[00:00.000 --> 00:06.560]  ...up there without any sort of safety, I mean, it's... that's just reckless endangerment.
[00:06.680 --> 00:14.580]  The company so far has no comment on the issue, and the county district attorney says he has received evidence and will look at it.
[00:15.140 --> 00:19.460]  Reporting for Free Speech Radio News in Northern California, this is Estelle Fennell.
[00:25.350 --> 00:27.230]  Well, okay, thank you very much for that.
[00:28.530 --> 00:30.130]  Apparently it's the end of the news.
[00:30.130 --> 00:32.930]  Anyways, you're listening to WBAI New York.
[00:34.070 --> 00:38.610]  I guess the theme music for Free Speech Radio News was confiscated as part of an investigation.
[00:39.630 --> 00:45.910]  This is Emmanuel Goldstein here, and we're at the beginning of two hours, a special two-hour edition of Off the Hook tonight.
[00:46.270 --> 00:46.990]  Stay tuned.
[00:52.350 --> 00:56.770]  The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
[00:57.770 --> 01:02.210]  I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
[01:02.910 --> 01:13.830]  We couldn't get much worse But if they could, they would But the best, expect the worst I hope that's understood But the best,
[02:14.180 --> 02:15.880]  expect the worst And a good evening to everybody.
[02:16.070 --> 02:17.160]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:17.360 --> 02:24.890]  I'm here with you for two hours tonight discussing all kinds of war-related things.
[02:26.040 --> 02:37.890]  The war-related illness known as mass media coverage that's taking place as we speak, you have a TV set on in here watching the mass media, and it's just, it's just pretty unbelievable.
[02:38.140 --> 02:39.380]  Bernie S joins us from Philadelphia.
[02:39.570 --> 02:40.100]  How you doing, Bernie?
[02:41.320 --> 02:41.720]  Bernie?
[02:42.780 --> 02:44.220]  Did we lose Bernie already?
[02:45.900 --> 02:46.700]  That's unbelievable.
[02:48.120 --> 02:48.980]  Well, he's not there.
[02:49.040 --> 02:50.740]  You see, I have the thing up, and I don't hear anything.
[02:50.860 --> 02:51.440]  Bernie, are you there?
[02:52.460 --> 02:52.780]  He's not there.
[02:52.780 --> 02:54.280]  That silence indicates that he's not there.
[02:55.180 --> 02:56.800]  Oh boy, we gotta do this all over again.
[02:56.980 --> 02:57.500]  He'll be back.
[02:58.380 --> 03:00.420]  You don't walk away from a cellular phone, you know.
[03:01.500 --> 03:04.480]  You don't hear that little, uh, you know, beeping noise that you get when people hang up.
[03:05.220 --> 03:05.520]  Hmm.
[03:05.860 --> 03:06.120]  Yeah.
[03:06.830 --> 03:09.500]  Um, okay, we'll have to call him back, uh, but, uh, Jeff is here.
[03:09.560 --> 03:10.000]  How you doing, Jeff?
[03:10.080 --> 03:10.460]  I'm good.
[03:10.700 --> 03:10.830]  Yeah?
[03:11.020 --> 03:12.820]  Been watching much of the news in the last week?
[03:12.960 --> 03:14.330]  Every, every bit that I can.
[03:14.500 --> 03:14.620]  Mm-hmm.
[03:14.820 --> 03:17.000]  Uh, it's interesting, especially late at night.
[03:17.480 --> 03:22.500]  The, the, the thing that killed me last night was the, just, just how, how close we can get to the war.
[03:22.780 --> 03:23.000]  Mm-hmm.
[03:23.160 --> 03:27.920]  How, how you can act, they're actually interviewing the soldiers that are wounded right there on the field.
[03:28.040 --> 03:28.800]  As they get wounded.
[03:28.940 --> 03:30.260]  Yes, and letting them call home.
[03:30.320 --> 03:31.060]  You've just been shot.
[03:31.180 --> 03:31.860]  How does that feel?
[03:32.080 --> 03:32.380]  Yeah, yeah.
[03:32.380 --> 03:33.400]  How, how are you with that?
[03:33.960 --> 03:41.160]  You know, I mean, it's, it's, it's almost funny how pathetic it is, uh, that, uh, it's, it's being treated as some kind of a spectator sport.
[03:41.600 --> 03:43.700]  Now, you know, I, I, I try not to watch Fox News.
[03:43.840 --> 03:44.320]  I really do.
[03:44.320 --> 03:51.480]  I, I make an effort, but sometimes I stop just to like, see what those bozos are up to, what they're saying, you know, how they're reporting things.
[03:51.660 --> 04:00.680]  And before the war, it really was like a countdown to the Super Bowl that just the way they were talking, you know, the, the, the expressions, you know, well, we're going to come at them from this end.
[04:00.840 --> 04:08.080]  And I think, uh, you know, our, our defense will be, uh, you know, up to par and, uh, these guys aren't really a match for us, but it's going to get tough in the second half, especially.
[04:08.080 --> 04:15.700]  So we just have to hang in there and we, uh, we appreciate all the support of the fans back home, you know, and, uh, it was, it was absurd.
[04:16.030 --> 04:26.020]  It's, it's, it's so insane when you realize that what we're talking about here is war, you know, people, uh, bombing things and shooting people and, and all kinds of horrors like that.
[04:26.460 --> 04:29.580]  I mean, the American people really seem to have been desensitized to it.
[04:30.240 --> 04:47.220]  Um, and I, I, I can't think of something that, that, um, shows that better than, than the way, the reaction to what has been going on, uh, with the pictures coming back of, um, our wounded and killed soldiers and in fact detained soldiers, um, how people have reacted to that.
[04:47.760 --> 04:49.060]  I find extraordinary.
[04:49.640 --> 04:51.860]  Um, it's almost, it's almost surreal.
[04:52.080 --> 04:58.910]  Well, I mean, people are outraged that, uh, you know, that video is being shown of, uh, of, of, you know, dead soldiers.
[04:59.270 --> 05:04.100]  And of course we show videos of, of dead soldiers all the time in this country when it's other countries.
[05:04.100 --> 05:14.200]  If there's a civil war someplace, you know, if there's a massacre in, in Rwanda or something like that, no problem showing, you know, piles of dead people, you know, flies circling over them and all kinds of things like that.
[05:14.320 --> 05:15.000]  It's, it's disgusting.
[05:15.140 --> 05:16.260]  It's horrible, but we show it.
[05:16.440 --> 05:23.960]  But this time, because we're talking about people that are, you know, fighting for our way of life, uh, you know, anybody who shows something like that is a barbarian.
[05:25.300 --> 05:30.680]  What's barbaric is what's happening is, It's the fact that this is happening in the first place, that it's come to this.
[05:30.920 --> 05:37.880]  That's what's barbaric, and that's what I think we're missing by, you know, watching the mass media and just seeing one perspective.
[05:39.200 --> 05:40.220]  Now, I'm lucky.
[05:40.420 --> 05:48.940]  Actually, a lot of people in this area are lucky because they've had, like, some kind of different perspective that they can look at.
[05:49.080 --> 05:54.360]  Here in Manhattan on cable TV, there's a channel called the Arabic Network, I believe, or the Arabic Channel, I'm not sure which.
[05:54.360 --> 05:55.980]  I was watching them earlier today.
[05:56.440 --> 06:03.880]  They had an English-language broadcast, which, you know, showed a bit more from the Iraqi perspective.
[06:05.280 --> 06:09.060]  And, of course, they show Arabic-language programming at other times.
[06:10.420 --> 06:14.360]  And there have been more foreign broadcasts aired in this country.
[06:14.440 --> 06:19.940]  I believe Channel 21 has been airing BBC World almost all the time, up until the last few days.
[06:20.560 --> 06:26.040]  And it's amazing how many people have mentioned this to me, like, like, wow, you know, finally I can see another perspective.
[06:26.140 --> 06:28.180]  And it's weird because, you know, that country is at war, too.
[06:28.360 --> 06:30.660]  That country is part of the two-country coalition.
[06:31.160 --> 06:33.880]  I mean, they call it a 45-country coalition, but...
[06:35.860 --> 06:44.920]  Apparently, some other countries, the Poles, for instance, have been sending soldiers and not telling their own people, which is a rather bizarre behavior, I think.
[06:44.980 --> 06:46.580]  Where have you seen that?
[06:46.760 --> 06:50.060]  This was in the newspaper the other day.
[06:50.420 --> 06:51.040]  Which paper?
[06:51.040 --> 06:52.440]  I believe the Times.
[06:52.720 --> 06:53.360]  It must have been.
[06:53.440 --> 06:54.240]  That's the only one I read.
[06:54.460 --> 06:54.680]  Uh-huh.
[06:56.360 --> 07:06.440]  That they've sent about a thousand Polish soldiers, some elite unit, and they never told anyone until some people saw it on television.
[07:08.380 --> 07:09.260]  That's bizarre.
[07:09.520 --> 07:09.760]  Yeah.
[07:09.760 --> 07:10.980]  The Polish government is actually doing that.
[07:11.060 --> 07:13.100]  We're calling Bernie S again in case people couldn't tell by the noises.
[07:13.680 --> 07:14.440]  Doing two things at once.
[07:15.440 --> 07:16.260]  Isn't that nice?
[07:16.840 --> 07:17.700]  Isn't that nice?
[07:17.780 --> 07:18.220]  He's busy.
[07:18.500 --> 07:19.180]  He's not busy.
[07:19.180 --> 07:20.040]  He doesn't have circuits busy.
[07:20.640 --> 07:22.080]  All circuits to Bernie S are busy.
[07:23.320 --> 07:23.540]  All right.
[07:23.600 --> 07:24.480]  Let's try this one more time.
[07:25.200 --> 07:28.840]  And this time we'll have to be a little bit more upfront about it.
[07:30.180 --> 07:32.740]  Because Bernie did have a lot of material for us.
[07:36.580 --> 07:37.380]  Yeah, but...
[07:37.380 --> 07:37.980]  Okay, here we go.
[07:38.060 --> 07:39.160]  A special secret code here.
[07:42.230 --> 07:43.030]  And hopefully...
[07:43.030 --> 07:44.870]  What would happen if everyone knew that code?
[07:45.330 --> 07:45.970]  I don't know.
[07:46.050 --> 07:46.870]  I just learned it myself.
[07:46.870 --> 07:47.350]  I don't know about that.
[07:52.170 --> 07:52.490]  Hello?
[07:52.810 --> 07:53.530]  Bernie, how are you doing?
[07:53.970 --> 07:54.450]  I'm okay.
[07:54.650 --> 07:56.390]  Spring PCS is not okay, though.
[07:56.610 --> 07:58.310]  Yeah, I've been having a lot of trouble with them lately.
[07:58.870 --> 08:02.530]  They've been cutting off phone calls in the middle, and it's very hard to get circuits for some reason.
[08:02.750 --> 08:03.250]  That's what happened.
[08:03.390 --> 08:04.130]  Sorry for the inconvenience.
[08:04.130 --> 08:05.530]  You'd think there was a war going on or something.
[08:06.550 --> 08:08.370]  So, Bernie, we're talking about mass media here.
[08:08.370 --> 08:11.790]  We're talking about how they've been covering this war.
[08:12.790 --> 08:20.670]  Have you had any particular kinds of experience lately, watching alternative views or mainstream views or anything like that?
[08:20.850 --> 08:28.350]  Well, actually, I've been keeping both of them up simultaneously, just to get a comparison.
[08:28.350 --> 08:31.370]  And I sort of turn the audio from one off while I listen to the other.
[08:31.470 --> 08:39.530]  First, I'll listen to shortwave stations from other countries while I have CNN or Disney News, otherwise known as ABC News.
