Posted 10:48 PM by Floyd

Here's something really disgusting: A prominent Hollywood figure is an out-and-out fascist. I don't mean a right-winger in the has-a-one-in-three-chance-of-being-elected-president sense, I mean glorifies and exults in totalitarian government. For example, he thought it was funny when Augusto Pinochet's government abducted and murdered people:

Q: Did it strike you as interesting that at one point in the scene with the prisoners, Pinochet turned to the prisoners' defense lawyers, who just happened to be there, and he says, "I urge you to do your best to release them"?

A: I love that. I thought that was hilarious. Those guys just popped up.

I fool you! I wasn't talking about a right-winger at all, but about Oliver Stone. And I changed the quote a little; Stone was giggling about Fidel Castro, not Pinochet, when interviewed by Anne-Louise Bardach:

Anne-Louise Bardach: Did it strike you as interesting that at one point in the scene with the prisoners, Castro turned to the prisoners' defense lawyers, who just happened to be there, and he says, "I urge you to do your best to reduce the sentences"?

Oliver Stone: I love that. I thought that was hilarious. Those guys just popped up.

ALB: Is there a show-trial element here?

OS: Yeah. I thought that was funny, I did—the prosecutor and Fidel admonishing them, to make sure they worked hard. There was that paternalism. I mean "father knows best," as opposed to totalitarianism. It's paternalism, that's what I meant. It's a Latin thing.

And what will happen to Stone as a result? Not much. Sure, this mocking interview was published in Slate, and linked to on Andrew Sullivan's blog. But Stone will still be there to pick up the dough when, say, HBO wants to film a sympathetic picture of Kim Jong Il's North Korean paradise.