Like Father, Like Son

For a couple of decades now, we’ve been subjected to the entertaining but left-skewed works of film director Oliver Stone. The torch is being passed to a new generation in the form of Stone’s son, Sean. Sean Stone has accompanied his father on grand visits to such fine people as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, and supports them as enthusiastically as his father. Sean has inherited his father’s taste for dictators and mass-murderers.

Sean is not exactly a big-time legendary actor, having appeared in small parts in his father’s movies such as The Doors, Natural Born Killers, Any Given Sunday, and most notably (or ignobly) Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. We’re supposed to believe that his acting career and his father’s tutelage will make him a great director. That may be true, but like his father, it may also make him a big-time nutcase propagandist.

Sean was returning from the Toronto Film Festival when he got cornered by reporters with nothing better to do. So they asked him about his plans to become a director in light of his recent favorable remarks about Iran and its apocalyptic leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The younger Stone bypassed arguments that Iran’s current nuclear development is all about energy-production, and went straight to defending Iran’s right to have nuclear weapons. Says Sean: “Israel has nuclear weapons, Iran has the right to them. Every nation has the right to self-determination for defense.”

Even Ahmadinejad doesn’t go so far as to admit that Iran’s nuclear facilities are going to be used for the production of nuclear weapons. He still spouts the pretense that only the production of energy is involved in those facilities, despite the fact that his nation is sitting on an ocean of oil. But like young Sean, Ahmadinejad will, if pushed, loudly and clearly proclaim Iran’s right to have nuclear arms to defend against nuclear Israel.

So, let’s count the number of times that Israel has been the aggressor in Middle East Wars. Um, zero. But it has been attacked by its Muslim neighbors many times, always to the dismay of the members of the People’s Republic of Jihadistan who lose wars like I lose car keys. Iran is about the only nearby Muslim neighbor that hasn’t attacked Israel. But a nuke or two might just make the odds more attractive. Only the blind, the stupid, and Sean Stone could believe for a minute that the weapons would be for self-defense.

Iran must be wiped off the face of the map. No, wait. It’s Israel that must be wiped off the face of the map, or so says Ahmadinejad. In a war that Iran will initiate in self-defense, no doubt. Stone doesn’t say the magic Jew words of Ahmadinejad, he merely defends them. A-Jad denies the Holocaust, says unreservedly that 9/11 was an inside job executed by the loathsome US/Israel alliance to stir up aniti-Muslim hatred, and categorically proposes that both World Wars were started by Zionists to increase their wealth and create the State of Israel.

Does Stone outright defend these vile libels? No. After all, he’s a big intellectual who is far more nuanced. Stone tosses out his defense of Ahmadinejad in a different way: “He did come to America to extend a hand. And there’s a lot of mistranslation, literally, I’ve seen it. Ahmadinejad will say something and it will be mistranslated. A lot of this is bullshit, mistranslation. It’s an aggressive attitude on both parts, mostly on the American side.”

Now how one “mistranslates” something like “Israel must be wiped off the face of the map” is entirely beyond me. But what do I know? I’m not a film maven. From daddy Oliver’s love for Castro, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, and Chavez, it’s only one small step for son Sean to tout Ahmadinejad and Iran. Sean even makes sure you understand how well he knows Iran and its regime by stating “Iran is ruled by law.” Yep, Sharia law. You know, the law that would wipe out most of his potential stars because of homosexuality, lack of Islamic devotion, and general all-around immorality since Iranian Sharia requires death for each of those offenses.

Stone also supports the right of benign leaders like Ahmadinejad to maintain law and order against pesky dissidents. When challenged about Ahmadinejad’s brutal suppression of the growing freedom movement in Iran, Stone shot back: “People don’t like Ahmadinejad, but that doesn’t warrant a war or an uprising.” Stone has previously supported exactly that in several nations during the “Arab Spring.” But a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, and Sean has no doubt that his mind is big enough to pick and choose which rebellions to support.

Iran has arrested or banned all Iranian film-makers who have dared to utter a word of criticism against the current regime. In this, A-Jad has had the active assistance of the ayatollahs. But there probably won’t be the same enmity toward Stone, who apparently knows more about the lack of repression in Iran than actual Iranians and sees the actions of the regime as simply avoiding civil unrest. If an American cop looks the wrong way at a property-damaging anti-government rioter, Stone goes off the cliff in his condemnation of brutal, fascist American tactics. But in Iran, where enforcement of civil order includes government-sanctioned rape and summary execution, well, we just don’t understand Iran as well as he does.

So what is Stone actually planning—film-wise? He says he wants to introduce Persian culture and civilization to the West in his upcoming films. He had better introduce them to the Ahmandinejad regime first, since anything that doesn’t comport with the ayatollahs’ primitive form of Islam is ruthlessly suppressed. Omar Khayyam would have been hanged from the mosque minaret if only for his admiration of “comely youths.” Any culture that was uniquely Persian prior to its Islamization has been wiped from the official registry of Iranian culture.

Knowing that Stone will be welcomed with open arms and open wallets by the Hollywood crowd, I want to cash in on his future fame. I am writing a movie script for him in which it is revealed that a Jew who hated the ayatollahs conspired with the Mafia and the CIA to assassinate John Kennedy by using a Kaballah-blessed magic bullet. It should be a big hit, and Sean can pride himself on the fact that he discovered the true conspiracy that his father missed when making JFK. Maybe I’m a film maven after all. Anyone have a suggestion for a working title?

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! At 7 PM (Eastern/Blogger Time), 4 PM (Pacific Time) The T-Rav Sockpuppet Theater will live blog the Republican debates and at the same time give you plenty of time to make pre-debate predictions. Come early, stay late.