[08:39.810 --> 08:40.150]  Thank you.
[08:40.230 --> 08:40.490]  Thank you.
[08:40.570 --> 08:43.110]  I appreciate when people say Disney News, because that is what it is.
[08:43.390 --> 08:52.190]  Well, I love it at the end of ABC Evening News, where they say more people get their news from ABC News than from any other source.
[08:52.410 --> 08:54.690]  They've been saying that for decades, and I don't know what it means.
[08:54.690 --> 08:55.710]  What does that mean, exactly?
[08:56.090 --> 08:58.470]  Well, whether it's true or not, they really should say...
[08:58.470 --> 09:00.130]  Oh, no, they say more Americans.
[09:00.270 --> 09:03.650]  More Americans get their news from ABC News than from any other source.
[09:03.750 --> 09:08.350]  But really, it should be more Americans get their news from Disney than from any other source.
[09:08.470 --> 09:10.070]  And that's a scary statement.
[09:11.410 --> 09:12.470]  Yes, it certainly is.
[09:12.730 --> 09:15.850]  Now, all the networks, though, have their own little saying.
[09:16.010 --> 09:19.230]  Like, CNN just recently started their most trusted news.
[09:19.870 --> 09:20.690]  I wonder how they...
[09:20.690 --> 09:21.070]  What in God?
[09:21.170 --> 09:22.010]  How do you measure trust?
[09:22.110 --> 09:22.790]  How do you do that?
[09:23.430 --> 09:24.670]  Well, I don't trust them that much.
[09:24.690 --> 09:32.150]  After my experience over the past week, listening to Shortwave and listening to CNN at the same time, there's a big disparity.
[09:32.590 --> 09:38.790]  And CNN seems to be losing in the credibility war on that.
[09:39.010 --> 09:44.270]  Yeah, but Bernie, what's pathetic about that is that CNN is really the best that American media, American mass media has to offer.
[09:44.430 --> 09:47.110]  You know, if you compare it to Fox, fair and balanced.
[09:47.510 --> 09:48.250]  I mean, good lord.
[09:48.250 --> 09:56.010]  And you know that they can do a better job, too, because the CNN world feed is actually a lot better.
[09:57.110 --> 10:11.690]  When I was in Germany for the CCC Congress a few months ago with Jeff and yourself and a bunch of other people, I got a chance to enjoy CNN world, and it was comparably much more objective than CNN American.
[10:13.110 --> 10:13.890]  Yeah, absolutely.
[10:14.230 --> 10:22.190]  You know, that feed comes out of Atlanta, and it's not seen in this country, except on the weekends on the CNN FM network when they don't have financial news.
[10:22.790 --> 10:25.910]  But, yeah, it is a bit more intelligent.
[10:26.090 --> 10:31.110]  It assumes you know something about world events, so it's the closest to alternative news you might find.
[10:31.270 --> 10:33.370]  But mainstream, mainstream news.
[10:33.630 --> 10:39.990]  I mean, Jeff and I were just talking about how this war has been covered from the front lines.
[10:40.190 --> 10:45.130]  Literally, you have reporters riding on tanks as they are advancing into enemy territory.
[10:45.810 --> 10:49.410]  And how weird is that, you know, to see that kind of a thing?
[10:49.410 --> 10:54.050]  And, of course, the reporter is not going to be at all impartial there.
[10:54.330 --> 10:58.270]  I heard one the other day describing the scene as beautiful.
[10:58.710 --> 11:02.630]  The scene of advancing tanks across the desert as a beautiful sight.
[11:02.850 --> 11:10.630]  I heard one reporter was talking with Aaron Brown of CNN live while they were moving with troops.
[11:10.830 --> 11:13.110]  And he was actually riding in a Humvee.
[11:13.110 --> 11:15.450]  And the reporter was so excited.
[11:15.590 --> 11:21.110]  He just thought, you know, and this was great that he was really participating in a great event.
[11:21.310 --> 11:26.210]  And Aaron Brown was expressing his glee and grinning ear to ear.
[11:26.350 --> 11:31.290]  How this was just fantastic that a CNN reporter was riding along with the U.S.
[11:31.330 --> 11:31.630]  soldiers.
[11:31.690 --> 11:32.630]  And it's like, wait a minute.
[11:32.790 --> 11:34.250]  We're covering a war here.
[11:34.390 --> 11:36.150]  We're not, like, this is not a fan club.
[11:36.650 --> 11:36.930]  Mm-hmm.
[11:37.530 --> 11:39.350]  Well, it sort of is, actually.
[11:39.350 --> 11:40.510]  That's what it's turned into.
[11:40.650 --> 11:41.750]  It's not summer camp.
[11:41.890 --> 11:46.510]  No, but, of course, all the reporters are being very careful as far as what information they give out.
[11:47.170 --> 11:48.110]  Which I can understand.
[11:48.270 --> 11:51.250]  I don't want to give out information that might be used to hurt people.
[11:51.350 --> 11:56.050]  But the information in the other direction, I think, would be given out readily.
[11:56.050 --> 11:58.890]  Information that would help us to hurt the people that we want to hurt.
[12:00.030 --> 12:00.750]  So it's...
[12:00.750 --> 12:01.670]  I don't want to hurt anybody.
[12:01.670 --> 12:04.630]  Yeah, well, unfortunately, your representatives are.
[12:04.770 --> 12:05.290]  And they do.
[12:05.410 --> 12:06.210]  They do want to hurt people.
[12:06.370 --> 12:07.870]  And that's what's happening right now as we speak.
[12:10.550 --> 12:10.950]  It's...
[12:11.610 --> 12:12.950]  It affects the reporting.
[12:13.150 --> 12:14.910]  And the reporting becomes very biased.
[12:15.010 --> 12:17.070]  And the tragedy is that we do not see that here.
[12:17.170 --> 12:18.670]  We actually don't realize that.
[12:18.810 --> 12:19.930]  And I think that's...
[12:20.470 --> 12:24.110]  That has been pictured better than anything in the Al Jazeera story.
[12:24.810 --> 12:29.290]  Now, today we ran a story on the 2600 site about what was going on with Al Jazeera.
[12:29.290 --> 12:31.770]  And for those who don't know, we get all kinds of mail about this.
[12:32.230 --> 12:36.730]  For some reason, people think hackers can control everything that goes on in the world.
[12:36.910 --> 12:37.650]  And if something is unfair...
[12:37.650 --> 12:38.390]  Wait, we can't?
[12:38.830 --> 12:39.770]  No, we can't.
[12:39.950 --> 12:43.850]  If something is unfair, we can just smite it and, you know, make it go away.
[12:44.710 --> 12:51.210]  When the American spy plane was shot down over China, we got all this mail from people wanting us to, you know, take China off the net.
[12:51.290 --> 12:51.930]  Yeah, okay, no problem.
[12:52.010 --> 12:52.870]  Take China off the net.
[12:52.950 --> 12:53.430]  We can do that.
[12:53.570 --> 12:54.470]  Sure, we want to do that.
[12:55.070 --> 13:07.770]  But these people seem to think that we have some kind of moral obligation to stand up, you know, to this foreign nation and take them off the internet as if that's going to accomplish anything anyway except to, you know, to silence another voice.
[13:08.650 --> 13:18.830]  And as we mentioned in the story, when we did a little, you know, trace route and looked at the IP addresses of the people sending us the mail, you know, something was coming from Hotmail, but their regular IP was sent along with it.
[13:19.450 --> 13:25.510]  Every single time, without exception, and I was impressed by this, every single one went to a .mil address, a military address of some sort.
[13:25.630 --> 13:32.210]  So you have these people, you know, these bored soldiers someplace, either in the United States or abroad, that want us to play along.
[13:32.410 --> 13:33.430]  I can sort of understand it.
[13:33.430 --> 13:34.070]  I mean, they're bored.
[13:34.190 --> 13:36.590]  They want more people to play the game with them.
[13:37.170 --> 13:45.030]  But the thing is to assume that computer hackers are part of this army, or, you know, cyber soldiers, it's a very bad assumption.
[13:45.030 --> 13:55.990]  And it's something that I think can only lead to bad things, to the government expecting every time something happens that hackers are going to be another resource.
[13:57.470 --> 14:02.570]  It's not that way, it doesn't work that way, because hackers, as a rule, tend to be individual thinkers.
[14:03.190 --> 14:06.750]  And we come up with all kinds of different conclusions, that's why we can never agree on anything.
[14:08.810 --> 14:10.390]  So, it didn't surprise me.
[14:10.470 --> 14:12.910]  Well, it didn't surprise me what happened yesterday.
[14:13.270 --> 14:18.630]  Al Jazeera is the Arabic news channel that comes out of Qatar.
[14:18.970 --> 14:21.410]  And Qatar, by the way, is one of our allies, last I checked.
[14:22.050 --> 14:26.370]  We've got all kinds of soldiers over there, and they're, you know, helping give us information, that kind of thing.
[14:27.750 --> 14:30.970]  It's probably one of the more westernized Arab countries.
[14:31.090 --> 14:31.590]  They are.
[14:31.730 --> 14:34.950]  And, actually, Al Jazeera is a westernized television network.
[14:34.950 --> 14:38.490]  If you look at them, if you watch them, you'll see they have stock market updates.
[14:39.310 --> 14:43.150]  I mean, that's, you know, kind of a bit westernized to me.
[14:43.490 --> 14:45.850]  From the NASDAQ floor, as a matter of fact.
[14:45.950 --> 14:46.250]  Well...
[14:46.250 --> 14:49.750]  They have a building right in Times Square until recently.
[14:49.750 --> 14:50.330]  Mm-hmm.
[14:50.450 --> 15:01.790]  The interesting thing is that a Al Jazeera reporter was denied access to the New York Stock Exchange a couple of days ago, right here on Wall Street, because he was seen as an enemy correspondent or something like that.
[15:01.850 --> 15:05.050]  I think Mayor Bloomberg spoke out against that today.
[15:05.050 --> 15:07.450]  I don't know if that's actually true, but I heard somebody say that.
[15:08.550 --> 15:13.410]  And hopefully that person will get their credentials back and not be treated like, you know, an outcast.
[15:13.410 --> 15:19.750]  Yeah, the NASDAQ board has said that they are not reconsidering their decision.
[15:20.210 --> 15:21.230]  Yeah, how about that?
[15:22.330 --> 15:23.430]  That's unbelievable.
[15:23.810 --> 15:35.430]  So, now, this network has been viewed with hostility by many people in this country, probably because of the way their name sounds, but also because they speak that bizarre language that we don't understand.
[15:35.430 --> 15:46.410]  And they show pictures that we have problems with, namely the pictures of our wounded, maybe even tortured, and certainly killed soldiers that are over there.
[15:46.550 --> 15:47.870]  We don't want to see that.
[15:48.090 --> 15:52.130]  We don't want to see, you know, people on our side suffering.
[15:52.370 --> 15:56.450]  We just want to, you know, see the CNN reports of people riding on tanks and describing it as a beautiful scene.
[15:56.630 --> 15:59.410]  We don't want to see piles of bodies lying in the ground.
[15:59.410 --> 16:02.150]  We don't want to see people with black eyes who look scared to death.
[16:03.270 --> 16:05.790]  I mean, that sort of takes all the fun out of war.
[16:07.150 --> 16:08.610]  We certainly don't want that.
[16:08.670 --> 16:11.710]  And anybody who airs something like that has to be silenced.
[16:12.030 --> 16:14.190]  And as of yesterday, that is what happened.
[16:14.310 --> 16:28.630]  Somebody took it upon themselves, and I don't know where these people are or who they, you know, have contact with, but the English language version of Al Jazeera, which launched, I believe, Monday, was taken off the net, along with Al Jazeera itself.
