OF ALL PLACES...
Many have found that rather strange sentiments often come to us from Hollywood.
I am having some difficulty in accepting a statement made recently by a man who has man who has been successful on both the large screen and on TV.
He is saying that Joseph Stalin was not only one of the world's greatest leaders, and also “the most misunderstood” man of all time.
I see no reason why I should set his name before you. Suffice to say, he was a TV personality many knew and admired.
At this time, however, he is seeking attention he does not deserve.
There is a possibility he feels he is just about ready to go “over the hill” and to keep from being forgotten, he takes public stands which are at odds with ordinary thinking.
The total list of the number of people killed though actions of Joseph Stalin has not yet been complied, if it will ever be. His total far exceeded that of Adolph Hitler, and other who built their regimes on bodies of their enemies and, often, their own people. Stalin's rule of inhumane, cruel and totally insensitive acts last over a far great span of years and affected more groups of people often en masse. The records read as macabre log of maudlin massacre - mass murder - planned and executed without any compassion or concern.
If our Hollywood social and political pundits must seek to development a following, they could do far better than to choose Joseph Stalin as a man to venerate and re-do. Opposed openlyh they prosper, but ignored they fade away - not quick enough it seems atx times, but in time.
We play their game for them if we oppose them with any criticism, but we should be aware of their views and temper them as best we can, until such time - which often happens - they realize their views are unsound, impractical or downright stupid.
So, expect to hear Joe Stalin praised for a time by of these Tinsel Town Truth Tellers, and, difficult as it may be to do so, try to give them the silent treatment. Hollywood lives in a make believe world and it often takes time and patience for a citizen thereof to face real circumstances based on age-old Truths.
A.L.M. November 18, 2003 [c393wds]
