Every team needs its cheerleaders. And every movement needs its intellectuals, to weed through the misinformation and cull the most important bits of knowledge and analyze it for the good of the whole.
The Commentators serve that purpose, by writing, doing talk radio, appearing on TV, and generally making themselves useful by framing the debate in a forward-thinking, progressive direction.
These individuals are extremely important, not least because most of the commentators in our lives are either blatant corporatists like Chris Matthews or right-wing bloviators like George Will. It's good to have folks like Thom Hartmann and Glen Ford in our corner, clearing the way so we can see the forest for the trees.
The following are just a few of the commentators serving the progressive movement admirably in multiple forms of media.
Glen Ford
Thom Hartmann
David Sirota
Inside the Book:
Book Jacket
Introduction
Chapter Two - The Investigators
Chapter Three - The Agitators
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
Glen Ford
Here's my interview with Black Agenda Report's Glen Ford, who has been active in progressive politics for decades:
Before I get into my questions, can you tell me a bit about your background, what got you interested in politics, and how you ended up being the director of BlackAgendaReport.com:
"My father was a very successful disk jockey, and became the first Black to have his own television show in the Deep South (Rudy Rutherford, “Rockin’ with The Deuce,” 1958, Columbus, GA). I was reading (and editing) UPI wire copy on the air long before my voice changed. (“Deuce, you’re daughter sure can read that news!”) In my teens, I did “record hops” in clubs and juke-joints all over southwest Georgia and eastern Alabama, and occasionally did a weekend radio show.
When I emerged from a three year stint in the Army in January, 1970 (Sgt., 82nd Airborne Division), I got a job as newsman at James Brown’s Augusta, Georgia radio station, WEDOW-AM. Discovering that the “list” of all the “important” Black folks in town – people who were to be contacted for comment on local political developments – was comprised almost entirely of Reverends of Bishops, I immediately tore the list down and created my own. Informally, I called it my Committee of Ten: grassroots folk who were actually active in issues of housing, education, social welfare, criminal justice, business development, voting rights, etc. As a result of my putting these people “on the air” every day in hourly newscast – and my exclusion of most of the old clerical crowd – a new Black “leadership” arose in Augusta, within the space of weeks. After all, they were “on the radio.” They must be leaders!
This experience was a kind of revelation for me. Just after turning 20, I had discovered in practice the dramatic effect that media could have on “leadership” structures and perceptions – a fantastic arena for political activism. Despite the horribly low wages, I was hooked.
I applied the same formula for leadership-creation at local stations in Columbus, Georgia, Baltimore, Maryland, Washington, DC (where I created my first six-station syndication, “Black World Report” in 1972), the Mutual Black Network (86 stations, as Capitol Hill, State Department and White House correspondent, and Washington Bureau Chief, 1974 – 77).
In January, 1977, I co-founded and hosted “America’s Black Forum,” the first nationally syndicated Black news interview program on commercial television. We were the first Black entity to consistently generate news, picked up by UPI, AP, Reuters, Agence France Press, Tass (!) nearly every week. No other Black news organization has even come close, since my four-year stewardship of ABF.
(Soon after selling my stock in ABF, I founded a short-lived magazine called “The Black Commentator” – but could not sustain the costs of print.)
In 1979, while still operating ABF, I founded “Black Agenda Reports,” five daily short-form programs on Black Women, Sports, Business, Entertainment and History (66 stations). Our features programming output exceeded both then-existing Black radio networks, combined.
After the Reagan administration gutted the budget of our major sponsor, AMTRAK (1981), I traveled and freelanced and engaged in more grassroots activities (by then I lived on the Upper West Side, Manhattan) and wrote a book, “The Big Lie: An Analysis of U.S. Media Coverage of the Grenada Invasion” (1985, International Organization of Journalists).
During the “America’s Black Forum” and “Black Agenda Report” period, I was also the National Columnist for Encore, the African American news and political analysis magazine.
In the summer of 1987, I created and hosted the first nationally syndicated Hip Hop music program, “Rap It Up” (65 stations). The show lasted until January 1994, brought down by the advent of Gangsta’ Rap.
With my contacts in the recording and advertising industry, I then earned a modest living doing radio commercials and TV voice-overs, and continued freelancing. (Also did a one-year bit editing a small northern New Jersey Black weekly newspaper.)
The Internet was nearing maturity, and in April, 2002, I hooked up with my old partner in “America’s Black Forum,” Peter Gamble, to found BlackCommentator.com. Our objective was to fill the gaping whole in Black political analysis and commentary. In our first two weeks of operations, we made the front page of the New York Times. We also take credit for Cory Booker’s defeat in his first run for mayor of Newark, as the only media to expose his intimate associations with the Bradley Foundation, Manhattan Institute, and other Hard Right outfits. By the last weeks of the campaign, incumbent Sharpe James’ street workers were handing out copies of BC article – their only effective offensive campaign literature – and visitors to the Mayor’s website had to first click to BC’s site, before they even saw a picture of the Mayor!
More than twenty years after Augusta, I was still doing “leadership creation-removal.”
In October of this year, the entire crew of BC regulars (Bruce Dixon, Margaret Kimberley, Leutisha Stills, of the Congressional Black Caucus Monitor) and I left to found BlackAgendaReport.com. BAR’s mission is to expand upon what was begun at BC, only bigger and better, and to introduce new platforms for social change, on and off the Internet.
A lot out has been left out of this chronicle, but I think you have enough."
When I first came across your work, you were over at BlackCommentator - the first piece of yours I read was about the importance of organized labor to the economic status of black folks and the importance of black trade unionists to the Labor Movement as a whole. As I remember, this was just before the breakup of the AFL-CIO and Andy Stern of the SEIU was calling for consolidation that would have made it harder for black trade unionists to have fair representation. Can you talk about the relationship between African Americans and organized labor, and where you think the labor movement should be going?
"The problem with Blacks and labor has always been white racism. It is the central contradiction in the American labor “movement” – the overarching source of U.S. labor’s historical weakness and, therefore, the pygmyfication of the American Left, which is also saturated with Eurocentricism (another way to say racism). White workers cut off their own noses to spite Black faces. The historical failure to effectively organize in the South was almost entirely rooted in white labor leaders’ racial attitudes – a betrayal that later came back to haunt them, although too late for significant correction.
Yet African Americans have long been known by white employers as “joiners” – meaning, they are the first to attempt to form and join unions. Numerous studies have consistently shown that group enthusiasm for unions is as follows, in descending order:
Black women
Black men
Hispanic women
Hispanic men
White women
White men
The SEIU, AFSCME, the UFCW and a few other unions have in recent years attempted to revive the labor movement by “organizing the unorganized” – and we give them their due. And despite racism at the top and on the shop floor, Blacks are – or at least were – over-represented in the manufacturing industries of the Northeast and Midwest. However, deindustrialization has devastated this sector, and especially Black workers. In 2004, 55% of the union manufacturing jobs lost were Black jobs!
Yet during this same period of cruel attrition, the SEIU’s leadership along with others made their move to split the labor movement, and to gut the race-gender inclusion reforms that had been instituted at the AFL-CIO only a few years earlier – symptomatic of the abiding racism in white labor and what passes for the white Left. The racial aspect of “reform” was hardly discussed, even in left- and labor-oriented publications.
The idiot deed has been done. But we are pleased to report that Black labor, whether their unions are affiliated with the shrunken AFL-CIO or SEIU chief Andy Stern’s new outfit, is united. Cadre from both federations work together without friction through the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists – the best example of labor solidarity in the US of A."
Bush's policies and conservative policies in general leading back to Ronald Reagan have had a major impact on manufacturing in this country. How has that affected Black America?
"It must be noted that the disinvestment in the northern cities and factories began long before wholesale exportation of jobs beyond the nation’s borders. The Seventies and Eighties rush to the Sunbelt – where the imposition of right-to-work laws was historically inseparable from racial subjugation – should have been a last minute warning for white-led labor. But racism is a mental illness, and they could not read the proverbial handwriting. As usual, Black workers suffered disproportionately in the relocation of jobs to the South and, later, overseas."
How do you define the term "progressive"? What does it mean to be a progressive in today's political environment?
"Good question, since the Right has usurped the English language, destroying the meaning of terms like “reform.” The corporatist Democratic Leadership Council has the gall to front a think tank called the Progressive Policy Institute. And we all know that Democracy = laissez fair Capitalism.
“Progressive” has always been linked to anti-corporate, anti-rule-of-the-rich politics – although not necessarily to anti-racist politics. Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressives led the charge against the Trusts, the corporate cartels – but Teddy and most of the rest were racists. The “progressive” income tax had a double meaning: the rich would pay progressively more of their income in taxes, plus it was designed to keep the rich from replicating themselves on the backs of the rest of us, and was therefore “progressive” in the political sense. The Communist Party USA deployed the term in the Thirties as a kind of code word to designate those non-communist organizations and tendencies that were, nevertheless, on the “correct” side of most issues, and could be worked with.
Since the Black Freedom Movement of the Sixties, no organization or tendency that is not actively anti-racist can be deemed “progressive,” no matter how hard they fight against massed capital. We at BAR use the term much as the CPUSA did, to identify those who are on the correct side of most issues. We are much more careful than many other African Americans to differentiate between “progressive” Black organizations and tendencies, and those that are eager to collaborate with the Powers-That-Are.
It’s not a science, much less rocket science, and the term must always be understood in a political and historical context."
You've written a lot lately about the failure of the CBC under the leadership of chairman Mel Watt. What do you think should be the highest priorities of the CBC, and what factors do you see as keeping those priorities from being achieved?
"During most of the CBC’s existence since 1969, it operated on the basis of consensus. That was easy, since virtually all members voted generally along the lines of the (still) existing Black Political Consensus on social and economic justice, peace, racial equality, and fairness in the marketplace. The Caucus could take a stand as a body based on these consensus positions and, therefore, could credibly claim to be “the conscience of the Congress.”
Beginning in the mid-Nineties, however, the Corporate Right finally realized that Black Republicanism was a dead end (no Black Republican has served in House from a majority Black district since 1935). The post-Sixties strategy of subsidizing rightwing Black educators as spokespersons for “Black conservatism” had made no impact on the Black polity. Beginning with initiatives by the Bradley Foundation, the Right began to woo Black Democrats in earnest; for the first time, they sought to directly subvert Black leadership structures, including the CBC.
New York Rep. Floyd Flake was their first big catch; he now is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Harold Ford, Jr. (TN) made his move to the right in his 1998-2000 terms, abandoning his own and his father’s progressive voting record. The DLC jumped into the task of CBC subversion with both feet, capturing Ford, Reps. Gregory Meeks (NY), Al Wynn (MD) and Sanford Bishop (GA). Later, the DLC’s corporate money and corporate media succeeded in electing Denise Majette (GA) and Artur Davis (AL) at the expense of progressives Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hilliard, respectively.
The CBC consensus was broken. Four Caucus members voted for Bush’s war in 2002. By 2005, ten would vote for the Republicans’ infamous Bankruptcy Act. This year, two-thirds of the CBC caved in to the Telecom’s hideous Cable and Internet legislation. As a body, the CBC can no longer be called progressive. The CBC has no priorities other than the standard civil-rights fare that many Republicans will also support, such as extension of the Voting Rights Act. Nothing will save it but a purge of members, district by district – a monumental undertaking that will require a wholesale reevaluation of Black politics."
You have a lot of negative things to say about the Chairman. What has he done to undermine the situation for African Americans, and what would you do if you were in his position to turn that situation around?
"Mel Watt votes progressive almost all of the time, yet shudders at the thought of confronting the critical mass of corporate-bought members of the CBC – which shows him to be a true wimp. He has punked out repeatedly under the slightest pressure from House Leader Nancy Pelosi, whose pre-2004 mid-term elections project was to smother the Left, especially the Caucus, so as to upset as few white voters as possible. There is no reason to believe that she won’t do the same in the run-up to 2008, although thankfully Mel Watt will no longer be her Black Whip as CBC chairman. Watts bullying and isolation of Rep. Cynthia McKinney was despicable (and sexist) in the extreme.
Regarding the second part of your query: I don’t answer questions that place me in positions I don’t covet, since such questions presume I would be willing to do all the things that those who hold those positions have done to get there. Black elected officials, like other elected officials, only do the right thing when the people forcefully make their wishes known, and when the immediate political environment favors it. Our job is to change the environment in Black America.
While there is still time, progressives in the Caucus must act on their own to endorse progressive positions. Despite the disastrous, money-fueled Telecom vote, I believe there still exists a clear progressive majority in the Caucus, probably amounting to more than two-thirds of members. In the absence of a consensus, progressives must push for majority (or two-thirds) Sense of the Caucus resolutions on critical issues, so that the 6 to 8 bought-off members become isolated and exposed, no longer able to paralyze the workings of the CBC as a whole."
