Sean Penn is one of my favourite actors. And I love the fact that his politics are so pure and worn so publicly.

Here, in full, is the text of the speech he gave when accepting the 2006 Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award on December 18th in New York. (reprinted from the CounterPunch website).

And in the spirit of that,
tell you that I am very honored to receive it. And for this I
thank the Creative Coalition and my friend Charlie Rose. It does
seem appropriate to take this opportunity to exercise the right
that honors us all–freedom of speech.

Note for later:

The original title for the
Louis XVI comedy called “Start The Revolution Without Me”
was one of my favorites. That original title was “Louis,
There's a Crowd Downstairs.” But I'll come back to that…

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.

Decades ago, Fred Friendly
called it a “positive veto”–corporations putting big
money behind shows that they want to establish and perpetuate.
Whether in journalism or drama, creative efforts that don't gain
a financial “positive veto” are dismissible, then dismissed.
We may not call that “censorship.” But whatever we
call it, the effects of a “positive veto” system are
severe. They impose practical limits on efforts to bring the
most important realities to public attention sooner rather than
later…

We're beginning to see more
revealing images of this war. But it's later now, isn't it? What
we have to pay attention to are the results of these “practical
limits.” One, is that wars become much easier to launch
than to halt.

I've got a feeling about how
we can begin to change this process and I want to pass it by
you. Children grow up in our country — many by the way, under
conditions of extreme poverty — and are told from a very early
age “You will be accountable!” “With freedom,
comes responsibility!” And so the lecture goes…Democratic
and Republican alike. Lie-cheat-steal, and there will be consequences!
Theft will be punished. Actions that cause the deaths of others
will be severely punished. The message, from leaders in Washington,
news media, mom, dad, and church is clear. Criminals MUST be
held accountable.

Now, there's been a lot of
talk lately on Capitol Hill about how impeachment should be “off
the table.” We're told that it's time to look ahead–not
back…

Can you imagine how far that
argument would go for the defense at an arraignment on charges
of grand larceny, or large-scale distribution of methamphetamines?
How about the arranging of a contract killing on a pregnant mother?
“Indictment should be off the table.” Or “Let's
look forward, not backward.” Or “We can't afford another
failed defendant.”

Our country has a legal system,
not of men and women, but of laws. Why then are we so willing
to put inconvenient provisions of the U.S. constitution and federal
law “off the table?” Our greatest concern right now
should be what to put ON the table. Unless we're going to have
one set of laws for the powerful and another set for those who
can't afford fancy lawyers, then truth matters to everyone. And
accountability is a matter of human and legal principle. If we're
going to continue wagging our fingers at the disadvantaged transgressors,
then I suggest we be consistent. If truth and accountability
can be stretched into sham concepts, we may as well open the
gates of all our jails and prisons, where, by the way, there
are more people behind bars than any other country in the world.
One in every 32 American adults is behind bars, on probation,
or on parole as we stand here tonight.

Which is to say that, globally,
the United States is number one at demanding accountability and
backing up that demand with imprisonment. But, when it comes
to our president, vice president, secretary of state, former
secretary of defense…this insistence on accountability vanishes.
All of a sudden, what's past is prologue. And we're just “forward-looking.”
But some people can't just look forward. Men and women stationed
in Iraq at this moment, under orders of a Commander-in-Chief
so sufficiently practiced in the art of deception, that he got
vast numbers of American journalists and the most esteemed media
outlets of this country, including The New York Times, The Washington
Post, NPR, and PBS to eagerly serve his agenda-building for war.
And the process also induced vast numbers of artists and performers
(probably even some in this room tonight) to keep quiet and facilitate
the push for an invasion in Iraq.

I'm sure many people who I
met in Baghdad, both in my trips prior to and during the occupation,
now similarly cannot just look forward. With lives so entirely
shattered by a violence of occupation–an ongoing U.S. war effort
and the civil war that it has catalyzed. All on the back of a
crumbled infrastructure, following eleven years of devastating
U.N. sanctions.

