Hollywood Stars Don’t Always Shine in Politics

Re “In Berlin, Film VIPs Decried War,” Feb. 19: How many more articles will the media publish containing photographs, remarks and tirades against our government that are continuously being made by the Hollywood establishment? Thank God we all have the right to protest in this country. But, at this time, when we should all join together in support of our government, instead we have Edward Norton, George Clooney, Dustin Hoffman and other Hollywood “experts,” all of whom are probably graduates of the Jane Fonda School of Patriotism, lambasting our president and government, while advocating support for the poor Iraqis. To read of their comments made in Berlin totally disgusts me. But what do I know? I was only a poor 17-year-old kid when I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1944 because, like millions of others, we went to serve and protect our country.

Frank Abramoff

Rancho Mirage

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Patriots, soldiers and protesters are all looking at the same flag. Protesters do not protest the soldiers and what they are doing for this country. Protesters are out there to tell the other side of the story and, most important, because they are patriots as much -- and maybe more passionate about this country -- as those who hide behind patriotism. A soldier is someone’s son, brother, husband, father and so on. Each soldier has our full support, all of us hoping he or she will come home safe and without firing any bullet.

Cosimo Rossetti

Newbury Park

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Amid all the madness of political propaganda, I was very pleased to read that, finally, someone is speaking out for me. Thank you, Dustin Hoffman and Edward Norton. Please continue to speak out when you return to the United States.

Woody McBreairty

West Hollywood

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The enemy is Osama bin Laden, not Saddam Hussein. It is extremism, not Iraq. The need of the hour is vigilance, not war. The focus should be on strengthening the power of the United Nations, morally and militarily, not on changing a sovereign country’s leadership, however repressive and repulsive it may be, by the unilateral action of the world’s last remaining superpower. We are being led, or rather misled, by cretins of mass distraction.

David C. Martinez

Los Angeles

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Gotta tell you that it’s not very comforting to know that we have a president who doesn’t care a whit about a very broad spectrum of American citizens protesting his war. So this is American democracy circa 2003. Oh, what a precipitous drop in the government’s response to the people who put it in power.

Robert Stefanski Silvers

Santa Barbara