At the end of June, I wrote a short op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. In that article, I criticized Oliver Stone’s “documentary” South of the Border. I wrote the following:
What Mr. Stone and his writers have presented is a standard far-left narrative that is part of a long line of propaganda films, a modern American version of the old agitprop. There are no dissenting voices in this film. Nor is there any mention of the fact that Mr. Chávez has closed down television and radio stations that disagree with him and arrested dissenting political figures.
I then followed that op-ed with a longer article that appeared on my blog and was then put up on the website of the History News Network, the major website of the historical community. I wrote the following paragraph about Chavez’s big mistake of allowing himself to be interviewed by a reporter who knows his stuff, footage Stone knows about but somehow failed to use for his film:
Finally, you should not miss the incredible BBC Hardtalk interview conducted by the fearless BBC reporter Stephen Sackur, who, unlike his US counterparts, knows how to ask the tough questions to Hugo Chavez, and who confronts him head on with his lies, obfuscations, and his inability to be honest. You will see Sackur confront Chavez on his arrest of General Baduel, which I referred to in my WSJ op-ed. Fortunately, Chavez has not learned what Fidel Castro would have told him — never agree to be interviewed except by fawning American acolytes like Barbara Walters, Dan Rather, and all the others who have interviewed Castro and failed to confront him about anything meaningful.
Today, I woke up to find that none other than Oliver Stone himself has answered me in a short letter, in which he refers to my critique of him as a “diatribe,” a word that of course fits his own film and writing far better than anything I have written. He claims that he really does have dissenting voices in his film, as well as opposition leaders criticizing Hugo Chavez. What Stone does is to include brief bits of criticism, in standard propaganda set-ups in which a few words are used to knock the critics down and show Hugo Chavez’s greatness. Nowhere does he include any substantive critic who can provide a different perspective on Chavez and his policies. This is not surprising. As I pointed out by quoting Tariq Ali, his main writer, the film is meant to be one defending and praising Hugo Chavez, not a non-partisan or balanced view of the dictator’s reign.
“By sending his letter criticizing me to HNN, and not to PJM, where it originally appeared, Stone has revealed something about himself.”
Puh-lease! Stone is a knave, but even he knows that PJM is not a respectable forum.
Then you must–by your own logic–be worse than a knave, because you’re not only here, you’re commenting.
Of course, the same logic can’t be applied to me because I don’t have such a low opinion of PJM. So don’t even try.
Oh, I hang out in all sorts of disreputable places, CW. Also, I prize PJM for the material it provides. Along with Counterpunch.com, it’s a treasure trove of bigotry and lunacy. Here’s the latest for my Gutter Watch collection from today’s PJM:
Constitutionalist “How dare you tell the truth about the Pedophile Prophet Piggy Mo?”
I protested this as hate speech, but of course (and as usual) the moderators deleted my protest and let the slur stand. (To tell the truth, I would have been disappointed if they acted otherwise, but PJM rarely disappoints.)
“Pedophile Prophet Piggy Mo” is rhetorically speaking a bit rough—but a fairly accurate description of Mohammed’s sexual behavior. It is well established that he did indeed have sex with a girl who was around nine years old at the time. There was simply no rational reason for Pajamas Media to delete that particular post.
I rest my case.
So your definition of disreputable has nothing to do with accuracy, but rather whether it offends your sensitivities.
David and Mark remind me of drunks whose voices get more and more smug and self-righteous as they get more and more drunk, but don’t notice the vomit on their shirtfronts.
PS – We all live in glass houses, boys, and pray in glass churches/synagogues/mosques. A little tolerance is called for. These religious icons were a strange lot. (Genesis 20:12)
Other than ‘piggy’, and shortening Mohammed to ‘Mo’
there’s nothing particularly offensive there.
Pedophile is not an obscenity, nor is prophet. While
Mohammed might’ve been taken aback at the
characterization of ‘pedophile’, by many standards-
-modern and ancient, his consummation of marriage with
a 9 year old do fall into that category.
And we don’t all worship in glass synagogues/mosques/churches. Some of us follow
gods that do not require tolerance–particularly
of a man who made it his life’s work to destroy the
worship of some of those gods.
