Thursday, September 6, 2007

Hollywood And Courage

You have to give credit to people in Hollywood who speak out against the President, and The Iraq War. These celebrities are really courageous. They stand for their convictions at the risk of financial loss, and damage to their image.You have to admire people like that, who put their principals above money, popularity, and all the time knowing they will be demonized for speaking out.

Some say they don't know what's going on, and that they should just be entertainers and leave policy matters to politicians. I say most of them were against this stupid war from day one. And that in itself shows us that the celebrities that spoke out against invading Iraq then were more in the loop than the politicians, or the pundits that got us into the mess we now have in Iraq. If the some people in Washington had listened to Hollywood, then maybe the decent policy maker who let G.W. Bush persuade them to sign on to his gung ho rush to war would have their reputations in tact, and have the credibility they need today to speak out against Bush on his Iraq policy.

Some celebrities who had the audacity to voice opinions that were anti Bush did suffer in their careers (Dixie Chicks and others). Yet they stuck to their guns, took the blows, and when all was said and done, they were proved correct. They had more courage than a lot of Congress people and media people could only have wished for. I also think most of the media should share the blame for cheering Bush on in the lead up to the war.

The media didn't do it's job and investigate the truth of Bush's claims about the threat Saddam supposedly posed to America. The media just repeated Bush's lies. It surly would not taken that much investigating on the part of the media to uncover the realty of Bush's claims. Night Ridder was the only media outlet that took the small amount of time and effort needed to look into what Bush was saying, and report the facts. Night Ridder conclusion: Iraq had no W.M.Ds. Very few media outlets in this country did what the outspoken celebrities and Night Ridder newspaper did: Question the administration. No one should be demonized for speaking out. If anything they should be applauded. The so called mainstream media would not even conceive of having anyone on their t.v. shows that dared to say Bush was wrong. The only t.v. media that let dissenters on air was CSPAN.

With all that was going against them at the time, including the news media, some celebrities still stood up and spoke out. They showed they are true patriots, regardless of what personal pitfalls would, and did come their way. Courage under pressure. That is a human trait anyone should be proud to have.

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