Despite my disgust for actor-vist Sean Penn, I feel like I'm performing a mild public service by periodically pointing out his absurd, America-hating drivel to fans and consumers of his work. When you watch his movies, this is the anti-American vacation you're funding:
It's the week preceding presidential elections. Candidates attack one another's credibility. Activists push to boycott the vote. Traffic and pollution choke the cities. Leftists support a no-win idealist. Preachers guide their flocks toward political starboard. The media have fallen under the grip of standing power, and should they defy it, they're imprisoned. University students promote human rights, while fundamentalists deny them. It is a culture in love with cinema. With Brad Pitt. Angelina Jolie. And anything Steven Spielberg. It is a nation of nuclear power, where the lobbies of the religious right effectively blur the lines between church and state. But it is also a country of good and hospitable people. And when the local team wins a big match, there is dancing, kissing, drinking and drugs in the streets. Women are graduating the campuses in higher and higher numbers, occupying government in higher and higher numbers. Sound familiar?
It's Amerikkka, right?
But wait. The women. Look at the women. All is not well. I'm thinking about the women. This is Iran.
Oh! Gosh, you almost had me fooled, what with all the recent behandings around here, and the opposition politicians being thrown out of office and into jail, newspapers shut down, elections cancelled, fatwas issued, and whatnot. America and Iran are practically indistinguishable! The real danger is that fundamentalist Christians in America might start making women wear burkhas at any moment.
Meanwhile, in Sean Penn fasntasyland (a.k.a., California), the application of an upstanding, law-abiding citizen (a.k.a., me) for a permit to carry a concealed weapon is continually denied, while that of a violent drunkard (a.k.a. Sean Penn) is granted.
In particular, some of the alleged quotes by Penn on his violent past are enough to give one pause:"I hate journalists. Or better. I hate paparazzi. Yeah, I punched them out and I'll do it again if it's necessary. I think a fist in their face is the only way to protect my private life. I demand my freedom. And I must have it."
Source:
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/...339/QUOTES.html"Family makes me feel there's a reason I'm alive... I'm feeling my life, which I didn't always do partly because I'd be drunk a lot."
Source:
http://www.saidwhat.co.uk/quotes.ph...n%20Penn&type=2Of even more concern is an alleged timeline of Penn's criminal past, as compiled via public sources online:
In 1985, Sean Penn was arrested in Nashville for assault and battery for attacking two photographers with a rock. He plead guilty, paid a fine and was given a suspended sentence.
In 1986, Penn slugged a man he accused of trying to kiss his wife. Again he plead guilty and was placed on parole.
In 1997, while on parole for his previous conviction, he punched an extra working on his film "Colors" who tried to take a picture of him. He served half of a 60-day jail sentence for parole violation.
In 1998, Penn was accused of hitting a photographer with a rock. Penn claimed the photographer attacked the rock in Penn's hand with his head and injured himself. No arrest was made.
Gosh, I wish Sean Penn would write an article to explain this conundrum.
Update:
Here's a little more about Sean Penn's CCW. I'd be willing to go through the same process!
He [Sean Penn] even had a private security firm review all the crank calls and letters and give him "threat assessments."Most were nothing, but one former employee was rated as being "in the worst category of pursuers," according to a report submitted by Penn's security outfit to Ross police.
The man -- who according to the threat assessors was trained in martial arts and had prior arrests for possessing a concealed weapon -- repeatedly tried contacting Penn after he was fired.
Penn admitted to using marijuana 20 years ago and had a couple of arrests for assault and driving recklessly, factors that could have disqualified him for a permit for carrying a concealed weapon. In this case, however, Penn got FBI and state Department of Justice clearance and completed firearms training early last year.
How many movies to have I have to star in to get the FBI and the California Department of Justice to do a special background check on me? I hope they can be ready to come over as soon as my personal private investigation team finishes assessing the threat-levels of all the ninjas and pirates who are stalking me.
Unfortunately, last time I applied for a CCW the FBI and the DOJ didn't seem to be interested, and the Hawthorne Police Department basically threw my application straight into the trash.
You're completing the simple circuit, MW.
Sean Penn making various remarks is one part and those who dignify it with responses (positive or otherwise) are the other. Without both parts, we have an incomplete circuit... and incomplete simple circuits don't work.
Hey I'm not stalkign you, I just happen to drive miles out of my way to bird watch outside your window.
Yes there are bitds in your house too!
Mike, Where did you go for your CCW course?
tP: I didn't even get that far, they denied me before even taking my fingerprints, which is like step 1.
nothing better to do, than bash Sean Penn???? wow. What are you doing???? probably just complaining about Sean.... shame on you.