With regards to the smug self-righteousness: Pot, kettle, black. You are only one person, and what is and is not disreputable is not determined by you alone.
You have a very interesting take on PJM, but it seems to me you’re generalizing. Yes, there is plenty of anti-Muslim sentiment around these parts. But there is also genuine sympathy toward moderate, secular Muslims. Just yesterday Barry Rubin posted an interview with Zeyno Baran that was very pro-moderate Islam. For another take, check out Phyllis Chesler; Though she pulls no punches against Sharia and honor-killings, she also often mentions the moderates she has met who oppose theocracy.
I am, however, genuinely curious as to which, if any, conservative media outlets you find “reputable”.
Oh, so you are a pedophile lover. Who would love a pedophile except maybe another pedophile? But I forgot, a pomo Western civilization hater believes that truth is relative and what is pedophilia in the West is just sweet elsewhere.
The bullshit you believe can be “deconstructed” too sweetie. It’s not ‘intellectual sophistication’. It’s cowardice, because it’s safe to attack home the way a kid attacks mommy and daddy.
Case can’t be rested when it doesn’t exist. Let me use a basic outline of what you are saying.
Me: Some black people come from Africa but not all. / This is known as an historicly accurate statement.
You: U r uh rasist! / This is known as a basic race-oriented trog’s basic response to an accurate statement he cannot logically refute.
If you have a logical and legitimate grievance state it in detail. Or don’t.
I just can’t believe there are still people who don’t think Chavez is a dictator. His supporters are even more lame than he himself is.
And just how do your define “respectable forum”?
DailyKos perhaps?
You come here and complain..why not go somewhere and complain how the left does not react to things they should…like the “cracker” stuff, the domestic terrorist bomb in Houston that almost killed a woman, leaving AZ alone and taking out the drug cartels instead,tending to things that do not merely actions for VOTES.etc..
.Stone and Hugo. Funny how only rich obnoxious Americans back Hugo..Stone is a prime example. They should have to live the life of the average Venezuelan for a couple of years…then lets hear their story. dips.
Actually by presenting to HNN he was after comic relief..he wanted to give them a good laugh..
Joseph, Agree or disagree as much as you like. Here at PJM you will find no comments ” collapsed by the community ” and your voice will get a chance to be heard. Freedom of speech is not selectively enforced regardless of the drivel that may come out of ones mouth. Your right to babble on is secure.
Oliver Stone wants to have his cake and eat it also. He is a postmodernist who believes there is really no such thing as objective and dispassionate scholarship. One should therefore ultimately remain loyal to the narrative of their choosing. Stone has a well-established record of being a propagandist who ignores evidence that does not fit in with their agenda. Nobody is slime jobbing him. This is beyond reasonable dispute. Postmodernists inevitably become intellectually lazy and careless. And why should this be even a bit surprising? If you truly believe everything is relative—why invest the extra effort? Just go with the narrative, and the hell with everything else.
“Stone wants to have his cake and eat it also.”
The post-postmodernists, of course, don’t want to do that: the post-postmodernists—like the Australian Greens here in Australia and, I am sure, like greens elsewhere—being dominated by their petty but indignant envy of any success by those whom they oppose, don’t want to have the cake but won’t let anyone else eat it either.
That is true as far as it goes. However, in addition to being a dedicated socialist, he is clever enough to exploit public misgivings about event such as the murder of JFK. Only after many public doubts the official story gain traction, did Stone come with his movie. Does his version of events answer the questions about a conspiracy and the identities of possible conspirators? Not really, but a minority of Americans accept the official version, so Ollie saw a chance for exposure and ratings and profits.
There is no way to look at Lee Oswald’s history and not ask questions. Sadly, it’s all so polarized that, just as Stone was determined to convince people that a pro-Soviet Oswald acted alone, so are many right-wingers just as determined to show that Americans could not have conspired to murder Kennedy. Yet articles about Clinton and OK City or TWA 800 are seen as great research and ‘probably true’ – and may well be.