[16:28.630 --> 16:32.150]  It's spelled A-L-J-A-R-E-E-Z-A dot net.
[16:33.130 --> 16:34.590]  You can't get to that site at all.
[16:34.750 --> 16:40.310]  Even if you could read Arabic, you don't have the opportunity anymore from the United States, because the United States servers...
[16:40.310 --> 16:45.910]  It was up, but the English version was, the English.aljazeera.net site was up yesterday.
[16:46.210 --> 16:47.610]  Okay, see, I didn't even get to it.
[16:47.690 --> 16:48.530]  I didn't get to it at all.
[16:49.330 --> 16:53.610]  It was up when I emailed you about it, Emmanuel, but about two hours later, it went down.
[16:53.610 --> 16:58.150]  All right, I'm typing it in right now, live, on the air, to see if anything has changed.
[16:58.150 --> 16:58.730]  A lot of you know you had to...
[16:58.730 --> 17:00.350]  Yeah, a lot has changed.
[17:00.690 --> 17:01.190]  That's great.
[17:01.430 --> 17:04.490]  Yeah, we're plunging into the 90s here, WBAI.
[17:06.410 --> 17:08.950]  Okay, I'm trying for the English head first.
[17:09.190 --> 17:12.310]  Yeah, this is not, just for the listeners at home, this is not www.
[17:12.690 --> 17:19.290]  It's http colon slash slash English dot Al Jazeera dot net.
[17:19.530 --> 17:22.210]  A-L-J-A-Z-E-E-R-A dot net.
[17:22.210 --> 17:26.790]  And I'm getting, okay, according to this, it says we can't find English dot Al Jazeera dot net.
[17:27.050 --> 17:28.730]  Like, the name server isn't even up.
[17:29.330 --> 17:30.970]  So, it's not even resolving.
[17:31.270 --> 17:39.690]  Now, if I try www.al Jazeera, I suspect it's just going to time out, which is really frustrating.
[17:39.890 --> 17:40.690]  It's really frustrating.
[17:40.950 --> 17:47.490]  Now, of course, they are the TV network that aired the video that aired on...
[17:48.810 --> 17:50.070]  What in the world is this?
[17:51.190 --> 17:56.150]  I'm getting a, I'm getting a, this doesn't make any sense.
[17:56.330 --> 18:00.270]  I'm getting some kind of weird, unless I misspelled it.
[18:00.370 --> 18:00.670]  Oh, I did.
[18:00.750 --> 18:01.670]  I didn't put a dot there.
[18:01.790 --> 18:01.930]  Okay.
[18:03.150 --> 18:05.790]  I was getting like, you know, one of those sites you get...
[18:05.790 --> 18:06.690]  One of the parked sites.
[18:06.870 --> 18:10.870]  Yeah, a parked domain type of a thing where you can have this site if you pay money.
[18:11.750 --> 18:15.810]  Okay, now it's not doing anything, which is, which means it's going, trying to go to the real site.
[18:17.350 --> 18:20.330]  So, anyway, Rocky TV aired these, these videos.
[18:20.850 --> 18:22.250]  And, of course, they were very disturbing.
[18:22.730 --> 18:29.670]  They, they were re-aired on, on a couple of different networks, including TV5 in, in France.
[18:29.670 --> 18:34.330]  It's, um, and I think Telemundo here in the United States actually aired part of it, if not all of it.
[18:35.050 --> 18:36.030]  Uh, and...
[18:36.030 --> 18:37.950]  Filipino, uh, Filipino TV aired it.
[18:38.070 --> 18:45.970]  And, in fact, the mothers of one of the POWs actually, uh, first learned of her son being, uh, held prisoner on Filipino television.
[18:46.370 --> 18:46.650]  Mm-hmm.
[18:48.070 --> 18:55.890]  Uh, so it has been aired around the world, but what's happened is, uh, Al Jazeera has been targeted, um, as, I guess, the bringer of bad news or something.
[18:56.390 --> 19:00.690]  Uh, and, uh, they're being treated as if they're the ones who are torturing people.
[19:00.910 --> 19:10.850]  They're the ones who have killed soldiers, uh, when, in actuality, what they're doing is, uh, presenting a video, which I think we would have no hesitation of presenting if it was, um, other people in other countries.
[19:11.590 --> 19:16.890]  And, uh, I find, personally, I find that abhorrent that, uh, that, uh, such information is being censored.
[19:17.010 --> 19:26.170]  I, I'm certainly not eager to go out and see the video, but I'm damned if, uh, I'm gonna let somebody tell me that I can't see the video, that, uh, this information is going to be, uh, kept from me.
[19:26.630 --> 19:32.710]  Uh, if people out there want to see it, they should have that right, uh, they should have the ability to, uh, you know, to, to look at this kind of thing.
[19:32.710 --> 19:33.770]  What about the relatives, they say?
[19:33.850 --> 19:36.670]  What about the, you know, the people seeing their, their butchered children?
[19:36.790 --> 19:38.530]  Yes, well, you know, they shouldn't see it.
[19:38.530 --> 19:40.930]  But they shouldn't be seeing anything, I don't think.
[19:41.010 --> 19:42.030]  They shouldn't be watching the news.
[19:42.070 --> 19:48.010]  They should be trying to just get through life right now because what they're going through is hell I can't even imagine.
[19:49.090 --> 19:54.310]  But things get a lot worse when you try and control the media.
[19:55.090 --> 19:59.610]  Now, Mike, I believe you were telling me that Indymedia already has the video.
[19:59.770 --> 20:00.090]  Is that right?
[20:00.410 --> 20:06.330]  Yeah, someone posted to the open New York City Indymedia Newswire the video in question.
[20:06.330 --> 20:07.090]  Mm-hmm.
[20:07.430 --> 20:08.930]  Okay, so how would people find that?
[20:09.150 --> 20:11.530]  Well, it's on that screen.
[20:11.690 --> 20:13.130]  So if you go back a few pages...
[20:13.130 --> 20:14.890]  Actually, it's not anymore, but...
[20:14.890 --> 20:17.990]  Well, if you go back to wherever it was...
[20:17.990 --> 20:19.110]  I'm heading back over and over again.
[20:19.210 --> 20:19.890]  I'm just getting ads.
[20:21.170 --> 20:24.790]  But people can go to nyc.indymedia.org, right?
[20:24.970 --> 20:25.130]  Right.
[20:25.390 --> 20:26.730]  And what would they search for?
[20:26.890 --> 20:29.530]  Oh, well, I don't know if our search button is currently working.
[20:29.570 --> 20:29.870]  Okay.
[20:31.370 --> 20:39.930]  But if they go down to the open newswire on the right hand, if they hit the bottom, they can page back a couple days.
[20:39.950 --> 20:41.930]  It's about a day or so old at this point.
[20:42.090 --> 20:51.110]  I'll tell you what, if anybody out there has Al Jazeera, has seen it, you know, because you can receive Al Jazeera in the United States on the Dish Network.
[20:51.370 --> 20:55.630]  But of course, I know we have a lot of listeners around the world who can also pick it up.
[20:55.950 --> 20:57.710]  Somebody out there must have recorded this.
[20:58.110 --> 21:06.790]  And if it comes down to us having to provide this information to people and send it to, you know... And all the news organizations also have gotten it too.
[21:06.970 --> 21:16.670]  So if people at news organizations have the video that they wish to, you know, to give to people that don't believe in censorship, then by all means do that.
[21:16.910 --> 21:19.170]  But then how long before we're shut off?
[21:19.430 --> 21:20.130]  Well, I don't know.
[21:20.250 --> 21:20.330]  Yeah.
[21:20.450 --> 21:22.230]  Obviously, we're going to become the target then too.
[21:22.390 --> 21:27.430]  But I think, you know, it's important to speak out and say, you know, you may not agree with what is being shown.
[21:27.570 --> 21:29.570]  You may not, you know, endorse that.
[21:29.630 --> 21:30.870]  I can't imagine the kind of people who would.
[21:31.150 --> 21:40.950]  But, you know, people should see what war is and not cover up their eyes and see it as this, like, football game, which is how it's being presented on the mass media.
[21:41.690 --> 21:49.770]  It's, you know, that to me is as much of an affront to our basic rights as any kind of, you know, bloodshed.
[21:49.770 --> 21:51.790]  Isn't that why they're dying over there?
[21:52.510 --> 21:53.990]  What, to protect Fox News?
[21:54.210 --> 21:56.370]  To protect our rights to see these things.
[21:57.030 --> 21:58.610]  Well, that's, that's what they keep saying.
[21:58.790 --> 22:01.310]  You know, that's, that's, that's what I keep hearing, that that's why they're over there.
[22:01.390 --> 22:02.470]  But, you know, you hear all different reasons.
[22:02.550 --> 22:03.170]  You hear that reason.
[22:03.290 --> 22:05.050]  You hear the reason that they're there to liberate people.
[22:05.710 --> 22:08.210]  The reason is to stop weapons of mass destruction.
[22:08.710 --> 22:14.590]  The reason is for, you know, because Saddam Hussein poses a threat, et cetera, et cetera.
[22:14.910 --> 22:16.630]  And, I don't know.
[22:16.710 --> 22:17.970]  I think we're not hearing the real reason.
[22:18.230 --> 22:19.910]  Push up Hal Burton's stock price.
[22:20.090 --> 22:20.550]  I'm sorry, what?
[22:20.710 --> 22:22.210]  Push up Hal Burton's stock price.
[22:22.350 --> 22:22.870]  Oh, that too.
[22:23.010 --> 22:23.370]  Yes, Bernie.
[22:24.630 --> 22:28.590]  Listeners at home should know that Al Jazeera is available for free.
[22:28.590 --> 22:31.490]  It's a free-to-air satellite broadcast.
[22:32.270 --> 22:48.290]  If you want to research that, just in a search engine, just type in free-to-air and Al Jazeera, and you can find, for probably about $300 worth of equipment, you can purchase a satellite receiver and a DBS dish and receive Al Jazeera free-to-air.
[22:48.290 --> 23:06.810]  That is, without paying any money to DirecTV or having to go through any intermediaries who could cut off the feed to you, about three weeks ago, I was at the annual Winterfest conference in Culpsville, Pennsylvania, and there was a great demonstration of free-to-air satellite television.
[23:07.090 --> 23:14.850]  I was watching Al Jazeera, and it was coming directly from the satellite transmission from Al Jazeera, and it was pretty interesting.
[23:15.030 --> 23:16.190]  You don't have to pay anybody.
[23:16.190 --> 23:29.050]  Also, interesting thing, that Al Jazeera is also going to be launching an English-language TV station as well, or I'm not sure if they're going to be doing that in addition to the Arabic one, or if they're just going to be translating the Arabic one, but that's going to be starting fairly soon as well.
[23:29.330 --> 23:32.330]  God knows what kind of reaction that's going to get from people.
[23:32.730 --> 23:40.010]  If you are interested in getting it on Dish Network, though, you can receive that by subscribing to something known as the Arabic Elite Pack.
[23:40.010 --> 23:47.350]  That's what they call it, the Arabic Elite Pack, and you get all kinds of... I think you get seven different channels, Al Jazeera being one of them.
[23:48.710 --> 24:00.890]  And, you know, this is all in the interest of seeing different perspectives from different parts of the world, and understanding, you know, I guess, how other people think, how other cultures exist.
[24:00.890 --> 24:09.230]  And Al Jazeera has, you know, a reputation over there as, you know, being somewhat moderate as far as their opinions go.
[24:09.410 --> 24:17.950]  They get all kinds of criticism from various countries over there for, you know, portraying Israel in a non-negative light many times, or for just being westernized.
[24:17.990 --> 24:20.170]  I mean, they have a stock ticker on the bottom of their screen, you know?
[24:20.450 --> 24:21.050]  Game shows.
