A chill wind is blowing in this nation

The actor/director Tim Robbins played the leading role in The Shawshank Redemption, won a best supporting actor Oscar for Mystic River and wrote, produced and directed Dead Man Walking, which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director.

On 15 April 2003, he said this at the National Press Club in Washington:

"For all of 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 this, I held on to a glimmer of hope in the naive assumption that something good could come out of it...

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 neighbour for any suspicious behaviour.

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...

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 air waves 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 that I saw this weekend, sit in mute opposition and fear...

Today, prominent politicians who have decried violence in movies... 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 okay 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...

And in the midst of all this madness, where is the political opposition? Where have all the Democrats gone?...

The journalists in this country can battle back at those who would rewrite our Constitution in 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... And any instance of intimidation to free speech should be battled against.

Any acquiescence or intimidation at this point will only lead to more intimidation... 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...

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...

There is a wave of hate that seeks to divide us, right and left, pro-war and anti-war."

At a protest rally in New York on 6 October 2002, Robbins said this:

"Cloaked in patriotism and our doctrine of spreading democracy throughout the world, our fundamentalism is business, the unfettered spread of our economic interests throughout the globe. Our resistance to this war should be our resistance to profit at the cost of human life. Because that is what these drums beating over Iraq are really about."

Well said, Mr Robbins. You come across as a nice guy.

I know actors are paid to act and all that but, somehow, I don't think you get to make a character come alive on the screen like you did in Shawshank Redemption without it being a part of who you are.

Yeah. Bit of difference between you and George Bush all right. An even bigger difference between you and the Dick Cheneys, Donald Rumsfelds, Paul Wolfowitzes and Richard Perles of this world.

Forgive the unctuousness. In real life you may well be an irritatingly pious Leftie.

Nevertheless, 10/10 here.