For me, Hurricane Katrina was a huge wake-up call to White America - an event that showed clearly the inherent racism built into our society. And yet, now that the event is over a year behind us, it seems that American politics have shifted away from trying to solve the problems Katrina showed us. Why do you think the plight of African Americans specifically is given so little attention by the corporate media? Is there anything African Americans can do to change that?
"The corporate media follow the corporate line: race is no longer a major factor in American life. Even dramatic visual proof to the contrary, as with Katrina, does not alter the line for long. How can that be changed? I’ll give you the same answer that is applicable to most questions of that kind: we must rebuild, reinvent, a mass movement of Blacks and whatever allies are worthy to stand with us. There is no other solution. In the process, African Americans must dislodge the opportunists who shut down the mass movement three-and-a-half decades ago, in order to pursue their own interests while still clinging to the mantle of leadership. New leadership emerges from struggle, and there is no struggle without youth. The issues of mass incarceration, gentrification and jobs (not petty entrepreneurship – jobs) are what motivates Black youth.
Katrina was a fast-forward of capitalist intentions for urban America: gentrification and Black expulsion from the cities, the destruction of Black political power centers, and total corporate control of “development.” The response of Black “leadership” has been totally inadequate, as should have been expected, since they have not tackled the same, slower-moving processes that are underway in their own cities."
You operate an organization that publishes information for citizens online. And yet, a small group of African Americans relative to the population have access to high-speed internet. Indeed, many families of color don't even have computers. How relevant can BAR be without a change in this situation? What can be done to increase internet access to people that don't now have it?
"BAR, like its predecessor Black Commentator, targets Black leadership, in the broadest sense of the term. It is not designed for the street corner, but to influence those who help shape the opinions of others. (The term “influencers” is well known in the media trades.) Most of these influencers are wired. They are politicians and their staffs, political activists from the grassroots to the suites of the Urban League, opinionated academics and conscientious public school teachers, labor cadre, journalists, the most aggressive and effective leaders of tenant and block associations – the broadest swath of Black opinion molders, and those non-Black activists whose work is important to African Americans.
If I were to give an example of a publication with a similar targeting strategy – and this will surprise you – it would be the troglodyte Weekly Standard. This rightwing rag’s circulation is probably one-third that of The Nation, but when it speaks, the entire rightwing power structure listens. The White House takes heed.
This is not a numbers game, although one must reach a critical mass of one’s target audience. The time is long past when Black publications can be all things to all African Americans. Blacks are a distinct polity (what we used to call a “nation”) within the United States. We need both mass organs (which should be the mission of Black-oriented radio, but that’s another subject) and organs that influence the influencers – just like everybody else in the larger USA."
If you could change one thing in government, and it could not be overturned, what would it be, and why?
"Whatever laws and precedents that make corporations the equal of citizens. THAT would be the greatest sea change I can imagine within the parameters of bourgeois democracy."
Are there any things ordinary citizens can do to help African Americans achieve equality in America? What are you doing that you think other people should be doing more of, and what should we be doing less of as a society to get there?
"Once we get a movement going that is worthy of popular participation, people should join, shape, and lead it. Simple, huh? More immediately, folks must organize on the ground in their own neighborhoods, affinity groups and workplaces. Popular power is not a commodity, which can be bought. It must be wrestled from the few who hold power and use it against the rest of us. There is great satisfaction and dignity in resistance – in the act of taking responsibility for the destiny of others, and your own."
Glen, thank so much for taking the time to chat with me. I guess we have time for one last question, regarding corporate personhood:
If corporations are to be considered as persons, shouldn't they have to pay the same percentage of their income we'd have to pay if we make over fifty thousand bucks a year?
"For just one small example of what stripping corporations of "personhood" would mean: Corportions would no longer have their own "free speech" rights. That's at the heart of the struggle to control campaign spending, or better put, to roll back corporate domination of the entire electoral process, which has nullified "democracy" in even the weak "American" sense of the term.
Regarding the white Left: It is they who have no real solidarity with the other groups, primarily Blacks, who make up the majority of what is "left" in the United States. I told the board and staff of The Nation as much, when I spoke before them in early 2005. Solidarity means, at the very least, sharing resources. Because of historical white privilege, even the white Left has vastly more resources than African Americans, whose politics are the most consistently progressive of any group in the nation. That's why the white Left have The Nation, In These Times, Mother Jones, The Progressive, and lots of other political publications, and Blacks have...none. This extreme dispartiy weakens the "left" as a whole, creating vast imbalances. We, Blacks, vote "left" in concentrated numbers that equal or surpass the white Left's scattered electoral presence. Yet the white Left actually believes that they are at the center of the action. What Eurocentric madness!!
More than a decade ago, The Nation did a cover story purporting to show a political "map" of the U.S. Left. There were all kinds of "alternative" white tendencies, from organic food boosters to open-source computer tinkerers to gender groups of all kinds...the whole counterculture. But no Blacks. I knew then that whoever commissioned the cover story was out of his/her mind, hopelessly caught up in alternative Whiteness, and not a progressive at all."
Inside the Book:
Book Jacket
Introduction
Chapter One - The Commentators
Before I get into my questions, can you tell me a bit about your background, what got you interested in politics, and how you ended up being the director of BlackAgendaReport.com:
"My father was a very successful disk jockey, and became the first Black to have his own television show in the Deep South (Rudy Rutherford, “Rockin’ with The Deuce,” 1958, Columbus, GA). I was reading (and editing) UPI wire copy on the air long before my voice changed. (“Deuce, you’re daughter sure can read that news!”) In my teens, I did “record hops” in clubs and juke-joints all over southwest Georgia and eastern Alabama, and occasionally did a weekend radio show.
When I emerged from a three year stint in the Army in January, 1970 (Sgt., 82nd Airborne Division), I got a job as newsman at James Brown’s Augusta, Georgia radio station, WEDOW-AM. Discovering that the “list” of all the “important” Black folks in town – people who were to be contacted for comment on local political developments – was comprised almost entirely of Reverends of Bishops, I immediately tore the list down and created my own. Informally, I called it my Committee of Ten: grassroots folk who were actually active in issues of housing, education, social welfare, criminal justice, business development, voting rights, etc. As a result of my putting these people “on the air” every day in hourly newscast – and my exclusion of most of the old clerical crowd – a new Black “leadership” arose in Augusta, within the space of weeks. After all, they were “on the radio.” They must be leaders!
This experience was a kind of revelation for me. Just after turning 20, I had discovered in practice the dramatic effect that media could have on “leadership” structures and perceptions – a fantastic arena for political activism. Despite the horribly low wages, I was hooked.
I applied the same formula for leadership-creation at local stations in Columbus, Georgia, Baltimore, Maryland, Washington, DC (where I created my first six-station syndication, “Black World Report” in 1972), the Mutual Black Network (86 stations, as Capitol Hill, State Department and White House correspondent, and Washington Bureau Chief, 1974 – 77).
In January, 1977, I co-founded and hosted “America’s Black Forum,” the first nationally syndicated Black news interview program on commercial television. We were the first Black entity to consistently generate news, picked up by UPI, AP, Reuters, Agence France Press, Tass (!) nearly every week. No other Black news organization has even come close, since my four-year stewardship of ABF.
(Soon after selling my stock in ABF, I founded a short-lived magazine called “The Black Commentator” – but could not sustain the costs of print.)
In 1979, while still operating ABF, I founded “Black Agenda Reports,” five daily short-form programs on Black Women, Sports, Business, Entertainment and History (66 stations). Our features programming output exceeded both then-existing Black radio networks, combined.
After the Reagan administration gutted the budget of our major sponsor, AMTRAK (1981), I traveled and freelanced and engaged in more grassroots activities (by then I lived on the Upper West Side, Manhattan) and wrote a book, “The Big Lie: An Analysis of U.S. Media Coverage of the Grenada Invasion” (1985, International Organization of Journalists).
During the “America’s Black Forum” and “Black Agenda Report” period, I was also the National Columnist for Encore, the African American news and political analysis magazine.
In the summer of 1987, I created and hosted the first nationally syndicated Hip Hop music program, “Rap It Up” (65 stations). The show lasted until January 1994, brought down by the advent of Gangsta’ Rap.
With my contacts in the recording and advertising industry, I then earned a modest living doing radio commercials and TV voice-overs, and continued freelancing. (Also did a one-year bit editing a small northern New Jersey Black weekly newspaper.)
The Internet was nearing maturity, and in April, 2002, I hooked up with my old partner in “America’s Black Forum,” Peter Gamble, to found BlackCommentator.com. Our objective was to fill the gaping whole in Black political analysis and commentary. In our first two weeks of operations, we made the front page of the New York Times. We also take credit for Cory Booker’s defeat in his first run for mayor of Newark, as the only media to expose his intimate associations with the Bradley Foundation, Manhattan Institute, and other Hard Right outfits. By the last weeks of the campaign, incumbent Sharpe James’ street workers were handing out copies of BC article – their only effective offensive campaign literature – and visitors to the Mayor’s website had to first click to BC’s site, before they even saw a picture of the Mayor!
More than twenty years after Augusta, I was still doing “leadership creation-removal.”
In October of this year, the entire crew of BC regulars (Bruce Dixon, Margaret Kimberley, Leutisha Stills, of the Congressional Black Caucus Monitor) and I left to found BlackAgendaReport.com. BAR’s mission is to expand upon what was begun at BC, only bigger and better, and to introduce new platforms for social change, on and off the Internet.
A lot out has been left out of this chronicle, but I think you have enough."
When I first came across your work, you were over at BlackCommentator - the first piece of yours I read was about the importance of organized labor to the economic status of black folks and the importance of black trade unionists to the Labor Movement as a whole. As I remember, this was just before the breakup of the AFL-CIO and Andy Stern of the SEIU was calling for consolidation that would have made it harder for black trade unionists to have fair representation. Can you talk about the relationship between African Americans and organized labor, and where you think the labor movement should be going?
"The problem with Blacks and labor has always been white racism. It is the central contradiction in the American labor “movement” – the overarching source of U.S. labor’s historical weakness and, therefore, the pygmyfication of the American Left, which is also saturated with Eurocentricism (another way to say racism). White workers cut off their own noses to spite Black faces. The historical failure to effectively organize in the South was almost entirely rooted in white labor leaders’ racial attitudes – a betrayal that later came back to haunt them, although too late for significant correction.
Yet African Americans have long been known by white employers as “joiners” – meaning, they are the first to attempt to form and join unions. Numerous studies have consistently shown that group enthusiasm for unions is as follows, in descending order:
Black women
Black men
Hispanic women
Hispanic men
White women
White men
The SEIU, AFSCME, the UFCW and a few other unions have in recent years attempted to revive the labor movement by “organizing the unorganized” – and we give them their due. And despite racism at the top and on the shop floor, Blacks are – or at least were – over-represented in the manufacturing industries of the Northeast and Midwest. However, deindustrialization has devastated this sector, and especially Black workers. In 2004, 55% of the union manufacturing jobs lost were Black jobs!
Yet during this same period of cruel attrition, the SEIU’s leadership along with others made their move to split the labor movement, and to gut the race-gender inclusion reforms that had been instituted at the AFL-CIO only a few years earlier – symptomatic of the abiding racism in white labor and what passes for the white Left. The racial aspect of “reform” was hardly discussed, even in left- and labor-oriented publications.
The idiot deed has been done. But we are pleased to report that Black labor, whether their unions are affiliated with the shrunken AFL-CIO or SEIU chief Andy Stern’s new outfit, is united. Cadre from both federations work together without friction through the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists – the best example of labor solidarity in the US of A."
Bush's policies and conservative policies in general leading back to Ronald Reagan have had a major impact on manufacturing in this country. How has that affected Black America?
"It must be noted that the disinvestment in the northern cities and factories began long before wholesale exportation of jobs beyond the nation’s borders. The Seventies and Eighties rush to the Sunbelt – where the imposition of right-to-work laws was historically inseparable from racial subjugation – should have been a last minute warning for white-led labor. But racism is a mental illness, and they could not read the proverbial handwriting. As usual, Black workers suffered disproportionately in the relocation of jobs to the South and, later, overseas."
How do you define the term "progressive"? What does it mean to be a progressive in today's political environment?
"Good question, since the Right has usurped the English language, destroying the meaning of terms like “reform.” The corporatist Democratic Leadership Council has the gall to front a think tank called the Progressive Policy Institute. And we all know that Democracy = laissez fair Capitalism.
“Progressive” has always been linked to anti-corporate, anti-rule-of-the-rich politics – although not necessarily to anti-racist politics. Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressives led the charge against the Trusts, the corporate cartels – but Teddy and most of the rest were racists. The “progressive” income tax had a double meaning: the rich would pay progressively more of their income in taxes, plus it was designed to keep the rich from replicating themselves on the backs of the rest of us, and was therefore “progressive” in the political sense. The Communist Party USA deployed the term in the Thirties as a kind of code word to designate those non-communist organizations and tendencies that were, nevertheless, on the “correct” side of most issues, and could be worked with.
