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Forums - The lounge
Subject: Powell interview cut......
Original Message Date: 16-May-04 @ 06:41 PM Edit: 16-May-04 | 06:44 PM - Powell interview cut......
BLEEP THE PRESS: CAMERA MOVED OFF POWELL DURING RUSSERT GRILLING; AIDE ATTEMPTED TO CUT OFF INTERVIEW
Sun May 16 2004 10:45:35 ET
**Exclusive Details**
An aide to Sec. of State Colin Powell ordered a halt to a MEET THE PRESS interview and directed a camera to shoot a palm tree during provocative questioning by host Tim Russert!
Powell was being interview by satellite from Jordan.
State Department press aide Emily Miller fumed as Tim Russert went beyond the 10 minutes allotted for the NBC Sunday session.
MORE
13 minutes in to the interview, Miller attempted to pull the plug.
As Russert grilled Powell on his presentation at the UN of Iraq's alleged WMDs -- Miller moved the single remote camera off Powell.
"You're off," Miller announced.
"I am not off," Powell warned.
"No. They can't use it, they're editing it..." Miller said on an open microphone.
"Emily, get out of the way. Bring the camera back please," the secretary snapped.
MORE
Russert aired the exchange unedited.
Powell was 45 minutes late to the taping, a top source explained.
NBC's MEET THE PRESS joined in progress....
TIM RUSSERT: Finally, Mr. Secretary, in February of 2003, you placed your enormous personal credibility before the United Nations and laid out a case against Saddam Hussein, citing.
(Camera moved off of interview subject)
EMILY MILLER, STATE DEPARTMENT PRESS AIDE: You're off.
SECRETARY POWELL: I am not off.
EMILY MILLER, PRESS AIDE: No. They can't use it, they're editing it.
SECRETARY POWELL: He's still asking the questions.
EMILY MILLER, PRESS AIDE: He was not ...
SECRETARY POWELL: Tim, I am sorry I lost you.
MR. RUSSERT: I am right here Mr. Secretary. I would hope they would put you back on camera. I don't know who did that.
EMILY MILLER, PRESS AIDE: He was going to go for another five minutes.
SECRETARY POWELL: We've really scre...
MR. RUSSERT: I think that was one of your staff Mr. Secretary. I don't think that's appropriate.
SECRETARY POWELL: Emily, get out of the way. Bring the camera back please. (Camera returns to the interview subject) I think we're back on Tim, go ahead with your last question.
MR. RUSSERT: Thank you very much, sir.
In February of 2003, you put your enormous personal reputation on the line before the United Nations and said that you had solid sources for the case against Saddam Hussein. It now appears that an agent called "Curve Ball" had misled the CIA by suggesting that Saddam had trucks and trains that were delivering biological chemical weapons.
How concerned are you that some of the information you shared with the world is now inaccurate and discredited?
SECRETARY POWELL: I'm very concerned. When I made that presentation in February 2003, it was based on the best information that the Central Intelligence Agency made available to me. We studied it carefully. We looked at the sourcing and the case of the mobile trucks and trains. There was multiple sourcing for that. Unfortunately, that multiple sourcing over time has turned out to be not accurate, and so I'm deeply disappointed.
But I'm also comfortable that at the time that I made the presentation it reflected the collective judgment, the sound judgment, of the intelligence community, but it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading. And for that I'm disappointed, and I regret it.
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Secretary, we thank you very much for joining us again and sharing your views with us today. SECRETARY POWELL: Thanks, Tim.
(END OF PRE-TAPE INTERVIEW)
MR. RUSSERT: AND THAT WAS AN UNEDITED INTERVIEW WITH THE SECRETARY OF STATE, TAPED EARLIER THIS MORNING FROM JORDAN.
WE APPRECIATE SECRETARY POWELL'S WILLINGNESS TO OVERRULE HIS PRESS AIDES' ATTEMPT TO ABRUPTLY CUT OFF OUR DISCUSSION AS I BEGAN TO ASK MY FINAL QUESTION.
==========================================================
WOW.... aint't that some right IN YOUR face disregard for journalism?