[24:21.290 --> 24:22.670]  There's game shows, there's commercials.
[24:22.810 --> 24:24.030]  They have game shows on a news network?
[24:24.530 --> 24:26.390]  No, game shows on Al Jazeera.
[24:26.590 --> 24:27.490]  Well, that's a news network.
[24:27.950 --> 24:28.170]  Mm-hmm.
[24:29.090 --> 24:35.070]  No, there's... that network, there are... I was listening to an Arabic woman talking about Al Jazeera.
[24:35.290 --> 24:47.470]  There are... the company that... I'm sorry, the company that owns Al Jazeera also broadcasts very westernized programming in Qatar, including the game shows, commercials.
[24:47.710 --> 24:48.910]  This really isn't a justification.
[24:48.930 --> 24:57.350]  Even if they were not westernized, I think people still have the right to see alternative views and to seek things out on their own.
[24:57.450 --> 24:58.430]  It's much like shortwave.
[24:58.590 --> 25:00.170]  I mean, Bernie, you've been listening to shortwave recently.
[25:01.210 --> 25:02.530]  What kinds of things have you been hearing?
[25:03.370 --> 25:17.450]  The night that the great offensive began, I think it was that last Thursday evening, when the ultimatum, the 48-hour deadline, came to an end.
[25:17.690 --> 25:18.090]  Wednesday.
[25:18.090 --> 25:19.030]  Was that last Thursday, I believe?
[25:19.150 --> 25:21.130]  Well, it was right after our show, actually.
[25:21.230 --> 25:23.070]  So it was 8 o'clock last Wednesday.
[25:23.070 --> 25:23.750]  That's right, that's right.
[25:23.750 --> 25:24.530]  It was Wednesday night.
[25:24.710 --> 25:31.930]  I was watching CNN, and actually it was Thursday, I'm talking about.
[25:31.930 --> 25:32.790]  It was the day after that.
[25:32.910 --> 25:42.750]  I was watching CNN, and I had on, listening to Radio Deutsche Welle, it's a German shortwave news broadcast, and I was also listening to the Voice of Russia.
[25:42.950 --> 25:48.190]  And the Voice of Russia announced that there were oil wells burning.
[25:50.330 --> 25:51.770]  But Bernie, let me just step in for a second.
[25:51.910 --> 25:58.250]  CNN, at this very moment, their headline reads, Al Jazeera is reporting civilian casualties somewhere.
[25:58.510 --> 26:01.630]  So CNN has been relying on Al Jazeera for all kinds of information.
[26:01.770 --> 26:03.410]  And CNN's been kicked out of Baghdad.
[26:03.550 --> 26:05.410]  That's, you know, that tells you something there.
[26:05.410 --> 26:05.730]  Oh, really?
[26:05.810 --> 26:06.310]  That's interesting.
[26:06.490 --> 26:07.530]  Yeah, they got kicked out of Baghdad.
[26:07.610 --> 26:09.930]  In fact, here's another interesting note.
[26:09.930 --> 26:16.010]  But shortly after they got kicked out of Baghdad, they were talking to a reporter who was over there.
[26:16.090 --> 26:22.430]  And she was... her last name was Welsh, and I know she comes from New York, and I don't remember the rest of her name.
[26:24.050 --> 26:35.830]  But she was talking about how terrifying it is to be in a city where things are being bombed, how people actually live near these government buildings, and that this information is not being reported, and there must be all kinds of casualties.
[26:35.830 --> 26:39.530]  And I was listening, and I was saying, wow, someone's actually saying this kind of thing.
[26:39.650 --> 26:41.550]  How is this... how are they getting away with that?
[26:41.590 --> 26:45.310]  And I looked up the person's name, and sure enough, they had done work for Free Speech TV.
[26:45.690 --> 26:47.470]  And apparently CNN didn't know this.
[26:47.610 --> 26:50.030]  And they let her talk for about 25 minutes.
[26:50.130 --> 26:56.030]  In all fairness to them, I think it was, you know, somewhat balanced, because you actually heard a different perspective.
[26:56.250 --> 27:01.670]  But the reason why you heard that perspective was because their reporter had been kicked out of Baghdad, so they had to rely on the people who were still there.
[27:01.670 --> 27:17.110]  If you want to... if people want a good perspective on American media and how it doesn't report some information or it's not current information, the example I gave last week, last Thursday, I was listening to the Voice of Russia while I was watching CNN.
[27:17.430 --> 27:30.010]  The Voice of Russia had reported that there were oil wells burning in Iraq, and it wasn't until several hours later that CNN broke the story as a breaking news thing several hours later.
[27:30.010 --> 27:42.190]  So you can, you know, with a, you know, $50, $100, $100 shortwave receiver, you can pick up news that's going to scoop CNN, scoop virtually every other American media outlet.
[27:43.230 --> 27:50.770]  Then a couple nights later I heard an amazing thing on BBC World Service on shortwave.
[27:51.090 --> 27:56.110]  I'm surprised it was British, which is one of the combatants in this on the American government side.
[27:56.110 --> 28:03.210]  And this is a British reporter who was actually, you know, one of these embedded reporters who's with the American troops.
[28:03.410 --> 28:06.870]  He was retreating with American troops.
[28:06.870 --> 28:13.330]  They just ran into a bunch of Iraqi soldiers, and they were outnumbered.
[28:13.690 --> 28:17.110]  So they were actually in hot retreat, retreating.
[28:17.110 --> 28:24.630]  And this BBC reporter is on his satellite phone saying, this is amazing, we're outnumbered, we're retreating, we're running away.
[28:24.790 --> 28:29.150]  And this is live over shortwave on BBC World Service.
[28:29.350 --> 28:31.290]  You would not hear that on American media.
[28:32.130 --> 28:33.410]  No, absolutely not.
[28:33.710 --> 28:43.670]  And in fact, speaking of BBC, I was watching them late last week, and they were the first to report that Turkish troops were entering northern Iraq.
[28:44.370 --> 28:57.030]  And they even reported that the United States, the United States military had said pretty directly to them that if you do that, you may very well find yourself being fired upon by the United States troops.
[28:57.350 --> 28:57.770]  Wow.
[28:57.870 --> 29:00.910]  And that was unbelievable that, you know, it was actually coming to that point.
[29:00.990 --> 29:12.830]  I mean, it's something that I expected, something that I think anybody with, you know, a fifth grade mentality would be able to see coming, because you've had all the animosity between Kurds and Turks up there for quite some time.
[29:13.670 --> 29:16.330]  That was not reported on CNN for another 12 hours.
[29:16.690 --> 29:18.830]  And when it was reported on CNN, it was a big deal.
[29:19.810 --> 29:23.590]  But they were talking about this on foreign media for quite some time.
[29:23.770 --> 29:24.490]  And I don't know.
[29:24.550 --> 29:32.590]  I don't know why it is that another country where there are combatants in this war can be a bit more even-handed.
[29:33.470 --> 29:52.030]  I'd like to hear from people, actually, today when we take phone calls, if anybody has gotten an opportunity to watch foreign media for the first time, maybe, or maybe is continuing to watch foreign media, one of the things that I think BBC is strong with is sometimes just not saying anything,
[29:52.170 --> 29:55.170]  sometimes just playing music and showing the images.
[29:56.210 --> 30:10.870]  Now, I think they were doing this at least once an hour, where they were just playing the music they usually play for their news theme, but showing all the different images of everything from anti-war protests to buildings being bombed, to the victims,
[30:10.990 --> 30:19.550]  to the soldiers, not really taking a particular side, just showing the humanity involved, just showing how so many different people have been affected in so many different ways.
[30:19.890 --> 30:33.650]  Now, contrast that to CNN, who did their little soft, you know, middle-of-the-road type of music that makes you want to cry type of a thing, and showing people, you know, tying yellow ribbons around trees and, you know, pro-war rallies, only pro-war rallies,
[30:33.650 --> 30:39.630]  and all this, like, patriotic nonsense, but it's designed for a particular purpose.
[30:39.970 --> 30:53.570]  Whereas, you know, the other musical interlude was kind of an art piece that showed you how many people are being affected in many different ways, but this was a propaganda piece designed to elicit a particular reaction from you.
[30:53.570 --> 30:58.050]  Not to mention the flag-waving, the literal flag-waving on CNN.
[30:58.210 --> 31:00.930]  At the bottom of the screen, you can see the American flag-waving.
[31:01.030 --> 31:02.310]  That's been going on since 9-11.
[31:02.490 --> 31:04.090]  Actually, there's no flag there now.
[31:04.170 --> 31:04.770]  We have it on here.
[31:05.150 --> 31:05.450]  Oh, really?
[31:05.510 --> 31:06.330]  Not on the website.
[31:06.390 --> 31:07.730]  I'm talking about on television.
[31:07.810 --> 31:09.550]  No, we have the TV station on right now.
[31:09.670 --> 31:09.950]  Oh, really?
[31:10.070 --> 31:10.270]  Okay.
[31:10.530 --> 31:10.670]  Yeah.
[31:11.090 --> 31:14.270]  A lot of times they have that sort of graphic with a moving...
[31:14.270 --> 31:14.810]  I've seen that.
[31:15.010 --> 31:16.610]  ...the flag fluttering in the breeze.
[31:16.850 --> 31:17.370]  I've seen that.
[31:17.870 --> 31:21.150]  They're showing Al Jazeera right now, in fact, on part of the screen.
[31:21.750 --> 31:27.910]  And, of course, they're showing demonstrators in different parts of the country, different parts of the world, demonstrating against the war.
[31:28.110 --> 31:28.910]  The BBC...
[31:28.910 --> 31:29.910]  I'm sorry.
[31:30.290 --> 31:34.250]  The BBC has a live stream on their website, which is news...
[31:34.250 --> 31:34.970]  There's no www.
[31:35.270 --> 31:38.210]  There's just news.bbc.co.uk.
[31:38.430 --> 31:39.910]  It's on the upper right-hand corner.
[31:40.030 --> 31:42.110]  It says live streaming BBC.
[31:42.470 --> 31:45.770]  And you've got to click on a banner that appears, which says war in Iraq.
[31:46.050 --> 31:47.650]  And you can watch... you can listen to the radio.
[31:47.850 --> 31:49.750]  You can watch the TV broadcasting.
[31:51.150 --> 31:52.710]  There's a particular type of a player to do that, though.
[31:54.110 --> 31:55.450]  It's a real player.
[31:55.710 --> 31:57.090]  Yeah, it's the latest real player.
[31:57.230 --> 31:59.390]  If you have an earlier one, it won't work.
[31:59.550 --> 32:02.450]  I watch it on Linux, so it works for me.
[32:02.450 --> 32:05.270]  Well, that may be, but it still won't work if you have an earlier one.
[32:05.370 --> 32:09.610]  I'm just telling people this so that they're able to upgrade if they want to.
[32:09.710 --> 32:13.430]  But I know there was some controversy about that.
[32:13.570 --> 32:17.050]  But there are other places that rebroadcast different things on the net as well.
[32:17.050 --> 32:21.330]  So if you just do some searching, I'm sure you'll find things.
[32:21.470 --> 32:24.670]  In fact, there's even mirror sites to Al Jazeera as well.
[32:24.990 --> 32:25.610]  Here's one.
[32:26.150 --> 32:34.830]  If you go to www.cursor.org, that's C-U-R-S-O-R dot org, slash Al Jazeera dot H-T-M.
[32:35.310 --> 32:36.570]  Is that H-T-M or H-T-M-L?
[32:36.970 --> 32:37.170]  Cut off.
[32:37.330 --> 32:37.450]  H-T-M.
[32:37.670 --> 32:37.890]  Okay.
[32:37.910 --> 32:38.210]  No L.