Since the Black Freedom Movement of the Sixties, no organization or tendency that is not actively anti-racist can be deemed “progressive,” no matter how hard they fight against massed capital. We at BAR use the term much as the CPUSA did, to identify those who are on the correct side of most issues. We are much more careful than many other African Americans to differentiate between “progressive” Black organizations and tendencies, and those that are eager to collaborate with the Powers-That-Are.
It’s not a science, much less rocket science, and the term must always be understood in a political and historical context."
You've written a lot lately about the failure of the CBC under the leadership of chairman Mel Watt. What do you think should be the highest priorities of the CBC, and what factors do you see as keeping those priorities from being achieved?
"During most of the CBC’s existence since 1969, it operated on the basis of consensus. That was easy, since virtually all members voted generally along the lines of the (still) existing Black Political Consensus on social and economic justice, peace, racial equality, and fairness in the marketplace. The Caucus could take a stand as a body based on these consensus positions and, therefore, could credibly claim to be “the conscience of the Congress.”
Beginning in the mid-Nineties, however, the Corporate Right finally realized that Black Republicanism was a dead end (no Black Republican has served in House from a majority Black district since 1935). The post-Sixties strategy of subsidizing rightwing Black educators as spokespersons for “Black conservatism” had made no impact on the Black polity. Beginning with initiatives by the Bradley Foundation, the Right began to woo Black Democrats in earnest; for the first time, they sought to directly subvert Black leadership structures, including the CBC.
New York Rep. Floyd Flake was their first big catch; he now is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Harold Ford, Jr. (TN) made his move to the right in his 1998-2000 terms, abandoning his own and his father’s progressive voting record. The DLC jumped into the task of CBC subversion with both feet, capturing Ford, Reps. Gregory Meeks (NY), Al Wynn (MD) and Sanford Bishop (GA). Later, the DLC’s corporate money and corporate media succeeded in electing Denise Majette (GA) and Artur Davis (AL) at the expense of progressives Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hilliard, respectively.
The CBC consensus was broken. Four Caucus members voted for Bush’s war in 2002. By 2005, ten would vote for the Republicans’ infamous Bankruptcy Act. This year, two-thirds of the CBC caved in to the Telecom’s hideous Cable and Internet legislation. As a body, the CBC can no longer be called progressive. The CBC has no priorities other than the standard civil-rights fare that many Republicans will also support, such as extension of the Voting Rights Act. Nothing will save it but a purge of members, district by district – a monumental undertaking that will require a wholesale reevaluation of Black politics."
You have a lot of negative things to say about the Chairman. What has he done to undermine the situation for African Americans, and what would you do if you were in his position to turn that situation around?
"Mel Watt votes progressive almost all of the time, yet shudders at the thought of confronting the critical mass of corporate-bought members of the CBC – which shows him to be a true wimp. He has punked out repeatedly under the slightest pressure from House Leader Nancy Pelosi, whose pre-2004 mid-term elections project was to smother the Left, especially the Caucus, so as to upset as few white voters as possible. There is no reason to believe that she won’t do the same in the run-up to 2008, although thankfully Mel Watt will no longer be her Black Whip as CBC chairman. Watts bullying and isolation of Rep. Cynthia McKinney was despicable (and sexist) in the extreme.
Regarding the second part of your query: I don’t answer questions that place me in positions I don’t covet, since such questions presume I would be willing to do all the things that those who hold those positions have done to get there. Black elected officials, like other elected officials, only do the right thing when the people forcefully make their wishes known, and when the immediate political environment favors it. Our job is to change the environment in Black America.
While there is still time, progressives in the Caucus must act on their own to endorse progressive positions. Despite the disastrous, money-fueled Telecom vote, I believe there still exists a clear progressive majority in the Caucus, probably amounting to more than two-thirds of members. In the absence of a consensus, progressives must push for majority (or two-thirds) Sense of the Caucus resolutions on critical issues, so that the 6 to 8 bought-off members become isolated and exposed, no longer able to paralyze the workings of the CBC as a whole."
For me, Hurricane Katrina was a huge wake-up call to White America - an event that showed clearly the inherent racism built into our society. And yet, now that the event is over a year behind us, it seems that American politics have shifted away from trying to solve the problems Katrina showed us. Why do you think the plight of African Americans specifically is given so little attention by the corporate media? Is there anything African Americans can do to change that?
"The corporate media follow the corporate line: race is no longer a major factor in American life. Even dramatic visual proof to the contrary, as with Katrina, does not alter the line for long. How can that be changed? I’ll give you the same answer that is applicable to most questions of that kind: we must rebuild, reinvent, a mass movement of Blacks and whatever allies are worthy to stand with us. There is no other solution. In the process, African Americans must dislodge the opportunists who shut down the mass movement three-and-a-half decades ago, in order to pursue their own interests while still clinging to the mantle of leadership. New leadership emerges from struggle, and there is no struggle without youth. The issues of mass incarceration, gentrification and jobs (not petty entrepreneurship – jobs) are what motivates Black youth.
Katrina was a fast-forward of capitalist intentions for urban America: gentrification and Black expulsion from the cities, the destruction of Black political power centers, and total corporate control of “development.” The response of Black “leadership” has been totally inadequate, as should have been expected, since they have not tackled the same, slower-moving processes that are underway in their own cities."
You operate an organization that publishes information for citizens online. And yet, a small group of African Americans relative to the population have access to high-speed internet. Indeed, many families of color don't even have computers. How relevant can BAR be without a change in this situation? What can be done to increase internet access to people that don't now have it?
"BAR, like its predecessor Black Commentator, targets Black leadership, in the broadest sense of the term. It is not designed for the street corner, but to influence those who help shape the opinions of others. (The term “influencers” is well known in the media trades.) Most of these influencers are wired. They are politicians and their staffs, political activists from the grassroots to the suites of the Urban League, opinionated academics and conscientious public school teachers, labor cadre, journalists, the most aggressive and effective leaders of tenant and block associations – the broadest swath of Black opinion molders, and those non-Black activists whose work is important to African Americans.
If I were to give an example of a publication with a similar targeting strategy – and this will surprise you – it would be the troglodyte Weekly Standard. This rightwing rag’s circulation is probably one-third that of The Nation, but when it speaks, the entire rightwing power structure listens. The White House takes heed.
This is not a numbers game, although one must reach a critical mass of one’s target audience. The time is long past when Black publications can be all things to all African Americans. Blacks are a distinct polity (what we used to call a “nation”) within the United States. We need both mass organs (which should be the mission of Black-oriented radio, but that’s another subject) and organs that influence the influencers – just like everybody else in the larger USA."
If you could change one thing in government, and it could not be overturned, what would it be, and why?
"Whatever laws and precedents that make corporations the equal of citizens. THAT would be the greatest sea change I can imagine within the parameters of bourgeois democracy."
Are there any things ordinary citizens can do to help African Americans achieve equality in America? What are you doing that you think other people should be doing more of, and what should we be doing less of as a society to get there?
"Once we get a movement going that is worthy of popular participation, people should join, shape, and lead it. Simple, huh? More immediately, folks must organize on the ground in their own neighborhoods, affinity groups and workplaces. Popular power is not a commodity, which can be bought. It must be wrestled from the few who hold power and use it against the rest of us. There is great satisfaction and dignity in resistance – in the act of taking responsibility for the destiny of others, and your own."
Glen, thank so much for taking the time to chat with me. I guess we have time for one last question, regarding corporate personhood:
If corporations are to be considered as persons, shouldn't they have to pay the same percentage of their income we'd have to pay if we make over fifty thousand bucks a year?
"For just one small example of what stripping corporations of "personhood" would mean: Corportions would no longer have their own "free speech" rights. That's at the heart of the struggle to control campaign spending, or better put, to roll back corporate domination of the entire electoral process, which has nullified "democracy" in even the weak "American" sense of the term.
Regarding the white Left: It is they who have no real solidarity with the other groups, primarily Blacks, who make up the majority of what is "left" in the United States. I told the board and staff of The Nation as much, when I spoke before them in early 2005. Solidarity means, at the very least, sharing resources. Because of historical white privilege, even the white Left has vastly more resources than African Americans, whose politics are the most consistently progressive of any group in the nation. That's why the white Left have The Nation, In These Times, Mother Jones, The Progressive, and lots of other political publications, and Blacks have...none. This extreme dispartiy weakens the "left" as a whole, creating vast imbalances. We, Blacks, vote "left" in concentrated numbers that equal or surpass the white Left's scattered electoral presence. Yet the white Left actually believes that they are at the center of the action. What Eurocentric madness!!
More than a decade ago, The Nation did a cover story purporting to show a political "map" of the U.S. Left. There were all kinds of "alternative" white tendencies, from organic food boosters to open-source computer tinkerers to gender groups of all kinds...the whole counterculture. But no Blacks. I knew then that whoever commissioned the cover story was out of his/her mind, hopelessly caught up in alternative Whiteness, and not a progressive at all."
Inside the Book:
Book Jacket
Introduction
Chapter One - The Commentators
Introduction
Prescription for Change
America is one sick country. So many of our so-called "leaders" claim to want to fix her up, but they've got their pockets stuffed so full with corporate cash that they can't figure out the safest way to make it happen and still retain their power and influence.
When Congress has six corporate lobbyists for every single legislator, something is rotten in the state of Denmark*. And that's why America needs YOU, to help her shake off the sickness of corporate corruption and right-wing disease.
Me? What can I do to fix America? I haven't been elected to anything!
Pretty much everybody says that at first. Let me dispel a couple rumors about our government right here:
Number One, we don't elect "leaders" in this country. We elect representatives. Which means that anyone, even you, could represent your district's interests in Washington. There's no rule that says our representatives have to be high-powered lawyers or wealthy businessmen. A legislator in Nevada is a Las Vegas waitress. Patty Murray was a "mom in tennis shoes" before she got into politics. This is our country, so we ought to believe that we can govern it!
Number Two, we are the natural sovereigns of this country, not the rich multinationals, and we decide what happens in government. We elect the representatives, we pass the ballot initiatives, we determine the course of democracy in this country. Why do you think Bush and the neocons had to spread their lies all over the corporate media to fool us into going to war in Iraq? If they were really our "leaders" they could have done whatever they wanted and we would have just had to accept it. But because We the People decide what happens in this country, it's up to We the People to defend it from those who would attempt to destroy it for their own personal gain.
It's up to all of us to get involved and innoculate* our government against the selfish agents of destruction,
like Presidents who lie to get us into war;
like Vice Presidents who collude with energy companies to rip off US taxpayers;
like Supreme Court Justices who use their constitutional powers to get their friends installed in the White House;
like members of Congress who abuse their powers to feather their nests and push through legislation that serves the top 2 percent at the expense of all of us;
and like all those greedy corporations and industry associations that use their vast wealth to influence Congress and rake in billions of undeserved public subsidies, to the detriment of all tax-paying Americans.
If We the People are going to have half a chance at rebuilding our democracy, two things have to happen:
Number One, we have to get active in greater number than we've ever ammassed before;
and Number Two, we're gonna have to fight for a set of Progressive* changes to government that take our country out of the abyss of corporate selfishness and into a new age of wealth and prosperity for all Americans.
So how the heck dow we accomplish that?
First off, we have to decide that this step is actually necessary. Look around you. Is your house bigger, and your mortgage payment smaller, than it was 6 years ago? Are your out-of-pocket medical expenses smaller than they were 6 years ago? Is the air cleaner or the water purer than when Bush and his neocons came into office? Is the climate more stable and less prone to sudden catastrophic weather events?
It's time we accept the fact that We the People have been working harder than ever before and getting nowhere, not because our effort is inferior to those of the wealthy corporate bosses, but rather it's because we've been spending all our time working than engaging in the day-to-day struggle of rebuilding our democracy.
Civil society demands that the people who voice their opinion the loudest see the greatest eventual changes on their behalf. Care for an example? Look no further than Enron and the for-profit utility companies. They wanted the government to loosen their controls over how energy was traded, stored and marketed in this country, and because they had paid out millions in lobbying and public relations costs, they eventually got their wish. Deregulation made a few rich scumbags a whole lot richer, created a massive speculation bubble led by Enron and Kenny Boy Lay, and the People - that's you and me - ended up staring at our utility bills in horror. And those poor unfortunate souls who happened to have their retirement tied up in Enron stock?
They got Screwed.
So what do we do about it?
Look no further than the example of the Civil Rights Movement. There you had a few small groups - SNCC (The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led my Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a few others working to give black people access to the same rights we should all enjoy. But the effort wasn't successful on a wide scale until it really kicked up into a huge, nationwide, rolling grassroots Movement. That's how you effect change in this country for ordinary working and middle-class citizens. We don't have all the money that George Bush and Ken Lay can gain access to, but we have something that all the corporate cash in the world can buy - the People.
You want to get something done in this country, you've got to influence the People. It takes hard-core citizen-led activism - phone calls, emails, letters to the editor, websites, monthly meetings, direct actions, coalitions - all the things people have been doing to move progressive causes forward all around you for all this time, and yet it hasn't quite kicked into full swing, because you haven't lent your energy and your expertise to the cause.