Message 21/37 19-May-04 @ 12:08 AM - RE: Powell interview cut......
it's my belief in each person lies action-man.
if we are lucky we never have to put on that outfit....unlike those grunts who enlisted to put on taht outfit...just to do someone else's deed.
and for this they'll suffer a lifteime of guilt remorse and bad dreams and bad self-concept..
i've been attacked numerous times for speaking out.
i've been in what some might call small-scale riots.
i've seen people hurt....even seriously.
if i was lucky it was them at the end of my boot and not me at the end of theirs.
today it's automatics and fast-moving getaways.
it's no way to live or dream of living.
even beginning to wave that flag when the tyronassaurus is ready to take a dive
on it's own is pretentious if not dangerous.....to say the least.
it's like having an unruly guest who's much larger and more ornery than everyone else......starting trouble and somehow after a few fists and screaming and some fast-talking crazy emotional sense being talked to the guy...you get him to leave after a decent head-rush and someone saying something to him which made him feel something...perhaps intelligence?.
but some idiot has to knock him in the head one more time as he's leaving. guaranteed you're gonna have problems with him for quite awhile longer and he may just never ever come round to your way of thinking..
let's keep action-man within if at all possible.
he's a good guy.
he looks good in tights.
he really wants to help.
but america just ain't there now.
we want him to keep lifting and say i know i can i know i can....
but you'd best pray to god he never has to show himself.....unless you truly are pretensious
enough to think that will buy you anything more than just absolute blood and gore....in a way we haven't even begun to imagine yet.
not george washington.
not robert e. lee.
your name...in the end...will be spit....and forgotten and your death much-hastened to be sure.
dust. nothing. a momentary thought of a thought of a memory.
do the math.
and after all that i'll still believe in hope for peace.
mcc>
if we are lucky we never have to put on that outfit....unlike those grunts who enlisted to put on taht outfit...just to do someone else's deed.
and for this they'll suffer a lifteime of guilt remorse and bad dreams and bad self-concept..
i've been attacked numerous times for speaking out.
i've been in what some might call small-scale riots.
i've seen people hurt....even seriously.
if i was lucky it was them at the end of my boot and not me at the end of theirs.
today it's automatics and fast-moving getaways.
it's no way to live or dream of living.
even beginning to wave that flag when the tyronassaurus is ready to take a dive
on it's own is pretentious if not dangerous.....to say the least.
it's like having an unruly guest who's much larger and more ornery than everyone else......starting trouble and somehow after a few fists and screaming and some fast-talking crazy emotional sense being talked to the guy...you get him to leave after a decent head-rush and someone saying something to him which made him feel something...perhaps intelligence?.
but some idiot has to knock him in the head one more time as he's leaving. guaranteed you're gonna have problems with him for quite awhile longer and he may just never ever come round to your way of thinking..
let's keep action-man within if at all possible.
he's a good guy.
he looks good in tights.
he really wants to help.
but america just ain't there now.
we want him to keep lifting and say i know i can i know i can....
but you'd best pray to god he never has to show himself.....unless you truly are pretensious
enough to think that will buy you anything more than just absolute blood and gore....in a way we haven't even begun to imagine yet.
not george washington.
not robert e. lee.
your name...in the end...will be spit....and forgotten and your death much-hastened to be sure.
dust. nothing. a momentary thought of a thought of a memory.
do the math.
and after all that i'll still believe in hope for peace.
mcc>
Message 22/37 19-May-04 @ 12:09 AM - RE: Powell interview cut......
wrong thread....sorry....
kick me here XXX.
kick me here XXX.
Message 23/37 19-May-04 @ 12:36 AM - RE: Powell interview cut......
bush couldn't control his anger...his rage at saddam and others.
in so opposing terrorism...he himself became one> if he wasn't one already.
that should be lesson enough for us all.
in so opposing terrorism...he himself became one> if he wasn't one already.
that should be lesson enough for us all.
Message 24/37 19-May-04 @ 01:47 PM - RE: Powell interview cut......
bastiaan....
i'll let you point your own way.
i'm only making certain assertions known for what they are...or aren't.
i'll let you point your own way.
i'm only making certain assertions known for what they are...or aren't.
No you’re not only doing that: you point your finger at ‘our own government’ (which is not
mine), and post ‘proofs’ to go with it. None of these proofs hold water. And yes, I am sick
of people like A_Doctor247 and those that copy him without critical thought.
