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http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_8_67/ai_106225217

Q: What do you make of the criticism of Hollywood celebrities for
speaking out against the war--the Sean Penns, the Susan Sarandons?

Ebert: It's just ignorant; it's just ignorant.

Q: Why do you say that?

Ebert: I begin to feel like I was in the last generation of Americans
who took a civics class. I begin to feel like most Americans don't
understand the First Amendment, don't understand the idea of freedom
of speech, and don't understand that it's the responsibility of the
citizen to speak out. If Hollywood stars speak out, so do all sorts of
other people. Now Hollywood stars can get a better hearing. Oddly
enough, the people who mostly seem to hear them are those on the right
wing, so Fox News can put on its ticker tape in Times Square a vile
attack on Michael Moore, and Susan Sarandon is a punchline. The right
wants to shut other people up.

Q: Why do you think a lot of people vote Republican when it's not in
their interest to do so?

Ebert: I think most people are more susceptible to prejudice than to
reason. And the parrots of talk radio are just sending out the same
stuff. When I look at my e-mails, I see the same Limbaugh rhetoric;
apparently, people don't have any ideas of their own. And there's just
this drum roll of anti-progressive thought. Essentially, the country
is in the grip of some very bad information. I think a lot of working
class people don't understand that their money is being stolen. I saw
an interesting article that said 10 percent of the American public
would put themselves in the top 1 percent in income.

Q: This is why Americans favor the repeal of the estate tax.

Ebert: Yeah, they all think they're going to leave a big estate, and
they love Bush's theories because they all think they're going to get
rich someday. But the fact is, most people are not going to be rich
someday. And we've had a concerted policy of taking money away from
the poor and giving it to the rich wholesale, and at the same time, we
have the runaway corporations and the greed. I feel ordinary people
really should be angry.


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the right wants to shut up whom?  who's pushing for pc censorship,
right or left?

why doesn't ebert raise a fuss about bardot getting fined for writing
a book?

did jimmy the greek get fired by rightists for his statement about
black athletes?

or that baseball player by his remark about NY?

or marge schott?

who made 'hate speech' a crime?  left or right?

not that hate speech is a good thing, but who's trying to curb freedom
of speech these days, right or left?  it's almost always the left.
to my knowledge limbaugh even defended howard stern's free speech
rights despite their mutual hostility.

funny aint it, that nat hentoff the liberal is angrier with the left
on free speech issues these days than with the right?

also, if ebert--and moore--are so angry at the rich getting richer and
taking poor people's money, why don't they ever speak out against
hollywood which is one of the most corrupt, greedy, tribal, exclusive
enterprises in america and the world?   does hollywood get a free pass
from ebert simply because (1) he needs access to hollywood stars (2)
hollywood is liberal?
i guess if one's liberal, it's okay to be wantonly acquisitive, crass,
greedy, corrupt, and self-righteous.  heck, how much are people like
sean penn worth anyway?  if he's such a man of the people, why did he
star in shitty movies just to rake in big bucks and ride around in
limos and live in a giant mansion with a mega swimming pool?  isn't
making movies like this stealing from the poor by feeding them false
fantasies?  indeed, what do working class folks or poor people gain by
plonking down hardearned cash to watch shit like LOR anyway, making
themselves poorer while the hollywood rich get richer?   worse, isn't
hollywood stealing from the poor all around the globe by selling crass
fantasies of american life?  yet, where is ebert's fury against
avarice, greed, corruption of values?  but, ebert goes easy on
hollywood. when the great godard trashed hollywood assholes in his
most recent movie, ebert closed ranks with hollywood and blasted
godard.

also, if ebert has problem with bush invoking god, where was the
outrage when clinton squeaked out of the lewinsky scandal by...
invoking god?  boy, wasn't that a jimmy swaggert moment.

ebert insists bush is not a legit president but is he a legit critic?
and how honest is he?  how do you call both fahrenheit 9-11 and
passion of christ massuhpieces?