Reading this book, you will no doubt come across some familiar faces, individuals who've distinguished themselves over the last twenty years by being out-and-out populist progressives with a desire to see this country live up to its highest ideals. But along the way, you're sure to come across some individuals you've never heard of. And it's these folks I want you to get to know.
There's Todd Iverson, the Longshoreman who created a new way for working families to get involved in politics. There's Arthur Miller, who parlayed his passion for activism into an annual march that honors unjustly imprisoned Native American activist Leonard Peltier. There's Amy Goodman, whose internationally renowned news program Democracy Now! airs in hundreds of markets nationwide and which delivers hard-hitting, progressive news to a world hungry for honest reporting.
Each of the individuals profiled in this book took the skills they had and their natural talent for activism into a world that seemed to be only interested in power and profit, and they changed the way we think and live. These individuals are my personal heroes because they put it all on the line, for something bigger than themselves. From Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey's death inspired a movement to end the war in Iraq, to Ralph Nader, whose efforts on behalf of consumers have saved countless lives, to the story of my friend Marilyn Kimmerling, who has fought for human rights and economic justice for over forty years, all of these individuals took the path least traveled, the path of compassionate concern for our fellow human beings.
This is the path I'd like you to take, if you have the courage. So read on, my friends, and learn just how easy it can be to change the world.
Chapter One - The Commentators
America is one sick country. So many of our so-called "leaders" claim to want to fix her up, but they've got their pockets stuffed so full with corporate cash that they can't figure out the safest way to make it happen and still retain their power and influence.
When Congress has six corporate lobbyists for every single legislator, something is rotten in the state of Denmark*. And that's why America needs YOU, to help her shake off the sickness of corporate corruption and right-wing disease.
Me? What can I do to fix America? I haven't been elected to anything!
Pretty much everybody says that at first. Let me dispel a couple rumors about our government right here:
Number One, we don't elect "leaders" in this country. We elect representatives. Which means that anyone, even you, could represent your district's interests in Washington. There's no rule that says our representatives have to be high-powered lawyers or wealthy businessmen. A legislator in Nevada is a Las Vegas waitress. Patty Murray was a "mom in tennis shoes" before she got into politics. This is our country, so we ought to believe that we can govern it!
Number Two, we are the natural sovereigns of this country, not the rich multinationals, and we decide what happens in government. We elect the representatives, we pass the ballot initiatives, we determine the course of democracy in this country. Why do you think Bush and the neocons had to spread their lies all over the corporate media to fool us into going to war in Iraq? If they were really our "leaders" they could have done whatever they wanted and we would have just had to accept it. But because We the People decide what happens in this country, it's up to We the People to defend it from those who would attempt to destroy it for their own personal gain.
It's up to all of us to get involved and innoculate* our government against the selfish agents of destruction,
like Presidents who lie to get us into war;
like Vice Presidents who collude with energy companies to rip off US taxpayers;
like Supreme Court Justices who use their constitutional powers to get their friends installed in the White House;
like members of Congress who abuse their powers to feather their nests and push through legislation that serves the top 2 percent at the expense of all of us;
and like all those greedy corporations and industry associations that use their vast wealth to influence Congress and rake in billions of undeserved public subsidies, to the detriment of all tax-paying Americans.
If We the People are going to have half a chance at rebuilding our democracy, two things have to happen:
Number One, we have to get active in greater number than we've ever ammassed before;
and Number Two, we're gonna have to fight for a set of Progressive* changes to government that take our country out of the abyss of corporate selfishness and into a new age of wealth and prosperity for all Americans.
So how the heck dow we accomplish that?
First off, we have to decide that this step is actually necessary. Look around you. Is your house bigger, and your mortgage payment smaller, than it was 6 years ago? Are your out-of-pocket medical expenses smaller than they were 6 years ago? Is the air cleaner or the water purer than when Bush and his neocons came into office? Is the climate more stable and less prone to sudden catastrophic weather events?
It's time we accept the fact that We the People have been working harder than ever before and getting nowhere, not because our effort is inferior to those of the wealthy corporate bosses, but rather it's because we've been spending all our time working than engaging in the day-to-day struggle of rebuilding our democracy.
Civil society demands that the people who voice their opinion the loudest see the greatest eventual changes on their behalf. Care for an example? Look no further than Enron and the for-profit utility companies. They wanted the government to loosen their controls over how energy was traded, stored and marketed in this country, and because they had paid out millions in lobbying and public relations costs, they eventually got their wish. Deregulation made a few rich scumbags a whole lot richer, created a massive speculation bubble led by Enron and Kenny Boy Lay, and the People - that's you and me - ended up staring at our utility bills in horror. And those poor unfortunate souls who happened to have their retirement tied up in Enron stock?
They got Screwed.
So what do we do about it?
Look no further than the example of the Civil Rights Movement. There you had a few small groups - SNCC (The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led my Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a few others working to give black people access to the same rights we should all enjoy. But the effort wasn't successful on a wide scale until it really kicked up into a huge, nationwide, rolling grassroots Movement. That's how you effect change in this country for ordinary working and middle-class citizens. We don't have all the money that George Bush and Ken Lay can gain access to, but we have something that all the corporate cash in the world can buy - the People.
You want to get something done in this country, you've got to influence the People. It takes hard-core citizen-led activism - phone calls, emails, letters to the editor, websites, monthly meetings, direct actions, coalitions - all the things people have been doing to move progressive causes forward all around you for all this time, and yet it hasn't quite kicked into full swing, because you haven't lent your energy and your expertise to the cause.
Reading this book, you will no doubt come across some familiar faces, individuals who've distinguished themselves over the last twenty years by being out-and-out populist progressives with a desire to see this country live up to its highest ideals. But along the way, you're sure to come across some individuals you've never heard of. And it's these folks I want you to get to know.
There's Todd Iverson, the Longshoreman who created a new way for working families to get involved in politics. There's Arthur Miller, who parlayed his passion for activism into an annual march that honors unjustly imprisoned Native American activist Leonard Peltier. There's Amy Goodman, whose internationally renowned news program Democracy Now! airs in hundreds of markets nationwide and which delivers hard-hitting, progressive news to a world hungry for honest reporting.
Each of the individuals profiled in this book took the skills they had and their natural talent for activism into a world that seemed to be only interested in power and profit, and they changed the way we think and live. These individuals are my personal heroes because they put it all on the line, for something bigger than themselves. From Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey's death inspired a movement to end the war in Iraq, to Ralph Nader, whose efforts on behalf of consumers have saved countless lives, to the story of my friend Marilyn Kimmerling, who has fought for human rights and economic justice for over forty years, all of these individuals took the path least traveled, the path of compassionate concern for our fellow human beings.
This is the path I'd like you to take, if you have the courage. So read on, my friends, and learn just how easy it can be to change the world.
Chapter One - The Commentators
Book Jacket
Here's my planned copy for the inside jacket:
In the New American Populists and the Progressive Prescription for America, first time author Jeffrey Richardson delivers a powerful argument for how We the People can once again have a proud and prosperous country, with justice and security for all. His approach is unique: he starts each chapter with a short bio of one of his personal heroes, an interview with the individual, and the insights he's gained from studying their activism.
Every man, woman and child in America who's ever asked the question "What can I do?" will surely learn something valuable from reading this book. Organizers, activists, history professors and politicians should have this book on their office bookshelf, or better yet, sitting open on their bedside table.
The stories in this book will inspire you and motivate you to get involved and stay active no matter what happens in Washington D.C. Because, in the words of the acclaimed progressive talk show host, Thom Hartmann:
Read on:
Introduction
Chapter One - The Commentators
Chapter Two - The Investigators
In the New American Populists and the Progressive Prescription for America, first time author Jeffrey Richardson delivers a powerful argument for how We the People can once again have a proud and prosperous country, with justice and security for all. His approach is unique: he starts each chapter with a short bio of one of his personal heroes, an interview with the individual, and the insights he's gained from studying their activism.
Every man, woman and child in America who's ever asked the question "What can I do?" will surely learn something valuable from reading this book. Organizers, activists, history professors and politicians should have this book on their office bookshelf, or better yet, sitting open on their bedside table.
The stories in this book will inspire you and motivate you to get involved and stay active no matter what happens in Washington D.C. Because, in the words of the acclaimed progressive talk show host, Thom Hartmann:
"Democracy begins with you. Tag, you're it!"
Read on:
Introduction
Chapter One - The Commentators
Chapter Two - The Investigators
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Chapter Three - The Agitators
Every movement has its firebrands. The Labor Movement had Joe Hill and Emma Goldman. The Civil Rights Movement had Stokely Carmichael and Robert Williams. The Black Power Movement had Huey Newton and Malcolm X. The Progressive Movement of the Twenty-First Century is no different, offering us plenty of rowdies to emulate and stand beside in their efforts to improve America.
Each of these individuals has taken on the powers-that-be without recoiling, raising as much hell as possible for their particular causes despite enormous resistance from the forces of the established power elite. We can learn a lot from these individuals, who exemplify the spirit of the progressive movement in everything they do.
Kevin Barrett
Jim Hightower
Aaron Dixon
Ralph Nader
Inside the Book:
Book Jacket
Introduction
Chapter One - The Commentators
Chapter Two- The Investigators
Each of these individuals has taken on the powers-that-be without recoiling, raising as much hell as possible for their particular causes despite enormous resistance from the forces of the established power elite. We can learn a lot from these individuals, who exemplify the spirit of the progressive movement in everything they do.
Kevin Barrett
Jim Hightower
Aaron Dixon
Ralph Nader
Inside the Book:
Book Jacket
Introduction
Chapter One - The Commentators
Chapter Two- The Investigators
Kevin Barrett
Kevin Barrett is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who's achieved notoriety recently for his statements regarding 9/11 and the Bush administration in various media outlets, including Fox News' Hannity and Colmes.
Kevin is also the author of a great new autobiography entitled "Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie", coming soon to a bookstore near you!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Okay, Kevin Barrett, author of "Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie", what is the 9/11 Big Lie and why should my readers care?
In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote:
The story that "19 extremist Muslim hijackers" committed the crimes of 9/11 is the biggest Big Lie in history--and probably the most obvious one as well. Those crimes were in fact committed by elements of the US national security community who wanted the "New Pearl Harbor" that the Project for a New American Century called for in a position paper issued in September, 2000 called Rebuilding America's Defenses. If you don't care that your own President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor, among others, conspired to launch a false-flag attack in which the World Trade Center was demolished while thousands of people were inside, in order to promote an outrageous, racist, genocidal Big Lie, and destroy American Constitutional democracy, you're either an enlightened being or a subhuman idiot. In fact, if you thought that there were even a ten percent chance that this was true, yet did not devote all of your energies to determining whether in fact it was true, and if so what could be done about it, you would be living not much above the animal level.
You claim to be an objective university professor, yet, by reading your book I see that the fair and balanced news anchor Sean Hannity feels that you are a corrosive influence. What do you say to those folks who feel that you are a dangerous individual, and shouldn't be allowed to teach our children?
Even more fair-and-balanced O'Reilly thinks Hannity is too easy on me--Hannity just thinks I should be fired, O'Reilly wants me taken out in a mob hit!
For those who want to protect the youth of Athens from the likes of me, I would say: If they're old enough to die for a lie, they're old enough to face the truth.
If these people really want to protect their children from evil, dangerous professors, they should hunt down and kill every last disciple of the neoconservative cult leader Leo Strauss. The Straussians are working overtime for the destruction of American liberal democracy and the installation of a fascist regime: "For Strauss, American liberal democracy, Weimar revived, is an evil threatening all truly human existence."
http://www.swans.com/library/art11/mdolin10.html
Most of Bush's 9/11 cabinet--Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Fleischer etc. etc. -- are Straussians. They are on a mission to destroy American democracy and turn the US into a presidential dictatorship. They believe that politics is war, that everyone but themselves is "the enemy," and that manipulating the masses with unending lies, stealing elections, murdering political opponents, killing people randomly in false flag attacks, and so on is not just justifiable, but highly recommended.
I hear all the time that Islam is a religion of peace, but isn't every terrorist in the world a Muslim? Shouldn't we be freaking out every time some foreigner prays in public in a language we can't understand? To follow up, isn't racial profiling the best way to ensure safety on international flights?
There are Muslims who are struggling to free their lands from foreign occupation, just as Buddhists did in Vietnam, Catholics did in Latin America, Christians like Mandela did in Africa, and so on. But the idea that anti-imperialist Muslims would carry out the 9/11 attacks is far more preposterous than the idea that Vietnamese Buddhists would have done so during that war. Use some common sense, people! Anybody smart enough to successfully carry out 9/11 would be smart enough to see how strategically stupid it would be. That's why Buddhists didn't do it during Vietnam, Nicaraguans didn't do it during the Contra wars, and so on. You don't attack a massive military power in its homeland to get that power out of your country! You attack its forces IN your country! Or to put it another way: "If you attack the king, you have to kill him." Launching a Pearl Harbor style attack doesn't kill the king, doesn't diminish his military power -- it puts it on steroids. That's why the neocons were yearning for a "New Pearl Harbor" -- because it would rally the people, juice up military budgets, trigger wars of aggression, and roll back the Constitution.