You should try that once: critical thought…it may give you a strange sensation for a while
but I will most definitely help you see the world much clearer. Or maybe it won’t, but it will
set you free.
quote
if it's a black-and-white world to you and you feel comfortable that "the good guys"
aren't capable of a nasty deed.....then go forth with that comprehension.
if it's a black-and-white world to you and you feel comfortable that "the good guys"
aren't capable of a nasty deed.....then go forth with that comprehension.
Don’t be such a childish brat. I hold no such world visions (or would you care to quote me
having ever said such a thing). You’re cheap rethoric won’t do you good.
quote
i hope you're right but a lifetime of observation and research would show that your
illusions are more dangerous than helpful
i hope you're right but a lifetime of observation and research would show that your
illusions are more dangerous than helpful
Please name one of my ‘illusions’ and tell me why they are wrong. With you being such an
omniscient person, having full knowledge of my world vision and all this should be a piece
of cake.
Tell me, were there any other ‘mysteries’ in that tape that point to ‘our own government’
(as you yourself insinuated).
Message 25/37 19-May-04 @ 04:12 PM - RE: Powell interview cut......
i am unable to suggest that it's IMPOSSIBLE for my own government
to be involved in such matters.
i also believe there WAS genuine systemic cover-up at abu ghraib.
just as i believe it was americans....often tied directly or indirectly to our government
which killed jfk...bobby kennedy...malcolm x and martin luther king jr.
i do believe we funded governemental death sqauds in el salvador and ran cia operations to destabilize nicaragua and countless other nations.
i believe americans are able to find themselves in the cross-fire of such
conflicts.
the 4 nuns in el salvador.
this sort of stuff is not new.
i'd rather be wrong and find out we were NOT responsible for berg's beheading...
than to somehow know we were responsible and have it not even considered a possibility worth examining.
to be involved in such matters.
i also believe there WAS genuine systemic cover-up at abu ghraib.
just as i believe it was americans....often tied directly or indirectly to our government
which killed jfk...bobby kennedy...malcolm x and martin luther king jr.
i do believe we funded governemental death sqauds in el salvador and ran cia operations to destabilize nicaragua and countless other nations.
i believe americans are able to find themselves in the cross-fire of such
conflicts.
the 4 nuns in el salvador.
this sort of stuff is not new.
i'd rather be wrong and find out we were NOT responsible for berg's beheading...
than to somehow know we were responsible and have it not even considered a possibility worth examining.
Message 26/37 19-May-04 @ 06:14 PM - RE: Powell interview cut......
"bush couldn't control his anger...his rage at saddam and others.
in so opposing terrorism...he himself became one> if he wasn't one already.
that should be lesson enough for us all."
where do you get this? i don't see some huge-power-laden mentality like bush getting hopped up on anger. irl i don't see anger having much to do with power plays, since that's usually lethal.. bush was a terrorist before.. (americans are born with terrorism in their souls) there was no rage, just cool, collected power moves towards saddam. he never "opposed terrorism," he did shit and told the american public how to think of it, eg. "hey, i'm opposing terrorism when i make this play here"
you seriously think that even once, since bush has been in office the thought "what must i do here to minimise harm to americans" has crossed his mind? (i mean, anything beyond "for p.r." et c.. you know, for the actual sake of preventing harm..)
do you want to believe that he is really good or something? is this your hope you're on about?
when you treat people like shit, one more doesn't mean the slightest iota. dude's got no problem being who he is.
in so opposing terrorism...he himself became one> if he wasn't one already.
that should be lesson enough for us all."
where do you get this? i don't see some huge-power-laden mentality like bush getting hopped up on anger. irl i don't see anger having much to do with power plays, since that's usually lethal.. bush was a terrorist before.. (americans are born with terrorism in their souls) there was no rage, just cool, collected power moves towards saddam. he never "opposed terrorism," he did shit and told the american public how to think of it, eg. "hey, i'm opposing terrorism when i make this play here"
you seriously think that even once, since bush has been in office the thought "what must i do here to minimise harm to americans" has crossed his mind? (i mean, anything beyond "for p.r." et c.. you know, for the actual sake of preventing harm..)
do you want to believe that he is really good or something? is this your hope you're on about?
when you treat people like shit, one more doesn't mean the slightest iota. dude's got no problem being who he is.