So, each side of the spectrum, at least the true believers, are more than willing to believe that Americans on the other side are indeed capable of horrendous acts against other Americans. I guess the lesson is that partisanship trumps all. Should conservatives ask any questions regarding evidence about 911, they are immediately branded. Yet the claims by conservatives that the US need be preserved and strengthened because of the inherent liberties it provides are based partly on the right to free inquiry.
Stone’s associations are lamentable, including with his friend Arafat. Yet, the curiosity that is revealed in some of his films should be ‘very American.’ Otherwise, being American (or the citizen of any democracy) devolves into merely being a particular kind of partisan who keeps busy demonizing partisans of the other side.
Once Oliver Stone starts paying his janitor $20 million/movie or he agrees to pay himself $25k/year and give the rest to charity, it’s hard to take him any more seriously than you would a clown or other such carnival worker. Same with Sean Penn and Danny Glover and the rest of the clueless Hollywood crowd. These fools think they will be exempt from the redistribution process? The irony is that these people are the ultimate capitalists!! They capitalize on their supposed talent every paycheck!! Once, just once, I would love to see one of these morons put their money where their mouth is and live on a real worker’s salary. Until then, they should continue to enjoy the fruits of their “labor” and shut the f@%k up. Hey Oliver, until your mouth and your money wind up in the same place, you are only embarrassing yourself with your very public ignorance of even basic history.
“The irony is that these people are the ultimate capitalists!!” Exactly! I’ve always found that hysterically funny. Who do they think they are kidding? Actually, they are entrepreneurs, the original capitalists.
It astonishes me that people assume they are immune to the consequences of their own choices. It would be such fun to see their faces when told their wealth is now to be redistributed, and they have to downsize their residence, do their own cooking, and drive a used car.
But he doesn’t want to be a capitalist; he wants to be an aristocrat. That way he gets his due (and his wealth) while “educating” the masses so that they make good subservient peons. He can then be part of the superior class as they “guide” the proletariat in the way they should behave.
As all totalitarian states do, this guiding would be at the end of bayonet if the masses ware recalcitrant. Ungrateful retches. (To much unregulated information breeds hate for the anointed ones. Don’t worry; this is being looked in to.)
Ah, well, we had the Dauphin in Michael Moore, so we needed a Duke of Bilgewater – oops, I mean ‘Bridgewater’ – and Oliver Stone seems to fit the bill well enough.
“I rest my case.”
You are resting a case that is so weak that a judge would throw it out of court. They would then likely add a fine and order you to pay the legal fees of everyone associated with this frivolous legal action.
I think he’s resting David because that is simply all he had.
Leave it to a leftist to suggest that they hang out at disreputable places, then deign to lecture the place on how to behave.
A leftist, by definition, is someone so untethered to reality as to be incapable of recognizing, much less admitting, any analysis or even a mere fact that strays the slightest from their cult-like adherence to the “message”.
They are fanatics, who respond with eyes bulging and flecks of spittle rocketing from their trembling lips each time a critique of yet another leftist distortion is merely analyzed from a principled dissenting point of view.
The bulge and spittle crowd engages in a Pavlovian drool, replete with “you people”, a haughty, smug and pedantic air, schoolmarmish in tone and filled with vacuous homilies and anecdotal irrelevances…but always, always…short on facts, reason, rational thought and/or meaningful self-reflection.
Oliver Stone and his equally corpulent alter ego, Michael Moore, are natural born radical leftists who tilt toward anarchism. They will prop up any enemy of state.
Their drooling lemming “mini-me’s” (or more accurately, bootlicking “me too’s”) are nothing more than trolls who visit sites who out them, and try to invade the conversation with mindless drivel, insults and sanctimonious breastbeating that is about as heartfelt as an Al Gore speech on carbon footprint reduction, or John Edwards’ “two Americas”. Or…either of their wedding vows.
Leftists can phone in their next empty platitude rant. We’ve heard it all before. Get down off your soapbox, leftist. You’ve been found out. Your “message” sucks and your cult is a fraud. And take your mewling little trolls with you and all the other flying monkeys, trained to spit on this country on cue. It sucks to be you, charlatan. Peddle your snake oil elsewhere.
