[imc-nyc-audio] BTL Q&A 8-12-04: Democrats Ban Anti-War Message in Boston & 9/11 Families View of Commission Report

[Scott Harris]

*Due to vacation schedules we're late in getting the following 2
transcripts out

>From the radio newsmagazine
Between The Lines
http://www.btlonline.org
----------------------------
Between the Lines Q&A
A weekly column featuring progressive viewpoints
on national and international issues
under-reported in mainstream media
for release Aug. 9, 2004
=================================================

Anti-war Message Banned
at Democratic National Convention

Interview with Medea Benjamin,
co-founder of Global Exchange and
Code Pink Women for Peace, conducted by Scott Harris

Listen to this interview by <a
HREF="http://www.btlonline.org/benjamin081304.ram">Click here!</a>

The Democrats who gathered in Boston for their presidential convention
were subjected to one of the most highly-scripted and controlled events
in the recent history of U.S. politics. Every speech given and every
sign held by delegates was subject to approval by presidential candidate
John Kerry's staff. Outside the FleetCenter convention site, Boston
police attempted to corral protesters into a cage-like area compared by
many to an internment camp.

But despite all their efforts to control the image of the Democratic
party, as seen by Americans in very limited broadcast television
coverage, John Kerry received little or no post-convention bounce in his
public standing, according to opinion polls. And while many of the
thousands of Democratic delegates went home from Boston energized and
optimistic about their chances for victory in November, others have
lingering doubts about John Kerry's vague strategy for ending the U.S.
occupation of Iraq.

Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of Global Exchange and an activist with
the group Code Pink Women For Peace, was in Boston for the Democratic
convention. As Teresa Heinz Kerry spoke at the podium in support of
women's rights and free speech on the second night of the convention,
Benjamin -- who ran as the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate from
California in 2000, unfurled a banner which read, "End the Occupation of
Iraq." Immediately, she was set upon by security guards and forcibly
removed from the convention center.

Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Medea Benjamin about her
experience in Boston and her views about strategic voting in the
upcoming presidential election.

Medea Benjamin: First, I was in the hallway walking along with a banner
that said, "End the Occupation in Iraq" and was approached by a security
guard who said, "That's not allowed, you could only have pre-approved
signs and this is not pre-approved." And we started arguing with them
and more security guards came. There were a number of us in Code Pink
that started arguing, and as we were there arguing, somebody from the
press who was really appalled by the Democrats' position on this handed
me their press pass, and said, "Why don't you take it on to the floor?"
And so, while they were arguing, I just kind of snuck away and went
right on to the floor and that was at the time that Theresa Heinz was
speaking.

And it was quite amazing, because first I was just standing there with
the sign and was immediately pounced upon by police, by Democratic
security people themselves, and I'm hearing in the background Theresa
Heinz's speech, which is saying things like, "we must listen to the
voices of women, true patriots are the ones who speak truth to power, my
husband wouldn't send troops to fight a war on the basis of a lie and
I'm thinking, well wait, you know, I got to speak truth to power here,
while they're trying to pull me out just for holding the sign, and
that's when I started saying, but "Theresa, will John bring the troops
home? Will he oppose the occupation of Iraq?" and at that time was
already being pulled out of the room. I was held for about 30 minutes,
they brought in the Secret Service, the Boston Police, there were quite
a large number of people who were interrogating me, and then they
brought in somebody from the Democratic National Committee's leadership
and asked them if they wanted to press charges. They went out and
huddled for awhile, came back in and said, no.

I also should say Scott, that I was so appalled by their treatment of
somebody who was literally just holding up a sign, that we decided to go
back the next day and the next day. Not only to the convention itself
but to the caucus meetings and got in tussles with the Democrat security
people all along the way. They really wanted to vet not only signs, but
bandanas people were wearing that said Delegates for Peace that the
Kucinich people were wearing. They wanted to vet the speeches that
anybody was making. Anybody who actually managed to sneak through a
slogan like "Bring the Troops Home," as Jesse Jackson did, happened
because it was not pre-approved and they went beyond the speeches that
they had handed in.

Between The Lines: What do you make of this convention where it was so
highly-scripted, so highly-controlled, squashing dissent at every
opportunity? What does that say about the Democrats and what does it say
about the image they're trying to project to the American people?

Medea Benjamin: Well, there's an incredible disconnect, Scott, between
the delegates of the party who are the real activists, the ones that put
their life and soul into the party, the membership of the Democratic
party, and the leadership of the party. You can't really have an
exciting campaign, when you have 95 percent of the delegates --
according to surveys that were done by both the New York Times and the
Boston Globe -- saying that they thought the war in Iraq was a mistake
and the position of the leadership that said something totally
different. People were very upset and wanted to in some ways overlook
Kerry's position because they were so determined to support Kerry and
get Bush out of office. But you really saw people struggling to align
their positions around Iraq, which are very near and dear to many of the
people in the Democratic base, with what Kerry said in his speech.