[32:38.530 --> 32:39.010]  No L.
[32:39.010 --> 32:44.530]  Okay, so I go there, and they will have all kinds of news that comes from Al Jazeera.
[32:45.230 --> 32:45.590]  Pretty good.
[32:45.730 --> 32:53.530]  It mirrors a lot of the news relating to Al Jazeera, and it's not suffering a denial of service attack right now.
[32:53.610 --> 32:57.770]  So there's a lot of good Al Jazeera news on that site.
[32:58.050 --> 32:59.270]  Should we spell that again?
[32:59.950 --> 33:00.730]  Sure, why not?
[33:00.890 --> 33:03.390]  A-L-J-A-Z-E-E-R-A.
[33:05.130 --> 33:12.730]  And it's kind of pointless trying Al Jazeera dot net, but if you try cursor.org slash Al Jazeera dot H-T-M, you might get something.
[33:12.890 --> 33:13.770]  Here's something else, too.
[33:14.270 --> 33:19.150]  Those of you who have DirecTV, because you can't get Al Jazeera on DirecTV, only on Dish Network.
[33:20.130 --> 33:20.970]  Or free to air.
[33:21.330 --> 33:22.410]  Or free to air, of course.
[33:22.670 --> 33:25.090]  Maybe we can go into some more detail on specifically how to do that.
[33:25.770 --> 33:31.150]  But there's a channel called Worldlink TV, which you can get on both Dish Network and DirecTV.
[33:31.930 --> 33:39.110]  And basically, what that channel does is air all kinds of different perspectives.
[33:39.510 --> 33:41.890]  What's civilian casualties on CNN?
[33:42.090 --> 33:43.770]  No, no, that's the military casualties.
[33:44.090 --> 33:45.150]  What says civilian casualties?
[33:45.430 --> 33:51.530]  The civilian casualties video was broadcast like five minutes ago, which is from a hospital footage.
[33:51.710 --> 33:54.690]  This is burying dead Iraqi soldiers in the field.
[33:54.690 --> 33:58.170]  And we're showing that video without any hesitation at all.
[33:58.270 --> 33:59.770]  It's from Al Jazeera.
[34:00.410 --> 34:11.310]  The memoryhole.org has, if not video, it has pictures of the video of civilian casualties and casualties on the Iraqi and American sides, including the POWs.
[34:11.890 --> 34:20.430]  Anyway, Worldlink TV is receivable on various DSS systems here in the United States.
[34:22.110 --> 34:25.110]  Anyone with DirecTV or Echo Star Dishes, access to Worldlink TV.
[34:25.350 --> 34:30.830]  It's known as a scrappy little news and documentary channel that seems to be the exception to the rule.
[34:31.070 --> 34:32.490]  It's based in San Francisco.
[34:33.310 --> 34:42.710]  And according to this article, which appears on TVBarn.com, Worldlink is so different from anything else on American TV, you might wonder if it's even transmitting from inside our borders.
[34:43.130 --> 34:44.290]  In a sense, it's not.
[34:44.290 --> 34:46.770]  Mosaic is Worldlink's half-hour nightly report.
[34:46.890 --> 34:51.250]  It takes newscasts from about a dozen countries in the Middle East, edits, and presents them in English.
[34:51.410 --> 34:54.210]  It's world news with the American blinders off.
[34:54.470 --> 35:03.370]  Our mission is to bring Americans alternative points of view they don't get on mainstream television, said Jack Willis, Worldlink's chief programmer and a public TV expatriate.
[35:05.170 --> 35:15.310]  And as Mosaic is Worldlink's only regularly scheduled original program, it has an annual budget of $3.5 million, which is less than one-tenth of C-SPAN's modest outlay.
[35:16.030 --> 35:19.570]  Willis has little choice but to fill the rest of his schedule with acquisitions.
[35:20.170 --> 35:22.350]  That would be a problem for any network but Worldlink.
[35:22.430 --> 35:27.650]  Since it's launched three years ago, it has struck agreements with broadcasters around the world to re-air their programs for free.
[35:28.330 --> 35:32.710]  Documentary makers happily allow Worldlink to beam their work into 19 million homes.
[35:33.360 --> 35:36.550]  American networks and PBS think people aren't interested in this kind of programming.
[35:36.690 --> 35:39.770]  He says, we figure that the rest of the world is interested in these programs.
[35:39.970 --> 35:42.130]  Why shouldn't Americans see them?
[35:42.690 --> 35:47.930]  So again, Worldlink TV, another channel that comes from right here in the United States, available on satellite.
[35:49.970 --> 35:53.850]  Canadian cable companies now want to start broadcasting Al Jazeera.
[35:54.350 --> 35:57.190]  They've applied for a license to carry the channel.
[35:57.350 --> 36:07.430]  It's already available in Canada through what's known as Gray Market Satellite, which means that people have to get Dish Network from the United States and somehow do the reverse of what I'm doing by getting Canadian Dish.
[36:07.590 --> 36:09.070]  But didn't Bernie just say it was free?
[36:09.490 --> 36:10.570]  Yes, well, there's that as well.
[36:10.710 --> 36:13.670]  But this is, you know, this is officially through cable channels.
[36:13.830 --> 36:14.970]  A lot more people will be able to do that.
[36:15.030 --> 36:18.310]  But we're going to go into detail as to how you can do it for free.
[36:18.630 --> 36:20.150]  It just involves a bit of...
[36:20.150 --> 36:23.070]  I mean, Bernie, doesn't it involve some kind of technical expertise to be able to do this?
[36:23.310 --> 36:24.550]  Not a heck of a lot.
[36:24.550 --> 36:30.690]  I mean, basically reading a manual that comes through the satellite receiver and going to a website to seeing which satellites...
[36:31.410 --> 36:37.390]  Well, the hardest part is pointing the antenna to the satellite you want to receive.
[36:37.710 --> 36:45.170]  But Bernie, the equipment that Dan gave me at one of the ham fests, I could go ahead and set all that up and...
[36:45.170 --> 36:47.810]  You know, I don't know exactly what equipment he gave you.
[36:47.930 --> 36:50.030]  I remember being there, but I don't remember what it was.
[36:50.290 --> 36:51.230]  It was a couple of years ago.
[36:51.390 --> 36:52.290]  We'll talk later.
[36:52.570 --> 36:52.890]  Okay.
[36:54.490 --> 36:59.770]  You can buy it new on the internet for about $300.
[37:00.190 --> 37:10.190]  Everything you need to receive Al Jazeera and dozens, literally hundreds of other television channels without having to pay anybody any subscription fees.
[37:12.330 --> 37:12.810]  Yeah.
[37:12.990 --> 37:15.290]  And, you know, a lot of people forget that that's even possible.
[37:15.290 --> 37:16.730]  But, of course, it is.
[37:16.890 --> 37:18.330]  How big is the dish in this case, Bernie?
[37:18.690 --> 37:20.210]  It's, you know, like...
[37:20.210 --> 37:21.850]  I think it's like a couple of feet.
[37:21.850 --> 37:23.990]  It's about the size of an extra-large pizza.
[37:24.770 --> 37:25.170]  Right.
[37:25.210 --> 37:27.730]  So, I mean, if you live in an apartment building in New York, I don't think that's an option.
[37:28.050 --> 37:28.790]  No, it's not.
[37:28.790 --> 37:35.150]  Unless you're fortunate enough to have a window that has a clear shot at the southern hemisphere, and you can point it at the window.
[37:35.450 --> 37:45.650]  But there is an interesting federal law, or it's a federal regulation that the FCC has put out a few years ago, that says that you are...
[37:45.650 --> 37:56.170]  that no property owner, like if you're renting an apartment or a condo or something like that, they cannot prohibit you from putting a dish on your deck.
[37:57.190 --> 38:03.590]  Like, this was done in the spirit of competitiveness, so you have some competition with the cable TV companies.
[38:03.830 --> 38:05.350]  That goes with the building and the roof, too.
[38:05.490 --> 38:07.130]  But that's just an 18-inch dish, isn't it?
[38:07.150 --> 38:08.730]  It's not a, you know, a three-foot dish.
[38:08.730 --> 38:13.850]  Well, if you can fit a three-foot dish on your deck and point it at the southern hemisphere, then you're in luck.
[38:14.730 --> 38:19.010]  But, yeah, so you can... and your landlord can't say, you can't put that out here on your deck.
[38:19.270 --> 38:21.690]  And you can say, well, yes, I can, because the federal law says so.
[38:21.690 --> 38:22.690]  You can look it up on the internet.
[38:22.770 --> 38:30.610]  And, of course, the other thing about all this is that a lot of people don't have southern views from where they are.
[38:31.030 --> 38:34.650]  You might have a tree in the way, you might have a mountain in the way, you might have another house in the way.
[38:34.730 --> 38:35.130]  Who knows?
[38:35.810 --> 38:45.890]  So by getting these things onto the cable networks, or even over the air, imagine that, that all of a sudden a lot more people are able to see something.
[38:46.270 --> 38:46.410]  Yep.
[38:46.770 --> 38:47.550]  Yeah, I've got to see.
[38:47.690 --> 38:50.870]  You've got to stand on your head a little bit to pick up the free-to-air broadcast.
[38:51.090 --> 38:52.730]  But it's not terribly expensive.
[38:52.950 --> 38:55.050]  It's about as much as you'd spend for a decent television.
[38:56.490 --> 38:59.630]  And there's no subscription fees, which you're going to spend that in a year anyway.
[38:59.690 --> 39:05.650]  So it's not a bad deal if you've got a house or a place where you've got a shot at the southern hemisphere.
[39:07.850 --> 39:10.550]  Let's see all kinds of other alternatives, too.
[39:11.970 --> 39:19.650]  Well, here's an article that actually comes from RaisetheFist.com, our old friends there, called CNN and Censorship.
[39:20.050 --> 39:21.550]  Already the American Express...
[39:21.550 --> 39:23.910]  Oh, that's a Freudian slip, isn't it?
[39:24.090 --> 39:31.510]  The American press is expressing its approval of the coverage of American forces, which the U.S.
[39:31.610 --> 39:35.230]  military intends to allow its reporters into the next Gulf War.
[39:35.370 --> 39:37.490]  This is actually dated February 27th.
[39:37.490 --> 39:39.890]  It's kind of an old article, but I think it's pertinent to what we're discussing.
[39:40.570 --> 39:46.010]  The boys from CNN, CBS, ABC, and the New York Times will be embedded...
[39:46.010 --> 39:48.270]  How many times have I heard that word in the last week?
[39:48.650 --> 39:49.550]  Embedded reporters.
[39:49.770 --> 39:50.610]  What's up with that?
[39:51.190 --> 39:52.570]  They'll be embedded among the U.S.
[39:52.670 --> 39:53.670]  Marines and infantry.
[39:54.230 --> 40:00.950]  The degree of censorship hasn't quite been worked out, but it doesn't matter how much the Pentagon cuts from the reporters' dispatches.
[40:00.950 --> 40:17.730]  A new CNN system of script approval, which basically is an instruction to reporters that they have to send all their copy to anonymous officials in Atlanta to ensure it is suitably sanitized, suggests that the Pentagon and the Department of State have nothing to worry about,
[40:17.870 --> 40:18.890]  nor do the Israelis.
[40:19.190 --> 40:24.990]  Indeed, reading a new CNN document, reminder of script approval policy, it fairly takes your breath away.
[40:24.990 --> 40:29.790]  All reporters preparing packaged scripts must submit the scripts for approval, it says.
[40:30.090 --> 40:33.250]  Packages may not be edited until the scripts are approved.
[40:33.590 --> 40:42.910]  All packages originating outside Washington, Los Angeles, or New York, including all international bureaus, must come to the ROW in Atlanta for approval.
[40:44.090 --> 40:44.670]  ROW?