Message 28/37 20-May-04 @ 02:52 AM - RE: Powell interview cut......
well....bush 2 had no problem being who he was up until about a week or 2 ago.
the guy is psyched-up thinking he's the savior of the "free western world".
he's also pissed his dad got punked by the guy dad hired to keep iraq in place.
in that sense, it's very personal. dna is involved.
for you to suggest he isn't capable of emotion...is simply wrong.
he pretends he's tough and unemotional....and rational.....but he's none of those things.
mommy told him he's the savior and he loves mommy.
and daddy> and everything white judeo-christian america stands for. and if he can have the rices and powells and sanchezes in on the play.....wow.....who would dare oppose us?
my hope has nothing to do with that.
keep cool x.
that's your job after all.....not mine.
the guy is psyched-up thinking he's the savior of the "free western world".
he's also pissed his dad got punked by the guy dad hired to keep iraq in place.
in that sense, it's very personal. dna is involved.
for you to suggest he isn't capable of emotion...is simply wrong.
he pretends he's tough and unemotional....and rational.....but he's none of those things.
mommy told him he's the savior and he loves mommy.
and daddy> and everything white judeo-christian america stands for. and if he can have the rices and powells and sanchezes in on the play.....wow.....who would dare oppose us?
my hope has nothing to do with that.
keep cool x.
that's your job after all.....not mine.
Message 29/37 20-May-04 @ 04:52 AM - RE: Powell interview cut......
an article which appeared at alt.net.org.
When Bonesmen Fight
By Tom Hayden, Yale Politic
May 18, 2004
I hope some journalist has the guts to ask John Kerry (Skull and Bones, 1965) and George Bush (Skull and Bones, 1967) whether they have any qualms about belonging to a secret, oath-bound network since their college days. Did they discuss Skull and Bones in code when President Bush called Senator Kerry to congratulate him on his primary victories? Will they agree not to leave the room if the reporter blurts out "322", coded references to Demosthene's birthday and Skull and Bones' founding.
Am I scratching the blackboard yet, dear reader? Or are you smugly dismissing these questions as paranoid and unsophisticated?
I don't consider myself a conspiracy nut, but is it really all right that four decades after the egalitarian Sixties, and some 225 years since the Declaration of Independence, the American voters' choices in 2004 are two Bonesmen?
The lesson is that aristocracy still survives democracy.
I was a member of a secret society during the same era as Bush and Kerry, at the University of Michigan, and can testify that these are profoundly lasting experiences. As a junior, I was tapped for the Druids, which involved a two-day ritual that included being stripped to my underpants, pelted with eggs, smeared with red dye and tied to a campus tree. These humiliations signified my rebirth from lowly student journalist to Big Man on Campus.
Soon, however, I became alienated. None of the bonding could make me feel I actually belonged. Perhaps I was an outsider by nature, an Irish Catholic descendant of immigrants, first in my family to attend university. The clubbiness had one purpose, as a source told Alexandra Robbins for her book on Skull and Bones. It was "to make the other people who didn't get in feel bad." But even as an insider, I felt bad, undeserving, resentful.
When I was tapped in my senior year for the most prestigious secret society, Michigauma, I decided instead to hide out in a girlfriend's apartment, becoming the first refusenik in Michigauma history. But I still felt like something was wrong with me, that I didn't have the right stuff, that I was blowing my future.
In summer 1960, I experienced the same self-doubt at the national convention of the U.S. National Student Association, which then was controlled by an older clique of student leaders who seemed, as they say, to the manor born. On the one hand, ambition inclined me to challenge the clique by running for national affairs vice president, a path I would eventually follow twenty years later. On the other hand, the radical civil rights and student movements, like the fledgling Students for a Democratic Society, were pulling at my heart. Should I work within the establishment or create something new and risky?
One night I came across a yellow pad left on a desk by the NSA leadership. At the top of a chart was written "Control Group". On the left was my name and that of Alan Haber, a founder of SDS. On the right was a box marked "YAF" – Young Americans for Freedom, the conservative group founded at Yale by William F. Buckley (Bones 1950).
Seven years later, it was revealed that the CIA secretly controlled and funded NSA, and that former editors of the Michigan Daily were among the spooks they recruited. I went south as a Freedom Rider and drafted the SDS Port Huron Statement.
