Richard Foos

Richard Foos

Liberty Hill Foundation

As at 2009, Richard Foos was a member of the Advisory Board of the Liberty Hill Foundation, a Los Angeles based organization seeking to advance movements for social change through a combination of grants, leadership training and alliance-building.

"Free the Cuban 5"

From an April 8,2011 letter.

"Dear President Carter:

We, Actors and Artists United for the Freedom of the Cuban 5, want to extend our deepest gratitude for your recent visit to Cuba, as well as our support for your statements promoting improved relations between our countries.

Your call for the release of Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo, Antonio Guerrero Rodriguez, Fernando Gonzalez Llort, Ramon Labanino Salazar, and Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert, known as the Cuban 5, and your willingness to visit with their family members in Cuba mean a great deal to all involved. We strongly agree that there is no reason to keep these men, who were simply trying to protect their country from terrorism, imprisoned any longer...

Further, we enthusiastically support you in having subsequent discussions with President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and hope you will call for urgent action on their part to make right this unjust situation.

Again, we thank you and look forward to the possibility of improved relations and future visits to Cuba.

With respect,

Ed Asner, Co-Chair
, Danny Glover, Co-Chair, Jackson Browne
, James Cromwell, Mike Farrell, Richard Foos, Elliott Gould, Chrissie Hand
, Francisco Letelier, Esai Morales, Graham Nash
, Bonnie Raitt, Susan Sarandon, Pete Seeger, Martin Sheen
, Betty Sheinbaum, Stanley Sheinbaum, Andy Spahn, Oliver Stone
,Haskell Wexler

Backing Bernie

With the dust still settling after Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s glitzy fundraising trips to Hollywood early June 2015, Clinton’s first official Democratic rival — Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders — slipped quietly into town Saturday for a pair of low-key events that didn’t raise seven-figure sums, but did warm the hearts of two overflowing crowds of Hollywood progressives.

Sanders’ supporters might be called the entertainment industry’s irreconcilables — the left flank of the Hollywood Dems’ most progressive faction, with activists deeply disappointed in Obama, who they supported, and unwilling to sign on to a Clinton presidential campaign. In the former Secretary of State they see another moderate waiting to happen.

Early Saturday morning, they filled the already blazing front yard of actress Mimi Kennedy’s Van Nuys home, and — at midday — the living room of long-time activists Betty and StanleySheinbaum’s sprawling Brentwood Park mansion, to hear the program of a candidate they see as everything Hillary is not.

“I’m here with my wife and my friends because we believe Bernie is providing us with the opportunity to have a voice and a role in the Democratic process at a time when progressives are on the rise,” said former California state Senator Tom Hayden, who introduced Sanders at the Van Nuys event.

“Bernie has launched a very critical campaign in several states,” Hayden said. “He’s actually doing well in the early polls. He has an opportunity to change the conversation in the country. He has an opportunity to be an effective debater (against Clinton) in the primaries. He has an opportunity to attract Libertarians and Republicans, as well as Democrats and Socialists. It always was a motley crew — the progressive coalition.”

With Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren definitely out of the race, Sanders — a self-described Democratic socialist — is the candidate who checks all the progressive boxes, earning him a devoted Los Angeles following. About 300 people turned out for Sanders’ two events on Saturday. Attendees included Days of Our Lives actress Deidre Hall, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas producer Richard Foos, Sister Act producer Cindy Gilmore Asner, filmmaker James H. Stern and actress/producer Sheila Emery.

In Van Nuys, Sanders told the crowd that the best part of running for president is being able to talk about the issues the other candidates are avoiding.

“Our campaign is catching fire,” he said. “It’s for one simple reason: We are telling the truth. And I think that’s what the American people want to hear. The truth may not be necessarily pleasant, but we can’t go forward unless we have the courage to take a hard look at where we are today. And where we are today is not in a good place.”

References

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