The idea that "fanatical Muslims" are such logistical geniuses they could pull it off, yet such strategic morons they would want to, is profoundly irrational. It is based on the massive unconscious racism that colors Americans' attitude toward Muslims. Many leftists are such fanatical anti-religion fundamentalists, and unconscious racists, that they easily accept the ludicrous picture of Muslims as "idiot geniuses" who would do 9/11 for no reason, while making no demands, claiming no responsibility, gaining no benefit, etc.
In short, unless you're part of an occupation, the only Arab-Muslim types you need to worry out are the CIA-MI6-Mossad stooges -- easily-manipulable morons like the shoe bomber, guys who can't even get a match lit, who are recruited by Western intelligence to serve as patsies in false-flag attacks aimed at smearing Muslims and legitimizing anti-Muslim genocide.
The last two questions were sort of tongue-in-cheek, designed to approximate the kind of questions you get all the time from right-wing bloviators. But speaking honestly now, I'd like to relate a story from my life. I got into it a few months back with a coworker who claimed that what we need to do is nuke every Muslim country, and that would stop all this violence. I got really upset and raged on him for several minutes until the boss had to step in and resolve the conflict. This coworker was a sniper in the Kosovo conflict. He told me during another conversation that after some time in that war he started to see all the Muslims as the enemy, even though they were the people he was supposed to be protecting.
It brought home to me that the worst part about this kind of war is the brutalizing effect it has on our soldiers and their supporters, by stripping away their ability to see the essential humanity in our brothers and sisters of other races and cultures. To me, this is the worst part of the 9/11 mess, that we have been forced to accept this story that Muslims attacked us on 9/11, and therefore we are compelled to wage war on Muslims worldwide. In a world where over a billion people profess to be Muslims, isn't this battle totally counterproductive, and doomed to self-destruction? And if so, how should we go about ending terrorism and stopping this terrible war?
The only hope is 9/11 truth. All this hatred and murder is the product of the 9/11 smear job. Currently 84% of the American people do not believe the official story -- but only 36% realize it was mass murder and high treason by their own leaders. Once that 36% rises to over 50% the Big Lie will come crashing down, and the genocide plans will grind to a halt.
What if you were successful, and people started debating the 9/11 false flag terror attacks on national television? Wouldn't the right-wing corporate media still find a way to get it wrong? I'm reminded of the flap when CNN Headline News had Charlie Sheen on to discuss the controversy and it quickly faded as fast as it appeared.
Of course they'll get it wrong. But they'll soon be held accountable for getting it wrong. Network owners and executives will be among the first to be hanged after the new Nuremburg trials, and the monopoly media will be trust-busted up forever.
Bill O'Reilly totally went off on a young man named Jeremy Glick, whose father was killed in the World Trade Center. He basically claimed that Glick was suggesting that "we" caused the 9/11 attacks. And yet, if you read the transcript, he said nothing of the kind. Given this kind of treatment by the national media, isn't it sort of understandable that people have been reluctant to discuss 9/11 truth? And on that same subject, isn't it hard to get people to believe you when prominent liberals won't even dicuss the issue? I got all upset over this latest crisis in Oaxaca and couldn't believe that not even liberal talk radio would go near it. It's as if the clearest examples of fascist repression are off limits even for real progressives.
You touched on this a little in your book about Left gatekeepers and the blowback theory, but can you go a little deeper? Why do folks like Amy Goodman and Thom Hartmann keep refusing to discuss this totally obvious reality?
They're cowards. They're complicit. They suck foundation money. They're Goebbels-lite. They need to be tried at the new Nuremburg alongside the likes of O'Reilly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strong words from an American original, a man who says what he means and means what he says. As progressives, we may not always agree with everything our friends and neighbors say, but when we see an injustice, we are required to speak out. And when our friends in the public eye are unwilling to air this truth, it can be extremely frustrating. Hopefully, the two individuals I mentioned to Kevin will have the courage to change their tune on this issue soon enough. But even if they don't, this movement will continue no matter what. Because when our own government has the power to rewrite history as it's being written, it is extremely difficult to mount an effective resistance unless all of us pitch in.
For those of you who'd like to learn more about the 9/11 myth, and Kevin Barrett's attempts to expose them as such, purchase his book, "Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie" today!
Inside the Book:
Book Jacket
Introduction
Chapter One - The Commentators
Chapter Two - The Investigators
Chapter Three - The Agitators
Kevin is also the author of a great new autobiography entitled "Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie", coming soon to a bookstore near you!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Currently 84% of the American people do not believe the official story -- but only 36% realize it was mass murder and high treason by their own leaders. Once that 36% rises to over 50% the Big Lie will come crashing down, and the genocide plans will grind to a halt."
Okay, Kevin Barrett, author of "Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie", what is the 9/11 Big Lie and why should my readers care?
In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote:
"All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation."
The story that "19 extremist Muslim hijackers" committed the crimes of 9/11 is the biggest Big Lie in history--and probably the most obvious one as well. Those crimes were in fact committed by elements of the US national security community who wanted the "New Pearl Harbor" that the Project for a New American Century called for in a position paper issued in September, 2000 called Rebuilding America's Defenses. If you don't care that your own President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor, among others, conspired to launch a false-flag attack in which the World Trade Center was demolished while thousands of people were inside, in order to promote an outrageous, racist, genocidal Big Lie, and destroy American Constitutional democracy, you're either an enlightened being or a subhuman idiot. In fact, if you thought that there were even a ten percent chance that this was true, yet did not devote all of your energies to determining whether in fact it was true, and if so what could be done about it, you would be living not much above the animal level.
You claim to be an objective university professor, yet, by reading your book I see that the fair and balanced news anchor Sean Hannity feels that you are a corrosive influence. What do you say to those folks who feel that you are a dangerous individual, and shouldn't be allowed to teach our children?
Even more fair-and-balanced O'Reilly thinks Hannity is too easy on me--Hannity just thinks I should be fired, O'Reilly wants me taken out in a mob hit!
For those who want to protect the youth of Athens from the likes of me, I would say: If they're old enough to die for a lie, they're old enough to face the truth.
If these people really want to protect their children from evil, dangerous professors, they should hunt down and kill every last disciple of the neoconservative cult leader Leo Strauss. The Straussians are working overtime for the destruction of American liberal democracy and the installation of a fascist regime: "For Strauss, American liberal democracy, Weimar revived, is an evil threatening all truly human existence."
http://www.swans.com/library/art11/mdolin10.html
Most of Bush's 9/11 cabinet--Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Fleischer etc. etc. -- are Straussians. They are on a mission to destroy American democracy and turn the US into a presidential dictatorship. They believe that politics is war, that everyone but themselves is "the enemy," and that manipulating the masses with unending lies, stealing elections, murdering political opponents, killing people randomly in false flag attacks, and so on is not just justifiable, but highly recommended.
I hear all the time that Islam is a religion of peace, but isn't every terrorist in the world a Muslim? Shouldn't we be freaking out every time some foreigner prays in public in a language we can't understand? To follow up, isn't racial profiling the best way to ensure safety on international flights?
There are Muslims who are struggling to free their lands from foreign occupation, just as Buddhists did in Vietnam, Catholics did in Latin America, Christians like Mandela did in Africa, and so on. But the idea that anti-imperialist Muslims would carry out the 9/11 attacks is far more preposterous than the idea that Vietnamese Buddhists would have done so during that war. Use some common sense, people! Anybody smart enough to successfully carry out 9/11 would be smart enough to see how strategically stupid it would be. That's why Buddhists didn't do it during Vietnam, Nicaraguans didn't do it during the Contra wars, and so on. You don't attack a massive military power in its homeland to get that power out of your country! You attack its forces IN your country! Or to put it another way: "If you attack the king, you have to kill him." Launching a Pearl Harbor style attack doesn't kill the king, doesn't diminish his military power -- it puts it on steroids. That's why the neocons were yearning for a "New Pearl Harbor" -- because it would rally the people, juice up military budgets, trigger wars of aggression, and roll back the Constitution.
The idea that "fanatical Muslims" are such logistical geniuses they could pull it off, yet such strategic morons they would want to, is profoundly irrational. It is based on the massive unconscious racism that colors Americans' attitude toward Muslims. Many leftists are such fanatical anti-religion fundamentalists, and unconscious racists, that they easily accept the ludicrous picture of Muslims as "idiot geniuses" who would do 9/11 for no reason, while making no demands, claiming no responsibility, gaining no benefit, etc.
In short, unless you're part of an occupation, the only Arab-Muslim types you need to worry out are the CIA-MI6-Mossad stooges -- easily-manipulable morons like the shoe bomber, guys who can't even get a match lit, who are recruited by Western intelligence to serve as patsies in false-flag attacks aimed at smearing Muslims and legitimizing anti-Muslim genocide.
The last two questions were sort of tongue-in-cheek, designed to approximate the kind of questions you get all the time from right-wing bloviators. But speaking honestly now, I'd like to relate a story from my life. I got into it a few months back with a coworker who claimed that what we need to do is nuke every Muslim country, and that would stop all this violence. I got really upset and raged on him for several minutes until the boss had to step in and resolve the conflict. This coworker was a sniper in the Kosovo conflict. He told me during another conversation that after some time in that war he started to see all the Muslims as the enemy, even though they were the people he was supposed to be protecting.
It brought home to me that the worst part about this kind of war is the brutalizing effect it has on our soldiers and their supporters, by stripping away their ability to see the essential humanity in our brothers and sisters of other races and cultures. To me, this is the worst part of the 9/11 mess, that we have been forced to accept this story that Muslims attacked us on 9/11, and therefore we are compelled to wage war on Muslims worldwide. In a world where over a billion people profess to be Muslims, isn't this battle totally counterproductive, and doomed to self-destruction? And if so, how should we go about ending terrorism and stopping this terrible war?
The only hope is 9/11 truth. All this hatred and murder is the product of the 9/11 smear job. Currently 84% of the American people do not believe the official story -- but only 36% realize it was mass murder and high treason by their own leaders. Once that 36% rises to over 50% the Big Lie will come crashing down, and the genocide plans will grind to a halt.
What if you were successful, and people started debating the 9/11 false flag terror attacks on national television? Wouldn't the right-wing corporate media still find a way to get it wrong? I'm reminded of the flap when CNN Headline News had Charlie Sheen on to discuss the controversy and it quickly faded as fast as it appeared.
Of course they'll get it wrong. But they'll soon be held accountable for getting it wrong. Network owners and executives will be among the first to be hanged after the new Nuremburg trials, and the monopoly media will be trust-busted up forever.
Bill O'Reilly totally went off on a young man named Jeremy Glick, whose father was killed in the World Trade Center. He basically claimed that Glick was suggesting that "we" caused the 9/11 attacks. And yet, if you read the transcript, he said nothing of the kind. Given this kind of treatment by the national media, isn't it sort of understandable that people have been reluctant to discuss 9/11 truth? And on that same subject, isn't it hard to get people to believe you when prominent liberals won't even dicuss the issue? I got all upset over this latest crisis in Oaxaca and couldn't believe that not even liberal talk radio would go near it. It's as if the clearest examples of fascist repression are off limits even for real progressives.
You touched on this a little in your book about Left gatekeepers and the blowback theory, but can you go a little deeper? Why do folks like Amy Goodman and Thom Hartmann keep refusing to discuss this totally obvious reality?
They're cowards. They're complicit. They suck foundation money. They're Goebbels-lite. They need to be tried at the new Nuremburg alongside the likes of O'Reilly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strong words from an American original, a man who says what he means and means what he says. As progressives, we may not always agree with everything our friends and neighbors say, but when we see an injustice, we are required to speak out. And when our friends in the public eye are unwilling to air this truth, it can be extremely frustrating. Hopefully, the two individuals I mentioned to Kevin will have the courage to change their tune on this issue soon enough. But even if they don't, this movement will continue no matter what. Because when our own government has the power to rewrite history as it's being written, it is extremely difficult to mount an effective resistance unless all of us pitch in.
For those of you who'd like to learn more about the 9/11 myth, and Kevin Barrett's attempts to expose them as such, purchase his book, "Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie" today!
Inside the Book:
Book Jacket
Introduction
Chapter One - The Commentators
Chapter Two - The Investigators
Chapter Three - The Agitators
Sander Hicks
Sander Hicks is a fixture in the world of alternative media. He's appeared on Link TV and Democracy Now! and been profiled in a feature-length documentary, Horns and Halos, about the publication of the controversial George W. Bush biography, Fortunate Son. His most recent book is "The Big Wedding: 9/11, the Whistle-Blowers and the Cover-Up". Sander is also the co-owner of the indie bookstore and venue, Vox Pop, in Brooklyn.