In those years, George Bush was a Yale cheerleader and devoted Deke. John Kerry became a Navy lieutenant shooting up the Mekong Delta. Bush never seemed to question authority, while Kerry's loyalties were shaken by war. But they both belonged to the vast, safe, surreptitious Affirmative Action Program for old boys.
It seems like a lifetime since those days, but we still suffer from many gaps based on privilege. The political system is a moneyed oligarchy underneath its democratic trappings. The vast majority of voters are like fans in the bleachers: We participate from the cheap seats, supposed to enjoy our place, and vote for whichever Bonesman we prefer. Our taxes even subsidize their corporate box seats.
Sometimes Bonesman fight over status. For instance, about 75 years ago, Dwight Davis, U.S. secretary of war, created the Davis Cup, and George H. Walker, grandfather of George W., volleyed back by establishing the Walker Cup. The differences today between Bush and Kerry are about as serious as they get, short of a duel. Karl Marx (London School of Economics) would describe the split a contradiction in the ruling class. Bush is the unilateral builder of empire, while Kerry stands for the multilateral alliances long preferred by most Bonesmen. Though both the Cowboy and the Brahmin may be quarreling members of the same old club, their differences are existential for the rest of us.
Ralph Nader doesn't see this. Instead, he argues that the two parties are a duopoly within the same plutocracy. Maybe Nader is nursing resentment over not being tapped himself, but his is a dangerous blindness. The differences between Bush and Kerry over Supreme Court appointments, religious fundamentalism, civil rights, the environment, John Ashcroft and the future of Iraq are fundamental, dividing the two parties at the constituency level. Bush genuflects to the Christian Right while Kerry sings Kumbaya. The Bush people are scary and destabilizing, which is why the CIA types seem to prefer Kerry (covertly, of course). For the record, this November I am voting with the CIA. They represent the lesser evil in the choices before us.
But like Ralph Nader, I want democracy to mean more than a choice between two candidates chosen by dueling Bonesmen and their major donors.
I still stand for participatory democracy, the original 1962 vision of the SDS, which grew from our generation's experience in organizing among the excluded, from the Deep South to the Peace Corps. Students in those days were drafted for war, but considered too immature to vote. Southern blacks and Mexican immigrants could be sharecroppers in the fields, but not equal citizens in the ballot box. For us, democracy meant who had the most votes, not who controlled the most money. It meant the free flow of information, not suffocation under corporate advertising and media.
We have always wanted more than the right to choose between two candidates already vetted by the establishment. We wanted a more direct voice in the decisions that affected our lives. We wanted a democracy of participation, not a democracy regulated by secret societies. We wanted all the closets emptied.
We are a more open and democratic country as a result of the Sixties and earlier generations of radicals. We owe the Abolitionists, not merely Abraham Lincoln, for the end of slavery, the suffragettes for the right to vote, the populists for regulation of Wall Street, the industrial strikers for collective bargaining, the environmentalists for cleaner air and water. In this election, the anti-war and global justice movements have helped shape the agenda over Iraq and trade. And the gay-lesbian community is turning marriage into civil disobedience.
Yet, it remains the peculiar character of America's elite to absorb reform from below while remaining atop the pyramids of power. When a majority of Americans still feel inferior to Ivy League candidates, or identify vicariously with their dramas, we do not live in a democracy psychologically. That must eventually change. Closeted dynasties should have no moral legitimacy in a democracy – which is why they have become increasingly secret.
Two years ago, students at the University of Michigan broke into, occupied and exposed the secret space of Michigauma, finding stolen Indian artifacts among the items hidden there. Michigauma moved off campus. When I heard the news, I wished I'd done that long ago instead of making such a private and ambiguous protest. It took a new generation to smash the old idols. Maybe Leonard Cohen is right, democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Tom Hayden was a leader of the student, civil rights, peace and environmental movements of the 1960s. He served 18 years in the California legislature, where he chaired labor, higher education and natural resources committees. He is the author of ten books, including "Street Wars" (New Press, 2004). He is a professor at Occidental College, Los Angeles, and was a visiting fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics last fall.
« Home « Top Stories
When Bonesmen Fight
By Tom Hayden, Yale Politic
May 18, 2004
I hope some journalist has the guts to ask John Kerry (Skull and Bones, 1965) and George Bush (Skull and Bones, 1967) whether they have any qualms about belonging to a secret, oath-bound network since their college days. Did they discuss Skull and Bones in code when President Bush called Senator Kerry to congratulate him on his primary victories? Will they agree not to leave the room if the reporter blurts out "322", coded references to Demosthene's birthday and Skull and Bones' founding.