So far we have nothing substantial in opposition to the theme of this story. Why do you bother? Nobody is looking for your approval.
People should know by now that when the left speaks of dissent or, balanced criticism, or airing both sides, they usually mean from people even further to the left than they are.
“Mr. Stone, it turns out, is very thin-skinned.”
One trait I’ve noticed about most liberals is that they get very upset whenever they find out that other people don’t hold them in as high a regard, as they hold themselves.
I think that the term ‘malignant narcissist’ fits best. That, coupled with their love of mankind in the abstract (the immanent, yet-to-be-realized Utopian New Man, that is) and their overwhelming hatred and contempt for humans as individuals actually exposes tham as monsters.
As history has shown us, when these monsters acquire control of the apparatus of the State, slaughter, atrocity and enslavement follow.
The elephant in the room:
The Bolshis and their rich ‘useful idiots’ produce ubiquitous propaganda in all forms of media.
The Libertarians, Conservatives and just plain folks produce NONE! That’s NONE!
I must say I love the choice of that little photo of Olie that graces Ron’s piece. A pumpkin under a watermellon shade.
Trying to reason or educate a “progressive” like Joseph is a waste of time – it’s like trying to negotiate with a suicide bomber.
Since most modern day libs are incapable of reason, you learn to do one of two things: ignore their inanity, or do like I do and point fingers while laughing at them. Joseph is worth a little finger pointing and a snicker, but has not arisen to the full fledged belly laugh. The racism and bigotry charges have grown so stale, it’s like hearing a funny joke for the fourth time.
Joe, you got to shake up the routine a bit and get some new material.
Ah, another county heard from.
Tex reminds me of those anti-Semites who try to delegitimize Israel and then respond that charges of anti-Semitism “have grown so stale” when they’re confronted.
Joey, are you talking about all those kids that hang around with Kos and Muffington? Kids like Rabbi ben Ezra Klien, Yglasshousias, Stephen Vincent Benen (“I live in Vermont, 99% white, and want more affirmative action now from our other states”)? Are these the kind of two-faced muggs you are referring to?
Why no, Freddy, I’m talking about people like you. Thanks for asking.
And btw, your slur against real and metaphorical “Vermonters” who agitate for others who live in distant states/lands are reminiscent of the slurs that Faubus and Wallace types used to hurl at “outside agitators.”
Joesph:are you saying that being against affirmative action/minority quotas is racist?
PS – We all live in glass houses, boys, and pray in glass churches/synagogues/mosques. A little tolerance is called for.
Interesting, a call for “tolerance” while exercising none. Seems to fit a strong historical profile of the left.
Correct, Ruler. I have no tolerance for hate speech. And claims that the slurs are historically accurate are no defense. No religion is immune. (Again, see Genesis 20:12.) Autre temps, autre moeurs.
Jojo says: “…your[my] slur against real and metaphorical “Vermonters” who agitate for others who live in distant states/lands are reminiscent of the slurs that Faubus and Wallace types used to hurl at “outside agitators.” Well no, Jojo, my sentiments about Steve Benen, one Vermahnter, may be reminiscent of something or other, but not of Faubus and Wallace. For instance, your comments here are reminiscent of Al Shapton in the haeyday of Tawana Brawley, but not of Uncle Fudd nor Robert Redford. Get my drift?
Journolister Steve Benen writes crap like this:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_04/023177.php
Harsh racism charges against people he knows nothing about, especially from a guy who lives in a state with a 99% white population. Call what he writes it hate speech if you like. He’s dreaming of a white Christmas I suppose.
Joseph reminds me of a little boy who whines ever louder in a vain attempt to get the adults to pay attention to him.
And you’ve been giving him what he wants because…?
He’s just so darned cute.
Anti-Semite
Chatty Cathy had more answers. I think your string is stuck.
Joseph, The charge of anti-semitism you hurled at Tex proves you are ignorant of both. In the several dialogues I have had with Tex he has shown himself to be an honest and fair-minded individual without the least bit of hate. Rather than pillory him you would be better to emulate him. Of course that might take both effort and courageous self examination. Qualities that you demonstrably lack.
