Home » The arc of political change: David Mamet, Whittaker Chambers, Ronald Reagan

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The arc of political change: David Mamet, Whittaker Chambers, Ronald Reagan — 11 Comments

  1. Neo wrote: “In the (symbolic?) year of 1984, Reagan rewarded Chambers by honoring him with a posthumous Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award.”

    It is worth noting that Obama awarded a medal of freedom to Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland who was one of the people behind the anti-Israel hatefest in Durban, South Africa.

  2. You know, I’ve been keeping a mental note of Hollywood types who I have learned consider themselvea to be conservative. It’s actually more than just a token few.

    Something prompted me to check out John Malkovich’s wiki entry a while back. I was pleased to read that he is conservative and that a British actor described his views as “so right wing, you have to wonder if he’s kidding.”

    Then the other day, Stephanie Zimbalist was referred to in a story. I had always wondered if she was related to actor Efram Zimbalist, Jr., so I used my Google machine to find out. I learned she is in fact Efrem’s daughter, and that she is dscribed as “religious and conservative” in her wiki entry. The obvious next click was to go to her father Efrem’s wiki entry. There I learned that not only is he still alive, but that he is so strongly conservative that he, Walter Brennan (and two other actors whose names I did not recognize) were four Hollywood actors who strongly supported Goldwater in ’64 (strangely, Reagan was not listed in that wiki entry as a Hollywood actor who had supported Goldwater).

    I’ve known about Gary Sinise since the Bush years. But more recently I’ve learned about James Caan. Robert Duval. Joel Surnow. Jerry Bruckheimer. Sydney Penny. Janine Turner. John Nolte. Victoria Jackson. Raquel Welch. Leann Tweeden. Pat Sajack.

    Oh heck. I just did a Google search and found a more thorough list (though it does not include some of the people I have noted):

    http://usconservatives.about.com/od/hollywoodconservatives/a/HollywoodCons.htm

  3. Scott, thanks for your list and that link to the list of Hollywood conservatives. There were no surprises there except the numbers. I was aware of all of them, but had never bothered to tote up the numbers.

    Reagan began to turn conservative while he was working as president of the Screen Actors Guild. It was a time when Communists were hard at work to gain control of the unions. He recognized that they were not looking to solve the problems of the workers, but to gain power and control. When the democrats seemed soft on Communism, which they were and still are, he began to look for other answers. He always said that he never left the democrat party, it left him. That may have assuaged his feelings about his change, but it seems to me he intellectually could not accept being soft on Communism or growing government to control society.

    I have just read the book “RONALD REAGAN, THE NOTES.” Not much in there about his conversion, but the book consists of notes that he had on index cards, which he used when he made his speeches.

    Here’s one note that I think describes his feelings about American Communists:
    “A nation can survive it’s fools and even the ambitious but it cannot survive treason from within. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in an accent familiar to his victims and wears their face and their garments….he rots the soul of the nation. He works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.” Cicero

    Or this concerning his philosophy of government:
    “Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment. In the last analysis the welfare of the workers depends on their own initiative. Whatever is done under the guise of philanthropy for social morality which in anyway lessens initiative is the greatest crime that can be committed against the toilers. Let social busy bodies and professional morals experts in their pads reflect upon the perils they rashly invite under the pretense of social welfare.” Samuel Gompers

    Or this by Gompers:
    “The comapny that doesn’t make a profit is the enemy of the working man.”

    The book is filled with the wit and wisdom he distillled and used in his speeches as a representative of GE and then as a politician.

  4. Scott – a lot of the people on that list aren’t really conservative (Ron Silver, for instance, supported Bush because of war on terror issues, but was always a liberal and remained so till he died). But the one who always made me smile was Johnny Ramone.

    Ramone was true-blue red, and I always remembered a speech he gave before he died, I think before the rock and roll hall of fame, where he closed by saying,

    “God bless George W. Bush.”

    Now that’s hardcore.

  5. kolnai: I loved that NYT interview.

    Granted he’s making the rounds to promote his book, but when he so freely cites Friedman, Sowell, and Steele, you know he’s done his homework. He’s a genuine convert.

    It’s almost like he enjoys sharing his new found knowledge, kinda like he’s proselytizing to the unconverted.

  6. Sam Elliot is a conservative. As is Patricia Heaton from Everybody Loves Raymond.

  7. About 20 years ago I saw an interview with Charlton Heston in which he said that the liberal – conservative split in Hollywood was 80-20. That might be accurate, assuming many conservatives are in the closet. However, based on what I see in various media, I would say the split appears to be 95-5, even higher with the high-profile stars.

  8. Neo,

    I had always meant to thank you for putting “Witness” on your sidebar as a recommended book. It was one I had been meaning to read and your recommendation ended up being the push that got me to download it on my Kindle.

    The book stunned me in its beauty, clarity and clear vision of a man at odds with the spirit of the times but with the courage to face down the most powerful forces of the day to stand up for truth. It was a religious tract for the times and showed how the pursuit of righteousness will be beset with trials. How sad though that it was our culture that pursued him and what does that say about us.

    It has not become any better over the last 50 years.

  9. If you came of age during the height of the Cold War as I did, Witness had a special meaning to you. When I read it in the early 70’s I was profoundly affected by Chamber’s anguish over his betrayal of the West and his pessimism about our ability to survive as a free people. Looking back, I believe this book and The Road to Serfdom had the greatest influence on me in growing out of a “soft socialist” view cultivated in college and developing the strength to defend my new found conservative views. Freedom within the context of the Western tradition is and will always be our most valuable political achievement.

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