Am I scratching the blackboard yet, dear reader? Or are you smugly dismissing these questions as paranoid and unsophisticated?
I don't consider myself a conspiracy nut, but is it really all right that four decades after the egalitarian Sixties, and some 225 years since the Declaration of Independence, the American voters' choices in 2004 are two Bonesmen?
The lesson is that aristocracy still survives democracy.
I was a member of a secret society during the same era as Bush and Kerry, at the University of Michigan, and can testify that these are profoundly lasting experiences. As a junior, I was tapped for the Druids, which involved a two-day ritual that included being stripped to my underpants, pelted with eggs, smeared with red dye and tied to a campus tree. These humiliations signified my rebirth from lowly student journalist to Big Man on Campus.
Soon, however, I became alienated. None of the bonding could make me feel I actually belonged. Perhaps I was an outsider by nature, an Irish Catholic descendant of immigrants, first in my family to attend university. The clubbiness had one purpose, as a source told Alexandra Robbins for her book on Skull and Bones. It was "to make the other people who didn't get in feel bad." But even as an insider, I felt bad, undeserving, resentful.
When I was tapped in my senior year for the most prestigious secret society, Michigauma, I decided instead to hide out in a girlfriend's apartment, becoming the first refusenik in Michigauma history. But I still felt like something was wrong with me, that I didn't have the right stuff, that I was blowing my future.
In summer 1960, I experienced the same self-doubt at the national convention of the U.S. National Student Association, which then was controlled by an older clique of student leaders who seemed, as they say, to the manor born. On the one hand, ambition inclined me to challenge the clique by running for national affairs vice president, a path I would eventually follow twenty years later. On the other hand, the radical civil rights and student movements, like the fledgling Students for a Democratic Society, were pulling at my heart. Should I work within the establishment or create something new and risky?
One night I came across a yellow pad left on a desk by the NSA leadership. At the top of a chart was written "Control Group". On the left was my name and that of Alan Haber, a founder of SDS. On the right was a box marked "YAF" – Young Americans for Freedom, the conservative group founded at Yale by William F. Buckley (Bones 1950).
Seven years later, it was revealed that the CIA secretly controlled and funded NSA, and that former editors of the Michigan Daily were among the spooks they recruited. I went south as a Freedom Rider and drafted the SDS Port Huron Statement.
In those years, George Bush was a Yale cheerleader and devoted Deke. John Kerry became a Navy lieutenant shooting up the Mekong Delta. Bush never seemed to question authority, while Kerry's loyalties were shaken by war. But they both belonged to the vast, safe, surreptitious Affirmative Action Program for old boys.
It seems like a lifetime since those days, but we still suffer from many gaps based on privilege. The political system is a moneyed oligarchy underneath its democratic trappings. The vast majority of voters are like fans in the bleachers: We participate from the cheap seats, supposed to enjoy our place, and vote for whichever Bonesman we prefer. Our taxes even subsidize their corporate box seats.
Sometimes Bonesman fight over status. For instance, about 75 years ago, Dwight Davis, U.S. secretary of war, created the Davis Cup, and George H. Walker, grandfather of George W., volleyed back by establishing the Walker Cup. The differences today between Bush and Kerry are about as serious as they get, short of a duel. Karl Marx (London School of Economics) would describe the split a contradiction in the ruling class. Bush is the unilateral builder of empire, while Kerry stands for the multilateral alliances long preferred by most Bonesmen. Though both the Cowboy and the Brahmin may be quarreling members of the same old club, their differences are existential for the rest of us.
Ralph Nader doesn't see this. Instead, he argues that the two parties are a duopoly within the same plutocracy. Maybe Nader is nursing resentment over not being tapped himself, but his is a dangerous blindness. The differences between Bush and Kerry over Supreme Court appointments, religious fundamentalism, civil rights, the environment, John Ashcroft and the future of Iraq are fundamental, dividing the two parties at the constituency level. Bush genuflects to the Christian Right while Kerry sings Kumbaya. The Bush people are scary and destabilizing, which is why the CIA types seem to prefer Kerry (covertly, of course). For the record, this November I am voting with the CIA. They represent the lesser evil in the choices before us.
