This just burned me up. Read the article below and my letter to it's author following it. His email is BenStein99@aol.com.
Sorry, but it is a bit long.
Another Perspective
Missed Tributes
By Ben Stein
Published 3/6/2006 2:08:21 AM
Now for a few humble thoughts about the Oscars.
I did not see every second of it, but my wife did, and she joins me in noting that there was not one word of tribute, not one breath, to our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan or to their families or their widows or orphans. There were pitifully dishonest calls for peace -- as if the people we are fighting were interested in any peace for us but the peace of the grave. But not one word for the hundreds of thousands who have served and are serving, not one prayer or moment of silence for the dead and maimed.
Basically, the sad truth is that Hollywood does not think of itself as part of America, and so, to Hollywood, the war to save freedom from Islamic terrorists is happening to someone else. It does not concern them except insofar as it offers occasion to mock or criticize George Bush. They live in dreamland and cannot be gracious enough to thank the men and women who pay with their lives for the stars' ability to live in dreamland. This is shameful.
The idea that it is brave to stand up for gays in Hollywood, to stand up against Joe McCarthy in Hollywood (fifty years after his death), to say that rich white people are bad, that oil companies are evil -- this is nonsense. All of these are mainstream ideas in Hollywood, always have been, always will be. For the people who made movies denouncing Big Oil, worshiping gays, mocking the rich to think of themselves as brave -- this is pathetic, childish narcissism.
The brave guy in Hollywood will be the one who says that this is a fabulously great country where we treat gays, blacks, and everyone else as equal. The courageous writer in Hollywood will be the one who says the oil companies do their best in a very hostile world to bring us energy cheaply and efficiently and with a minimum of corruption. The producer who really has guts will be the one who says that Wall Street, despite its flaws, has done the best job of democratizing wealth ever in the history of mankind.
No doubt the men and women who came to the Oscars in gowns that cost more than an Army Sergeant makes in a year, in limousines with champagne in the back seat, think they are working class heroes to attack America -- which has made it all possible for them. They are not. They would be heroes if they said that Moslem extremists are the worst threat to human decency since Hitler and Stalin. But someone might yell at them or even attack them with a knife if they said that, so they never will.
Hollywood is above all about self: self-congratulation, self-promotion, and above all, self-protection. This is human and basic, but let's not kid ourselves. There is no greatness there in the Kodak theater. The greatness is on patrol in Kirkuk. The greatness lies unable to sleep worrying about her man in Mosul. The greatness sleeps at Arlington National Cemetery and lies waiting for death in VA Hospitals. God help us that we have sunk so low as to confuse foolish and petty boasting with the real courage that keeps this nation and the many fools in it alive and flourishing on national TV.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He also writes "Ben Stein's Diary" in every issue of The American Spectator.
Here's my letter to the guy:
Dear Ben Stein,
I don't even no where to begin with this. I've never heard of you before receiving this apparent article of yours. If it is not yours, please forgive the following retort.
I think the article is absolute non-sense. It isn't just "Hollywood," as proclaimed in the article, that thinks this war is a shame, but many others throughout this beautiful country and the world as well. George W. Bush and his Christian right-wingers will be the ones compared to Hitler and the Nazis, as they already are. It is not courage that sends American troops over to fight this Iraq War. It's down right ignorance and greed. No tributes are necessary for such shamefullness. Bring our troops home. That's what the majority of America wants. That's what I want. I want peace and an end to terror as well as you and the next person. Not tributes. It takes courage, determination and intelligence to settle disputes without violence. Virtues that George W. Bush and the writer of this forwarded article do not demonstrate.
Oh, and blacks and gays are not treated as equals by the way. Blacks can marry, so long as they are not gay. Equal rights for all, as Atticus Finch says in To Kill a Mockingbird, and special priviledges to no one. Marriage should be allowed to any two people willing to commit the rest of their lives together. Granted that they are of a legal age of consent. It should not be up to the religious right to decide who can love one another and be bonded by marriage. It should be an equal right to all peoples.
There is no god. There is only us. You and I and the rest of the world's citizens. And we must learn to truly love with courage and without the ignorance and shackles that is religion. Write about that if you have the mental and emotional capacity to do so, please.
