Heston on "Winning the Cultural War."

[Guest guest]

> 'Winning the Cultural War' - Charlton Heston's Speech to the

> Harvard Law School Forum, Feb 16, 1999

 

> 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 repainted I'll do my best. There always

> seem 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

> reconnect you with your own sense of liberty of 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 resides

> 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. 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. 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 nation, 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 a 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 © actually demanded

> that he apologize for their ignorance."

 

> What does all of 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? It scares me to death, and 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? 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 a

> sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does

> not make you anti-religion. 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, DC, 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

> taken their toll 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 selling it." Two months

> later, Time/Warner terminated Ice-T's contract. I'll never be

> offered another film by Warner's, 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 disobedience's of history

> that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and

> yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great

> men, by God's grace, built this country.

 

> If Dr. King were here, I think he would agree. Thank you.

 

 

For 50 years, the Harvard Law School Forum has been sponsoring

> speeches by luminaries ranging from Fidel Castro to Gerald Ford

> to Dr. Ruth. Sometimes the speeches have generated a bit of

> media coverage, sometimes not. But one given by

> Charlton Heston has taken on a life of its own.

 

> Heston, the actor and conservative activist, delivered a stem-

> winder to about 200 listeners about "a cultural war that's

> about to hijack your birthright to think and say what resides

> in your heart."

 

> "He knew he was coming to a liberal environment, and clearly a

> group of his listeners was conservative and another was more

> liberal," said David Christopherson, president of the forum.

> "About half respectfully challenged him during the questions.

> It generated a lot of debate around the campus. But what

> happened caught us off-guard."

 

> What happened was Rush Limbaugh's radio talk show. On March 15,

> Limbaugh read the entire speech on the air, only to find

> himself bombarded with thousands of requests for a copy of it.

> The same thing happened at Harvard Law.

 

> "We couldn't keep up with all the requests," said Mike Chmura

> at Harvard. "It really didn't have legs and might have been

> forgotten if Mr. Limbaugh hadn't decided to deliver it."