------------------------------------------------------
TA: Sander, you're a publisher, a journalist, an entrepreneur, a working-class rocker with an eye for interesting subjects. What made you decide to write about the 9/11 Truth Movement?
SH: The Spirit of History. I was on a leave of absence from Soft Skull, I had just moved out of Manhattan, to Huntington Station, Long Island. I set up an office in the basement of my Aunt's low little ranch suburban house and went to work. You're never alone when you have high speed internet.
TA: You spent a long time researching the men you describe in the book, Randy Glass, Mohammed Atta, Delmart Vreeland. What sort of person goes into the intelligence and black ops field? What makes a person like that turn away from their criminal associations and decide to blow the whistle?
SH: I think people are inherently good, and that they eventually come around, and want to do the right thing, no matter what. Even Atta was a man of political passions, he was just so badly manipulated by his higher-ups, some of whom were almost certainly Americans. Did Atta have criminal behavior patterns and a record like Glass/Vreeland? Almost certainly, this is a guy who, by hand, killed a litter of kittens in his blonde American ex-girlfriend's pad in Venice, Florida. The kind of far-right pseudo Islamic politics that Atta got into, with the CIA-penetrated Muslim Brotherhood, sort of consumed him, just immolated him, in the end.
Glass is a different bird altogether. This is a guy who honestly does not give a f___ about bourgeois propriety, and realizes that there is a FBI hierarchy that does. That hierarchy has been threatening his life since he turned whistle-blower. Glass is strong-the kind of man who, under oath, tells the Senate/Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11 "go f___ yourself. I came here to tell you the truth, but you're only here to watch over the truth."
Vreeland I'm still trying to figure out, ex-crack head pedophile with Opus Dei/Reagan White House/Naval intel connections. He was fun to drink with. That I know for certain. No, Vreeland errs on the side of goodness, too, he too tried to stop 9/11 from happening, and of course he got in his own way the most. Being in jail didn't help.
Glass was in jail on 9/11 as well. Both guys wept that morning. Both had written notes, by hand, trying to warn the Feds, in desperate language. But evidence points to the Feds being closer to Atta, the man of a many languages, the man with multiple credentials, pilot licenses, and IDs, the man able to pass through US Customs on an expired Visa.
TA: No subject reaches into so many different avenues of our life more than September Eleventh. The events of that day have spawned countless adverse effects, from the impacts on our relationships with Muslim countries, to the effect of Bush's policies on our society, policies that likely could never have been put in place otherwise. What do you feel is the single most disturbing thing this President has done using September Eleventh as an excuse?
SH: It's a good question, but it's difficult to separate out one subject. Bush has done EVERYTHING while invoking 9/11. The invasion of Iraq probably uses it most often since that has been the longest-running embarrassment for the administration. Guantanamo, domestic spying on US Citizens, invasion of Afghanistan. The carte blanche that CIA was given to murder US Citizens abroad for suspicion of having "Al Qaeda" ties. Gee, that one is right up there. But I think the most disturbing thing about the post-9/11 world is the torture. It's Abu Ghraib. And the fact that Cheney still fetishizes the use of torture, and wants it approved. Did you see that? It just failed, post-NSA. This means that Gandhi's old law, that the enemy is still human, might be challenged by the form of Cheney.
TA: You think Cheney might not be human?
SH: No, he is human. To assert he's a lizard or an alien would be to mystify a man who is all too human: greedy, venal, short-sighted, and violent.
TA: Do you see any similiarities between Dick Cheney and other dangerous men in history?
SH: The answer is obvious. He's like every oligarch in history. Again, this should de-mystify him. Re-humanize him. To build on Gandhi, we have a tendency to idealize our enemies. We resort to violence out of desperation. We think the enemy of imperialism is impregnable. But somewhere deep inside Cheney there's still a shred of humanity left. I know that's hard to believe. And that his behavior spawns crazy theories about lizard people running the world. But that sort of stuff is ahistorical.
TA: The 9/11 Commission made many recomendations following their so-called investigation. Which of their recommendations do you think are sensible and should have been applied? Are there any that you disagreed with that have been implemented?
SH: They actually called for the protection of Civil Liberties, knowing full well what was going to be coming down, and then they sat backed and watched it go down. Who on the 9/11 Commission has spoken up and condemned the illegal, FISA-court ignoring NSA wiretaps on domestic US citizens? Not one. Meanwhile, you have Richard Ben-Veniste speaking on colleges and hawking books.
The really dangerous recommendations were lapped up by the neo-cons-the centralization of intelligence. Making intel a cabinet level position necessarily "politicizes" it and all the best CIA vets like Ray McGovern, very sensibly point out that this is suicide for the objectivity of intelligence. The neo-cons, of course, don't care. These very men (Cheney & Rumsfeld & Bush Sr.) have been twisting intelligence since the Ford Admin in 76. Go google Team B.
TA: Jim Hatfield [the author of "Fortunate Son"] was hounded into poverty and suicide by a system that didn't seem to care whether his story was true or not. Most mainstream commentators had no concern for the damning assertions raised in his book. Knowing what you know now about the mainstream media and the way that powerful media conglomerates have silenced critical voices in this country, are you at all worried about your own safety or financial well-being? Do you ever think you might become a casualty of the present global shift towards violent corporatism?
SH: On tour, one very wise woman taught me to "manifest" a kind of "shield of white light" around myself and my family. It seems to work. I pray a lot, have a pretty OK spiritual practice, and I know that I'm protected by the souls of the dead. The prophets, the saints. There's a ton of powerful energy out there if you know how to access it.
Regarding the neo-cons, their violence makes them weak. It surrounds them with enemies. I don't have to worry about them, THEY have to worry about me. I recently infiltrated the Republican National Congressional Committee and got to shake hands with Dick Cheney. Of course, I asked him about 9/11. Posing as a young GOP dude, I asked him about the massive allegations of an "inside job" I told him I had been hearing. He said "Just look at the evidence, it's not true!" But he was right there, right away with the answer. He seemed to be used to the question, not surprised, just trying really hard to seem sensitive to the seriousness of the question. Earnest. What a stretch.
TA: It reminds me of the time I asked Dennis Kucinich about the massive electronic election fraud in the 2004 election. I got the same sense - that he had heard it a thousand times and was just saying something to get me to go away.
SH: Right. There are some problems, like electronic voting, that are the 500 lb. gorilla in the living room: very ugly, everyone smells it, but no one in power will lower themselves to comment on it. John Kerry talked to author Mark Crispin Miller about how he did acknowledge that his 2004 election was stolen, blatantly. The next day Kerry's people denied that Kerry ever met Miller. This is the perfect example of what "bourgeois consciousness" is. When you care more about your reputation, in the eyes your fellow elitists, than you do about the health of the country, the mass population. Kerry is a shrill bourgeois. My source on this Kerry/Miller meeting is Miller himself-he was just here at Vox Pop.
TA: You make a point in your book of breaking with the general consensus of 9/11 researchers around the issue of "plane sight" manipulations by the conspirators. You seem to be saying that worrying about whether planes actually hit the buildings is less important than dealing squarely with the issues of global corporate fascism. I would argue, however, that the precise details of the case are extremely important, given that a detailed investigation of the facts tends to lead toward a conclusion that can only be described as cooperative complicity in the attacks by the Bush administration. When you consider that no metal-framed structure had ever collapsed due to fire before or since 9/11, and given that on that day three metal structures collapsed in exactly the same way in exactly the same fashion, you begin to wonder if perhaps the "controlled demolitions" crowd could be right. Is there any way that you might be wrong on this, that maybe, just maybe, the administration did assist the attackers in prosecuting this attack?
SH: I do think controlled demolition is more logical than the official story. That's a whole different topic than the "blurry JPeg school" of the In Plane Sight video. On the Controlled Demoliton side you have serious scientists, people published in Scientific American, and Nature, i.e. Jim Hoffman, on the In Plane Sight side you have a kooky failure of logic. Very slick packaging, and some kind of financial energy is definitely putting the In Plane Sight video EVERYWHERE. This is not the actions of a free market. Someone is funding a major flow of this really poor, distracting, sugar-water dreck.
I am also interested in Controlled Demolition theories. I lead a group of public citizen researchers here at Vox Pop. We're currently following up leads. There's a lot of meat on the bone here, especially WTC #7. This is the building that collapsed at 5:30 PM that day, destroying lots of government and intelligence records, despite the fact that it had not been hit by a plane, and only had a minor fire inside, which was under control. Owner Larry Silverstein is the guy who blundered on Frontline, PBS, and told the cameras, that on 9/11, he made this decision about his World Trade Center building #7. He reported saying to the Fire Chief: "We've had such terrible loss of life. Maybe the smartest thing to do is to pull it."
"Pull it" in building construction terms means set off demolition charges. There's enough critical mass on this issue, that Silverstein this past September was forced to dig his hole deeper. He issued a statement through his PR hack that by "pull it" he actually meant pull the firefighters out of the building. But at that point, the firefighters were already out of the building. No one died when the building collapsed.
What's really hot is that, a couple weeks ago, I found a connection between Larry Silverstein and Kenneth Feinberg. Feinberg was the combative "Special Master" of the 9/11 victim's compensation fund. He's in my book, where he blows a gasket yelling at me on the phone. They both used the same PR wiz-kid, Dara McQuillan, to issue cover-up statements and lies.
TA: Several recent stories have highlighted the five or six different training exercises by FAA and NORAD that day.
SH: I JUST saw Webster Tarpley speak for 3.5 hours tonight, it was riveting. It's no longer six exercises, it was seven in his book, but he has know found an additional 8. So, with Tarpley, its a total of 15. AND he's got the historical chops to tell you what that means. Many times, drills have turned into the real thing, in order to fool an institution into having all the right parts in place for an operation. The operation was supposed to be a drill but a few people at the top know that it's real. This happened, for instance, during the assassination attempt on Reagan. Hinckley, the mental patient whose family is friends with Bush, was the patsy. Students of the incident later learned that there had been a "Presidential Succession" exercise planned for the day after Reagan happened to have gotten shot.
The "drill" always turns deadly. Otherwise, NORAD would have worked. NORAD worked 67 times in the 9 months before 9/11. There was a massive distraction effort, and the 15 drills explain why NORAD and all the other air-defense systems were inoperable, or under-staffed. You also had a lot of fake radar screen blips, because of these drills, so planes that were scrambled went after thin air. There are actual references to drills even in the 9/11 Commission Report.
HELEX 75 was a drill that the UK and USA ran in 1975 to pretend "what if" the fall of Saigon sparks a global revolution against the brittle power structure. "What if" we have a go into a nuclear war against the USSR? I.e. it was the kind of drill that might have acted as a real excuse to actually start nuclear war, but anti-war groups got wind of it via a leak to Die Spiegel, and citizen outrage in the US and Europe called it off.
The National Security State pigs who pulled off 9/11 also shot Reagan, hoping that he would die and that Bush would take power.
TA: Isn't that pretty much what they thought would happen here? That if all the planes had hit their intended targets, they could have claimed that Bush had been killed (or even that he had) and then moved to institute martial law with Darth Cheney at the helm?
SH: Yeah, and it seems that Bush was NOT running the show on 9/11. That would be Cheney/Rumsfeld/miscellaneous black operatives.
TA: When I think of prominent figures in the 9/11 truth movement, three names stand out: Alex Jones, editor of Prison Planet and infowars.com; David Icke, author of "Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster", among other disturbing titles; and David Ray Griffin, professor at Claremont School of Theology and author of one of the seminal works on 9/11, "The New Pearl Harbor" . Of the three, I think that Griffin's work is the most readable and easy to understand. How do think you compare to these men, and how are you different?
SH: Griffin is the only one with the possibility to reach a massive amount of people.
TA: I like the idea for a Peoples' Intelligence Network, an idea you discuss in the last chapter of your book. Something like that would be very useful to those of us on the front lines of Bush's war on the working poor, who often wonder if they themselves are being spied upon by the FBI or other agencies. In addition to the PIN, what other bright ideas do you have for improving our democracy?
SH: Well, I'm running for Governor, of New York State. It's tough to do with everything else I've got going on, but it's also a lot of fun, to be able to actually write a platform on how I'd change things in this state. Like, the Excelsior Venture Fund. New York State needs a state-owned venture capital fund to develop jobs, alternative energy, and light industry, especially in the de-industrialized areas of the land.
TA: Imagine you're talking to a potential New York voter. In 100 words or less, explain to me how you're going to make New York a better state to live in.
SH: You need health care. New York State will provide it under my administration. We've got cancer clusters around the state because of lax environmental enforcement. I will attack toxic polluters and put them in jail. 11 states have legalized marijuana for cancer and HIV patients. I will make NY the 12th. We need to YANK advertising, and military recruiters, out of our public schools! We need to cut down on wasteful SUVs, on junk mail, on bureaucracy. We need to make the State government a democratic, self-refining apparatus.