Between The Lines: Medea, I wanted to ask you about an open letter which
you and a few other activists have signed, titled, "An open letter to
Progressives: Vote Kerry and Cobb," meaning David Cobb, the Green Party
presidential candidate this year. The letter was signed by yourself,
Daniel Ellsberg, Peter Coyote, the actor, and Tom Hayden. Why don't you
tell us a little about what this letter says regarding the strategic
choices voters should make this year.

Medea Benjamin: Well, a number of us came together and thought it was
important to put our thoughts on paper and to jointly sign a statement
saying we thought it was so important that we acted in concert with the
large number of people in this country that are so anxious to get rid of
Bush -- but that we not forget that Kerry did vote for this war. That
the Democratic party leadership has not provided us with alternatives,
and that it's important to support the Green Party, after making a
decision at its national convention that Ralph Nader would not be the
standard bearer of the party during this election. The majority of
delegates to the Green Party convention recognized that the most
important thing we could do in this election was to focus on the local
races and get local Green candidates elected to office and that was
indeed the priority of David Cobb, the Green Party nominee. So, we
signed this joint letter calling on people to vote for David Cobb if
they are in a "safe" state, but if people do live in swing states, they
should recognize the importance of getting Bush out of office and vote
for Kerry.

Contact Global Exchange by calling 1-(800) 497-1994 or visit their
website at
http://www.globalexchange.org. Visit Code Pink's website at
http://www.codepinkalert.org

Visit our website for related links at
http://www.btlonline.org/btl082004.html:
" An Open Letter to Progressives: Vote Kerry and Cobb"
"Why No Bounce?"
"At a Big Party, Missing the Big Picture"
------------------------------------------------------
Scott Harris is executive producer of Between The Lines. This interview
excerpt was featured on the award-winning, syndicated weekly radio
newsmagazine, Between The Lines (http://www.btlonline.org), for the week
ending Aug. 13, 2004. This Between The Lines Q&A was compiled by Anna
Manzo.
AOL users: <a HREF="http://www.btlonline.org">Click here!</a>

PRINT INFORMATION: For reprint permission, please email
betweenthelines at snet.net.

************************************************

Between The Lines
http://www.btlonline.org
----------------------------
Between the Lines Q&A 
A weekly column featuring progressive viewpoints 
on national and international issues
under-reported in mainstream media
for release Aug. 10, 2004
=================================================

Victims' Families Say 9/11 Commission Report 
Avoids Certain Truths, But Makes 
Some Valuable Recommendations 

Interview with David Potorti,
co-director of September 11th Families 
for Peaceful Tomorrows,
conducted by Scott Harris

Listen in RealAudio:
<a HREF="http://www.btlonline.org/potorti080604.ram">Click here!</a>

The bipartisan commission appointed to investigate the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks released their final 567-page report on July 22. The
commission examined the activities of the al-Qaeda terrorist network,
the flaws in U.S. intelligence operations prior to the attacks, the
performance of the Bush and Clinton administrations and rescue efforts
on 9/11. The commission made several recommendations for the
re-organization of the nation's 15 intelligence agencies, including the
appointment of a Cabinet-level national intelligence director. 

The report also examined the Bush administration's planning for the Iraq
war and found there was no connection between Saddam Hussein's
government and the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington.
President Bush, who initially resisted the establishment of the 9/11
commission, now says he is considering the panel's recommendations. 

One of the organizations closely following the proceedings of the
Commission was September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, "founded
by family members of those killed on 9/11 who have united to turn their
grief into action for peace." Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with
David Potorti, co-director of the group, whose brother died at the World
Trade Center on 9/11. Potorti assesses the Commission's report and
expresses solidarity with victims of terrorism, violence and war from
around the world. 

David Potorti: You know commissions in general are created  to pretty
much whitewash the real story. But having said that, I'm glad that
there's a commission report. I would make the point that this report
would not exist without the work of a handful of 9/11 widows -- they
call them the "Jersey girls" -- or the Families' Steering Committee. It
is important to look at the recommendations and to read the narrative of
all the failures. But I think if you don't deal with the "why" of
terrorism, if you don't really deal with why people want to kill us, and
you just sort of look at all the failures without any sort of
self-reflection -- that we're never going to be safe. But in glancing
through the report I wrote down a couple of notes, and on page 363, they
do make a really good statement. They say the long-term success demands
the use of all elements of national power: diplomacy, intelligence,
covert action, law enforcement, economic policy, foreign aid, public
diplomacy and ho!
 meland defense and that is exactly the stuff we were saying in November
2001. It's good to be a strong nation, you need a strong defense, but
you've got to use all of the fingers on your hand. You know, you've got
to use all of your tools. So I really like that paragraph. A couple
other notes I made at various parts -- page 362, they're talking about
this stream of Islamic fundamentalism that does not distinguish politics
from religion, thus distorting both. And then on page 372, they talk
about the Western notion of the separation of civic and religious duties
does not exist in Islamic cultures. And I couldn't help but think about
what President Bush is doing to politics and religion and how he is
bringing them together so overtly and thus distorting both, just as the
commissioners said. 

