Redford used to be a movie star and heartthrob until he began noticeably wizening in the 80’s (watch 1992’s Sneakers; Redford’s got more loose skin going on than Ed Gein’s basement).  After that, he largely moved on to directing crappy movies about how America sucks that no one watches, like 2007’s Lions For Lambs, and lecturing the rest of us about how we have failed to live up to his expectations.

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His current bugaboo is that evil companies are engaged in the political process.  Redford warns:

Recently, the OpenSecrets blog revealed that the oil and gas industry poured $174 million into the political system in 2009. We don’t have numbers for 2010 yet, but we do know that oil companies have put up most of the $8.2 million raised to block California’s clean energy law — a law that passed with bipartisan support and was signed by a Republican governor.

When one dirty industry can purchase that much influence, who will step into the ring for average Americans? Who will say that public health and public interest matter more than private industries’ desire to pollute?

You know what companies and corporations are?  They are groups of people bound together in a common purpose.  And according to the deep thinker Robert Redford, this is awful.  So what’s Redford’s answer to the terrible threat posed by groups of people participating in the political system to achieve their desired ends?

Not surprisingly, his answer is different groups of people participating in the political system to achieve desired ends that Robert Redford happens to agree with.

Redford’s problem isn’t organizations per se – hell, some corporation inexplicably paid him $11,000,000 to star in 2001’s clownish The Last Castle, a movie that could only have been worse if it co-starred “The Situation” and was written by Paul Haggis.  His free-range, organic, cruelty-free beef is with organizations that don’t parrot his party line.  That’s an attribute Redford shares with many others in liberal Hollywood and with liberals in general – they love collective action, as long as it’s their collective action.

Whether it’s the global warming scam, sucking up to America’s enemies, or ensuring the tundra remains free of the scourge of providing jobs to regular people, liberals love corporations – their corporations.

Redford has a particular affinity for the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC).  Note that it’s a “council,” so it’s clearly on the side of all that is right and good – not like an evil “company” or “corporation.”  He’s particularly proud of the wonderful work it’s done ensuring that the barren, mosquito-infested, caribou dropping-dotted tundra of northern Alaska has remained gloriously free of oil development.

Sure, the tens of thousands of regular folks who don’t have the jobs that development would have created probably feel a bit differently, but their livelihoods are a small price to pay to ensure that liberal diners in Park City, Utah, can swill their chardonnay content in the knowledge that some wasteland thousands of miles away that they will never visit meets their exacting aesthetic standards.

With their nearly bottomless well of money and the means and ability to generate reams of slick, star-powered propaganda, the Hollywoodoids can and do “purchase” all the influence they could ever want.  Contrary to Redford’s portrayal of his side as the underdogs, his bunch is outclassed by “Big Business” – let’s leave aside for a moment the fact that Redford’s side is Big Business – like Mike Tyson would be outclassed in a death match against a blindfolded, one-legged, third-grader suffering an asthma flare.

So when Redford asks “who will step into the ring for average Americans?” the answer is clear.  It isn’t Robert Redford, and it isn’t his pals on the Left.

Check it out here:

I admire the guy for admitting that. But I just don’t see the subversion he’s talking about. I can’t remember the last time I saw a “pro-corporate” movie, which to me would be truly subversive. I mean, can you imagine a director making a film about a drug company that works tirelessly to come up with medications that saves millions of lives? That’s happened in real life – more than a couple of times. Still, no movie. However, Hollywood craps out a pro-environmental, anti-big business flick faster than I can say “Pass the Charmin.”

And I can say that pretty fast.

Anyway, I saw “Avatar,” and being from Fox News, naturally I rooted against the Navi. Not because they were holistic earthers. I just hated all the jewelry. It reminded me of a spa I went to in Santa Fe. Still, it was a great flick – as long as you separate fact from fantasy. In Cameron’s fantasy, Marines become mercenaries who arrive to a peaceful place and destroy it. In our reality – around the same time that flick was making millions – Marines were actually landing in Haiti, saving lives during one of the worst tragedies in recent memory. In the world of make believe, we are evil. In the real world, we aren’t so bad.

I don’t expect the idiots who watch “The View” to get that. But I’m sure the rest of us do.

And if you disagree with me, you’re probably a Navi-hating homophobe who kills blue people for fun.

Tonight!

We’ve got Bill Hemmer! Alex Blagg! the adorable Kelly Evans. And Dr. Gary Alter, noted plastic surgeon!

Streep is one of those rare thespians who truly morphs into the character she is playing. You forget for a while that you are watching Meryl Streep (as opposed to never forgetting it’s Tom Cruise in “[insert film title here]“), and for that she deserves heaps of praise.  But her off-screen silliness is ripe for mocking.