[40:44.970 --> 40:46.290]  I could swear I turned my phone off.
[40:46.450 --> 40:46.690]  Oh well.
[40:47.370 --> 40:51.230]  The date of this extraordinary message is January 27th.
[40:51.230 --> 40:59.770]  The ROW is the row of script editors in Atlanta who can insist on changes or balances in the reporter's dispatch.
[41:00.350 --> 41:02.550]  A script is not approved for... thank you.
[41:02.890 --> 41:11.170]  It's not approved for air unless it is properly marked approved by an authorized manager and duped to burr copy, which is bureau copy.
[41:11.270 --> 41:12.490]  All these technical terms we're learning.
[41:12.930 --> 41:17.650]  When a script is updated, it must be re-approved, preferably by the originating approving authority.
[41:18.070 --> 41:19.550]  Now, note the key words here.
[41:19.710 --> 41:20.590]  Approved and authorized.
[41:20.910 --> 41:26.870]  CNN's man or woman in Kuwait or Baghdad or Jerusalem or Ramallah may know the background to his or her story.
[41:27.030 --> 41:29.750]  Indeed, they will know far more about it than the authorities in Atlanta.
[41:30.610 --> 41:32.990]  But CNN's chiefs will decide the spin of the story.
[41:33.250 --> 41:35.330]  That's according to the Independent of the UK.
[41:40.000 --> 41:40.480]  Yes.
[41:40.480 --> 41:48.160]  So, basically, you can read more about that at raisetofist.com.
[41:50.020 --> 41:51.380]  And how about this?
[41:51.380 --> 41:54.380]  We have these headlines from the Daily Mirror.
[41:54.960 --> 41:58.520]  The Daily Mirror is a tabloid from the UK.
[41:59.160 --> 42:00.180]  Now, imagine this.
[42:00.280 --> 42:04.180]  This is... it looks very much like the Post, except I think it's in color.
[42:04.760 --> 42:10.560]  The New York Post here in Manhattan is one of the classic tabloids of all time.
[42:11.060 --> 42:15.660]  And, of course, they're also notoriously right-wing, as is the Daily News.
[42:16.540 --> 42:18.140]  But these guys are different.
[42:18.400 --> 42:23.340]  They look exactly the same, but the message that they put out is very different.
[42:23.540 --> 42:30.200]  They had pictures of those soldiers who had been tortured, I think even killed, on the cover.
[42:31.220 --> 42:34.680]  And on top of that is a big headline that said, still anti-war.
[42:35.000 --> 42:38.220]  And below that, a big headline saying, yes, bloody right we are.
[42:38.680 --> 42:41.940]  And I think that shows you the difference in culture.
[42:42.240 --> 42:45.540]  You know, you have newspapers there that are saying things like this on their front page.
[42:45.780 --> 42:50.260]  Can you imagine, if you did that in this country, what would happen to you?
[42:50.260 --> 42:56.920]  You know, I mean, BAI is virtually the only station on the dial even presenting these views.
[42:57.140 --> 43:04.000]  And yet, you can walk down a street in London, you know, another country which is in this same war on our side, supposedly.
[43:05.980 --> 43:08.220]  And you see different views right there.
[43:09.680 --> 43:16.740]  I'd like to read you the editorial that they ran a couple of days ago, which is called, What's the Difference, Mr. Bush?
[43:17.720 --> 43:19.200]  It's called The Voice of the Daily Mirror.
[43:19.340 --> 43:23.860]  And we'll be taking phone calls, 212-209-2900, right after this.
[43:23.860 --> 43:27.920]  Again, this is a special two-hour edition of Off the Hook, so you don't have to panic.
[43:27.940 --> 43:30.540]  We'll have plenty of time for phone calls, and we want to hear your perspectives.
[43:32.500 --> 43:34.120]  Here's this editorial from the Daily Mirror.
[43:34.120 --> 43:36.860]  The outrage and anger over the treatment of U.S.
[43:37.120 --> 43:39.340]  prisoners of war by Iraq is very real.
[43:39.660 --> 43:44.500]  Their brutal and humiliating treatment recorded in detail for television is profoundly shocking.
[43:44.700 --> 43:46.800]  But not everyone is entitled to be outraged.
[43:47.020 --> 43:49.320]  The warmongers in the White House are not.
[43:50.360 --> 43:53.600]  A little more than a year ago, there were other prisoners of war.
[43:54.300 --> 44:01.020]  As United States forces swept victoriously through Afghanistan, they seized hundreds of men.
[44:01.020 --> 44:04.480]  These prisoners were transported to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
[44:04.760 --> 44:11.620]  They were blindfolded and shackled, and their plight was gloatingly reported by official U.S.
[44:11.700 --> 44:13.780]  photographers to be circulated around the world.
[44:14.580 --> 44:22.320]  The treatment of American prisoners of war in Iraq is a flagrant breach of the Geneva Convention.
[44:22.320 --> 44:27.380]  But, so is the treatment of Afghani prisoners in Camp X-Ray.
[44:28.480 --> 44:34.640]  They were humiliated, and their humiliation recorded so that the White House could take vengeance for the atrocities of September 11th.
[44:34.900 --> 44:35.500]  The U.S.
[44:35.620 --> 44:37.760]  did not stop there in defying the rules of war.
[44:37.900 --> 44:42.560]  It has admitted that almost all the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were tortured.
[44:42.880 --> 44:48.060]  And if I can step out of the editorial for just a moment, the majority of American public supports that.
[44:48.280 --> 44:50.340]  They say torture is justified in such cases.
[44:51.560 --> 44:59.480]  Going back, there is no difference between breaches of the Geneva Convention committed by America and Iraq, but the White House thinks there is.
[44:59.700 --> 45:06.240]  Mr. Rumsfeld says it's, quote, illegal to do things to POWs that are humiliating to those prisoners, unquote.
[45:06.480 --> 45:13.480]  And a White House spokesman said yesterday there is a difference between the war on terrorism and this additional conflict in Iraq.
[45:13.920 --> 45:15.480]  In other words, the U.S.
[45:15.500 --> 45:18.660]  administration doesn't consider it as bound by other people's laws.
[45:18.660 --> 45:23.140]  It can do what it likes and expects others to do what it likes, too.
[45:23.980 --> 45:27.260]  To yearn for vengeance is an understandable human emotion.
[45:27.260 --> 45:34.920]  But we are entitled to expect civilized people to control it, particularly the people who run the most powerful nation on Earth.
[45:35.420 --> 45:38.560]  Only yesterday, 19 camp X-ray prisoners were released.
[45:38.780 --> 45:41.960]  They had been incarcerated, humiliated, and abused for more than a year.
[45:41.960 --> 45:43.720]  Yet now, the U.S.
[45:43.780 --> 45:44.760]  admits they are innocent.
[45:45.760 --> 45:51.600]  What this White House did at Guantanamo Bay was an indication of how it would behave over Iraq.
[45:52.120 --> 45:54.360]  It ignored the wishes of the United Nations.
[45:54.560 --> 45:56.080]  It defied international law.
[45:56.320 --> 46:00.740]  It invaded a sovereign state simply because it wanted to and had the military might.
[46:01.140 --> 46:05.920]  That does not mean we shouldn't feel compassion and pity for the troops who have been captured by the Iraqis.
[46:05.920 --> 46:07.580]  It is not their fault they are in Iraq.
[46:07.980 --> 46:12.800]  They, like their comrades who have died, are paying the price of their leader's actions.
[46:13.520 --> 46:17.880]  The Iraqis would have dealt with them cruelly even without the way the Americans behaved at Guantanamo.
[46:18.040 --> 46:20.880]  They treated our own airmen similarly in 1991.
[46:21.700 --> 46:26.540]  If the White House had followed the Geneva Convention, it might not have helped these prisoners of war.
[46:27.240 --> 46:30.600]  But it would have given America an essential moral superiority.
[46:30.600 --> 46:35.180]  Remember, we were told by President Bush and Tony Blair that this was a moral war.
[46:35.360 --> 46:38.760]  A crusade to rid the world of a tyrannical, bloodthirsty despot.
[46:39.040 --> 46:42.720]  Yet, just about every rule and law that could be broken by the U.S.
[46:42.860 --> 46:43.400]  has been.
[46:43.980 --> 46:45.460]  Mr. Blair cannot be happy.
[46:45.760 --> 46:54.560]  He has allied himself with the White House administration that steamrollers over all opposition, defying the rules and ignoring the relationships they could make for a better world.
[46:55.680 --> 46:57.760]  War is at times a necessary evil.
[46:58.040 --> 46:59.600]  Though this is not one of them.
[46:59.600 --> 47:05.000]  And some of its worst excesses can be eased by applying rules of decency and civilization.
[47:06.700 --> 47:11.400]  The world should condemn every nation and every leader who flagrantly preaches those rules.
[47:11.580 --> 47:14.920]  Whether it is Iraq or the U.S.A., Saddam Hussein or George W.
[47:15.100 --> 47:15.300]  Bush.
[47:15.560 --> 47:19.100]  There cannot be one rule for America and another for the rest of the world.
[47:19.400 --> 47:22.940]  That way lies anarchy and the collapse of civilization.
[47:24.700 --> 47:33.620]  And boy, I got to tell you, to see that kind of an editorial in a tabloid newspaper makes me rethink what tabloids are.
[47:34.360 --> 47:36.900]  There's actually intelligence in some of them.
[47:37.160 --> 47:41.200]  And that comes from the Daily Mirror, which can be found in the streets of London.
[47:41.200 --> 47:52.460]  And I defy anybody in this country to find a newspaper that speaks so articulately about what's going on from that perspective that is allowed to be sold in our streets.
[47:52.980 --> 47:58.260]  You know, and basically flagrantly express these opinions.
[47:59.320 --> 48:00.040]  I don't know, Bernie.
[48:00.080 --> 48:00.460]  What do you think?
[48:03.560 --> 48:09.260]  Well, actually, you might be able to find copies of the Mirror on the streets of New York if you search hard enough.
[48:09.300 --> 48:11.160]  Aren't there some international newspaper vendors?
[48:12.460 --> 48:13.100]  Well, yeah.
[48:13.260 --> 48:17.380]  You can find the same newspapers if you look for foreign newsstands.
[48:17.380 --> 48:27.620]  But as far as, you know, the New York Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Times, Newsday, you know, the Star-Ledger, whatever you might find here.
[48:29.240 --> 48:31.200]  I don't think you're going to see editorials like that.
[48:31.340 --> 48:37.880]  No, you really have to turn over some big stones to dig and find the Daily Mirror in New York.
[48:37.920 --> 48:39.440]  I don't think I can find it here in Philadelphia.
[48:39.440 --> 48:44.660]  But, yeah, I mean, that sounds like actually a pretty well-reasoned editorial.
[48:44.840 --> 48:47.520]  And I'm not seeing a lot of that on U.S.
[48:47.580 --> 48:48.220]  media right now.
[48:48.720 --> 48:49.300]  All right.
[48:50.080 --> 48:50.560]  Excuse me.
[48:50.560 --> 48:52.080]  I'd like to take some phone calls.
[48:52.220 --> 48:53.860]  212-209-2900.
[48:53.980 --> 48:55.620]  First, a couple of comments from the studio.
[48:56.020 --> 48:57.940]  Bernie, I've got a quick question.
[48:58.080 --> 48:59.600]  What's the climate like in Philadelphia?
[48:59.760 --> 49:05.840]  I noticed last week when I came into the station, they were searching at the tunnel.
[49:05.940 --> 49:07.680]  And there were police officers out there.
[49:07.680 --> 49:13.480]  This week, there were people in full camouflage standing with weapons.
[49:14.040 --> 49:15.720]  I mean, they didn't stop the bus.