My letter to Sean Penn on his meaningless travel to Iran:
Letter to Sean Penn 23 August 2005
Shame on you Mr. Sean Penn for glorifying and justifying the terrorist government of Iran out of your blind hatred for President Bush. You dare compare a terrorist government who is led by a master terrorist and so called Supreme leader who is un-elected, absolutely despotic and with zero toleration for dissent to a democratic nation such as the United States. You, Mr. Sean Penn do not deserve to live in the USA, as an Iranian who is now a naturalized United States citizen I am ashamed to call you a fellow citizen.
Are you aware what would happen to you if you made the slightest derogatory remark about any of the corrupt and terrorist ruling clergy in Iran if you were an Iranian ?? The next time you spew your anti President Bush remarks just stop for a moment and remember that doing the same thing in present day Islamic Republic of Iran will cost you at best a chopped off hand, gouged out eye and at worst, decade long prison sentences with daily torture and even execution. This is a country that tortured, raped and killed a foreign journalist for taking photos of the outside of a political prison. Are you ignorant enough to think the so called elections in that country is actually real or that the so called president can make any difference, when the real power openly lies in the hands of the Supreme Leader and his un-elected so called Guardian Council ??
You harshly criticize Mr. Donald Rumsfeld for once dealing with Iraq more than a decade ago. Why is it so strange that the defense secretary once dealt with Saddam ? Is it so hard for you to understand that at the time it served the purposes of the United States to choose the lesser evil and support Saddam Hussein against the wildly hostile and corrupt regime of the terrorist mullahs in Iran ? A government that had attacked the embassy of the United States and taken it’s employees hostage for more than a year. Is it hard for you to comprehend that you could be friendly with an entity at one point in time and hostile at another ?? You of all people should be able to understand as you supposedly loved Ms. Madonna enough at one point to marry her and then later on hated her enough to divorce her. No one questions your integrity for doing that, so why is it hard for you to understand that nations also can be friendly at one point in time and unfriendly at others. As an Iranian who’s country has been occupied by a group of un-elected terrorist mullahs who are ruling the country by force I commend president Bush for having the courage and vision to recognize that corrupt murderous dictators such as Saddam Hussein, The Taliban and the terrorist un-elected rulers of Islamic Republic of Iran can only be removed from power by force.
As for Iran’s nuclear program, let there be no doubt, the terrorist regime is and has been trying to develop nuclear weapons for years. Once again the Bush administration has clearly seen through this regime’s lies. They aspire to have nuclear weapons for one reason and one reason alone. They perceive nuclear weapons to be an effective deterrent to anyone who tries to remove them from power by force. They intend to threaten blowing up the strait of Hormuz rendering it impassable hence immediately putting the world in a chaotic energy crisis. Mr. Rafsanjani the powerful political figure and an indicted criminal has already threatened blocking the strait of Hormuz in case of any attack on them by an outside force.
We have seen the results of the European solution which suggests endless negotiating. Why didn’t they try negotiating with Hitler ?? Left alone these ruthless dictators will end up like Fidel Castro of Cuba, where one dictator does whatever he wishes to his hapless citizens forcing them to risk life and limb and drowning by taking to the sea in the hope of reaching freedom on the shores of their neighboring country to the north. The country you seem to hate so much despite all it’s given you.
I challenge you to not just visit the present day Iran, but actually to live there for a while, like a year or so. Try to see what it’s like to live in constant fear and to have every freedom taken away from you right down to your choice of clothing. Try going on your alcohol binges over there Mr. Penn !!
You think you know about Iran just because you interviewed a series of pre-selected corrupt dictators and their corrupt off springs ???
I have traveled to 77 countries and know far more about world politics than you ever will in the next 500 years. First you shame your country by visiting Iraq and glorifying a murderous dictator who put his political opponents into mass graves and then you go to the biggest terrorist menace on earth, Iran and compare them to United States. You cannot even compare the so called Islamic Republic to it’s Arabian neighbors in terms of the freedoms they provide their citizens, yet you dare comparing them to the United States where
ignorant movie actors like you can say whatever they choose about their democratically elected president and not only keep their limbs but to have their worthless, ignorant comments printed in biased newspapers such as the New York Times . What is next on your list of destinations, North Korea, Cuba or Myanmar perhaps ?? Who is the next leader you are going to choose to glorify out of your personal vendetta against president Bush ? Mugabe of Zimbabwe perhaps, or maybe Bashar Assad of Syria ??
I thank god you and your like lost on November 4, 2004 and I truly dread the day when someone you approve of ends up in the Oval office.
May that day never come.
M. Sarafraz
You’re an ignorant simpleton. A typical American brainwashed conservative who supports a war criminal in George W. Bush. You are pretty much exactly what is wrong with the world. Sean Penn is a talented actor with a social conscience who is trying to draw attention to the atrocities being committed by your fascist country. I'm an aussie and I hate it that our government supports your semi-retarded leader. He is honestly the laughing stock of the world, a village idiot made President. Well done America.
Don't waste your time insulting Sean Penn when you would rather be out shooting guns and attending KKK meetings you neo-conservative d%#k head.