Redford: ‘The parallels are obvious’ between my movie and Bush-era policies

[Playinghardball]

Source: Raw Story
By Megan Carpentier

In Robert Redford's new movie, The Conspirator, a cabinet official decides that what he thinks can assure the stability of the nation is more important that the individual liberties afforded by the Constitution of that nation. Thus, he pursues military tribunals instead of civilian trials for those he determines are responsible for the risks to stability to his beloved country.

Even Redford acknowledges the parallels between the case of Mary Surratt, convicted and hanged as part of the conspiracy to kill President Abraham Lincoln, and the use of military tribunals as started by the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11. At a screening hosted by Time last night, he told the audience, "There it is in the historical record. Are we going to learn from it, or are we going to do what we've always done?"

The facts of the Surratt case, as recounted in the movie, aren't new to historians. Mary Surratt owned a D.C.-boarding house, where she lived with her son, John -- who, by all accounts, brought John Wilkes Booth and others to the home to conspire to kidnap then-President Lincoln. That turned into a plan to assassinate Lincoln and other officials. On the night of April 14, 1865, Booth shot Lincoln at Ford's Theatre while others were sent to target Secretary of State William Seward, General Ulysses S. Grant and Vice President Andrew Johnson.

Read more at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/08/redford-the-parallels-are-obvious-between-my-movie-and-bush-era-policies/