srhoades on September 5, 2007 at 9:57 AM

For those interested, Cuban did respond to my e-mail. He didn’t address any of my points however, he just thanked me for my service and gave me a link to the fallen patriot fund. Ah well, just another reason to avoid the NBA like the plague.

Blacklake on September 5, 2007 at 12:10 PM

Both of you have read much more into my comment than was there and in the process of doing that seemed to have missed the main point.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
- Sigmund Freud

Here’s why that can’t happen. Hollywood is part of the arts community. People who get into that line of work, actors, directors, cinematographers, writers, graphic artists, etc., are people who have gone to university, and worse, they have majored in the arts. Like their peers, they did so because of their personality, their character, their mind set and thus already leaned that way to begin with. They are fundamentally people of the human secularist way of thinking. Most are atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, or new-agers. It’s their nature to see the world the way they do. It’s not a coincidence that Hollywood is far left. Those people come to work already with a predetermined set of political world views. And if they didn’t have them by the time they entered university, they would certainly get them before they graduated. The professors today will see to that.

I went to college and majored in the arts and I’m a Christian and very conservative. I have a degree in Film Studies. It’s not impossible to imagine conservative filmmakers although I agree they may have to operate outside of Hollywood.

To expect people with moderate, or even conservative, much less Christian, views, to come into Hollywood is to expect the unnatural. People who see the world the way it actually is, with the cynicism required, are not the types to aspire to careers in the entertainment business. They aspire to business, to industry, to medicine, or just to raising a family. They are part of the real world. They do not inhabit an infantile, bubble-type existence of moral equivalence, new age religions, drugs, alcohol, and debauchery.

Hollywood used to be a business which is why films like Casablanca made millions of dollars. The reason conservatives could do so well in the film industry is because of the huge untapped market out there. The Passion of the Christ, made independently of Hollywood, made a serious amount of money. A movie with a strong anti-jihad sentiment – “Jihad!” by David Zucker or say a film about the First Barbary War by Peter Weir – would clean up at the box office.

The problem is that the major studios aren’t interested in making money per se but in advancing their political agenda. This has gotten so bad in the past two years as to be almost unbearable. I used to go to the cinema regularly but now I’ll go a couple of times a year and even then it’s unlikely to be an American film I’ll go see. DreamWorks went bankrupt because Spielberg kept pumping out crap like “Munich”. It’s not inconceviable that one or several major stuios will go bankrupt and the market will have to start over and make films that don’t insult people’s intelligence or morality.

As for the unnaturalness of Christian, conservative people coming into Hollywood there is also what Evan Sayet calls a “grey list” of people who don’t get hired because of their conservative beliefs. But there’s no reason one can’t aspire to raise a family, understand the world and direct a film. As it is I’m looking to set up a theatre and filmmaking will take a backseat to that unless my business venture proves to be unprofitable. There’s always the Liberty Film Festival if you’re interested in conservative filmmakers.

Questioning someones patriotism because they are against the war is bogus and a cheap smear, especially if the person questioning the other persons patriotism has never served and the person who’s patriotism is being question has.

Very bad tactics.

MB4 on September 5, 2007 at 1:13 AM

Very bad reasoning. By that line or argument, the majority of Americans are disqualified from questioning the patriotism of Lee Harvey Oswald. Worse, it deprives any American not fit for military service, for any variety of physical reasons, the potential of ever being fully “qualified” to assess patriotism.

Obviously (and it’s nothing short of pathetic that this even needs to be pointed out), it is possible for people who’ve never been in the military to have the best of intentions for their country, just as it’s possible for individuals who’ve served in the military to wish harm on their country. Anybody is fully qualified to note such transparent differences. There is no litmus test.

The left would be well-served to abandon its frequent, tired retreats to the ridiculous “absolute moral authority” myth. I don’t think it’s effective at confusing anyone, and doesn’t the very notion undermine moral relativism, anyway?

And I suspect you already knew about this because he asked Michelle to host it. I know this because he also asked me and told me he asked Michelle.

Ahem. Not that anyone asked me, but I have not heard anything from Mark Cuban. And I don’t listen to the Mike Church show, so I didn’t hear about that either.

Michelle on September 5, 2007 at 9:16 AM

Thank you, Michelle, for setting the record straight. All that “Mark Cuban said that he asked Michelle” crap was getting way too High School Gossip Queen for me.

“When a nation is at war many thing which might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its efforts that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and no court could regard them as protected by any Constitutional right.” [Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Schenk v. US, 249 US 47, 52 (1919)]

BTW, Schenk was distributing leaflets trying to get draftees to refuse to serve in WWI. The USSC decision was unanimous against him, and one of America’s most liberal justices wrote the opinion, an excerpt of which is above.

Robbins is paying no price for his treason (and that is what sabotaging a war effort is), and I think he should. If I were in charge, the minimum would be an IRS investigation. I’d also start investigating his business contacts. I’d get a court order to monitor his communications because he is probably in contact with our enemies overseas, and I’d let the “industry” know that they WILL come under serious scrutiny if they continue working to sabotage the war. That is what Robbins, his wife, and De Palma, et. al are doing, and it is a culpable act of treason. We sent Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose to prison for their speech, it is time to reconsider that approach to those most visible who are working the hardest to insure our defeat. Robbins and Sarandon qualify in my opinion.

