The Official Raúl E. Esparza "Spread the Love" Thread, Part 3 — Page 38

Well, he didn't publically announce it at the top of the syllabus. There were obvious hints of his views and my TA mentioned it in passing at a discussion section. But McCarthyism is still alive and well in America today.

It's quite sad that people still have these medieval attitudes about beliefs, where they demonize anyone whose opinions may contradict their own. Another interesting thing mentioned in Sicko was when he was interviewing expatriates living in France. One woman said that the difference is that in France, the government is scared of the people, whereas in America, the people are scared of the government. We tout ourselves as the birthplace of democracy (well, actually I think that was Greece), but every other country seems to have gotten the RIGHT idea and while we're still "electing" autocrats more determined to fix the human rights violations in other countries while ignoring the institutionalized violations within our own. Maybe we have to guillotine a few people to get the point across.

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Updated On: 6/22/07 at 06:29 PM

Well, my state and school are really conservative, so just a different perspective, I guess. One of my professors, a completely brilliant woman, was hesitant about discussing her views as an atheist because it would offend people in the class. The thing is, that's what college is about -- challenging your ideas about the world to see if they still hold up when you've seen the bigger picture. It so concerns me that people are afraid of that. I've had professors whose views I disagreed with (granted, not many), and I still feel that it was worthwhile to be exposed to that, particularly if they're open to discussion and differences of opinion. I live for those kinds of experiences that turn your worldview upside down and make you reexamine your choices.

is anyone going on sunday?

I want to so badly. My flight supposedly gets back into NY at 12 and if I book it I could possibly get a rear mezz ticket but that's crazy.

I just watched Raul's Defying Gravity for the first time, hehe

Too bad he didnt sport the witch's hat.

And yes, I've been very lucky to have, for the most part, shared my parents beliefs. But I went to a fairly conservative school in middle and high school with people who said things like "well, thank God we have a good president now" and watch Bill O'Reilly over dinner every night. I love the fact that our country is so concerned with spreading democracy to the poor burka wearing women of the middle east, meanwhile the people displaced by Katrina in this country are still homeless.

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wow! Well, you know its not true because those insane ushers would throw you out if you brought a laptop in there. I turned OFF my phone about 10 minutes before the show started last time and I got yelled at, lol

re: Katrina - the whole situation really makes me sick to my stomach. The powers at be shove images of poor, helpless civilians in Iraq down our throats to justify this war on terrorism, but we cant scrape together a few million dollars to rebuild some houses for people living in our own country? If Oprah can do it, why cant we?

I actually watched Man of the Year last night - at one point Robin Williams' character, the presidential candidate, says that during the presidential debates, the candidates should just wear suits like the Nascar guys with logos from all the corporations that are backing their campaigns.

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Yeah, the same thing has happened to me. And on the opposte end, the ushers at A Chorus Line were perplexed when I tried to step OUT of the lobby to use my phone.

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taking me on a bummer...

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They don't let the world see the domestic issues and instead drag out the 9/11 pictures of heroic Americans to make them think nothing has changed. Which is about the equivalent of posting pictures of smiling Africans dancing for tourists and claiming it realistically represents the living conditions with no mention of the famine, disease and war.

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Geez, Raul. Cheer up. That's depressing.

Sort of related to the conversation- I'm seriously considering going to Africa after college to...do something. Help, I guess.

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Meh, all the other actors in the article had the same attitude. They were discussing the realities of being an actor. Raul is hardly the only tortured artist out there.

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Musto picks these quotes from a 90 minute panel discussion? That must have been the five minutes he was awake.