Harvey Milk * A Tribute, A Movie
By Lena Grove aka nasuS on December 1, 2008 at 4:15 PM in Current Affairs
UPDATE: This is a foreword. Below the fold, you will see that I allowed myself to lapse into a stream of consciousness for a short while. That is a style of writing that was employed by William Faulkner and many great writers. I am most certainly not in their league, but sometimes I enjoy it. During the past few days, I’ve seen and heard programming that has affected me cumulatively. Those programs included Charlie Rose’s interview of Baz Luhrmann, the Aussie director of the new movie, “Australia” and of the exquisitely beautiful ad for Chanel No. 5, said to be the most expensive television ad ever created. I also watched a movie on IFC, “Bee Season,” which is in part about the mystical power of words. And today I listened to this Rose show about “Milk” for the second time. And I’ve been reading some poetry in The New Yorkers piled up by my bed. And I’ve been drawn to the scenes in “West Wing” in which the characters refer to great music and great writing. That scene when President Barlet reads to Leo from Hemingway: “The world breaks everyone and afterwards many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break, it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.” I am reaching to the arts to get beyond the political because my soul yearns for how art can nourish me and allow me to escape the pain. With that, here we go. – Your nasuS (even when it says NoQuarter, I am always she, but the Obots forced me to hide who I am, and that has been very traumatic too. I risk stating this solely because, to my puzzlement, many readers don’t realize it is I, your devoted nasuS, always here for you best I can but rather fragile these days. It is very painful for me when I see you don’t realize it is I, and that I’m forced to state it. It would be so much better if I didn’t say so at all, ever. But, anyway, so it goes.)
Here’s a tip for you economics buffs …
ECONOMICS BUFFS: Watch the portion with Josh Brolin. Right around the 48-minute mark. He has made a bunch of money with a special kind of trading — and I’ll be damned if I can remember what it was called. (UPDATE: It’s called PULLBACKS. Interesting.) I was in the bedroom while I watched, and couldn’t find a pen. But you’ll hear it. And, women, Josh Brolin. He’s as brainy as he is …
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After moving to San Francisco, the middle-aged New Yorker, Harvey Milk, became a Gay Rights activist and city politician. On his third attempt, he was elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors in 1977, making him the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the USA. The following year, both he and the city’s mayor, George Moscone, were shot to death by former city supervisor, Dan White, who blamed his former colleagues for denying White’s attempt to rescind his resignation from the board.
Milk was filmed on location in San Francisco. Many of Mr. Milk’s real-life surviving friends and former associates participated in the making of this film, several appearing on camera. READ ALL, check out the full list of actors, and more, at IMDb.com, one of my all-time favorite Web sites. |
I suppose we’ll see many comments about Sean Penn. But, you know, he may be wrong about many things, but he’s so pure in his passion and he cares so deeply. I say we let Sean Penn be Sean Penn. I say we get a kick out of him. I say we look for those with whom we agree who might — just might — have the same heart and purity of passion.
Sean Penn is a sauvage. An untamed, uncaged beast of a being. Primal, earthy, curious like a cat, prowling, pacing, pugnacious, pliant.
Pawky.
Panting.
Passionately principled.
Sans affect or pastiche.
Plagued by endless questions.
Incurably curious.
Unpolished.
Uncareful.
Wandering the night, unable to sleep, pawing, growling, clawing, prodding, nuzzling, indecently flicking the leaves with his testicles, tickling the stars with his whiskers … on the go … copulating with ideas, any idea, every idea.
::::::
Tolerance.
It’s out of fashion.
Sadly.
On all sides of politics.
The courtly days of politics are gone, but for the facade, mostly.
There always was a facade about it, but today’s Obamabots don’t even bother with a facade –they’re just brutal, nasty, threatening, and destructive. They think nothing of destroying other Democrats’ businesses simply because those Democrats dared not to be for Obama. They think nothing of attacking a disabled person with no other income simply to torment that disabled person, who is on disability partly due to severe PTSD, because that disabled person supported another Democrat than Obama. They think nothing of using the real names of professionals whose entire futures may be jeopardized because prospective employers will “Google” their names and see all these entries condemning that person, calling them falsely a racist.
People capable of doing things like that to other human beings are sociopaths or psychopaths.
If Sean Penn had any clue — any at all — of what happened to many of the people who frequent this blog and write for this blog, he would be crestfallen. I HOPE he is a decent man who would deplore such tactics against other Democrats.
If Charlie Rose had any clue — any at all — of what was done to all of us, of the fear we all had to live in — when Google Maps to our homes were posted all over the Internet, and leaflets were distributed to our neighbors deploring our racism, and we never knew if — when someone knocked at the door — there would be a shotgun that would blow through that door. To us. All of us writers here at this blog who are LIBERALS. Who supported Hillary Clinton’s universal health care system and the increase of Medicare benefits and the sustainability of Social Security and much more. “Socialist” ideas that we have all adopted in this country very successfully, and have ended the horrific poverty that Steve In KC described below earlier today.
What would Charlie Rose and Sean Penn say, and do, if they knew that there are hundreds of posts all over the Internet that make fun of me for how I walk (because I’m disabled), and which call someone dear to me a “lesbian whore”? That it was Obama supporters who did that to us?
The most devout of the Obama supporters refuse to believe me when I tell them. They assume it’s some rightwing conspiracy. If only that were the case. No, it was the young thugs who beat on us endlessly, mercilessly simply because we preferred another Democrat.
Well, if people like Sean Penn and Charlie Rose ever wish to find out what really happened to all of us during this election season, I have saved every single comment with every single IP# and e-mail address. I have them all. Sean Penn and Charlie Rose will be astounded. Dumbfounded.
What’s so ironic is that while most of the NoQuarter writers and readers are still gripped by wholly understandable anger and worry about Barack Obama’s presidency — and his right to be president — for some reason I have, as they say, moved on.
My reason is quite simple: Our country and the world are in dire straits, and we need Barack Obama to succeed. To wish him to fail would be so twisted, and would help harm our nation. Oh, don’t you worry one second: I will watch him like a hawk. And we’re DEDICATED TO BEING “CITIZEN JOURNALISTS” IN A DESPERATE HOPE THAT WE CAN BRING YOU THE STORIES THAT THE MSM WILL NOT GIVE YOU. Thank God for Larry Johnson. He has so much experience in counterterrorism, in international politics, in the military, in the State Department, and in the CIA that he can tell us things, and give us perspectives, we’d never otherwise get.
Thank God we have so many writers — both female and male — who are watching for ANY sign of sexism, and who will not stop writing about sexism. NEVER. I also doubt that Sean Penn and Charlie Rose know how deeply we women were devastated by the overt and subtle sexism during the election season, and we so wish they knew. We desperately need more outlets to get the word out. THANK GOD FOR DR. LYNETTE LONG, whose radio show on sexism is tonight.
Charlie Rose should invite Dr. Long, along with her good friend Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild and our dear Dr. Violet Socks, to be guests on his show for a discussion on sexism. He could also invite Medusa and Bud White and Ani and Reverend Amy and our other writers who are extremely articulate and highly educated, and who write very authoritatively on sexism and feminism.
That was a digression … Back to the matter at hand:
The most important thing that WE can do is to not become just like them.
Sometimes, in comments here, I see that we are in danger of becoming THEM.
We are better than they because we will not allow ourselves to be like them. We will practice what we preach. We will do unto others …
Oh, and here’s a wonderful link for browsing: All Books and more about Harvey Milk
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
by 
* (Included in the 
* 
.by David Fredosso who wrote 2008's 
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