"A bully can be stopped. So can a mob"

Tim Robbins lashes back at the lynch mob calling for his head and
those of other peace activists.

Salon, April 16, 2003

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/04/16/robbins/print.html

Editor's note: Actor Tim Robbins delivered the following speech to the
National Press Corps in Washington on Tuesday.

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. 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 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 the ugliness and tragedy of 9/11 there was a brief period
afterwards 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 of
this I held onto a glimmer of hope in the naive assumption that
something good could come out of all this. I imagined our leaders
seizing upon this moment of unity in America, this moment when no one
wanted to talk about Democrat vs. Republican, white vs. 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 infirm, in gutted
neighborhoods to rebuild housing and clean up parks, and convert
abandoned lots into 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, 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. 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. 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
were 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 antiwar
activist.

Death threats have appeared on other prominent peaceniks' doorsteps for
their views against the war. Relatives of ours have received threatening
e-mails and phone calls. My 13-year-old boy, who has done nothing to
anybody, has been embarrassed and humiliated by a sadistic creep who
writes, or rather, scratches, his column with his fingers in the 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. Apologies to Gore Vidal. Two weeks ago, the United Way
cancelled 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 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 Fleisher whether our
showing prisoners of war at Guantánamo 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 airwaves 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 I saw
this weekend, sit in mute opposition and in fear.

I'm sick of hearing about Hollywood being against the 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 our teenagers
are having? 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 talk 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 OK 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?
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. We need leaders, not pragmatists that cower before the
spin zones of former entertainment journalists. We need leaders who
understand the Constitution, Congressmen 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 stop the congressional
sing-a-longs?

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. 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 backtracked and began stammering compliments in
embarrassment.

Sports writers 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. 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 re-write
our Constitution in the 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. 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. Any instance of intimidation to free
speech should be battled against. Any acquiescence to 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 antiwar.

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. 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.