---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Delivered-To: •••@••.••• Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2003 21:32:18 -0800 From: Brant Downey <•••@••.•••> Subject: How Hollywood Mobilized Its Peace Forces (San Francisco Chronicle) To: •••@••.••• How Hollywood mobilized its peace forces Hugh Hart, Special to The Chronicle, The San Francisco Chronicle, Saturday, March 22, 2003, Page D1 Los Angeles -- On the desk of TV producer Robert Greenwald's Culver City bungalow across the street from Sony Studios lies a black leather phone book. "That's Artists United to Win Without War right there," Greenwald says. Since forming the group last summer with actor Mike Farrell, best known for his role in the television series "MASH," Greenwald has used his Hollywood connections to organize celebrities opposed to war. While some celebrities, including Mira Sorvino, who took part in a Los Angeles demonstration earlier this month, have found their way independently to anti-war activity, Artists United to Win Without War has been instrumental in serving as a liaison between Hollywood's creative community and anti-war groups. When Jessica Lange and Ethan Hawke demonstrated at the United Nations, it was Greenwald who helped hook them up with the organizers of that rally. When Martin Sheen, who appeared with demonstrators in San Francisco earlier this month, endorsed the virtual march on Washington sponsored by anti-war group Move On, it was Greenwald and Farrell who videotaped Sheen during a rehearsal break on the set of NBC's "The West Wing." Artists United to Win Without War declared its position in December, when the group held a press conference after taking out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times signed by nearly 100 celebrities including Gillian Anderson, Kim Basinger, Matt Damon, David Duchovny and Laurence Fishburne. In the wake of the statement, in which Farrell and Greenwald argued that Saddam Hussein could be disarmed without a war, Kate McArdle, a former production executive at USA Television, was brought in to handle the media requests that began pouring in. "We got barraged by press," she says. "They wanted to know, would you be on a show, talk more about your issues, tell us what you feel. It became this kind of circular thing where the more the press gave us the visibility, the more anti-war groups had ideas about involving us in other activities." If celebrities helped focus attention on anti-war sentiment, they also provoked a backlash exacerbated by talk radio commentators, cable news outlets and online petitions like Citizens Against Celebrity Pundits, www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/hollywoodceleb/. Farrell says objections to Hollywood anti-war activism misses the point: "We've been clear over and over again in saying that we are not experts. We are citizens in a democracy who have gone out of our way to become well informed about this. My objection to the argument that celebrities should shut up because they're only celebrities is, it gets away from the message. Debate the message. I defy people to debate what Mike Farrell or Janeane Garofalo or Anjelica Huston or Jessica Lange have to say. That's what the discussion should be about. These people are informed, they're well read, they've been briefed, and I think that's the debate we should have." Referring to a recent Gallup poll, which seemed to discount the influence of celebrities on political discourse, Greenwald says, "In one sense we were flattered because that poll was essentially in response to the work we've done with our little group. On the other hand, again, it was the wrong question. The question was, would a celebrity change your opinion. Of course not, we would hope not. The question should have been, have you heard an anti-war message because of celebrities. And that's where we've had really extraordinary success, given that we did this all out of our computers and our phone, with no infrastructure." Farrell and Greenwald say it's now time to appraise their group's next step. "We're in uncharted territory," Greenwald says. "There's no road map here, but we've begun discussions about how we can make it clear that we support the individual troops, but we're opposed to the harm's way they're being put in. Over the next couple of days, we'll put out some kind of statement. There will be civil disobedience, and we will be supporting that in different ways." Adds Farrell, "People are going to frame the war, particularly if it's a short war, as this great victory, that they were right all along. We're going to make it clear that the opposition is not going to go away. We'll be working to articulate a vision of the world where war is not the way to solve problems. 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