Yes, the ACLU will scream. So what.

Dissent is NOT trying to undermine the nation while it is at war. Dissent is NOT working to secure America’s defeat. Dissent is, or ought to be, in this case, different people with different points of view presenting alternate solutions to winning the Long War. But once consensus is reached, DISSENT IS OVER. The problem is, traitors like Robbins aren’t offering serious solutions. They are picking the worst possible path, and the one designed to aid our enemy. And the nation debated both invading Iraq and Afghanistan long before we invaded.

Remember, treason is defined as adhering to our enemy’s cause and giving him aid and comfort.

A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often….

Michelle on September 5, 2007 at 9:16 AM

Record. Straight.

Or pay for a ticket another movie in the complex (so DeP doesn’t get the money) and then go in and see his film, and, it if stinks so bad that you have to leave, just go see the original movie you paid for.

As long as he doesn’t profit.

Now, I’m going to do something unusual and disagree with everyone on this segment when they say that we should all see Redacted.

I still say: Ya can’t put a film down if ya don’t see it. Just do what I do when these lefty propoganda flicks come out…go with a liberal buddy, let him pay for the ticks, and you pick up the popcorn and soda. At least ya know none of your money went into these knucklehead’s pockets.

Now, I’m going to do something unusual and disagree with everyone on this segment when they say that we should all see Redacted. I don’t need to see it, and I don’t want to see it if my doing so puts one thin dime in DePalma’s or Cuban’s pocket

I agree with Bryan. I know I don’t like horror movies. I don’t have to go see Zombie’s Halloween to know I probably wont enjoy it. This is not “pre-judging,” it’s free market capitalism. Similarly, I know I dont like pro-Islamo-fascist, anti-american, lefty garbage, so I don’t need to go to see Redacted. Interesting that Cuban and DePalma insist that we see the movie and not pre-judge it. However, to do so, I have to fork over my 10 bucks, and at that point, it’s too late. If they really felt confident, they should offer a money-back guarantee. I wont pre-judge, I’ll go see the movie, but if I dont like it, I get my money back.

But, back to this douchebag – MB4 on September 5, 2007 at 1:13 AM. Who exactly are you responding to, or is this just some stream of consciousness at 1am?

Whom do you claim “served” in the military and is now having their proud patriotism questionned? DePalma? Cuban? Robbins?

I don’t know anything about their service records; just curious to know, because your post is somewhat cryptic. I honestly don’t give a crap about their records, either, and I absolutely question their loyalty to this country and their basic morality, fwiw.

And I have never served in the military, and don’t particularly feel that this undercuts my value as a voter or an American in any way. I know plenty of men who were drafted in the Vietnam era whom I wouldn’t trust for anything, and plenty of people who have never served whom I would entrust with my life or my daughters’ lives.

Look, these people have two gods. Ego, and money. Since they are wealthy enough to financially weather another stinker movie, the most effective way to “cost” them is through their ego. Ignoring these people hurts them more than any financial setback could ever do. I mean personally hurts them. This movie will probably bomb, but as long as they are being dicussed publicly, they’re happy. Forcing them to fade into the void un-noticed and unheard is the true dagger to the heart to “artists”.

Those telling the lies do not wish to become enlightened. They would rather remain engaged with themselves in an emotional state, and engrossed in their state of mind-which is also symptomatic of paranoia.

Bryan on September 5, 2007 at 9:10 AM

Well said. I think the far-left are extremely unhappy people; they must be to feel it is no vitally important to tear down and spit upon America’s finest institutions. I’m not religious, but religion in America has undoubtedly made America so much stronger and has helped so many (which is why Hollywood hates and mocks religious folks). We have the strongest, most-disciplined military in the history of mankind. Imagine the havoc we could wreak on the world if we wanted, but we don’t. Put this military in the hands of 90% of the other countries in the world and World War III is guaranteed. I’m sick and tired of the cherry-picking of abusive priests, murderous marines, pedophile Boy Scout troop leaders.

I question their patriotism, too. To hell with them.

It would be like making a movie about (D-Day/Iwo Jima/Sicily) solely concerned with the story about a (French/Japanese/Italian) woman raped by a criminal G.I. who was then hanged for his attack.

We know DeP’s intent:

U.S. -bad; non-U.S., good.

You can distribute all of the self-defeating stories about our flaws after we’ve crushed the intolerant, misogynistic, imperialistic global jihadist movement.

Doing it while we’re in the middle of this war only strengthens the will and hopes of the future Uber-Taliban.

In the past, you were reasonably expected to save you skins first before you started artistically skinning yourself.

He and his America-Laster cohorts fail to see any meaning in the slaughter of Theo Van Gogh, a fellow “ultra liberal” film-maker, by an Islamic militant, on the street of his hometown, Amsterdam.

You’d think there might be a film in that.

Except that such a story would require actual- not Hollowood- courage to make.

Which shows the true condition DeP’s gelatinous spine.