, I want to thank the men and women of the armed forces of the United States. While we bask in freedom and spend a good part of our lives going from party to party and award show to award show, tens of thousands of my fellow Americans are confronting a menace to our world as great as that fought by previous generations fighting Nazism and communism.

At the same time, I also want to apologize to these troops for my profession not having made even one motion picture about any of the heroic American fighters in Afghanistan and Iraq. This country is fighting a war, Hollywood. You may think this war is unwise, waged under mistaken, or even false, pretenses. And as an actor in Hollywood, you are overwhelmingly likely to hate this commander in chief. But even the men and women of Hollywood must recognize that America is fighting the worst people of our time, people who hurt every group Hollywood claims to care about -- minorities, women, gays -- people who engage in the sins Hollywood most professes to oppose -- intolerance and violence -- far more than anyone else on the planet.

In another era, when what many have labeled "the greatest generation" fought the German Nazis and the Japanese fascists, Hollywood made movie after movie depicting that great war and our great warriors. And Hollywood showed freedom's enemies as the cruel and vicious people they were. We have not produced one film yet depicting this war in positive terms or one depicting this generation's enemies of freedom as the cruel and vicious people they are.

In fact, the only nominated film about people who slaughter children at discos, blow up weddings, and bomb pizzerias and buses filled with men, women and children is one that attempts to show these murderers in God's name as complex human beings. Just imagine how the Academy would have reacted 60 years ago to a film depicting Nazi murderers as complex human beings. We have descended far.

We in Hollywood walk around thinking we are very important. That is why this year's nominated films for best picture are largely pictures with messages, pictures that relatively few people actually see. But although Hollywood was always concerned with politics, we have let ourselves be taken over by those for whom their message is more significant than the primary purposes of film -- to illuminate life and to entertain. Yes, entertain.

You know, entertainment is actually a noble pursuit. Life is difficult for almost every human being on earth. And if we can offer people an elevated way to divert their attention for a couple of hours from their troubled child, their marital tensions, their ill parent, their financial woes, we have rendered the world a greater service than by making another message-film against racism in America, the least racist country in the world.

My fellow actors, we walk around feeling that we are very important. But we do so only because we confuse fame with significance. We do have more fame than any other human beings in history. Far more people have heard of any actor here tonight than of any of the discoverers of any medication saving billions of lives, of any teacher of the disabled, of any nurse tending the aged, of almost any national leader.

But the truth is that, as noble a calling as acting can be, all we do is make-believe: We portray other people, and we speak words written by other people. Everyone knows our names, but almost no one knows us. All they know are the characters we play.

Thank you again. I hope I haven't ruined your evening.

[destruction]

retard

[bxbomb]

Nigga PUHLEEZE

if clooney or someone did mention the soldiers, the assbag neocons would have villified him for not being sincere or that it was just a P.R move.

The right should be happy that the show was kept in check for political charged speeches etc.

Now more than ever it would have been like shooting fish in a barrell or 78 yr old men in the face

[bxbomb]

heres CLooneys latest

am a liberal. And I make no apologies for it. Hell, I'm proud of it.

Too many people run away from the label. They whisper it like you'd whisper "I'm a Nazi." Like it's dirty word. But turn away from saying "I'm a liberal" and it's like you're turning away from saying that blacks should be allowed to sit in the front of the bus, that women should be able to vote and get paid the same as a man, that McCarthy was wrong, that Vietnam was a mistake. And that Saddam Hussein had no ties to al-Qaeda and had nothing to do with 9/11.

This is an incredibly polarized time (wonder how that happened?). But I find that, more and more, people are trying to find things we can agree on. And, for me, one of the things we absolutely need to agree on is the idea that we're all allowed to question authority. We have to agree that it's not unpatriotic to hold our leaders accountable and to speak out.

That's one of the things that drew me to making a film about Murrow. When you hear Murrow say, "We mustn't confuse dissent with disloyalty" and "We can't defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home," it's like he's commenting on today's headlines.

The fear of been criticized can be paralyzing. Just look at the way so many Democrats caved in the run up to the war. In 2003, a lot of us were saying, where is the link between Saddam and bin Laden? What does Iraq have to do with 9/11? We knew it was bullshit. Which is why it drives me crazy to hear all these Democrats saying, "We were misled." It makes me want to shout, "Fuck you, you weren't misled. You were afraid of being called unpatriotic."

Bottom line: it's not merely our right to question our government, it's our duty. Whatever the consequences. We can't demand freedom of speech then turn around and say, But please don't say bad things about us. You gotta be a grown up and take your hits.

