Actor Woody Harrelson of ‘Hunger Games’ fame holds a dim view of government both on and off the set, calling himself an anarchist and describing partisanship as “synchronized swimming” in an interview with Details magazine.
“I tend to not like politicians, because it’s a subtle form of prostitution,” Harrelson said, lamenting the enormous influence corporations wield in political affairs. “Or maybe not so subtle. It’s all synchronized swimming to me. They all kneel and kiss the ring. Who’s going to take on the oil industry or the medical industry?”
The actor also criticized President Obama for failing to pull troops out of Afghanistan.
“People compare Obama to Lyndon Johnson, but I think a better comparison is between Obama and Nixon. Because Nixon came into office saying he was going to pull out of Vietnam, and then he escalated the war,” he said. “A lot of us were led to believe that Obama was the peace president, but there are still, I think, 70,000 troops in Afghanistan.”
Although Harrelson believes marijuana should be legalized, he took a pessimistic view of longer-term drug law trends.
“I can’t imagine that it’s going to happen, no,” he said. “The deeper issue is, what does it mean to live in a free country? In the U.S., something like 80 percent of people in prison are there for “consensual crimes.”
In fact, Harrelson said he doesn’t believe in politics at all: “I’m an anarchist, I guess you could say. I think people could be just fine looking after themselves,” he said.