Sorry you misunderstood, Menachem. I wasn’t accusing Tex of anti-Semitism, just of good ol’ fashioned bigotry.
@9. pelaut: NONE !
You are commenting on Pajamas _Media_ .
You are also surpising the other commenters
who could easily make a list of examples of
conservative media’s _truthful_ propaganda.
My own favorite is the SyFy Channel.
@6 cfbleachers. In the immortal words of the Leader of the Donner Party: Well Done.
Why are we even talking about bloody communists supporting bloody communist dictators ?
We would never discuss the kkk, aryan nation or other thugs, why do we still FALL INTO THE TRAP of the left by considering a bloody communist WORTH debating in any way ?
WHY ?
The lefties are responsible for more than a CENTURY of massacres, tortures, deportations, civil wars
and we keep giving them the passport of being in good faith.
THEY ARE FRIGGING ASSASSINS WHO DO WHAT THEY DO AND SAY WHAT THEY SAY BECAUSE THEY WANT TO CAUSE MORE KILLINGS.
PERIOD.
Once again, kudos to Ron Radosh, whose blog is often right on target, for allowing an unrestricted thread.
Like most liberals, Joseph is wedded to the notion that people he disagrees with have no rights.
This may not be Mark’s silliest comment. That’s the best that can be said for it.
Do Leftists EVER do that? Seriously? They almost always:
A. Deflect/Deny and Shift/Change the topic
B. Use misinformation that can be easily discredited with a little research
C. Make personal attacks whenever possible
D. Outright LIE and slander
E. All of the above
Then, you have Bambi himself treating “Huffington Post” as a credible ‘news source’ (and any other Lefty blog or cable channel that blows hot air up “The One’s” golf-knickers), so, it’s no wonder Leftists have their heads so far up their own bums that they believe the acrid stench of their bloviating B.S. smells like a bouquet of roses.
Stone and his ruinous ilk need to move to a 3rd-World country and leave the USA the hell alone.
I have not seen the movie nut Chaves like Ahmadinejad is a D….bag…
I think the general public pretty much knows that Oliver Stone is Michael Moore’s slightly smarter, but no less evil, twin.
Stone and his communist buddies in Hollywood think the US should have a government just like Venezuela. Just take a look at the kids movie they just released, 100% anti-capitalists. Thanks to Chávez they are now shortages of everything, including food. It’s a great system though according to them.
Although I was not trained as a writer—I was a Boilermaker, a metal fabricator, a weldor—however that might have been, through reading (such as of the many online blogs) and watching opposing parties express their ideas to each other before a public in critique (such as that spoiled university student against David Horowitz—she, just a little bit shy of clarifying her deep impulse in hopeful advancement of the efforts of others at one remove, to eradicate one entire group of people [millions of them]), and various vlogs and so on, not only for the way in which he uses language, more also, from noticing the emotional and psychological source from which the kind of expressions which he uses necessarily arise—I think that, I discern something in which “Joseph” has hedged himself:
In some juridical writing, when the high court is in process of dismantling some concept which may be at issue, once in while they use the gratuitous dramatic form of uplift or exaltation; they use a word such as, “learned” or “capable”, in this way: “Surely the learned counsel know that, . . .”—and in that construction in context, for the one side, so easy and embarrassing it must be, to instantly apprehend the months of work now in shipwreck, and but momentarily to be more clearly announced.
And in that way, though, to the most opposite end of things, while presenting some things which could have come only from intellectual training (And, I think that, Joseph would see himself taken for a scholar or at any rate, one cultured of things of education.) but yet, for aught which might resemble even a few lines of careful critique, and meaningful, Joseph exhibits himself as most unable—though, like a possum or, snake exudes an unpleasant odor, in that confined way which, among “street-people” and poorly reared children, is most common.