Take, for example, her declaration during a promotional interview for “Julie & Julia” that she was “disappointed” in Child because 20 years ago, Child refused to take part in Streep’s efforts to get organic produce into supermarkets:

“She was very resistant and she brushed us off quite brusquely,” the Oscar-winning actress recalled. “She sent word back that she didn’t have anything to say on the subject, and she really resisted making a connection between the high fat diet of a heavily laden cordon bleu-influenced cuisine and cholesterol levels. I remember being so disappointed that she was in the thrall of something called the American Council for Science and Health, which was a front organisation for agro-businesses and petrochemical businesses.

“They seduced Julia into giving them money, so she was on the other side for a while. Eventually I think she came around, though.”

How dare she!

I guess Streep didn’t read this bit in the New York Times obituary for Child:

Mrs. Child was always a star, never a spokeswoman. She prided herself on not granting endorsements because she was devoted to public television, and she was not afraid to mock corporate contributors to her advertising-free programs. She once demonstrated how to break off a part on a Cuisinart food processor to make it less cumbersome to use even as the manufacturer’s representatives sat in the audience. And she was known to sue to prevent a restaurant from advertising that it was one of her favorites.

And according to this, Child only accepted $50 per show for her series “The French Chef,” donating the rest of her salary to WGBH, the PBS station from where the series originated.

Hmmm…

You know, Streep’s starring role in the alar scare of 1989 caused American apple growers to lose plenty of money, despite evidence that there was nothing to worry about. But never mind; it was all for a good cause – she, like many actors, wanted to ward off the perception that she was ”just an actor” and so decided to throw herself into the environmental movement. Rachel Carson would be proud.

Streep’s disappointment in Child’s unwillingness to go along with her schemes didn’t stop her from cashing in on the cooking doyenne’s name, however. While I don’t know how much she earned for her turn in “Julie & Julia,” I do know that over the past year, she earned $24 million, making her the third highest paid actress in American film.

Also, the studio behind “Julie & Julia” is Sony Pictures. Sony Pictures is a – gasp – corporation. Does that mean Meryl Strep is in the thrall of big business too? Is she some kind of corporate tool or shill? After all, she didn’t earn her cool $24 million starring in indie projects. Some food for thought, no? Bon appetit!

Like I said before, Streep is an amazing actress. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?

I reinvented myself as a performer almost as many time as Dylan and I’m still standing. To quote my good friend, radio host Marc Germain, “I’m better than most and not as good as some.”

During the last ten years, I have moved from the club market into mostly corporate events. I have to work the phone and the e-mail list every day. My business life is like a shark: I have to keep moving all the time and I am always looking for my next meal. I get no sick days and no paid vacations. I have to provide for my own retirement. I pay for my own healthcare and 15.4% of everything I make goes to Social Security and Medicare. I spend about 160 days a year in a strange bed, alone, and another forty or fifty driving to one-nighters within four or five hours of my home. I spend countless hours in airports. Ahhh, the glamor of show business!

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining. This is the life I have chosen and long after anyone with any sense would have given up, I am still plugging away. Sometimes, right before I go on, I stop and think of the line from the movie “Patton,” “God help me. I love it so.” All I ask is that I be allowed to pursue my dream with a minimum of interference.

Recently, my job has come under attack by some high ranking Democrats. While bragging about how many jobs he was going to create and save, about how many shovels he was going to get turning, Mr. Obama has sent my industry into a tail spin. He has taken several broad swipes at corporate entertainment in the past few weeks. Because they also hate corporate fat cats, Senator John Kerry and Representative Barney Frank joined in and started slamming my little corner of show business as well. I’m sure President Obama and his droogies were just trying to embarrass these fat cats but that isn’t how it worked out.

He did the same thing with the corporate jet industry a few weeks earlier starting with the CEO’s of the auto industry.

He accomplished his mission. He embarrassed business leaders and they have been cutting back on entertaining. Unfortunately, due to the law of unintended consequences, it wasn’t the corporate fat cats that got hurt. They have mothballed their corporate jets and are suffering by flying first class to their vacation homes in the Bahamas, poor guys!

Who the president hurt were thousands of waiters, caterers, bartenders, stage hands, sound technicians, floor sweepers, decorators, jet pilots, mechanics, parts suppliers, hotel workers and even a few stand up comics who depend on those fat cats for their livelihoods.

Not all fat cats come under this Democrat microscope. This week in Miami, at the Fontainebleau Hotel, a fairly swanky joint, the AFL-CIO is hosting a little shindig. Not only are they not under fire for reckless spending while their union members are losing their jobs left and right, but a couple of high ranking Democrats including the Joe Biden will be down there cheering them on. I am guessing more than a few of them flew down to Miami on private aircraft. I wonder if they need a comic?

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