Several interesting – and some very strange – responses to this week’s column about George Clooney, Doomsday films, and our own Age of Anxiety:
Name: Walter
Hometown: Austin, TX
Comments:
Clooney makes films that are relevant and mke people think and coomunicate. Get a clue Mr. Dickey.
I think you missed the point, Walter. Try reading the piece again. – C.D.
Name: Sharyn Ginsberg
Hometown: Danville, Ca.
Comments:
What is the difference between fear-mongering by a red-baiter, Hollywood type or the present administration? This president/vice president base all of their actions on the fear of terrorism. Mc Carthy based his actions on the fear of communism. Why shouldn't George Clooney point this out? It is true and to me is more dangerous than the fear itself.
Name: Clikdawg
Comments:
Really outdid yourself on the Clooney analysis, sir -- outstanding in every sense of the word.
Interestingly enough (?) -- while doomsday films educate and steel us to do what needs to be done -- the coup d'grace to any Age of Anxiety is always delivered by comedy. "Apocalypse Now" exposed the futility of the Vietnam conflict; "M*A*S*H" reduced it to absurdity, thereby making it psychologically possible to discontinue the thing -- just as "Strangelove" shamed through savage laughter world leaders who were seemingly unmoved, policy-wise, by "Fail Safe"; and Dan Ackroyd's famous Oval Office sketch on SNL (his Nixon chortling "We could do it ... [muffled howls from Haldeman and Erlichman] ... but it would be Wrong ... " for the benefit of the tape recorder, punctured the paranoia that "All the President's Men" actually deepened. Takes both angles: Define the Boogeyman, then pull down his pants. Dems
shoulda done it to Bush in 2004, but "9/11" wasn't followed by a comic gem so tart as to make supporting Shrub/Dick appear, not so much despicable or lunatic, but, well ... silly. Childish. Out of the question.
Until someone accomplishes that, Clooney labors in vain, contributing as much to the notion that You Can't Fight City Hall as he does to defining The Boogeyman.
A "one-two punch" is no good without the "two"!
Ciao for now,
clikdawg
Name: David Owens
Hometown: Daytona Beach, FL
Comments:
I fear that the Bush "diplomacy" has inflamed the Muslim hatred of America in particular and western culture in general nearly to the point of an all-out, world-wide holy war. This is a dooms-day scenario that is as fearful a prospect as any of the past crises mentioned. The consequenses, given the fanatical and violent interpretation of Islam by many of it's followers, really is terrifying. I know I'm not alone in this fear.
Name: Greg S
Hometown: Beaverton, OR
Comments:
regarding Dickey: Clooney's Doomsday Movie Message "In that summer of 2001, it's worth remembering, the United States and Europe felt secure, fat, maybe a little bored, and few could imagine the threats on the horizon. President George W. Bush, then on his way to vacation in Texas, was not alone in that." George may have not been alone in his ambivalence to the obvious danger, but that just means he was/is unfit... not that the warning signs weren't there or long years of misguided policy weren't about to have repercussions. I'm glad George Clooney is makinf some movies that are worth thinking about and not as dumbed down as current policy and media coverage of that policy.
Name: Lynn
Hometown: NY NY
Comments:
Isn't there a theory that artists are tapped into the zeitgeist(60's word, I believe)and often prescient when it comes to seeing the future? So, yes, obviously Clooney is influenced by his father, but for a liberals, the vague feeling of unease that crescendoed in 2001 really began in the mid 90's when the Republicans took over the House. It was then stoked by the endless nuisance investigations of Clinton, which cost millions of tax dollars and wasted of millions of man hours that could have been devoted to actual goverance by people in all three branches. Of course, back then there were actually three branches. And the millions of tax dollars were chicken feed compared to the pillaging that's gone on since election 2,000, which is when this liberal began her 19th nervous breakdown. I simply could not believe that a heist, enabled by the Supreme
Court, could have taken place in full view of the country and those who protested was told to "get over it" as if we were whining about our parent's divorce or a hangnail and not what turned out to be a military coup perpetrated by the lunatic fringe of the Republican party. By now even the old school Republicans who enabled the hijacking of the Presidency, like Baker and Scrowcraft, are appalled. Of course, 9/11, which I witnessed up close, took things to a whole new level of fear, anxiety and depression. But the day after, the rest of the world was on our side. I'll never forget sitting in the wretched air seeping into my apartment watching the services held around the globe and how moving it was. Compare that to our standing
in the world today. All of this to say, Clooney may have one foot in the past, but his sensibility is actually extremely contemporary.
Name: robert lewis
Hometown: independence. missoui
Comments:
Clooney makes thoughtful films with stories that make the viewer think. Any antidote to the superstition-ridden, anti-science crowd now running Washington is a service to the Republic.
Name: James
Hometown: Dickinson
Comments:
three times the USA. has needed a real man at the helm, and each time GOD has allowed one to be found. But it is not eveident, at the time, only afterward was their greatness known.The socialists are alive and well and their goals have not changed. We have found the enemy and it is us. Not G.W. Bush, but the left leaning, atheistic,godless journalists, and educaters, in this country. They hate anyone or anything that is good. They want a GODless and CHRISTless socity and they are soon to get their wish watch this date 06/06/06
More to come ...
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