For Sarandon, war of words leaves wounds

[struggle4progress]

By Mark Caro
Chicago Tribune

<snip> "The other night, I came out of a restaurant on Christopher Street, the last place you'd expect to see a carload of young guys shout out the window, 'Hey, Susan, you're a terrible American. We hate you. You should die,' " the 59-year-old actress recalled earlier this month while in town for the Chicago International Film Festival's tribute to her and screening of her latest film, "Elizabethtown."

Sarandon was part of a vocal but small minority arguing against a U.S. invasion of Iraq before that war's March 2003 start. This stance earned her and life partner Tim Robbins ridicule and worse on radio and TV gab fests, and it prompted the Baseball Hall of Fame to cancel a 15th-anniversary screening of "Bull Durham," which stars the two.

Now polls show that a majority of Americans wish the U.S. had stayed out of Iraq, so Sarandon feels somewhat vindicated, though "I'm not happy to have been right." She's also still feeling the effects of those days when criticism of the war was labeled unpatriotic.

"Let me tell you, this is a great country, and despite the death threats that I got, despite this wave of hatred that was coming from the shock jocks and the mail and everything, I don't think that I ever really felt that I would lose work or that I would lose my life," she said. "But there's an incredible sense of loneliness when you're isolated like that, when you see your name across the front of a paper as a 'Bin Laden lover' or ... " <snip>

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/artsentertainment/2002589844_sarandon30.html

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Truly horrible. Having grown up with the shame of McCarthyite tactics

being taught in the schools, it is a shame to see history repeating itself so soon.

[Cha]

2. Imagine kids on the streets of Chicago

not knowing that Susan Sarandon is a Great American Patriot and one who was right all along about that gawd damn bush war..

I was there at the baseball hall of fame to protest them in the rain for censoring Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.

Yes, it's bad that all these horrible people wanted killing in Iraq and couldn't stand dissent at home but Tim And Susan are Strong people and they had a lot of good company.

[Maraya1969]

3. They give me strength. I've lost friends and been spoken about

because of my vocal opposition to this war and this administration. I've wondered if I was wrong about speaking up sometimes when people said nasty things. Reading about these people who have undergone so much more just makes me want to keep talking!

Bless them all.

[PassingFair]

4. part of "a vocal but small minority arguing against a U.S. invasion

of Iraq before that war's March 2003 start."

The MAJORITY of Americans were against the invasion.