The only immediate promises of that "social revolution" Reed was "wrong" about were exactly those delivered: mass murder. He witnessed and then disregarded them. Reed speaks about the atrocities in a back-handed fashion as if they were inconsequential. The entire world knows how unfairly we dealt here with Native Americans- usually exaggerated beyond all logical comprehension. But, how many people in the world sit back and realize that between Stalin, Lenin, and Mao more people were murdered, just in the last century, than all the people who died in all the wars and "social revolutions" in all of recorded history prior to the 20th century? Why is that not significant enough to provide a signature warning to all budding social revolutionaries?
History will remember neither Naomi Campbell NOR Sean Penn. They are not literate enough to leave a written record of their actions or motivations. Their primary reasons for supporting the budding dictator Chavez, is because he, as do they, hate the United States - the country which allowed them the freedom to attain their tremendous wealth and social status. At the same time, they espouse only vague, twsted parts of a philosophy which was born here and has provided the only long-term promise of individual liberty the world has ever seen.
That a people or nation do not or can not live up perfectly to their own ideals is not a condemnation of those ideals. Nowhere in the American promise is there an expressed desire to murder or dominate or subjugate. Not true in Penn's philosophy. No where in the American promise is there an encouragement to unequal treatment under law for any targeted groups. Not true in Penn's philosophy. These things have happened (in localized incidents) in spite of American ideals, not because of them. That we don't cover them up, hide them, or justify them, is the best commentary possible on any society.
