This is one of the best speeches I have ever read. Sean Penn told it like it is when he received the 2006 Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award from the Creative Coalition on December 18, 2006 in New York City. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! If you care about truth, if you too wonder why a President can get impeached for lying about his sex life but not illegally bombing a country, killing, wounding and destroying the lives of millions of innocent people in the process, if you are increasingly incensed by the media blindly and pathetically following Bush's agenda, then you have to read this:
Excerpt:
"...Words may be our most civil weapons of change, when they connect to actions of sacrifice, or good will, but they have no grace or power without bold clarity. So, if you'll bear with me, borrowing a line from Bob Dylan, "Let us not talk falsely now--the hour is getting late."
Global warming
Massive pollution
Non-stop U.S. war in Iraq
Attacks on civil liberties under the banner of war on terror
Military spending
You and I, U.S. taxpayers, spend 1 1/2 billion dollars on an Iraq-war-'focused' military everyday, while social needs cry out.
Health care
Education
Public transit
Environmental protections
Affordable housing
Job training
Public investment
And, levy building.
We depend largely for information on these issues from media industries, driven by the bottom line to such an extent that the public interest becomes uninteresting.
And should we speak truth, we stand against government efforts to intimidate or legislate in the service of censorship. Whether under the guise of a Patriot Act or any other benevolent-sounding rationale for the age-old game of shutting down dissent by discouraging independent thinking and preventing progressive social change.
The most effective forms of de facto censorship are pre-emptive. Systemically, we are encouraged to keep our heads down, out of the line of fire--to avoid the danger, god forbid, that someone in the White House, on Capitol Hill, or a media blow-hard might take a shot at us.
But, as a practical matter, most of the limits on creative expression and other forms of free speech come from self-censorship, where the mechanism of corporate clout offers carrots and brandishes sticks. We avoid a conflict before the conflict materializes. We reach for the carrots and stay out of range of sticks....
...What is impeachment? It's not a Democratic versus Republican event. Not if used responsibly. If the House of Representatives votes to impeach this president, is he thrown out of office? No, he is not thrown out of office. That is not what impeachment is. Impeachment is the opportunity to proceed with accountability and give our elected senators, democratic and republican, the power to pursue a thorough investigation. The power to put the truth on the table. Mothers and fathers are losing their kids to horrifying deaths in this war every single day. Horrible deaths. Horrible maimings. Were crimes committed in enlisting the support of our country in this decision to go to war? For the moment we're living the most spineless of scenarios; where the hawks abused impeachment eight years ago, now, the rest of us politely refuse to use it today. Let's give the whistle-blowers cover, let's get the subpoenas out there, and then, one by one, put this administration under oath. And then, if the crimes of "Treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" are proven, do as Article 2, Section 4 of the United States Constitution provides, and remove "the President, Vice President and...civil officers of the United States" from office. If the Justice Department then sees fit to bunk them up with Jeff Skilling, so be it. So...look, if we attempt to impeach for lying about a blowjob, yet accept these almost certain abuses without challenge, we become a cum-stain on the flag we wave. "
I highly recommend you read the full version. Penn doesn't hold back and rightly so. It's about time we all stopped holding back. Click here to read (source: Counter Punch): http://www.counterpunch.org/penn12192006.html
For info on the Creative Coalition: http://www.thecreativecoalition.org/
No comments:
Post a Comment