TA: Some folks have commented that a 9/11 coverup is not a serious issue. They feel that all that ground has been covered and now we know terrorists from Al Qaeda did it. Therefore, all we have to do is hunt 'em down and kill 'em, or throw 'em in a hole somewhere. What do you say to your critics, to people who might take an opposing view regarding the official story of 9/11?
SH: Well, if that's the opposing view, it sounds like you're talking about people who don't want a discussion, they just want to kill and throw people in holes.
Similarly, my "critics" don't really take on my research on its own terms. Case in point, Andrea Peyser of the New York Post came to Vox Pop, seemed really curious, and asked a few mild questions. Her article had all of this rancor and piss, but she wasn't really all that combative when she was here. It takes honesty to really debate.
TA: Is that the only negative experience you've had with the mainstream press?
SH: No, but that was the most prominent attack piece against the book. I've been ignored by most other papers. Except the Long Island Press, where I've worked as a freelancer, did publish a short and sweet review.
TA: Many prominent commentators are describing this period as a time of transition, from a badly-run war in Iraq to a time of great political upheaval here at home. What sort of political activities do you suggest people engage in, to take back this country and return power to the people?
SH: Boycott the Dems/Repubs and start new parties. Support Third Parties. Open your mind and hybridize the ideas around you, pull in different "best practices" from what's working in different areas. Be multi-disciplinary.
TA: I'm convinced that elements of a deep government conspiracy were deployed to assassinate John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Paul Wellstone, and John Lennon, among others. Such a conspiracy would require enormous powers of persuasion and intimidation to go unchecked in the mainstream media and in government. If such a cabal were to exist, I believe that it could manipulate independent journalists to create a false schism where none exists. Do you worry about the possibility of yourself being pegged as someone who might mislead the public to throw researchers off the scent? Has anyone confronted you about this issue?
SH: Yeah, I get that all the time. It's like this: if someone says "I'm not crazy" they sound crazy. Likewise, you can't say "I'm not a CIA agent!" because it sounds suspect. I like the way Ruppert is always quoting a certain section of the New Testament: "by their fruits you shall know them." If anyone calls me a "limited hangout" or a "left gatekeeper" it's usually people who haven't read my book. Eat the fruit!
TA: "Horns and Halos" introduced you to the world as the punk-rock manager of an apartment building in the Big City who spent all his free time pushing a book that no one knew existed that everyone who cared about democracy should have read. Did you feel betrayed by the mainstream media, or did you simply understand it to be a product of the so-called pack mentality, in which media types follow the PR dollars and run from dangerous controversy?
SH: Yes and yes. Both. And I name the names of the big media people who have ducked the story (about Bush and about 9/11) in my book. Rather than spend too much finite energy right now on this, I urge people to dis-engage, de-consume, and start anew. Start new independent media projects, or support the ones that are out there, today, now.
TA: So many terrible crimes committed by this President have gone underreported in the mainstream press, many that would have surely influenced the outcome of the election had they come out ahead of time. Do you think this country would have been better off had John Kerry won his campaign for President? Why or why not?
SH: Not too much. That guy cares more about his reputation than about principle. He too chickened out and ducked the story with his half-hearted Senate investigations of Iran/Contra and BCCI.
TA: Are there any groundbreaking innovations in democracy you think the rest of the country should try out? What are they?
SH: A lot of us Greens talk about run-off voting, which means that instead of one vote-one person, you can get 10 votes, so if you're a libertarian socialist you could spread your vote more accurately to promote your views. That way, there would be more libertarians, and more socialists, in a representative political body, and less boring corporate politicos.
TA: Are there any books you recommend to the 9/11 researcher or media critic out there?
SH: A lot of people have questions, because this guy used to be with LaRouche, but he broke with them, I'm talking about Webster Tarpley. He wrote "9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA" I learned a lot from this book. I highly recommend it. Tarpley's only major flaw is that he never saw a 9/11 conspiracy theory he didn't like, so he embraces all of them.
TA: What do you think of Air America?
SH: I think it's interesting to try to have left/liberal media supported by the free market, and the free market is obviously responding. But I also hate to have to listen to all the ads. There's got to be a way to reform the way that advertising saturates daily life. (go see hicksforgovernor.com, there's a great issue there: "adbusting.")
TA: Do any of their hosts impress you as honest investigators of truth, or are they just more Left-wingy versions of the same old predictable political chatterboxes we were used to before? Do you have a favorite talk radio personality?
SH: I want to say Randi Rhodes, or Mike Malloy, but despite all of their anger, they leave me longing for someone who has both passion AND some vision for the future. Both are so angry, they seem to lose focus.
TA: Okay, last question: Who do you think is more dangerous to our democracy, Karl Rove or Dick Cheney?
SH: Cheney. He's bloodthirsty and loves torture and is beyond caring who knows it. I met him, he seemed puffy and his skin was translucent. Like he was on heavy meds and had had heart attacks and strokes that hadn't leaked.
TA: Yuck. Well, on that note, Sander, I'd like to thank you for welcoming us into your world and the world of the 9/11 Truth Movement, as described in your book, "The Big Wedding: 9/11, the Whistle-Blowers and the Cover-Up", Vox Pop Publishing, 2005. We'd like to encourage all our readers to read the book and also they can check out your website, www.voxpopnet.net to learn more about you, your book, and your campaign for Governor of New York State.
[editor's note: Please buy Sander's book, for yourself or your neighborhood peace group. It's a great read, and the author is a creative small businessman trying to make a better world through peaceful means. Support your independent publishers and booksellers, and never stop seeking the truth!]
Hicks sells "The Big Wedding", as well as Webster Tarpley's book, "9/11: Synthetic Terror", at prices that beat Amazon and Barnes & Noble. You can find them at voxpopnet.net.
Inside the Book:
Book Jacket
Introduction
Chapter One - The Commentators
Chapter Two - The Investigators
------------------------------------------------------
TA: Sander, you're a publisher, a journalist, an entrepreneur, a working-class rocker with an eye for interesting subjects. What made you decide to write about the 9/11 Truth Movement?
SH: The Spirit of History. I was on a leave of absence from Soft Skull, I had just moved out of Manhattan, to Huntington Station, Long Island. I set up an office in the basement of my Aunt's low little ranch suburban house and went to work. You're never alone when you have high speed internet.
I think people are inherently good, and that they eventually come around, and want to do the right thing, no matter what.
TA: You spent a long time researching the men you describe in the book, Randy Glass, Mohammed Atta, Delmart Vreeland. What sort of person goes into the intelligence and black ops field? What makes a person like that turn away from their criminal associations and decide to blow the whistle?
SH: I think people are inherently good, and that they eventually come around, and want to do the right thing, no matter what. Even Atta was a man of political passions, he was just so badly manipulated by his higher-ups, some of whom were almost certainly Americans. Did Atta have criminal behavior patterns and a record like Glass/Vreeland? Almost certainly, this is a guy who, by hand, killed a litter of kittens in his blonde American ex-girlfriend's pad in Venice, Florida. The kind of far-right pseudo Islamic politics that Atta got into, with the CIA-penetrated Muslim Brotherhood, sort of consumed him, just immolated him, in the end.
Glass is a different bird altogether. This is a guy who honestly does not give a f___ about bourgeois propriety, and realizes that there is a FBI hierarchy that does. That hierarchy has been threatening his life since he turned whistle-blower. Glass is strong-the kind of man who, under oath, tells the Senate/Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11 "go f___ yourself. I came here to tell you the truth, but you're only here to watch over the truth."
Vreeland I'm still trying to figure out, ex-crack head pedophile with Opus Dei/Reagan White House/Naval intel connections. He was fun to drink with. That I know for certain. No, Vreeland errs on the side of goodness, too, he too tried to stop 9/11 from happening, and of course he got in his own way the most. Being in jail didn't help.
Glass was in jail on 9/11 as well. Both guys wept that morning. Both had written notes, by hand, trying to warn the Feds, in desperate language. But evidence points to the Feds being closer to Atta, the man of a many languages, the man with multiple credentials, pilot licenses, and IDs, the man able to pass through US Customs on an expired Visa.
Bush has done EVERYTHING while invoking 9/11.
TA: No subject reaches into so many different avenues of our life more than September Eleventh. The events of that day have spawned countless adverse effects, from the impacts on our relationships with Muslim countries, to the effect of Bush's policies on our society, policies that likely could never have been put in place otherwise. What do you feel is the single most disturbing thing this President has done using September Eleventh as an excuse?
SH: It's a good question, but it's difficult to separate out one subject. Bush has done EVERYTHING while invoking 9/11. The invasion of Iraq probably uses it most often since that has been the longest-running embarrassment for the administration. Guantanamo, domestic spying on US Citizens, invasion of Afghanistan. The carte blanche that CIA was given to murder US Citizens abroad for suspicion of having "Al Qaeda" ties. Gee, that one is right up there. But I think the most disturbing thing about the post-9/11 world is the torture. It's Abu Ghraib. And the fact that Cheney still fetishizes the use of torture, and wants it approved. Did you see that? It just failed, post-NSA. This means that Gandhi's old law, that the enemy is still human, might be challenged by the form of Cheney.
TA: You think Cheney might not be human?
SH: No, he is human. To assert he's a lizard or an alien would be to mystify a man who is all too human: greedy, venal, short-sighted, and violent.
To build on Gandhi, we have a tendency to idealize our enemies. We resort to violence out of desperation. We think the enemy of imperialism is impregnable.
TA: Do you see any similiarities between Dick Cheney and other dangerous men in history?
SH: The answer is obvious. He's like every oligarch in history. Again, this should de-mystify him. Re-humanize him. To build on Gandhi, we have a tendency to idealize our enemies. We resort to violence out of desperation. We think the enemy of imperialism is impregnable. But somewhere deep inside Cheney there's still a shred of humanity left. I know that's hard to believe. And that his behavior spawns crazy theories about lizard people running the world. But that sort of stuff is ahistorical.
TA: The 9/11 Commission made many recomendations following their so-called investigation. Which of their recommendations do you think are sensible and should have been applied? Are there any that you disagreed with that have been implemented?
SH: They actually called for the protection of Civil Liberties, knowing full well what was going to be coming down, and then they sat backed and watched it go down. Who on the 9/11 Commission has spoken up and condemned the illegal, FISA-court ignoring NSA wiretaps on domestic US citizens? Not one. Meanwhile, you have Richard Ben-Veniste speaking on colleges and hawking books.
The really dangerous recommendations were lapped up by the neo-cons-the centralization of intelligence. Making intel a cabinet level position necessarily "politicizes" it and all the best CIA vets like Ray McGovern, very sensibly point out that this is suicide for the objectivity of intelligence. The neo-cons, of course, don't care. These very men (Cheney & Rumsfeld & Bush Sr.) have been twisting intelligence since the Ford Admin in 76. Go google Team B.
On tour, one very wise woman taught me to "manifest" a kind of "shield of white light" around myself and my family. It seems to work.
TA: Jim Hatfield [the author of "Fortunate Son"] was hounded into poverty and suicide by a system that didn't seem to care whether his story was true or not. Most mainstream commentators had no concern for the damning assertions raised in his book. Knowing what you know now about the mainstream media and the way that powerful media conglomerates have silenced critical voices in this country, are you at all worried about your own safety or financial well-being? Do you ever think you might become a casualty of the present global shift towards violent corporatism?
SH: On tour, one very wise woman taught me to "manifest" a kind of "shield of white light" around myself and my family. It seems to work. I pray a lot, have a pretty OK spiritual practice, and I know that I'm protected by the souls of the dead. The prophets, the saints. There's a ton of powerful energy out there if you know how to access it.
Regarding the neo-cons, their violence makes them weak. It surrounds them with enemies. I don't have to worry about them, THEY have to worry about me. I recently infiltrated the Republican National Congressional Committee and got to shake hands with Dick Cheney. Of course, I asked him about 9/11. Posing as a young GOP dude, I asked him about the massive allegations of an "inside job" I told him I had been hearing. He said "Just look at the evidence, it's not true!" But he was right there, right away with the answer. He seemed to be used to the question, not surprised, just trying really hard to seem sensitive to the seriousness of the question. Earnest. What a stretch.
_03.jpg){kind=link}
TA: It reminds me of the time I asked Dennis Kucinich about the massive electronic election fraud in the 2004 election. I got the same sense - that he had heard it a thousand times and was just saying something to get me to go away.
SH: Right. There are some problems, like electronic voting, that are the 500 lb. gorilla in the living room: very ugly, everyone smells it, but no one in power will lower themselves to comment on it. John Kerry talked to author Mark Crispin Miller about how he did acknowledge that his 2004 election was stolen, blatantly. The next day Kerry's people denied that Kerry ever met Miller. This is the perfect example of what "bourgeois consciousness" is. When you care more about your reputation, in the eyes your fellow elitists, than you do about the health of the country, the mass population. Kerry is a shrill bourgeois. My source on this Kerry/Miller meeting is Miller himself-he was just here at Vox Pop.
I do think controlled demolition is more logical than the official story.
