And, as is the usual case, she has ordered a new investigation into
the killings. And, as is the usual case, the results of this investigation will
absolve the federal government of any blame. Why should this surprise anyone?
Just when has the FBI. ATF, Treasury Department or any other federal agency
ever accepted blame for any of their misdeeds? Or when have any agencies of
the federal government, from Slick Willie on down, ever failed to lie when it was to
the their advantage to do so? When have they ever accepted responsibility for their
mistakes?
After six years, they have also finally admitted that a delegation from the Army
Special Forces was on hand, but only as advisers.
I'm old enough to remember when the report came out that we had troops in
Vietnam and I also remember that at the time the government said they had been sent
there by President Kennedy as "advisers". Like I have said before, it is so very
easy to tell when a politician, either elected or appointed, is lying. If their
lips are moving, you may pretty well count on it.
Why is nothing ever done? Because they find some asshole willing to
be the scapegoat. Scapegoat says "I accept full responsibility for the fuck
up." They leave with a nice piece of change, the public is satisified
and everything returns to status quo. What a bunch of morons we are
to accept all this government bullshit!
Mr. Heston
I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten class
what his father did for a living.
"My Daddy," he said, "pretends to be people."
There have been quite a few of them.
Prophets from the Old and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints,
generals of various nationalities and different centuries, several kings,
three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including
Michelangelo.
If you want the ceiling re-painted I'll do my best.
It's just that there always seems to be a lot of different fellows up here.
I'm never sure which one of them gets to talk. Right now, I guess I'm the
guy.
As I pondered our visit tonight it struck me: If my Creator gave me the gift
to connect you with the hearts and minds of those great men, then I want to
use that same gift now to re-connect you with your own sense of liberty ...
your own freedom of thought ... your own compass for what is right.
Dedicating the memorial at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said of America, "We
are now engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether this nation or any
nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." Those words are true
again. . . I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a
cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what
lives in your heart.
I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you . . .
the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that
it is.
Let me back up a little. About a year ago I became president of the National
Rifle Association, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. I ran for
office, I was elected, and now I serve ... I serve as a moving target for
the media who've called me everything from "ridiculous" and "duped" to a
"brain-injured, senile, crazy old man." I know, I'm pretty old ... but I sure
Lord ain't senile.
As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment
freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue.
No, it's much, much bigger than that.
I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in
which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are
mandated.
For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 - long before
Hollywood found it fashionable. But when I told an audience last year that
white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else's
pride, they called me a racist.
I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life. But when I
told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights
or my rights, I was called a homophobe.
I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when
I drew an analogy between singling out innocent Jews and singling out
innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite.
Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country.
But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution, I was
compared to Timothy McVeigh.
From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially saying,
"Chuck, how dare you speak your mind like that? You are using language not
authorized for public consumption!"
But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd
still be King George's boys - subjects bound to the British crown.
In his book, "The End of Sanity," Martin Gross writes that "blatantly
irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every
area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules,
new anti-intellectual theories regularly foisted on us from every direction.
Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something without a name
is undermining the country, turning the mind mushy when it comes to
separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don't like
it."
Let me read a few examples.
At Antioch college in Ohio, young men seeking intimacy with a coed must get
verbal permission at each step of the process from kissing to petting to
final copulation ... all clearly spelled out in a printed college directive.
In New Jersey, despite the death of several patients nationwide who had been
infected by dentists who had concealed their AIDs - the state commissioner
announced that health providers who are HIV-positive need not....need not. .
. .tell their patients that they are infected.
At William and Mary, students tried to change the name of the school team
"The Tribe" because it was supposedly insulting to local Indians, only to
learn that authentic Virginia chiefs truly like the name.
In San Francisco, city fathers passed an ordinance protecting the rights of
transvestites to cross-dress on the job, and for transsexuals to have
separate toilet facilities while undergoing sex change surgery.
In New York City, kids who don't speak a word of Spanish have been placed in
bilingual classes to learn their three R's in Spanish solely because their
last names sound Hispanic.
At the University of Pennsylvania, in a state where thousands died at
Gettysburg opposing slavery, the president of that college officially set up
segregated dormitory space for black students.
Yeah, I know . . . that's out of bounds now. Dr. King said "Negroes."
Jimmy Baldwin and most of us on the March said "black." But it's a no-no
now.
For me, hyphenated identities are awkward . . . particularly
"Native-American. " I'm a Native American, for God's sake. I also happen to
be a blood-initiated brother of the Miniconjou Sioux.
On my wife's side, my grandson is a thirteenth generation native American .
. . with the capital letter on "American."
Finally, just last month . . . David Howard, head of the Washington D.C.
Office of Public Advocate, used the word "niggardly" while talking to
colleagues about budgetary matters. Of course, "niggardly" means stingy or
scanty. But within days Howard was forced to publicly apologize and resign.
As columnist Tony Snow wrote: "David Howard got fired because some people in
public employ were morons who (a) didn't know the meaning of niggardly,' (b)
didn't know how to use a dictionary to discover the meaning, and (c)
actually demanded that he apo logize for their ignorance. "
What does all this mean? It means that telling us what to think has evolved
into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be far behind.
Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did
political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you
continue to tolerate it?
Why do you, who're supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression?
Let's be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they really
believe?
That scares me to death. It should scare you too, that the superstition of
political correctness rules the halls of reason.
You are the best and the brightest. You, here in the fertile cradle of
American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River, you
are the cream. But I submit that you, and your counterparts across the land,
are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since
Concord Bridge. And as long as you validate that ... and abide it ... you
are - by your grandfathers' standards - cowards.