And then a little bit later on page 376, they talked about the U.S.
government, that it should offer an example of moral leadership in the
world, committed to treat people humanely and abide by the rule of law
and be generous and caring to our neighbors and that we should stress
life over death and widespread political participation and contempt for
indiscriminate violence. And that includes respect for the rule of law,
openness in discussing differences, tolerance for opposing points of
view. And these are all wonderful things. Unfortunately, we're not doing
any of them in Iraq and we're not doing any of them in Afghanistan. You
know if this is the recommendation of the 9/11 commission and President
Bush says he wants to enact it, well, great, why don't we start with
that stuff?

They do acknowledge that America's foreign policy choices have
consequences and that's a really good statement and they go on to say in
the 9/11 report, right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American
policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions
in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and
Muslim world. But then they go on and they say but that does not mean
that U.S. choices have been wrong, however. So, they're sort of on the
right track there, but they're just not willing to acknowledge that we
might be doing something wrong. I think that if you're going to have any
sort of self-reflection, that among the possibilities that has to be the
fact that yeah, maybe we just screwed up and we're wrong. And I guess
maybe that's just not the place. Maybe an official government document
is not the place where you're going to hear that. 

But we had some concerns about how the thing was put together, we
thought that people were a little too collegial with each other. We had
concerns about the vetting process in the report. How exactly was the
report put together? Who exactly looked at it? Was it just President
Bush who was deciding what was in it? Who wasn't, what wasn't in it? 
And we certainly had that problem with Philip Zelikow being the
executive director of the commission, because he's very, very close with
Condoleeza Rice -- they wrote a book together, a couple books together,
I think. So we have seen that as a real conflict of interest, and just
do not understand why he was on the commission, essentially editing the
whole thing. And it certainly doesn't seem like it did a whole lot of
good in terms of candor. 

Between The Lines: David Potorti, having lost your older brother at the
World Trade Center, and in discussions with other family members, what
is it you'd like to see happen in government action as a result of the
Sept. 11 attacks? If this report doesn't satisfy what you think should
occur now, what would? 

David Potorti: I think we just have to get out of Iraq, and I know that
there's certainly a lot of people who say, well, look we went in, we
broke it and now we've got to fix it. But I think so much of our
problems just come from us, specifically us being in Iraq. I guess I
fall down on the side of first, we've got to get out of there so that
people stop killing our troops and stop using us as a target. And the
second half of the equation is that we've got to deal with the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is the central argument against the
United States in the Arab world. You know, I think that's not specific
to 9/11, but I think 9/11 really did come out of those two things. I
think it really is all about foreign policy, how we relate to the world.
People just don't hate us, they hate us because of what we do to them.
As Howard Zinn said the other night, if we just stop bothering people,
they will stop bothering us. I know that's an incredible
oversimplification, but the!
  fact is, we bother a lot of people in the world, and that's why they
don't like us. We're a wonderful country, but we do some really horrible
things. So we should stress the wonderful things and try to fix the bad
things. 

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows is conducting a march
commemorating civilian war dead from Boston, the site of the Democratic
National Convention to New York City, where the GOP will hold its
presidential convention at the end of August. Get more information about
the march by calling (212) 598-0970 or visit the group's website at
http://www.peacefultomorrows.org 

Related links on our website at http://www.btlonline.org/btl080604.html#1hed
- "Report on 9-11 Too Tepid"
- "Iraq War and Israel Soft-Pedaled in 9/11 Report"
- "Panel's '9/11 Report' Becoming a Big Seller"
- "Failures of the Sept. 11 Commission"
- "Questions Persist Despite 9/11 Investigations"
- "Is That All There Is?: On the 9-11 Commission's Findings -- or Lack
of Them"
- "An Excuse-Spouting Bush Is Busted by 9/11 Report"
- "Whitewash': 9/11 Director Gave Evidence to Own Inquiry" 

=======================================
Scott Harris is executive producer of Between The Lines, which can be
heard on more than 35 radio stations. This interview excerpt was
featured on the award-winning, syndicated weekly radio newsmagazine,
Between The Lines (http://www.btlonline.org) for the week ending Aug. 6,
2004. This Between The Lines Q&A was compiled by Anna Manzo and Scott Harris.

AOL users: <a HREF="http://www.btlonline.org">Click here!</a>	

PRINT INFORMATION: For reprint permission, please email betweenthelines at snet.net.
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