TA: You make a point in your book of breaking with the general consensus of 9/11 researchers around the issue of "plane sight" manipulations by the conspirators. You seem to be saying that worrying about whether planes actually hit the buildings is less important than dealing squarely with the issues of global corporate fascism. I would argue, however, that the precise details of the case are extremely important, given that a detailed investigation of the facts tends to lead toward a conclusion that can only be described as cooperative complicity in the attacks by the Bush administration. When you consider that no metal-framed structure had ever collapsed due to fire before or since 9/11, and given that on that day three metal structures collapsed in exactly the same way in exactly the same fashion, you begin to wonder if perhaps the "controlled demolitions" crowd could be right. Is there any way that you might be wrong on this, that maybe, just maybe, the administration did assist the attackers in prosecuting this attack?
SH: I do think controlled demolition is more logical than the official story. That's a whole different topic than the "blurry JPeg school" of the In Plane Sight video. On the Controlled Demoliton side you have serious scientists, people published in Scientific American, and Nature, i.e. Jim Hoffman, on the In Plane Sight side you have a kooky failure of logic. Very slick packaging, and some kind of financial energy is definitely putting the In Plane Sight video EVERYWHERE. This is not the actions of a free market. Someone is funding a major flow of this really poor, distracting, sugar-water dreck.
I am also interested in Controlled Demolition theories. I lead a group of public citizen researchers here at Vox Pop. We're currently following up leads. There's a lot of meat on the bone here, especially WTC #7. This is the building that collapsed at 5:30 PM that day, destroying lots of government and intelligence records, despite the fact that it had not been hit by a plane, and only had a minor fire inside, which was under control. Owner Larry Silverstein is the guy who blundered on Frontline, PBS, and told the cameras, that on 9/11, he made this decision about his World Trade Center building #7. He reported saying to the Fire Chief: "We've had such terrible loss of life. Maybe the smartest thing to do is to pull it."
"Pull it" in building construction terms means set off demolition charges. There's enough critical mass on this issue, that Silverstein this past September was forced to dig his hole deeper. He issued a statement through his PR hack that by "pull it" he actually meant pull the firefighters out of the building. But at that point, the firefighters were already out of the building. No one died when the building collapsed.
What's really hot is that, a couple weeks ago, I found a connection between Larry Silverstein and Kenneth Feinberg. Feinberg was the combative "Special Master" of the 9/11 victim's compensation fund. He's in my book, where he blows a gasket yelling at me on the phone. They both used the same PR wiz-kid, Dara McQuillan, to issue cover-up statements and lies.
TA: Several recent stories have highlighted the five or six different training exercises by FAA and NORAD that day.
SH: I JUST saw Webster Tarpley speak for 3.5 hours tonight, it was riveting. It's no longer six exercises, it was seven in his book, but he has know found an additional 8. So, with Tarpley, its a total of 15. AND he's got the historical chops to tell you what that means. Many times, drills have turned into the real thing, in order to fool an institution into having all the right parts in place for an operation. The operation was supposed to be a drill but a few people at the top know that it's real. This happened, for instance, during the assassination attempt on Reagan. Hinckley, the mental patient whose family is friends with Bush, was the patsy. Students of the incident later learned that there had been a "Presidential Succession" exercise planned for the day after Reagan happened to have gotten shot.
The "drill" always turns deadly. Otherwise, NORAD would have worked. NORAD worked 67 times in the 9 months before 9/11. There was a massive distraction effort, and the 15 drills explain why NORAD and all the other air-defense systems were inoperable, or under-staffed. You also had a lot of fake radar screen blips, because of these drills, so planes that were scrambled went after thin air. There are actual references to drills even in the 9/11 Commission Report.
HELEX 75 was a drill that the UK and USA ran in 1975 to pretend "what if" the fall of Saigon sparks a global revolution against the brittle power structure. "What if" we have a go into a nuclear war against the USSR? I.e. it was the kind of drill that might have acted as a real excuse to actually start nuclear war, but anti-war groups got wind of it via a leak to Die Spiegel, and citizen outrage in the US and Europe called it off.
The National Security State pigs who pulled off 9/11 also shot Reagan, hoping that he would die and that Bush would take power.
TA: Isn't that pretty much what they thought would happen here? That if all the planes had hit their intended targets, they could have claimed that Bush had been killed (or even that he had) and then moved to institute martial law with Darth Cheney at the helm?
SH: Yeah, and it seems that Bush was NOT running the show on 9/11. That would be Cheney/Rumsfeld/miscellaneous black operatives.
TA: When I think of prominent figures in the 9/11 truth movement, three names stand out: Alex Jones, editor of Prison Planet and infowars.com; David Icke, author of "Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster", among other disturbing titles; and David Ray Griffin, professor at Claremont School of Theology and author of one of the seminal works on 9/11, "The New Pearl Harbor" . Of the three, I think that Griffin's work is the most readable and easy to understand. How do think you compare to these men, and how are you different?
SH: Griffin is the only one with the possibility to reach a massive amount of people.
TA: I like the idea for a Peoples' Intelligence Network, an idea you discuss in the last chapter of your book. Something like that would be very useful to those of us on the front lines of Bush's war on the working poor, who often wonder if they themselves are being spied upon by the FBI or other agencies. In addition to the PIN, what other bright ideas do you have for improving our democracy?
We need to YANK advertising, and military recruiters, out of our public schools!
SH: Well, I'm running for Governor, of New York State. It's tough to do with everything else I've got going on, but it's also a lot of fun, to be able to actually write a platform on how I'd change things in this state. Like, the Excelsior Venture Fund. New York State needs a state-owned venture capital fund to develop jobs, alternative energy, and light industry, especially in the de-industrialized areas of the land.
TA: Imagine you're talking to a potential New York voter. In 100 words or less, explain to me how you're going to make New York a better state to live in.
SH: You need health care. New York State will provide it under my administration. We've got cancer clusters around the state because of lax environmental enforcement. I will attack toxic polluters and put them in jail. 11 states have legalized marijuana for cancer and HIV patients. I will make NY the 12th. We need to YANK advertising, and military recruiters, out of our public schools! We need to cut down on wasteful SUVs, on junk mail, on bureaucracy. We need to make the State government a democratic, self-refining apparatus.
TA: Some folks have commented that a 9/11 coverup is not a serious issue. They feel that all that ground has been covered and now we know terrorists from Al Qaeda did it. Therefore, all we have to do is hunt 'em down and kill 'em, or throw 'em in a hole somewhere. What do you say to your critics, to people who might take an opposing view regarding the official story of 9/11?
SH: Well, if that's the opposing view, it sounds like you're talking about people who don't want a discussion, they just want to kill and throw people in holes.
Similarly, my "critics" don't really take on my research on its own terms. Case in point, Andrea Peyser of the New York Post came to Vox Pop, seemed really curious, and asked a few mild questions. Her article had all of this rancor and piss, but she wasn't really all that combative when she was here. It takes honesty to really debate.
TA: Is that the only negative experience you've had with the mainstream press?
SH: No, but that was the most prominent attack piece against the book. I've been ignored by most other papers. Except the Long Island Press, where I've worked as a freelancer, did publish a short and sweet review.
TA: Many prominent commentators are describing this period as a time of transition, from a badly-run war in Iraq to a time of great political upheaval here at home. What sort of political activities do you suggest people engage in, to take back this country and return power to the people?
SH: Boycott the Dems/Repubs and start new parties. Support Third Parties. Open your mind and hybridize the ideas around you, pull in different "best practices" from what's working in different areas. Be multi-disciplinary.
'by their fruits you shall know them.'
TA: I'm convinced that elements of a deep government conspiracy were deployed to assassinate John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Paul Wellstone, and John Lennon, among others. Such a conspiracy would require enormous powers of persuasion and intimidation to go unchecked in the mainstream media and in government. If such a cabal were to exist, I believe that it could manipulate independent journalists to create a false schism where none exists. Do you worry about the possibility of yourself being pegged as someone who might mislead the public to throw researchers off the scent? Has anyone confronted you about this issue?
SH: Yeah, I get that all the time. It's like this: if someone says "I'm not crazy" they sound crazy. Likewise, you can't say "I'm not a CIA agent!" because it sounds suspect. I like the way Ruppert is always quoting a certain section of the New Testament: "by their fruits you shall know them." If anyone calls me a "limited hangout" or a "left gatekeeper" it's usually people who haven't read my book. Eat the fruit!
TA: "Horns and Halos" introduced you to the world as the punk-rock manager of an apartment building in the Big City who spent all his free time pushing a book that no one knew existed that everyone who cared about democracy should have read. Did you feel betrayed by the mainstream media, or did you simply understand it to be a product of the so-called pack mentality, in which media types follow the PR dollars and run from dangerous controversy?
SH: Yes and yes. Both. And I name the names of the big media people who have ducked the story (about Bush and about 9/11) in my book. Rather than spend too much finite energy right now on this, I urge people to dis-engage, de-consume, and start anew. Start new independent media projects, or support the ones that are out there, today, now.
TA: So many terrible crimes committed by this President have gone underreported in the mainstream press, many that would have surely influenced the outcome of the election had they come out ahead of time. Do you think this country would have been better off had John Kerry won his campaign for President? Why or why not?
SH: Not too much. That guy cares more about his reputation than about principle. He too chickened out and ducked the story with his half-hearted Senate investigations of Iran/Contra and BCCI.
TA: Are there any groundbreaking innovations in democracy you think the rest of the country should try out? What are they?
SH: A lot of us Greens talk about run-off voting, which means that instead of one vote-one person, you can get 10 votes, so if you're a libertarian socialist you could spread your vote more accurately to promote your views. That way, there would be more libertarians, and more socialists, in a representative political body, and less boring corporate politicos.
TA: Are there any books you recommend to the 9/11 researcher or media critic out there?
SH: A lot of people have questions, because this guy used to be with LaRouche, but he broke with them, I'm talking about Webster Tarpley. He wrote "9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA" I learned a lot from this book. I highly recommend it. Tarpley's only major flaw is that he never saw a 9/11 conspiracy theory he didn't like, so he embraces all of them.
TA: What do you think of Air America?
SH: I think it's interesting to try to have left/liberal media supported by the free market, and the free market is obviously responding. But I also hate to have to listen to all the ads. There's got to be a way to reform the way that advertising saturates daily life. (go see hicksforgovernor.com, there's a great issue there: "adbusting.")
TA: Do any of their hosts impress you as honest investigators of truth, or are they just more Left-wingy versions of the same old predictable political chatterboxes we were used to before? Do you have a favorite talk radio personality?
SH: I want to say Randi Rhodes, or Mike Malloy, but despite all of their anger, they leave me longing for someone who has both passion AND some vision for the future. Both are so angry, they seem to lose focus.
TA: Okay, last question: Who do you think is more dangerous to our democracy, Karl Rove or Dick Cheney?
SH: Cheney. He's bloodthirsty and loves torture and is beyond caring who knows it. I met him, he seemed puffy and his skin was translucent. Like he was on heavy meds and had had heart attacks and strokes that hadn't leaked.
TA: Yuck. Well, on that note, Sander, I'd like to thank you for welcoming us into your world and the world of the 9/11 Truth Movement, as described in your book, "The Big Wedding: 9/11, the Whistle-Blowers and the Cover-Up", Vox Pop Publishing, 2005. We'd like to encourage all our readers to read the book and also they can check out your website, www.voxpopnet.net to learn more about you, your book, and your campaign for Governor of New York State.
[editor's note: Please buy Sander's book, for yourself or your neighborhood peace group. It's a great read, and the author is a creative small businessman trying to make a better world through peaceful means. Support your independent publishers and booksellers, and never stop seeking the truth!]
Yes, and for peace groups that want to buy the book as a fundraiser, we'll sell at 45% off for quantities of 10 or more! Contact the publisher directly at sander@voxpopnet.net
Hicks sells "The Big Wedding", as well as Webster Tarpley's book, "9/11: Synthetic Terror", at prices that beat Amazon and Barnes & Noble. You can find them at voxpopnet.net.
Inside the Book:
Book Jacket
Introduction
Chapter One - The Commentators
Chapter Two - The Investigators
Chapter Two - The Investigators
Every movement needs its truthseekers: individuals with courage to spare and an intense desire to see justice be done. These folks are the kind of journalists and investigators that the mainstream media should cultivate and immortalize, but because of the need to push official reality and sell consumer products, they are pushed to the bottom of any media stable and driven to alternative media outlets.
These individuals have risked their lives and their reputations to bring the truth to Americans on a variety of different issues, from the war in Iraq to 9/11 Truth and more.
Sander Hicks
Dahr Jamail
Gary Webb (deceased)
Inside the Book:
Book Jacket
Introduction
Chapter One - The Commentators
Chapter Three - The Agitators
These individuals have risked their lives and their reputations to bring the truth to Americans on a variety of different issues, from the war in Iraq to 9/11 Truth and more.
Sander Hicks
Dahr Jamail
Gary Webb (deceased)
Inside the Book:
Book Jacket
Introduction
Chapter One - The Commentators
Chapter Three - The Agitators
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)