Tim Robbins speech at the National Press Club last Tuesday.
I think it's awesome.
Published on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
'A Chill Wind is Blowing in This Nation...'
Transcript of the speech given by actor Tim Robbins to the National
Press Club in Washington, D.C., on April 15, 2003.
TIM ROBBINS: Thank you. And thanks for the invitation. I had originally
been asked here to talk about the war and our current political
situation, but I have instead chosen to hijack this opportunity and talk about
baseball and show business. (Laughter.) Just kidding. Sort of.
I can't tell you how moved I have been at the overwhelming support I
have received from newspapers throughout the country in these past few
days. I hold no illusions that all of these journalists agree with me on
my views against the war. While the journalists' outrage at the
cancellation of our appearance in Cooperstown is not about my views, it is
about my right to express these views. I am extremely grateful that there
are those of you out there still with a fierce belief in
constitutionally guaranteed rights. We need you, the press, now more than ever. This
is a crucial moment for all of us.
For all of the ugliness and tragedy of 9-11, there was a brief period
afterward where I held a great hope, in the midst of the tears and
shocked faces of New Yorkers, in the midst of the lethal air we breathed as
we worked at Ground Zero, in the midst of my children's terror at being
so close to this crime against humanity, in the midst of all this, I
held on to a glimmer of hope in the naive assumption that something good
could come out of it.
Actor Tim Robbins speaks about his anti-war stance at the National
Press Club in Washington Tuesday, April 15, 2003. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
I imagined our leaders seizing upon this moment of unity in America,
this moment when no one wanted to talk about Democrat versus Republican,
white versus black, or any of the other ridiculous divisions that
dominate our public discourse. I imagined our leaders going on television
telling the citizens that although we all want to be at Ground Zero, we
can't, but there is work that is needed to be done all over America. Our
help is needed at community centers to tutor children, to teach them to
read. Our work is needed at old-age homes to visit the lonely and
infirmed; in gutted neighborhoods to rebuild housing and clean up parks, and
convert abandoned lots to baseball fields. I imagined leadership that
would take this incredible energy, this generosity of spirit and create
a new unity in America born out of the chaos and tragedy of 9/11, a new
unity that would send a message to terrorists everywhere: If you attack
us, we will become stronger, cleaner, better educated, and more
unified. You will strengthen our commitment to justice and democracy by your
inhumane attacks on us. Like a Phoenix out of the fire, we will be
reborn.
And then came the speech: You are either with us or against us. And the
bombing began. And the old paradigm was restored as our leader
encouraged us to show our patriotism by shopping and by volunteering to join
groups that would turn in their neighbor for any suspicious behavior.
In the 19 months since 9-11, we have seen our democracy compromised by
fear and hatred. Basic inalienable rights, due process, the sanctity of
the home have been quickly compromised in a climate of fear. A unified
American public has grown bitterly divided, and a world population that
had profound sympathy and support for us has grown contemptuous and
distrustful, viewing us as we once viewed the Soviet Union, as a rogue
state.
This past weekend, Susan and I and the three kids went to Florida for a
family reunion of sorts. Amidst the alcohol and the dancing,
sugar-rushing children, there was, of course, talk of the war. And the most
frightening thing about the weekend was the amount of times we were thanked
for speaking out against the war because that individual speaking
thought it unsafe to do so in their own community, in their own life. Keep
talking, they said; I haven't been able to open my mouth.
A relative tells me that a history teacher tells his 11-year-old son,
my nephew, that Susan Sarandon is endangering the troops by her
opposition to the war. Another teacher in a different school asks our niece if
we are coming to the school play. They're not welcome here, said the
molder of young minds.
Another relative tells me of a school board decision to cancel a civics
event that was proposing to have a moment of silence for those who have
died in the war because the students were including dead Iraqi
civilians in their silent prayer.
A teacher in another nephew's school is fired for wearing a T- shirt
with a peace sign on it. And a friend of the family tells of listening to
the radio down South as the talk radio host calls for the murder of a
prominent anti-war activist. Death threats have appeared on other
prominent anti-war activists' doorsteps for their views. Relatives of ours
have received threatening e-mails and phone calls. And my 13-year-old
boy, who has done nothing to anybody, has recently been embarrassed and
humiliated by a sadistic creep who writes -- or, rather, scratches his
column with his fingernails in dirt.
Susan and I have been listed as traitors, as supporters of Saddam, and
various other epithets by the Aussie gossip rags masquerading as
newspapers, and by their fair and balanced electronic media cousins, 19th
Century Fox. (Laughter.) Apologies to Gore Vidal. (Applause.)
Two weeks ago, the United Way canceled Susan's appearance at a
conference on women's leadership. And both of us last week were told that both
we and the First Amendment were not welcome at the Baseball Hall of
Fame.
A famous middle-aged rock-and-roller called me last week to thank me
for speaking out against the war, only to go on to tell me that he could
not speak himself because he fears repercussions from Clear Channel.
"They promote our concert appearances," he said. "They own most of the
stations that play our music. I can't come out against this war."
And here in Washington, Helen Thomas finds herself banished to the back
of the room and uncalled on after asking Ari Fleischer whether our
showing prisoners of war at Guantanamo Bay on television violated the
Geneva Convention.