A child, in doing the kinds of things which children do—and even, though it be, of bad things which they sometimes might do—are considered as child-like; but an adult—presumed of serious intent and result—doing any one of those same kinds of things is immediately correctly held to have exhibited childishness. And, I think that, that’s just how our Joseph has positioned himself:
David and Mark remind him of drunks who vomit on themselves; “Tex” reminds his similarly—but, except in such as “I am me.”, and: “I think, therefore I am.”, and so on, by what appearance of logic and sense of esteem does he presume that, that which he values in self-revelation of his tawdry thought processes, are be taken as ideas of worth in the minds of others—is he seared from sense of self-consciousness as to be in that way, so disconnected from the commonwealth of mankind?
As elsewhere, with his use of mere conclusory allegation: “PJM is not a respectable forum and, PJM is a treasure trove of bigotry and lunacy.”, but yet, giving the reader nothing to go on, he marks himself as one without power of manly ability to think and to express himself in those ways which are acceptable to reasonable minds.
In one place, he writes: “To tell the truth,”, but, in studying his offerings, otherwise, by all criteria, in logic, any one of whole mind must entertain his expression, rather, as could only bespeak prevarication.
So earnestly, he strives to generate thoughtful and meaningful “put-downs”. But in resorting to use of the technique for ad hominem attack through persistent expressions of scurrilous thought, generally (And, with YT, there be other blogs and vlogs, where the off-scourings of his time and effort which has been spent, as he speaks of himself, “hang[ing] out in all sorts of disreputable places”, are welcome to be consumed and enjoyed.) inevitably, he is required to strain language, and offer only that which, for the bloggers of PJM, appears as inapposite—all the while, our Joseph is quite unaware because, in dredging his inner resources for whatever is to be drawn from the most prized of his dregs, he puts himself to labor under the insuperable weakness which, that greatest good, always dividing between things decent and indecent, decrees use of even the smallest of the implements of malevolence, to remain.
In one of Solzhenitsyn’s novels he portrays a character trying to defend Eisenstein’s groveling to Stalin by saying that he was such a good director that it didnt matter. That character was there to illustrate the contempt we should all have for the artistic lickspittles of brutal dictators. Although Stone has done a couple of interesting films those pieces are decades in the past and for the last twenty years he has been an embarrassing long-winded buffoon. The only slightly interesting thing about him is how a man of such meager talent and even more meager box office manages to get funding for each new burst of flatulence. Must be the world commie conspiracy, Mandrake!
Stone in no way comparable to Eisenstein. Stone lives in freedom and luxury; his political ideas cost him nothing. Eisenstein lived in an insane society where any wrong step – or even any right step – could cost him his life. What is amazing is that he did any worthwhile work at all. Maybe Solzhenitsyn was in a position to have contempt for him, but we in the US certainly are not.
P.S. – I can’t judge Stone’s artistry. I’m told that Platoon is a good film. But I’ve only seen JFK, and it was such a travesty of truth and taste – e.g., casting Jim Garrison as Earl Warren! – that I couldn’t bring myself to watch any of his other stuff.
Platoon was excellent, so was Natural Born Killers. I’ve always thought that if you cut every scene with Kevin Costner and Sissy Spacek out of JFK and just went with the conspiracy of a crazy, gay right-wing conspiracy to kill Kennedy without pretending that it was real, JFK would have been a good movie. Everything else that I’ve seen is awful.
Hugo Chavez is taking his country on a disasterous route to ruin. Over the past few years, I have watched as he slowly destroys his country. Anyone who thinks otherwise is living in an alternate reality.
As this article says, there is inflation, rising crime, along with food and electricity shortages. Chavez doesn’t know how to run anything. Sound familiar? This is what Mr. Stone wants to bring to this country.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0525/Venezuelan-moms-to-Hugo-Chavez-take-care-of-our-jailed-sons
Where do Oliver Stone’s talents lie? Is he an historian or is he an artist absent sufficient talent to create pure fictional narrative who requires factual foundations upon which which to build film fantasies?
Why can’t this hack director just buy scripts and make movies?
Because Oliver Stone imagines himself an intellectual. Indeed, a morally and politically engaged intellectual. I haven’t seen Stone’s latest and probably never will. But I just happened to catch The Baader Meinhof Complex the other night and it speaks volumes about wannabe intellects and political activists like Oliver Stone.
