Oliver Stone: Ronald Reagan was Wrong, America Is the Real ‘Evil Empire’

US film director Oliver Stone gestures as he poses during the 61st San Sebastian Film Fest
RAFA RIVAS/AFP via Getty Images

Leftist director Oliver Stone sat down with former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa for an interview on Russia Today (RT), where he insisted President Ronald Reagan declaring the Soviet Union the “evil empire” should apply to the United States.

At the height of the Cold War in 1983, former President Ronald Reagan delivered a now-iconic speech and called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” and as “the focus of evil in the modern world.”

“Empires fall. Let’s pray that this empire, these evil things… because we are the evil empire,” Reagan said. “What Reagan said about Russia is true about us.”

A fervent critic of U.S. foreign policy and supporter of many authoritarian regimes, Stone floated his theory that Hollywood producers have blacklisted him because his movies no longer follow the mainstream pro-war narrative.

“Hollywood has changed since 2001. It has become more censored. The military, the CIA, the depictions of these organizations has been very favorable,” the Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July director said.

“You can take the budgets down… let’s say you want to make a film criticizing the American military, taking an Iraq war story or a horror story that recently happened in Iran,” Stone continued. “You do those kinds of stories, it’s not going to happen.”

The 73-year-old filmmaker also took aim at senior Democratic Party figures such as Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton for being pro-war, adding that American politics has simply become “right-wings fighting with right-wings.”

He explained:

There is no party in the United States, there is no democratic voice except third parties that are small, that would say ‘Why are we fighting wars?’” he continued. “I don’t hear it from any of the major candidates, except one or two on the Democratic side, but they don’t have a chance of winning.

In other words, Hillary Clinton … and Joe Biden are just as pro-war as any Republican Dick Cheney. They just do it in a different way. Maybe it shows you how locked up America is, how so far to the right America has gone that Hillary Clinton is recognized as a Democrat. I can’t believe it.’

There’s no real left in America in power. It’s all right-wings fighting with right-wings. As [Russian President Vladimir] Putin said in the interviews I did with him, ‘It doesn’t make a difference who is President of the United States.

Unlike many Hollywood stars, Stone’s reputation appears to remain untarnished by separate allegations of sexual assault and harassment against him that surfaced during the height of the #MeToo movement. One of those accusers was the actress Melissa Gilbert, who claimed he sexually humiliated her after she embarrassed him in public.

Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com

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