[49:15.820 --> 49:17.440]  They didn't stop anything this time that I saw.
[49:17.580 --> 49:19.000]  But what's it like over there?
[49:19.560 --> 49:36.120]  Well, the day that war broke out after the ultimatum, I think it was last Wednesday, Thursday morning, I got off on a different train stop than I normally do so I could walk past the Liberty Bell here in Philadelphia off of Market Street.
[49:36.120 --> 49:43.580]  And there were no less than a dozen armed federal police officers guarding the Liberty Bell.
[49:44.420 --> 49:46.040]  You know, a hunk of medals.
[49:46.840 --> 49:48.500]  Yeah, but you're not supposed to go near that anymore, are you?
[49:49.220 --> 49:53.600]  Well, you have to get, like, a special ticket and be approved and go through a security checkpoint.
[49:53.680 --> 49:55.540]  Well, some of the Liberty might rub off on you.
[49:55.600 --> 49:56.220]  You don't want that.
[49:56.300 --> 49:57.280]  I couldn't want that.
[49:57.280 --> 50:00.800]  But, you know, I can't imagine terrorists wanting to blow up a bell.
[50:01.000 --> 50:03.900]  You know, if they want to make a statement, they're going to try to kill someone.
[50:03.900 --> 50:07.120]  Let me just point something out here, though, because this is something that has been bothering me.
[50:07.240 --> 50:20.940]  When, you know, the grenade was thrown into the tank, into the tent where the soldiers were in Kuwait by one of the United States' own soldiers, which is kind of weird in itself, it was first reported on all the networks as an act of terrorism.
[50:21.540 --> 50:24.600]  And I was thinking to myself, how is that an act of terrorism?
[50:24.600 --> 50:25.600]  We're at war.
[50:26.240 --> 50:27.260]  It's war, you know.
[50:27.440 --> 50:35.060]  We're throwing huge explosives at their soldiers, and somebody did the same to our soldiers, yet in that case, it's called terrorism.
[50:35.380 --> 50:36.600]  I'm very confused here.
[50:36.740 --> 50:47.920]  And I was thinking also, you know, somebody could come over to this country and blow up the White House, blow up the Washington Monument, blow up, you know, all kinds of military bases, and we might think that's terrorism too, but you know what?
[50:47.980 --> 50:48.580]  We're at war,
[50:55.600 --> 50:57.280]  and all the action takes place there.
[50:57.420 --> 51:03.120]  But sometimes you get a home game, you know, and they come over here, and that's how wars traditionally work.
[51:03.340 --> 51:11.080]  So anything that happens, you really, you know, to call that terrorism and not call what we're doing terrorism, I think it's just kind of hypocritical.
[51:11.200 --> 51:12.700]  And that's kind of my point.
[51:12.840 --> 51:17.660]  When I'm driving around in New Jersey, you can't tell that we are a country at war.
[51:18.400 --> 51:22.660]  Only until I get to the tunnel here can I tell that, oh, now something's going on.
[51:22.660 --> 51:27.820]  As I walk down Wall Street, as I ride the subways, then it's obvious.
[51:28.080 --> 51:29.340]  Well, it's also weird.
[51:29.560 --> 51:33.020]  Last week after the show, we went over to Union Square.
[51:33.340 --> 51:36.020]  Never mind why, but we just went over to Union Square.
[51:37.020 --> 51:45.220]  And one thing that I noticed, or that we all noticed, actually it was kind of hard not to, down underneath the subway station, there's a little police station.
[51:45.380 --> 51:46.840]  I think it's the transit police or something.
[51:46.960 --> 51:48.020]  I'm not quite sure what they do in there.
[51:48.340 --> 51:49.540]  But there's a police station.
[51:49.840 --> 51:53.280]  And outside that police station, were five, five?
[51:53.580 --> 51:53.600]  Six.
[51:53.780 --> 51:54.020]  Six?
[51:54.200 --> 51:54.420]  Okay.
[51:54.880 --> 51:56.140]  I was so nervous I didn't even count right.
[51:56.300 --> 52:01.700]  Six National Guard men standing there with their machine guns.
[52:02.280 --> 52:05.180]  All stand up, lined up nicely outside the police station.
[52:05.400 --> 52:08.580]  Now, first of all, I'm thinking to myself, why are you protecting the police?
[52:08.640 --> 52:09.680]  They already have guns.
[52:09.780 --> 52:10.620]  They can protect themselves.
[52:10.960 --> 52:12.260]  You don't need to protect these people.
[52:12.380 --> 52:19.780]  Then, the thought that crossed my mind, and I think a bunch of our minds, is what in God's name are they going to do in the subway if something happens?
[52:19.780 --> 52:21.920]  They're going to fire machine guns inside a subway?
[52:22.220 --> 52:24.460]  Can you imagine the carnage that would result from that?
[52:24.920 --> 52:26.440]  And that's when I really started to get angry.
[52:26.700 --> 52:40.520]  You know, what kind of idiocy is ruling the city now where you put people with machine guns inside subway stations that, you know, God forbid, there's some kind of an accident or that there's a misunderstanding of some sort, like, you know, the New York City police are famous for?
[52:41.060 --> 52:48.800]  You know, if that kind of thing starts happening and you have this kind of weaponry being unleashed in the subways, I'll tell you, you know, I don't feel any more secure seeing that in there.
[52:48.960 --> 52:49.920]  I feel scared.
[52:50.200 --> 52:55.240]  I feel terrified seeing that kind of, you know, that kind of military presence.
[52:55.760 --> 52:56.280]  And I'm...
[52:56.280 --> 52:58.300]  These are National Guard troops, too.
[52:59.340 --> 53:07.980]  I've read some interviews of National Guard people and not a lot of them are very well trained as far as periods of time that they've had training during.
[53:08.960 --> 53:09.660]  These are...
[53:09.660 --> 53:14.400]  Basically, they had very, very, very basic training.
[53:14.620 --> 53:16.760]  So these are people who've had a lot...
[53:16.760 --> 53:19.620]  tons of training and dealing with these sorts of situations.
[53:19.860 --> 53:22.880]  Well, I've heard the same thing and I've heard it from National Guard people.
[53:23.140 --> 53:23.780]  Exactly, exactly.
[53:24.320 --> 53:26.380]  That tells me it's got to be accurate.
[53:26.500 --> 53:28.480]  But, you know, not to put down the people that are doing this.
[53:28.520 --> 53:31.860]  I'm sure there's lots of, you know, thoroughly trained people.
[53:32.360 --> 53:33.180]  That's not the issue.
[53:33.280 --> 53:41.780]  The issue is why in God's name are we putting people with this kind of armament in public places where they can't possibly do any good.
[53:41.980 --> 53:51.080]  I mean, there's nothing that I can think of that could happen in a subway that having six National Guardsmen with machine guns running around is going to fix.
[53:51.640 --> 53:56.020]  Really, you know, if I'm missing something, please let me know what it is.
[53:56.280 --> 54:02.860]  There's nothing, there's nothing the National Guard could have done to prevent September 11th with all the machine guns walking around in the city.
[54:02.920 --> 54:12.440]  But the thing that really pisses me off here is that, you know, when the National Guard first came into town after September 11th, it was a show of, you know, a sort of symbolic show.
[54:12.540 --> 54:13.800]  They did not have any kind of weapons.
[54:14.200 --> 54:19.680]  And now, you know, this has slowly been moved up to them having really, really big weapons.
[54:20.760 --> 54:22.200]  And, you know, it's scary.
[54:22.380 --> 54:26.640]  Every time I go through a tunnel, I look apprehensive and I'm sure that makes me a suspect right there.
[54:26.780 --> 54:39.760]  But, you know, when you have people, soldiers with guns, you know, looking at you, you know, just like when I was down in Mexico and I had soldiers stopping me in the car and talking in Spanish and I didn't know what they wanted, I'm getting the same fear here in my own hometown.
[54:40.180 --> 54:52.780]  You know, I don't see it as being something that has any particular payoff other than us getting used to it, other than us losing another bit of freedom, another way of moving around freely.
[54:53.680 --> 54:54.160]  Leo.
[54:54.400 --> 54:54.800]  Oh, yeah.
[54:55.640 --> 55:05.860]  Last week, as I was coming into Manhattan on the Staten Island Ferry, the Staten Island side, this off-duty cop was giving out these orange papers and I was wondering, like, what could they be for?
[55:06.080 --> 55:10.940]  And when I read it, it's basically the cops are protesting the fact that they have no terrorism training.
[55:11.160 --> 55:24.560]  As in, what it seems to me is that the federal government's response to the fact, to the lack of training, anti-terrorism training and the NYPD is to bring in the National Guard who are even less trained or even less trained than a...
[55:24.560 --> 55:28.420]  So the police, the police are upset that they haven't gotten terrorism training.
[55:28.620 --> 55:30.700]  Yeah, they have no gas masks, nothing.
[55:31.720 --> 55:33.400]  Do you have one of these things?
[55:33.620 --> 55:36.260]  Yeah, I'm not sure if I have it with me right now, but I can bring it in next week.
[55:36.320 --> 55:37.980]  I would like to see it, I would like to read what it says.
[55:38.140 --> 55:49.300]  Also, one other thing about media coverage, which is weird, is a censorship by omission, which is when Fox News reported that the U.S.
[55:49.420 --> 55:52.260]  forces found a chemical weapons plant.
[55:52.640 --> 56:16.600]  And basically, yesterday, finally saw the follow-up to that on a bunch of different news sites on the internet, obviously like CBS and stuff, the mainstream things, saying that it was a chemical plant that has been shut down for five years, and that initially courts and assumptions by the military about the plant said that there was no chemical weapons being produced.
[56:16.820 --> 56:26.640]  So Fox News reported it as just the opposite, as they said that the military thought there were chemical weapons there when it was just the opposite.
[56:26.920 --> 56:37.480]  Yeah, you know, there was a lot of attention brought to that when they found this potential military chemical weapons plant, and it just sort of evaporated.
[56:37.740 --> 56:40.400]  You didn't hear anything after they discovered that there was nothing there.
[56:41.520 --> 56:54.040]  Okay, on number 212-209-2900, we're going to take phone calls, and I also want to make sure that we cover what happened here in New York City on Saturday, the demonstration that took place.
[56:54.160 --> 56:56.600]  Mike, did we ever get a figure of how many people were there?
[56:57.040 --> 56:58.580]  I've heard conflicting figures.
[56:59.840 --> 57:01.080]  More than 100,000.
[57:01.440 --> 57:06.080]  The police initially said 300,000 to 400,000, which is a lot of people.
[57:07.040 --> 57:10.280]  The answer coalition said a million, but I don't believe them.
[57:10.460 --> 57:12.220]  The helicopter pilot said a million, too.
[57:12.860 --> 57:13.280]  Oh, did they?
[57:13.300 --> 57:14.500]  He said a million also.
[57:14.900 --> 57:17.100]  He looked down, he said, there's a million people down there.
[57:17.400 --> 57:19.060]  Was it the first time he'd ever been in a helicopter?
[57:19.320 --> 57:20.980]  I don't know.
[57:22.620 --> 57:25.120]  It felt like a million people.
[57:25.400 --> 57:28.200]  I mean, there were certainly a lot of people there.
[57:29.340 --> 57:31.620]  It was a big crowd.
[57:32.680 --> 57:34.480]  You're listening to WBAI in New York.
[57:34.660 --> 57:36.280]  We're going to be going for another hour.
[57:36.420 --> 57:39.360]  We'll have an update from Free Speech Radio News coming up in about a minute.
[57:40.020 --> 57:42.340]  The Personal Computer Show won't be on this week.
[57:42.560 --> 57:44.320]  It will be on again next week.