But like Ralph Nader, I want democracy to mean more than a choice between two candidates chosen by dueling Bonesmen and their major donors.
I still stand for participatory democracy, the original 1962 vision of the SDS, which grew from our generation's experience in organizing among the excluded, from the Deep South to the Peace Corps. Students in those days were drafted for war, but considered too immature to vote. Southern blacks and Mexican immigrants could be sharecroppers in the fields, but not equal citizens in the ballot box. For us, democracy meant who had the most votes, not who controlled the most money. It meant the free flow of information, not suffocation under corporate advertising and media.
We have always wanted more than the right to choose between two candidates already vetted by the establishment. We wanted a more direct voice in the decisions that affected our lives. We wanted a democracy of participation, not a democracy regulated by secret societies. We wanted all the closets emptied.
We are a more open and democratic country as a result of the Sixties and earlier generations of radicals. We owe the Abolitionists, not merely Abraham Lincoln, for the end of slavery, the suffragettes for the right to vote, the populists for regulation of Wall Street, the industrial strikers for collective bargaining, the environmentalists for cleaner air and water. In this election, the anti-war and global justice movements have helped shape the agenda over Iraq and trade. And the gay-lesbian community is turning marriage into civil disobedience.
Yet, it remains the peculiar character of America's elite to absorb reform from below while remaining atop the pyramids of power. When a majority of Americans still feel inferior to Ivy League candidates, or identify vicariously with their dramas, we do not live in a democracy psychologically. That must eventually change. Closeted dynasties should have no moral legitimacy in a democracy – which is why they have become increasingly secret.
Two years ago, students at the University of Michigan broke into, occupied and exposed the secret space of Michigauma, finding stolen Indian artifacts among the items hidden there. Michigauma moved off campus. When I heard the news, I wished I'd done that long ago instead of making such a private and ambiguous protest. It took a new generation to smash the old idols. Maybe Leonard Cohen is right, democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Tom Hayden was a leader of the student, civil rights, peace and environmental movements of the 1960s. He served 18 years in the California legislature, where he chaired labor, higher education and natural resources committees. He is the author of ten books, including "Street Wars" (New Press, 2004). He is a professor at Occidental College, Los Angeles, and was a visiting fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics last fall.
« Home « Top Stories
Message 30/37 20-May-04 @ 11:16 AM Edit: 20-May-04 | 11:36 AM - RE: Powell interview cut......
"guy is psyched-up thinking he's the savior of the "free western world"."
No no no no. Think of the reverse. What would he have to be saying to allow that to happen. The happening is first and the words, policy and other stuffing is the result of the that. If you believe anything else then you are buying the cover story. It really is all misdirection, I think it has always been this way, where the problem is is that the scale of the action is not being met by truley creative manipulation and since that must happen they are, for the first time, pulling very strong levers (sin, evil, war on terror) which are absolutely relative and so very insubstancial. This means that we move away from demonstrable benefit and into relativistic success. In some ways these fears being manipulated must already be there but I think its very dangerous to invoke and reinforce them. That is why the concept of a 'war on terror' as a mechanism is unforgivable, it introduces terror - do you see? And since those who go can be those who come back it means a world of pain (possibly too much) to find (or want) attonement. I mean the man could be taking us to hell.
Sorry for religeous language but reading Clive Barker Books of Blood and thats some oppressive shit
No no no no. Think of the reverse. What would he have to be saying to allow that to happen. The happening is first and the words, policy and other stuffing is the result of the that. If you believe anything else then you are buying the cover story. It really is all misdirection, I think it has always been this way, where the problem is is that the scale of the action is not being met by truley creative manipulation and since that must happen they are, for the first time, pulling very strong levers (sin, evil, war on terror) which are absolutely relative and so very insubstancial. This means that we move away from demonstrable benefit and into relativistic success. In some ways these fears being manipulated must already be there but I think its very dangerous to invoke and reinforce them. That is why the concept of a 'war on terror' as a mechanism is unforgivable, it introduces terror - do you see? And since those who go can be those who come back it means a world of pain (possibly too much) to find (or want) attonement. I mean the man could be taking us to hell.
Sorry for religeous language but reading Clive Barker Books of Blood and thats some oppressive shit
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