September 29, 2003
OLIVER STONE, THE DURACELL IDIOT
Someone oughta tell Oliver Stone: “Ollie, pal, the World Tard Record is yours. You’ve got a lock on it, baby! You don’t have to keep trying so hard!”
Stone asks Castro about elections, freedom and human rights in Cuba - questions that have become intensely relevant with renewed international condemnation last week. Castro has well-rehearsed answers and disappointingly, Stone doesn't push him.
"There's something El Greco-like about him," says Stone. "Don Quixote comes to mind. And he's tilting at windmills in the same way as Don Quixote, because after 40 years, he is isolated, he hasn't changed his position. But he has to stay firm to his revolution.
"He makes the point that if you sell out to the US one quarter inch, you lose, because that's where they get in. Once they put the first McDonald's, they keep coming."
A mention of McDonald’s is Godwin’s Law in burger form. Keep on truckin’, Ollie:
Since September 11 2001, Stone has found himself embattled at home. He was one of the few high-profile Americans who publicly questioned why the attacks happened. ("I made the point that I thought it was a rebellion against globalisation, against the American way, and Christopher Hitchens called me a moral and intellectual idiot.")
Not a difficult call to make. A Saudi based in Afghanistan who owns Russian weaponry sends a team including United Arab Emirates nationals, a Lebanese, and an Egyptian with links to Germany and Spain to crash jets into the World Trade Center, and this is a rebellion against globalisation?
Posted by Tim Blair at September 29, 2003 03:00 AMThere's an unclosed {I}{/I} block here somewhere. ... OK, here it is: "...Stone doesn't push him.{/i?"
And yes, Stone is an idiot.
Posted by: Thomas Nephew at September 29, 2003 at 04:37 AMHow about Blair's Law: The party that mentions McDonald's as evil first has lost the argument.
Woe to the people who have access to that kind of material over-abundance at such low, low prices ($1.99!). And woe to the country whose poor can be so fat. And MickeyDee's is so very anti-Marxist, which is the real offense. With organic farming, and restrictions on global trade, we can put all this abundance behind us!
Posted by: Brian O'Connell at September 29, 2003 at 05:07 AMthey should put in a mcdonalds
and join the exclusive club of countries
that dont invade each other
Posted by: The Central Committee at September 29, 2003 at 01:23 PMActually, strictly speaking, he's a Yemeni that moved to Saudi.
Posted by: Mick at September 29, 2003 at 05:03 PMThe World Tard Record, I fear, is very much in dispute. Stone and Moore are in a dead heat. The sweat builds over their porcine bodies as they twist and trash, each trying to outdo the other in diving into depths unplummeted, summits unascended, breadths unspanned.
This is one for the bookmakers, boyo!
Posted by: Hatcher at September 29, 2003 at 06:35 PMSounds like Stone and Castro play tonsil hockey with each other. Hope Stone has a good pair of kneepads.
Posted by: Imam Psycho Muhammed at September 29, 2003 at 07:39 PM"People in Cuba are far, far better off than people in places like Honduras, Brazil, Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua," he argues.
If I could tool around in way-cool 'mobiles like this I might say the same thing...
Posted by: Tongue Boy at September 30, 2003 at 12:23 AMDarnit, Hatcher. Now I've got a mental picture of Moore and Stone as Sumo wrestlers, pushing one another around the ring, grappling, tugging on one another's jock straps (or whatever the hell those things are), breast to breast. Boy, is that disgusting. I've got to go wash my mind out.
Posted by: JorgXMcKie at September 30, 2003 at 01:03 AM