Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Robert Redford & "The Company You Keep"

I am sick and tired of the ridiculous posts I'm seeing on the internet about how Robert Redford and the other stars in his latest movie are "all about" home-grown terrorism.

Let me tell you something straight away:  I did some pretty stupid shit was I was young.  I thought I was right to be doing it, too.  To this day I stand behind my beliefs back then, in the context of it being when it was.  Not now.  Now I look back and think I was an idiot.  Back then I was living like The Legend of Billie Jean!

Sometimes I reflect and think, "Oooof!  What was I thinking?!?"



Let's face it, even Disney promotes illegal activities for a good cause. In Lady & The Tramp, when the dog catcher is bested and the dogs are freed...well, that's not always a good thing.  I want to free caged animals, but the reality is they could be sick or not fixed going on to breed more strays.  The negative possibilities are endless, but in the end, adoption is the best hope.

**Spread the word, adopt your pet, don't pay a breeder, they'll love you more.

Let's stick with the safety of Disney for a moment.



Pocahontas.  Beautiful, sexy Pocahontas.  A wonderful tale of love, but in reality, wasn't she like twelve?  I'm pretty sure that's considered statutory rape in every state now.

I won't even get into how running away and rebellion, while trying to get a grown man to make out with you when you're 16, leads to getting everything you want, Ariel.  (Little Mermaid)

I'm going with the benign because the truth is we have passions about what we believe is right what we believe to be true in our hearts with hope that we can make a difference.

And everyone is different.



What are these people even protesting?  "End War.  End Poverty.  Peace.  Clergy"

Wait.  What?  Clergy?

The 1960's and early '70's were all about war protests, veterans were treated like garbage, and now they are heroes.  Thank you for that (as a veteran and married to a military man).

And drugs.  There was a lot of drugs back then.

Women's Rights?  One of the largest protests of the suffrage movement happened the day before Woodrow Wilson was to be inaugurated as President in 1913. Between 5,000 to 8,000 suffragists marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the White House. It's not a "million men", but that was a lot back then.  Organizers had secured a permit to march, however, many protesters were assaulted by those in the crowd who opposed the women's right-to-vote campaign.


Those women fought back.  Violence ensued.  If they hadn't, I might be jailed for writing this.

So When Redford said he believed in the cause back then.  He did.  He believed to instill change you had to do something radical.  They all did back then.

Does he now?  No, it's just a part of passionate history that he was a part of a long time ago.

So stop bashing him on your twisted extremists sites and watch the video.  Nobody, especially Robert Redford and the actors in this movie, condone what happened in Boston recently.  Nobody is demoralizing the recent tragedy and most reviews of the movie came out before the attack.

I was not Billie Jean, but I sure felt like it, and I look back sort of fondly on my youthful exuberance.  At the same time if I caught my kids acting like that I'd bring back corporal punishment in a heartbeat!  So don't judge on half-truths.


The truth shall set you free and closed minds taking things out of context only leads to more hate and lies.

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