And, where is the accountability
on behalf of the American dead and wounded, their families, their
friends, and the people of the United States who have seen their
country become a world pariah. These events have been enabled
by people named Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Rice, as
they continue to perpetuate a massive fraud on American democracy
and decency.

On January 11, 2003, I made
an appearance on Larry King's show following my first trip to
Iraq. I suggested that every American mother and father sit down
with a scrap of paper and pencil and scribble the following words:
Dear Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so — We regret to inform you that
your son or daughter so-and-so, was killed in action in Iraq.
I then asked that those mothers and fathers complete that letter
in whatever way might comfort them should they receive it. When
one considers what a bewildered continuation of those words a
parent might attempt to write today, it seems inconceivable that
this country could've ever bought into this war. Who were those
mothers and fathers believing in?! We know it's not the administration
alone, but a culture at large, cloaking itself in self-righteousness,
religion, and adolescent hero-dreaming machismo. Would they have
believed Rush Limbaugh if they'd known he was high as a kite
on OxyContin? Would they have believed the factually impaired
Bill O'Reilly if they knew he was massaging his rectum with a
loofah while telephonically harassing a staffer? Hannity, had
they known he was simply a whore to the cause of his pimps–Murdoch
and Ailes? Or the little bow-tie putz, if they knew all he was
seeking was a good laugh from Jon Stewart? Maybe our countrymen
and women were listening to Ted Haggert while he was whiffing
meth and boning a muscle-headed gigolo? Or Mark Foley seeking
junior weenis? Joe Lieberman, sitting Shiva? And Toby Keith,
singing about how big his boots are?

“Oh, there goes Sean…he
had to go and name-call. They say he can't help himself.”
Or, did I name-call? Maybe I just quickly summed up 7 or 8 little
truths. Oh, no, you're right–I name-called. I said, “putz”.
I take it back. Or, do I? Did I say “whore?” Pimp?
These are questions. But, the real and great questions of conscience
and accountability would not loom so ominously — unanswered
or evaded at such tremendous cost — without our day-to-day failure
to insist on genuine accountability. Of course we'd prefer some
easy ways to get there. But no easy ways exist. Not a new Congress.
Not Barack Obama. And, not John McCain. His courage in North
Vietnamese prison makes him a heroic man. His voting record in
Congress makes him a damaging public servant. We have gotta stand
the fuck up and show the world how powerful are the people in
a democracy. That's how we regain our position of example, rather
than pariah, to the world at large. And that is how we can begin
to put up our chins and allow pride and unification to raise
our own quality of life and security.

They tell us we lost 3,000
Americans on 9/11. Is that enough? We're about to match it. We're
within weeks, if not less, of killing 3,000 Americans in Iraq.
I ask Speaker Pelosi, can we put impeachment on the table then?
Without former FEMA chief Mike Brown being held accountable,
post Katrina (scapegoat though he may have been) we'd have had
the same chaos and neglect when Rita hit Houston. Think about
it. And, the same people who trumpet deterrence as a justification
for punishment when we speak of “crime and punishment,”
will boast their positive thinking when dismissing the deterrent
qualities of an impeachment proceeding.

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. You know, I was listening to Frank Rich this morning, speaking
on a book tour. He said he thought impeachment proceedings would
amount to a “decadent” sidetrack, while our soldiers
were still being killed. I admire Frank Rich. And of course he
would be right if impeachment is all we do. But we're Americans.
We can do two things at the same time. Yes, let's move forward
and swiftly get out of this war in Iraq AND impeach these bastards.

Christopher Reeve promised
to get out of that chair. Well, I don't know about you, but it
feels like he's up now and I wouldn't be standing here if it
weren't on his shoulders. Let it be for something.

Georgie, there's a crowd downstairs.

Thank you and good night.

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