At bottom, Andreas Baader and Charlie Manson are one and the same deranged, sexist and racist bloodshedder. Ulrike Meinhof and Squeaky Fromm differ only in that Meinhof came armed with a political vocabulary to justify her primitive, anarchical and bloodthirsty impulses.
Worldwide political struggle, armed revolution, Communism, Capitalism, Pigs, People—all these are the meaningless mumbo jumbo of over-priviledged, talentless, rudderless and bored mediocraties in search of meaning and a cause.
Hitler in his evil genius recognized that a thug was a thug was a thug. When Brownshirts and Blackshirts were busting each other’s heads in bloody, roiling street battles in German cities during the thirties, Hitler had advice for the Brownshirts: Bust their heads but don’t kill them. They’ll make our best recruits.
Hitler recognized that the Fascists and Communists at each other’s throats were one and the same creature. A bloodlusting savage in search of an ideology to justify its violent primordial instincts.
In an age when simple criminality is fashionably confused with political action, hack director Oliver Stone has found a niche. Fellow Traveler. Exposer of Fascist myth. Champion of revolutionary truth. Unarmed combatant in the worldwide struggle to lift the Capitalist jackboot from the neck of The People.
The tragedy is that Oliver Stone is merely a more prominent and financially successful example of a breed. Armies of hack journalists and university professors routinely boring away at the foundations of democratic society are a far greater threat.
Stone’s latest Schlockumentary on the unspeakable Chavez is just
another example of how both his and Michael Moo’s cinematic
contributions are just pure agitprop.
Most Venezuelans revile Chavez for the complete mess he has made
of a nation that once worked; despite the fact that the wealthy
skimmed the cream from the oil revenue churn. The swine still
sup at the trough only now they wear uniforms and the country
is a complete shambles. Nothing works, the infrastructure is
crumbling, and goon squads of ignorant chavistas in red
berets have replaced the tie-wearing PTJ.
Stone should live in Maracaibo or Caracas for a few years and
see what a hell hole Chavez has made of the country. Oh and let
Ollie try to get a film made that speaks what he believes to be
truth to Hugo’s power and see what comes of it.
Stone, Penn, and Glover…these are the people destined for the eternal Pit.
There is a Frontline piece on Oogoe that is well worth your time watching.
Sad, very sad, as this rather ignorant and increasingly paranoid individual tightens his grip on Venezuela and intimidates his population.
I’ve read that Oogoe makes filmmaking very attractive in Venezuela for his norteamericano ideological compadres.
What is wrong with Oliver Stone ? He’s not without talents, granted that historical presentation in his movies leaves a lot to be desired in the way of little things like truth and accuracy.
Here is the link to the Frontline piece…
The Hugo Chavez Show
Some years ago, I had the opportunity to interview Oliver Stone while he was in the midst of making both “Heaven & Earth” and “Natural Born Killers.”
Busy guy, right?
Walking in for our meeting, Stone immediately handed me the latest issue of “Mad” magazine, in which he was depicted in a rather funny cartoon bit about out-of-control Hollywood types. Pointing out the likeness, he somewhat desperately demanded to know if the drawing accurately depicted him. For the next 20 minutes, we discussed the cartoon, “Mad” and the power of the media to distort the truth.
That’s where this guy’s head is at when it comes to his public image.
After my resulting story appeared in print, Stone personally called me to point out the multitude of “inaccuracies” in my piece.
It’s no surprise that he contacted you directly, Ron.
You must be doing something right.
If box office talks and BS walks, then what does this mean?
From Box Office Mojo:
SOUTH OF THE BORDER – Released in US June 25
Domestic Gross: $100K
Foreign Gross: $ 53K (including Venezuela)
Total Worldwide: $153K
By contrast, Brian de Palma’s horrific REDACTED grossed 778K worldwide on a $10M budget. No budget available on SOB, but considering Stone had to fly film crews all over Central and South America, it had to have cost him at least a few mil. Then again, TRIUMPH OF THE WILL was not produced with box office in mind. Propaganda never is