Here's another example. Right now at more than one major university, Second
Amendment scholars and researchers are being told to shut up about their
findings or they'll lose their jobs. Why? Because their research findings
would undermine big-city mayor's pending lawsuits that seek to extort
hundreds of millions of dollars from firearm manufacturers.
I don't care what you think about guns. But if you are not shocked at that,
I am shocked at you. Who will guard the raw material of unfettered ideas, if
not you? Democracy is dialogue!
Who will defend the core value of academia, if you supposed soldiers of free
thought and expression lay down your arms and plead, "Don't shoot me."
If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist.
If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you sexist.
If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a
homophobe.
Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this
rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism.
But what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social
subjugation? The answer's been here all along.
I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in
Washington D.C., standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred
thousand people.
You simply ... disobey.
Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely.
But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We
disobey social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom.
I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr. King . . . who learned
it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who led
those in the right against those with the might.
Disobedience is in our DNA. We feel innate kinship with that disobedient
spirit that tossed tea into Boston Harbor, that sent Thoreau to jail, that
refused to sit in the back of the bus, that protested a war in Viet Nam.
In that same spirit, I am asking you to disavow cultural correctness with
massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives and onerous laws
that weaken personal freedom.
But be careful ... it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at
risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies.
You must be willing to be humiliated ... to endure the modern-day equivalent
of the police dogs at Montgomery and the water cannons at Selma.
You must be willing to experience discomfort. I'm not complaining, but my
own decades of social activism have left their mark on me.
Let me tell you a story. A few years back I heard about a rapper named Ice-T
who was selling a CD called "Cop Killer" celebrating ambushing and murdering
police officers. It was being marketed by none other than Time/Warner, the
biggest entertainment conglomerate in the world. Police across the country
were outraged. Rightfully so - at least one had been murdered. But
Time/Warner was stonewalling because the CD was a cash cow for them, and the
media were tiptoeing around it because the rapper was black.
I heard Time/Warner had a stockholders meeting scheduled in Beverly Hills. I
owned some shares at the time, so I decided to attend. What I did there was
against the advice of my family and colleagues. I asked for the floor. To a
hushed room of a thousand average American stockholders, I simply read the
full lyrics of "Cop Killer" - every vicious, vulgar, instructional word.
"I GOT MY 12 GAUGE SAWED OFF I GOT MY HEADLIGHTS TURNED OFF I'M ABOUT
TO
BUST SOME SHOTS OFF I'M ABOUT TO DUST SOME COPS OFF..." It got worse, a lot
worse. I won't read the rest of it to you. But trust me, the room was a sea
of shocked, frozen, blanched faces. The Time/Warner executives squirmed in
their chairs and stared at their shoes. They hated me for that.
Then I delivered another volley of sick lyric brimming with racist filth,
where Ice-T fantasizes about sodomizing two 12-year old nieces of Al and
Tipper Gore.
"SHE PUSHED HER BUTT AGAINST MY ...."
Well, I won't do to you here what I did to them. Let's just say I left the
room in echoing silence. When I read the lyrics to the waiting press corps,
one of them said "We can't print that." ''I know," I replied, "but
Time/Warner's sell ing it.
Two months later, Time/Warner terminated Ice-T's contract. I'll never be
offered another film by Warners, or get a good review from Time magazine.
But disobedience means you must be willing to act, not just talk. When a
mugger sues his elderly victim for defending herself... jam the switchboard
of the district attorney's office.
When your university is pressured to lower standards until 80% of the
students graduate with honors . . . choke the halls of the board of regents.
When an 8-year-old boy pecks a girl's cheek on the playground and gets
hauled into court for sexual harassment . . . march on that school and block
its doorways. When someone you elected is seduced by political power and
betrays you . . . petition them, oust them, banish them. When Time
magazine's cover portrays millennium nuts as deranged, crazy Christians
holding a cross as it did last month . . . boycott their magazine and the
products it advertises.
So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed
footsteps of the great disobediences of history that freed exiles, founded
religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in
arms and a f ew great men, by God's grace, built this country.
If Dr. King were here, I think he would agree.
Thank you.
I get so fuckin tired of this old wore out game some so-called bikers play
tryin' to reassure themselves that they are a REAL biker.
I believe the folks that are caught up in who's a fuckin biker
and who ain't cannot possibly be a biker cause the bikers I know
really don't give a rats ass about who's a real biker or who trailers
their bike or if some fucker is properly attired, etc., etc.!!
You get the picture.
People -GET A FUCKIN LIFE-
What difference does it make what a person: looks like; rides;
lives; works; wears; drinks; eats; shops; hangs out--Man--I personally
judge a person not by all that bullshit but by the 'class' he or
she has. I can't define 'Class' but you know the folks that have it
and the ones that don't.
Hell, I ain't a biker by some 'biker's' standards---In fact, I bet I'll
toss and turn about 3 nanoseconds worrying about it tonight.
**Pan*
After six years, Attorney General Janet Reno has admitted the government lied
about the murder of the 80 Branch Davidians killed at Waco six years ago. It
took that long for them to finally admit that the federal forces there
used incendiary devices.
Charlton Heston, speaking on 'Winning the Cultural War,' Tuesday, February
16, 7:30 pm, Ames Courtroom, Austin Hall. Sponsored by the Harvard Law
School Forum, a student organization at Harvard Law School. For almost 50
years, the Forum has been bringing to HLS noteworthy individuals from all
fields to engage in exciting and wide-ranging exchanges of ideas. Forum
programs are open to the public and generally consist of a speech or panel
discussion followed by a question-and-answer session.
If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you
anti-religion.
Pan's Soapbox Part I