A chill wind is blowing in this nation. A message is being sent through
the White House and its allies in talk radio and Clear Channel and
Cooperstown. If you oppose this administration, there can and will be
ramifications.
Every day, the air waves are filled with warnings, veiled and unveiled
threats, spewed invective and hatred directed at any voice of dissent.
And the public, like so many relatives and friends that I saw this
weekend, sit in mute opposition and fear.
I am sick of hearing about Hollywood being against this war.
Hollywood's heavy hitters, the real power brokers and cover-of-the- magazine
stars, have been largely silent on this issue. But Hollywood, the concept,
has always been a popular target.
I remember when the Columbine High School shootings happened. President
Clinton criticized Hollywood for contributing to this terrible tragedy
-- this, as we were dropping bombs over Kosovo. Could the violent
actions of our leaders contribute somewhat to the violent fantasies of our
teenagers? Or is it all just Hollywood and rock and roll?
I remember reading at the time that one of the shooters had tried to
enlist to fight the real war a week before he acted out his war in real
life at Columbine. I talked about this in the press at the time. And
curiously, no one accused me of being unpatriotic for criticizing Clinton.
In fact, the same radio patriots that call us traitors today engaged in
daily personal attacks on their president during the war in Kosovo.
Today, prominent politicians who have decried violence in movies -- the
"Blame Hollywooders," if you will -- recently voted to give our current
president the power to unleash real violence in our current war. They
want us to stop the fictional violence but are okay with the real kind.
And these same people that tolerate the real violence of war don't want
to see the result of it on the nightly news. Unlike the rest of the
world, our news coverage of this war remains sanitized, without a glimpse
of the blood and gore inflicted upon our soldiers or the women and
children in Iraq. Violence as a concept, an abstraction -- it's very
strange.
As we applaud the hard-edged realism of the opening battle scene of
"Saving Private Ryan," we cringe at the thought of seeing the same on the
nightly news. We are told it would be pornographic. We want no part of
reality in real life. We demand that war be painstakingly realized on
the screen, but that war remain imagined and conceptualized in real
life.
And in the midst of all this madness, where is the political
opposition? Where have all the Democrats gone? Long time passing, long time ago.
(Applause.) With apologies to Robert Byrd, I have to say it is pretty
embarrassing to live in a country where a five-foot- one comedian has
more guts than most politicians. (Applause.) We need leaders, not
pragmatists that cower before the spin zones of former entertainment
journalists. We need leaders who can understand the Constitution, congressman
who don't in a moment of fear abdicate their most important power, the
right to declare war to the executive branch. And, please, can we please
stop the congressional sing-a- longs? (Laughter.)
In this time when a citizenry applauds the liberation of a country as
it lives in fear of its own freedom, when an administration official
releases an attack ad questioning the patriotism of a legless Vietnam
veteran running for Congress, when people all over the country fear
reprisal if they use their right to free speech, it is time to get angry. It
is time to get fierce. And it doesn't take much to shift the tide. My
11-year-old nephew, mentioned earlier, a shy kid who never talks in
class, stood up to his history teacher who was questioning Susan's
patriotism. "That's my aunt you're talking about. Stop it." And the stunned
teacher backtracks and began stammering compliments in embarrassment.
Sportswriters across the country reacted with such overwhelming fury at
the Hall of Fame that the president of the Hall admitted he made a
mistake and Major League Baseball disavowed any connection to the actions
of the Hall's president. A bully can be stopped, and so can a mob. It
takes one person with the courage and a resolute voice.
The journalists in this country can battle back at those who would
rewrite our Constitution in Patriot Act II, or "Patriot, The Sequel," as we
would call it in Hollywood. We are counting on you to star in that
movie. Journalists can insist that they not be used as publicists by this
administration. (Applause.) The next White House correspondent to be
called on by Ari Fleischer should defer their question to the back of the
room, to the banished journalist du jour. (Applause.) And any instance
of intimidation to free speech should be battled against. Any
acquiescence or intimidation at this point will only lead to more intimidation.
You have, whether you like it or not, an awesome responsibility and an
awesome power: the fate of discourse, the health of this republic is in
your hands, whether you write on the left or the right. This is your
time, and the destiny you have chosen.
We lay the continuance of our democracy on your desks, and count on
your pens to be mightier. Millions are watching and waiting in mute
frustration and hope - hoping for someone to defend the spirit and letter of
our Constitution, and to defy the intimidation that is visited upon us
daily in the name of national security and warped notions of
patriotism.
Our ability to disagree, and our inherent right to question our leaders
and criticize their actions define who we are. To allow those rights to
be taken away out of fear, to punish people for their beliefs, to limit
access in the news media to differing opinions is to acknowledge our
democracy's defeat. These are challenging times. There is a wave of hate
that seeks to divide us -- right and left, pro-war and anti-war. In the
name of my 11-year-old nephew, and all the other unreported victims of
this hostile and unproductive environment of fear, let us try to find
our common ground as a nation. Let us celebrate this grand and glorious
experiment that has survived for 227 years. To do so we must honor and
fight vigilantly for the things that unite us -- like freedom, the
First Amendment and, yes, baseball. (Applause.)
###
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