FIGHTING THE CULTURAL WAR IN AMERICA
                         By: CHARLTON HESTON
 
         Actor Charlton Heston, born October 4, 1924, was one of
         five performing artists who received the Kennedy Center
         Honors on December 6, 1997.
         Mr. Heston remained in Washington D.C. and addressed the
         20th Anniversary of the Free Congress Foundation and the
         4th Birthday of the NET TV network. The following are
         excerpts from his Insightful remarks.
         Mr. Heston and Mrs Heston celebrated 50 years of marriage
         in 1994.
 
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         A cultural war is raging across our land-storming our values,
 assaulting our freedoms, killing our self-confidence in who we are and
 what we believe.(Mr. Heston then asked those present who owned a gun to
 raise their hand.)
         I wonder-how many of you own guns but chose not to raise your
 hand?  How many of you considered revealing your conviction about a
 constitutional right, but then though better of it?
         If so, you are a victim of the culture war being waged against
 traditional American freedom of beliefs and ideas. You have been
 assaulted and robbed of the courage of your convictions. Your pride in
 who you are and what you believe in has been ridiculed, ransacked, and
 plundered! It may be a war without a bullet or bloodshed, but with
 just as much liberty lost: You and your country are less free!
         Because you choose to own  guns- affirmed by no less than the
 Bill of Rights- you embrace a view at odds with the cultural war
 lords. If that is the outcome of cultural war, and you are the
 victims, I can only ask the obvious question. What will become of the
 right itself? Or other rights not deemed acceptable by the thought
 police? What other truth in your heart will you disavow with your
 hand?
         Rank-and-file Americans wake up every morning, increasingly
 bewildered and confused at why their views make them lesser citizens.
 The message gets through; Heaven help the God fearing, law-abiding,
 Caucasian, middle- class Protestant-or even worse, evangelical
 Christian, Midwestern or Southern- or even worse, rural, apparently
 straight-or even worse, admitted heterosexuals, gun-owing-or even
 worse, NRA-card-carrying, average working stiff-or even worse, male
 working stiff-because, not only don't you count, our'e a down-right
 obstacle to social progress. Your voice deserves a lower decibel
 level, your opinion is less enlightened, your media access is
 insignificant, and frankly, mister, you need to wake up, wise up, and
 learn a little something from your new-America- and until you do,
 would you mind shutting up?
         That is why you didn't raise your hand. That's how cultural
 war works. That's what happens when a generation of media, educators,
 entertainers, and politicians-led by a willing President-decide the
 America they were born into isn't good enough anymore. So, they
 contrive to change it through cultural warfare of class distinction!
 Ask the Romans if powerful nations have ever fallen as a result of
 cultural division. There are ruins around the world that were once the
 smug centers of small-minded, arrogant clitism. It appears that,
 rather than evaporate in the flash of a split atom, we may succumb to
 a divided culture!
         The Constitution was handed down to guide us by a bunch of
 wise old dead white guys who invented our country! Now some flinch
 when I say that.  Why! Its true-they were white guys! So were most of
 the guys that died in Lincoln's name opposing slavery in the 1860's.
 So why should I be ashamed of white guys? Why is "Hispanic Pride" or
 "Black Pride" a good thing, while "White Pride" conjures shaven heads
 and white hoods? Why was the Million Man March on Washington
 celebrated by many as progress, while the Promise Keepers March on
 Washington was greeted with suspicion and ridicule? I'll tell you why,
 Cultural warfare!
         You don't see other Hollywood luminaries speaking out on this
 do you? Its not because there aren't any. Its because they can't
 afford the heat! They dare not speak for fear of CNN or the IRS or the
 SAG or NBC! It saps the strength of our country when the personal
 price is simply too high to stand for what you believe in. Today,
 speaking with the courage of your convictions can be costly, the price
 of principal can be so high that legislators won't lead and citizens
 can't follow, and so there is no arm to fight back. That's cultural
 warfare!
         Mainstream America is counting on you to "draw your sword" and
 fight for them. These people have precious little time and resources
 to battle misguided Cinderella attitudes, the fringe propaganda of the
 homosexual coalition, the feminists who preach that it is a divine
 duty for woman to hate men, blacks who raise a militant fist with one
 hand while they seek preference with the other, New Age apologists for
 juvenile crime who see roving gangs as a means to only the
 merchandizing violence as a form of entertainment for impressionable
 minds, and gun bans as a means to only the Lord-knows-what. We have
 reached that point in time when our social policy originates on Oprah. 
 Its time to pull the plug!
 
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