I am a liberal. Fire away.

[igloo]

:laugh:

Well, if George Clooney says something............bxbomb, you are the ultimate moron

[igloo]

Hollywood Heroism

A to-do list for George Clooney and his brave crowd.

By Mark Goldblatt

Prior to and during Sunday night’s Academy Awards, Hollywood luminaries were busy patting themselves on the back for their courage in honoring films depicting two gay cowboys as star-crossed lovers, a gay writer as a soulful artist, a transsexual as a responsible parent, a Palestinian suicide bomber as a thoughtful, conscience-driven activist, greedy oil company executives as, well, greedy oil company executives, and Senator Joe McCarthy as (gasp) a threat to American civil liberties. As George Clooney, who had a hand in both the oil-industry-bashing Syriana and the McCarthy-bashing Good Night, and Good Luck, recently noted, “People in Hollywood do seem to be getting more comfortable with making these sorts of movies now. People are becoming braver."

No doubt about it. Hollywood is now ready to tackle any subject. With that in mind, I’d like to propose a handful of titles for next year.

Che, the Later Years: Following on the success of The Motorcycle Diaries, this sequel would pick up with Che Guevara’s life after he joined forces with Fidel Castro in Cuba. It would include scenes of Che presiding over firing squads after the overthrow of the Batista government and setting up Cuba’s labor-camp system, which was used to imprison not only enemies of the revolution and political dissidents but homosexuals and (later) AIDS victims. The film would also highlight Che’s literary growth from a casual diarist to a political theorist: “Hatred as an element of struggle, unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine — this is what our soldiers must become . . .â€

The Jihad Momani Gesture: The film would cover one week in the life of the unfortunately named Jordanian newspaper editor, who, during the Islamic cartoon riots earlier this year, was fired for reprinting the offending images of Mohammad: “I was trying to calm [the rioters] down,†he explained, “to tell them these cartoons are not the end of the world, that insults have happened before and will happen again. The cartoons are silly. They don’t deserve such an intense reaction.†Two days after his firing he was arrested. He currently faces three years in prison for violating Jordan’s press law, which outlaws insults to Islam.

Brokeback Sharia: This would be a tearjerker about true love in the face of social conformity and family pressure in the grand Hollywood tradition of Titanic and, well, Brokeback Mountain. It would recount the doomed affair of two gay Iranian teenagers who fell in love in the summer of 2005, were arrested by the religious police, then publicly hanged to death for the crime of homosexuality.

The Uneasy Rest of Jesse Dirkhising: A graphic horror film, along the lines of Silence of the Lambs and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it would tell the story of the last hours of young Jesse’s life — a life that ended in September 1999 when he was abducted by two gay men, Joshua Brown, 22, and David Don Carpenter, 38, who drugged the 13-year-old, bound him with duct tape and gagged him with his own underwear, sodomized him with foreign objects, and repeatedly raped him. They administered an enema of Brown’s urine, then took a break and went to the kitchen for sandwiches. The seventh grader stopped breathing while they snacked. He died of suffocation.

Ambush at Gush Katif: This film would dramatize the 2004 roadside attack in Gaza on a car driven by Israeli social worker and expectant mother Tali Hatuel. Two Palestinian gunmen rushed the vehicle and discovered that the driver was a pregnant woman — whereupon they pumped bullets into her stomach and face . . . and then pumped bullets into the face of her 11-year-old daughter . . . and into the face of her nine-year-old daughter . . . and into the face of her seven-year-old daughter . . . and into the face of her two-year-old daughter. The attackers were eventually shot and killed by Israeli soldiers. The next day, two Palestinian organizations, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committee, both claimed credit for the attack, and the official Voice of Palestine Radio called it a “heroic operation.†As an epilogue, the film would segue to the funeral for Hatuel and her daughters — which was interrupted when two more Palestinian gunmen, disguised as women, made it to the perimeter of the cemetery and opened fire on the mourners, including women and young children, who were sent scrambling behind parked cars and concrete barriers. Both gunmen were again shot dead by Israeli soldiers on hand to protect the crowd . . . and Islamic Jihad again claimed credit for the incident.

True, none of these films would likely be a runway box-office hit. But that shouldn’t matter to a courageous artist like George Clooney. They’d be truthful. And that’s what really counts, isn’t it?

So how about it George? Ready to break out the checkbook for any of these babies?

