This section of DiscoverTheNetworks profiles groups and individuals who are known for their contributions in the realms of art, literature, theater, film, and entertainment in all its forms. Among these are the glitterati commonly referred to as "the Hollywood Left." Their profiles focus on the political and social perspectives they express through their words and actions, particularly their allegations that American injustice is the root cause of most international conflicts, and their portrayals of the U.S. as an irredeemably evil nation. . One of the more famous figures profiled in this section is the actress Jane Fonda, a self-proclaimed "revolutionary" whose affinity for communism served as a background for her intense anti-Vietnam War activism. "If you understood what communism was," she told college audiences during public appearances in the early 1970s, "you would hope, you would pray on your knees that we would some day become communist. . . . I, a socialist, think that we should strive toward a socialist society, all the way to communism." The dual villains of Southeast Asian conflicts were, in her view, "U.S. imperialism" and "a white man's racist aggression."
In July-August 1972 Fonda made her now-infamous trip to North Vietnam, where she posed for photos on an anti-aircraft gun that was used to shoot down American planes, and made several radio addresses characterizing American servicemen as war criminals and referring to then-President Richard Nixon as a "new-type Hitler." A strong supporter of Huey Newton and the Black Panthers (to whom she referred as "our revolutionary vanguard"), Fonda also immersed herself in radical causes like the American Indian movement and Black Power.
Another profile in this section is that of filmmaker Michael Moore, who says, "The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation [i.e. the U.S., British and other coalition forces] are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow - and they will win." He characterizes the United States as a nation infested with racism and injustice domestically, and with a lust for empire globally.
Like Moore, actor Danny Glover has made many scathing denunciation of the U.S., condemning, among many things, "this rabid [post-9/11] nationalism that has its own kind of potential of being maniacal." "One of the main purveyors of violence in this world," says Glover, "has been this country, whether it's been against Nicaragua, Vietnam or wherever."
Actor Ed Asner, a strong admirer of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, is a devoted member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and has raised money on that organization's behalf. "For me," says Asner, "solidarity, civil liberty, and social justice can all be summed up with three simple letters - DSA." "Socialist," he adds, "means a thing that will curb the excesses of capitalism - the increasing wealth of the rich and decreasing wealth of the poor."
Singer Harry Belafonte, who charges that American foreign policy "has made a wreck of this planet," has been a supporter of anti-American causes during his entire professional life. In 1983 he was a keynote speaker at a rally arranged by the East German Communist police state at which he called on his own country to disarm in the face of the Soviet threat. In June 2000 he traveled to Havana as a guest of Fidel Castro, where he made a tear-filled speech at a rally honoring America's executed atomic spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Actor Mike Farrell has openly expressed support for the Castro dictatorship, ascribing the blame for Cuban suffering squarely to the "colonialist, imperialist, and racist" policies of the United States. Asserting that while the U.S. has "invaded, inveighed, inveigled, threatened, boycotted, manipulated, attempted to assassinate, and nearly triggered a nuclear war in our need to rid the world of the threat of Fidel Castro and his Revolucion," the Cuban Government "has gone its sometimes-not-so-merry way, and, in spite of the best efforts of the world's greatest power to squelch it, persevered in its effort to do what it deems best for its people."
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, author Norman Mailer wrote, "Everything wrong with America led to the point where the country built that tower of Babel, which consequently had to be destroyed." "America has an almost obscene infatuation with itself," says Mailer. "Has there ever been a big, powerful country that is as patriotic as America? And patriotic in the tiniest way, with so much flag waving? . . . The right wing benefited so much from September 11 that, if I were still a conspiratorialist, I would believe they'd done it."
These are just a few of the profile subjects in this section of DiscoverTheNetworks. They have spoken publicly and passionately about such issues as civil liberties, religious intolerance, and America's alleged imperialism, racism, greed, and militarism. Many of them were signatories to the 2001 anti-war declarations of the Revolutionary Communist Party front group Not In Our Name (NION), a self-described "peace" organization that denounced the post-9/11 "injustices done by our government" in its pursuit of "endless war"; America's greed-driven "transfusions of blood for oil"; its determination to "erode [our] freedoms"; and its eagerness to "invade countries, bomb civilians, kill more children, [and annihilate] families on foreign soil."
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