Peace, joy and love to you brother. Now and always.
Corey
Sorry, but it is a bit long.
Another Perspective
Missed Tributes
By Ben Stein
Published 3/6/2006 2:08:21 AM
Now for a few humble thoughts about the Oscars.
I did not see every second of it, but my wife did, and she joins me in noting that there was not one word of tribute, not one breath, to our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan or to their families or their widows or orphans. There were pitifully dishonest calls for peace -- as if the people we are fighting were interested in any peace for us but the peace of the grave. But not one word for the hundreds of thousands who have served and are serving, not one prayer or moment of silence for the dead and maimed.
Basically, the sad truth is that Hollywood does not think of itself as part of America, and so, to Hollywood, the war to save freedom from Islamic terrorists is happening to someone else. It does not concern them except insofar as it offers occasion to mock or criticize George Bush. They live in dreamland and cannot be gracious enough to thank the men and women who pay with their lives for the stars' ability to live in dreamland. This is shameful.
The idea that it is brave to stand up for gays in Hollywood, to stand up against Joe McCarthy in Hollywood (fifty years after his death), to say that rich white people are bad, that oil companies are evil -- this is nonsense. All of these are mainstream ideas in Hollywood, always have been, always will be. For the people who made movies denouncing Big Oil, worshiping gays, mocking the rich to think of themselves as brave -- this is pathetic, childish narcissism.
The brave guy in Hollywood will be the one who says that this is a fabulously great country where we treat gays, blacks, and everyone else as equal. The courageous writer in Hollywood will be the one who says the oil companies do their best in a very hostile world to bring us energy cheaply and efficiently and with a minimum of corruption. The producer who really has guts will be the one who says that Wall Street, despite its flaws, has done the best job of democratizing wealth ever in the history of mankind.
No doubt the men and women who came to the Oscars in gowns that cost more than an Army Sergeant makes in a year, in limousines with champagne in the back seat, think they are working class heroes to attack America -- which has made it all possible for them. They are not. They would be heroes if they said that Moslem extremists are the worst threat to human decency since Hitler and Stalin. But someone might yell at them or even attack them with a knife if they said that, so they never will.
Hollywood is above all about self: self-congratulation, self-promotion, and above all, self-protection. This is human and basic, but let's not kid ourselves. There is no greatness there in the Kodak theater. The greatness is on patrol in Kirkuk. The greatness lies unable to sleep worrying about her man in Mosul. The greatness sleeps at Arlington National Cemetery and lies waiting for death in VA Hospitals. God help us that we have sunk so low as to confuse foolish and petty boasting with the real courage that keeps this nation and the many fools in it alive and flourishing on national TV.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He also writes "Ben Stein's Diary" in every issue of The American Spectator.
Here's my letter to the guy:
Dear Ben Stein,
I don't even no where to begin with this. I've never heard of you before receiving this apparent article of yours. If it is not yours, please forgive the following retort.
I think the article is absolute non-sense. It isn't just "Hollywood," as proclaimed in the article, that thinks this war is a shame, but many others throughout this beautiful country and the world as well. George W. Bush and his Christian right-wingers will be the ones compared to Hitler and the Nazis, as they already are. It is not courage that sends American troops over to fight this Iraq War. It's down right ignorance and greed. No tributes are necessary for such shamefullness. Bring our troops home. That's what the majority of America wants. That's what I want. I want peace and an end to terror as well as you and the next person. Not tributes. It takes courage, determination and intelligence to settle disputes without violence. Virtues that George W. Bush and the writer of this forwarded article do not demonstrate.
Oh, and blacks and gays are not treated as equals by the way. Blacks can marry, so long as they are not gay. Equal rights for all, as Atticus Finch says in To Kill a Mockingbird, and special priviledges to no one. Marriage should be allowed to any two people willing to commit the rest of their lives together. Granted that they are of a legal age of consent. It should not be up to the religious right to decide who can love one another and be bonded by marriage. It should be an equal right to all peoples.
There is no god. There is only us. You and I and the rest of the world's citizens. And we must learn to truly love with courage and without the ignorance and shackles that is religion. Write about that if you have the mental and emotional capacity to do so, please.
Peace, joy and love to you brother. Now and always.
Corey
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
Goodluck with the job.