[bxbomb]

:laugh:

Well, if George Clooney says something............bxbomb, you are the ultimate moron

What is your major malfunction private pyle

how the fuck does this reply even remotely affect me dickbag

Your thread which according to you must stay on topic ,had a reply from me in direct reesponse to your topic( oh wait its really not your topic its yet another cutn paste job , no personal insight from the mighty igloo) , but i digress.

I then responded why nothing was said at the awards and then followed up with a spot on statement by George Clooney , who quite frankly could run this country a hundred times better than this administration

[igloo]

What is your major malfunction private pyle

how the fuck does this reply even remotely affect me dickbag

...... followed up with a spot on statement by George Clooney , who quite frankly could run this country a hundred times better than this administration

Hence my statement re; Clooney you unbearable moronic bore......son, seriously ...you can't be that stupid, can you?

Of course, no need to answer, it is plain to see.

Green Eggs and Ham son....short (which you admitted you need), simple words (match your IQ), and bright colors (I hear retards like bright colors).

[bxbomb]

the events taking place in this picture are about as likely to happen to Igloo as the Bush administration manning the fuck up or actually telling the truth

[bxbomb]

Hence my statement re; Clooney you unbearable moronic bore......son, seriously ...you can't be that stupid, can you?

Of course, no need to answer, it is plain to see.

Green Eggs and Ham son....short (which you admitted you need), simple words (match your IQ), and bright colors (I hear retards like bright colors).

pretty funny one of your gods , Sean Hannity yesterday said Clooney was on point

[igloo]

the events taking place in this picture are about as likely to happen to Igloo as the Bush administration manning the fuck up or actually telling the truth

:blah: .......... .............. :zzz:

[bxbomb]

:blah: .......... .............. :zzz:

truth hurts dont it scumbag

By the way when the fuck are you gonna chang e that signature of yours

NAMBLAs finest J.Pod might have been onto something aboout good old G. Bushs luck and ability to drive the left crazy , but puhleeeeze this past 2 YRS have been the worst run presidency on all fronts

TIme to move on iggy

[igloo]

truth hurts dont it scumbag

By the way when the fuck are you gonna chang e that signature of yours

NAMBLAs finest J.Pod might have been onto something aboout good old G. Bushs luck and ability to drive the left crazy , but puhleeeeze this past 2 YRS have been the worst run presidency on all fronts

TIme to move on iggy

:blah: .......... .............. :zzz:

[bxbomb]

:blah: .......... .............. :zzz:

exactly what someone with no substance and someone who knows hes been beaten like a prisoner at Gitmo would say

THanks for playing Iglooo we have lovely consolation prizes for you

[igloo]

exactly what someone with no substance and someone who knows hes been beaten like a prisoner at Gitmo would say

THanks for playing Iglooo we have lovely consolation prizes for you

:blah: .......... .............. :zzz:

[bxbomb]

maybe you should heed your own advice in the Sadaam Delusions thread

your regressing faster than Bushs approval rating

[igloo]

Clooney to Arianna: I Did Not Blog

Georgecloo_rj_ca_7845948_600Oscar-winner George Clooney may make politically provocative films like "Syriana." But he doesn't write politically provocative blogs.

So imagine his ire when Arianna Huffington used some of his recent answers to political questions in a way that makes it look as if he wrote one for her Huffington Post blog site.

"He doesn't object to the quotes," says Stan Rosenfield, Clooney's valiant rep. "He said those things and those are his views. Arianna asked for permission to use the quotes and he gave it to her. What he didn't give permission for was the use of his quotes without source attributions to make it appear that he wrote a blog for her site. Which he did not. When he saw the posting Monday, we called and asked her to make the change, to simply attribute the quotes and make it clear that he did not write a blog. But she refused. And it's now Wednesday."

Rather than keep waiting, Clooney got pro-active and issued this statement:

" Miss Huffington's blog is purposefully misleading and I have asked her to clarify the facts.

I stand by my statements but I did not write this blog. With my permission Miss Huffington

compiled it from interviews with Larry King and The Guardian. What she most certainly did not get my permission to do is to combine only my answers in a blog that misleads the reader into thinking that I wrote this piece. These are not my writings - they are answers to questions and there is a huge difference."

George Clooney

In the pulled-from-interviews quotes, Clooney criticizes the Democrats' failure to speak out about the Iraq invasion out of fear of being criticized for being unpatriotic.

And the "Good Night, and Good Luck" writer/director/star also invokes Edward R. Murrow: “When you hear Murrow say, ‘We mustn’t confuse dissent with disloyalty’ ... it’s like he’s commenting on today’s headlines.â€