[57:44.440 --> 57:49.880]  So for those of you tuning in for that, that's just the way that is right now.
[57:50.320 --> 57:54.100]  We're talking about how the mass media has been covering the war.
[57:54.280 --> 57:56.880]  We're talking about how alternative media has been covering the war.
[57:58.460 --> 58:02.840]  We'd like to hear your perspectives and viewpoints and things like that.
[58:03.020 --> 58:07.340]  And we've got all kinds of other stories to share with you as well.
[58:07.920 --> 58:11.200]  I should point out, before we go to the news, I've got these stickers.
[58:11.520 --> 58:12.960]  In fact, I'd like to give them to people here.
[58:14.420 --> 58:16.280]  I made these stickers back in 1991.
[58:16.420 --> 58:17.900]  They just say the war on them.
[58:18.900 --> 58:19.900]  For the street signs.
[58:20.100 --> 58:20.820]  Well, stop signs.
[58:21.160 --> 58:22.220]  Thanks for giving it away, Jeff.
[58:22.340 --> 58:23.680]  Yes, I was getting up to that.
[58:23.960 --> 58:24.860]  They're red stickers.
[58:26.340 --> 58:31.920]  And they have, in white lettering, it just says the war, and on the back it says it's just red.
[58:32.120 --> 58:35.960]  So yes, you could stick this on a stop sign, and it would look like the stop sign was saying stop the war.
[58:36.880 --> 58:41.860]  Now, I got these in 1991, but the war ended before I had a chance to stick a single one up.
[58:41.880 --> 58:42.680]  It went really fast.
[58:42.880 --> 58:49.400]  So I held on to these things for 12 years, knowing that one day there would be another war, and sure enough, that day has come.
[58:49.480 --> 58:55.500]  So now, you know, I've got all these war stickers, and I'm just looking for people to put them in conspicuous places.
[58:55.500 --> 59:00.000]  Not that I'm advocating any kind of vandalism of stop signs, things like that, but I'll tell you this.
[59:00.160 --> 59:02.960]  But if you own your own stop sign, you might want one of these stickers.
[59:03.200 --> 59:03.560]  Yeah, that's true.
[59:04.400 --> 59:12.840]  The thing is, when you put these things up, or when they are put up, I don't know anybody who personally put them up, but when they get put up, there are people that take them down very fast and very angrily.
[59:13.400 --> 59:16.280]  And if you find them in Jersey, it's not my fault.
[59:16.440 --> 59:16.580]  Okay.
[59:16.900 --> 59:18.000]  All right, I'll hand you a bunch here.
[59:18.080 --> 59:18.400]  Hey, thanks.
[59:18.500 --> 59:18.780]  Emmanuel?
[59:19.540 --> 59:20.840]  Bernie, we're going to have to get back to you in a minute.
[59:20.980 --> 59:25.180]  We have a news update, and then we're going to come back for the second hour of Off the Hook.
[59:26.080 --> 59:29.360]  With headlines for Free Speech Radio News, I'm John Akeela Feese.
[59:29.740 --> 59:35.720]  A column of Iraqi troops traveling southeast towards Najaf is under siege by coalition airstrikes.
[59:35.900 --> 59:41.040]  It is unclear whether the troops are retreating or whether they are attempting to retake a captured bridge.
[59:41.460 --> 59:48.820]  Coalition forces found stored hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, and Iraqi military uniforms in a school in Um Kasser.
[59:49.120 --> 59:53.120]  The stash may indicate that Iraqi troops are currently posing as civilians.
[59:53.880 --> 59:58.060]  After a week of conflict, humanitarian aid has begun to arrive in Iraq.
[59:58.360 --> 01:00:04.340]  Food, water, and other supplies are being distributed in Safwan, and another convoy is trying to reach Baghdad.
[01:00:04.500 --> 01:00:11.660]  The British ship Sergalahad is expected to arrive in Um Kasser with 90 tons of bottled water and 200 tons of food.
[01:00:11.880 --> 01:00:18.040]  400,000 Kurds fleeing a feared chemical attack by Saddam Hussein are being prevented from entering Turkey.
[01:00:18.500 --> 01:00:20.260]  Aaron Glantz reports from Ankara.
[01:00:20.840 --> 01:00:31.840]  In his press conference this morning, General Hilmi Ozkuk told reporters in Diyarbakir the Turkish army had entered northern Iraq to prevent Kurdish refugees from reaching the safety of Turkish soil.
[01:00:32.160 --> 01:00:45.040]  United Nations estimate some 400,000 Kurds have fled their homes in northern Iraq's main cities and headed for the villages in the mountains, fearing a retaliatory chemical attack by Saddam Hussein.
[01:00:45.640 --> 01:00:59.160]  Amnesty International warned today the Kurds of northern Iraq are facing severe fuel and food shortages because the Turkish foreign ministry has forbidden humanitarian relief organizations to cross the border and operate on the Iraqi side.
[01:00:59.160 --> 01:01:03.620]  for free speech radio news, I'm Aaron Glantz in the Turkish capital, Ankara.
[01:01:04.700 --> 01:01:11.740]  French President Jacques Chirac has threatened to veto a UN resolution allowing the US and Britain to run Iraq after the war.
[01:01:12.220 --> 01:01:13.460]  Amal Wadi reports.
[01:01:13.700 --> 01:01:28.980]  As the UN development program announced that it would cost at least 30 billion dollars to rebuild Iraq and contracts have already gone to American companies with close ties to the Bush administration, French President Jacques Chirac said that if the UN passed a resolution allowing the US and Britain to run Iraq,
[01:01:29.160 --> 01:01:31.880]  it would, quote, justify the war after the event.
[01:01:32.400 --> 01:01:40.420]  Gilbert Ashkar, Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Paris, voiced French sentiment on WBAI's wake-up call.
[01:01:40.580 --> 01:01:47.560]  No one is concerned with raising the prospect of having the Iraqi people by themselves determine what they want to do with their country, you know.
[01:01:47.860 --> 01:02:06.140]  I mean, they are fighting about the US direct rule or UN supervision, whereas I, well, I would put as a democratic demand the withdrawal of any occupying troops from that country and democratic free elections through which the Iraqi people elect whoever they want to represent them.
[01:02:06.540 --> 01:02:08.580]  For FSRN, I am Amabwadi.
[01:02:08.900 --> 01:02:14.760]  Just after President Bush spoke in Tampa, Florida earlier today, Iraqis responded in Baghdad.
[01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:17.440]  La Vida Uno Baptiste files this report.
[01:02:17.860 --> 01:02:27.740]  After President Bush gave a celebratory speech today to troops at the McDeal Air Force Base in Tampa, people in Iraq's capital, Baghdad, have responded with disbelief and sadness.
[01:02:28.140 --> 01:02:36.120]  The speech rally congratulated US troops for actions thus far in the war, which Iraqi civilians view as an unwarranted attack on their home.
[01:02:36.460 --> 01:02:38.980]  Kathy Breen is a peace volunteer in Baghdad.
[01:02:38.980 --> 01:02:53.640]  I just spoke to an Iraqi friend, a woman who is watching the TV, and she was just beside herself having seen Bush as being applauded there by the people for what he was saying in terms of liberation.
[01:02:53.820 --> 01:03:11.220]  And it's just beyond comprehension that to Iraqi people and to ourselves that we would be speaking of liberation as just as we're bombing this country, destroying homes and maiming children, causing them to be orphans and and killing people.
[01:03:11.740 --> 01:03:14.640]  For FSRN, I'm Levita John-Baptiste.
[01:03:15.860 --> 01:03:22.720]  At this hour at the United Nations, the Security Council is hearing the concerns of non-members regarding war in Iraq.
[01:03:23.180 --> 01:03:25.280]  Nadja Middleton files this report from the UN.
[01:03:25.280 --> 01:03:32.100]  The urgent public session of the Security Council was called at the request of the Arab League and the non-aligned movement.
[01:03:32.720 --> 01:03:40.920]  Secretary General Kofi Annan opened the discussion by sharing his hope that the Security Council will, quote, rediscover its unity of purpose.
[01:03:41.380 --> 01:03:47.640]  He also called on all UN member states to financially support UN humanitarian relief for Iraq.
[01:03:48.020 --> 01:04:00.120]  Iraqi Ambassador Mohamed al-Duri demanded that the Security Council address the humanitarian needs of Iraqis by condemning and stopping what he termed the white Anglo-Saxon colonial aggression.
[01:04:00.500 --> 01:04:03.360]  So far, most states have condemned the war on Iraq.
[01:04:03.660 --> 01:04:09.520]  Over 70 states are to address the Security Council, and the session is expected to continue tomorrow.
[01:04:09.940 --> 01:04:14.060]  For Free Speech Radio News, I'm Nadja Middleton at the United Nations.
[01:04:14.400 --> 01:04:20.720]  From Community Radio KGNU in Boulder, Colorado, for Free Speech Radio News, I'm John Aki Lafise.
[00:00.000 --> 00:04.040]  For Free Speech Radio News, I'm Nadja Middleton at the United Nations.
[00:04.580 --> 00:10.760]  From Community Radio KGNU in Boulder, Colorado, for Free Speech Radio News, I'm John Akela Feese.
[00:12.020 --> 00:20.500]  And this is radio station WBAI in New York, where we're into the second hour of Off the Hook, the special edition on this Wednesday night.
[00:20.760 --> 00:23.540]  If you're turning into the personal computer show, that will not be on this week.
[00:23.560 --> 00:25.580]  It will be on again next week at this time.
[00:25.740 --> 00:29.020]  We're going to be taking phone calls at 212-209-2900.
[00:29.020 --> 00:33.020]  We've been discussing the mass media and its coverage of the war.
[00:33.080 --> 00:35.600]  Now, Mike, you had a very interesting observation during the break.
[00:35.840 --> 00:39.360]  I mean, I've been sitting here watching this channel called CNN.
[00:39.500 --> 00:40.300]  You may have heard of it.
[00:41.160 --> 00:46.160]  And they've been showing these people in fatigues, a lot of them, not all of them.
[00:46.960 --> 00:54.260]  And they're reporters, but the biggest thing on the screen, as some of them are talking, is the logo of the unit in which they are embedded.
[00:54.560 --> 00:55.000]  Unbelievable.
[00:56.180 --> 00:59.000]  That's considered to be worth a call.
[00:59.020 --> 01:01.900]  A quarter of the screen is the logo of a military unit.
[01:02.160 --> 01:09.220]  And I was, you know, before they were giving the history of one of these units, it was the first one to kill people in Vietnam or something.
[01:09.440 --> 01:10.420]  The first to do this.
[01:10.880 --> 01:12.400]  And all these super units.
[01:12.960 --> 01:14.640]  So that's apparently the big news.
[01:14.760 --> 01:16.160]  I mean, you know, you might be into that kind of thing.
[01:16.400 --> 01:17.400]  A lot of people are.
[01:17.540 --> 01:19.920]  But the point is, not everybody is.
[01:19.920 --> 01:28.560]  And when that's the only perspective that's shown on television, it kind of gets ingrained in your head as that being the way it is, when it might not necessarily be that way.
[01:30.280 --> 01:38.180]  Okay, we're going to be talking also about the demonstration that took place here in New York last Saturday, which was quite a historic thing.
[01:39.000 --> 01:45.240]  And there was a lot of good that came out of that and some bad that came out of that as well I'd like to focus on in the next hour.
[01:45.580 --> 01:51.760]  Let's first take a few phone calls, see what people's perspectives are on the mass media and other kinds of war coverage.
[01:52.360 --> 01:54.000]  Let's go over here.
[01:54.000 --> 01:54.400]  Good evening.
[01:54.520 --> 01:54.840]  You're on the air.
[01:55.480 --> 01:57.000]  Holy cow, I'm the first caller.
[01:57.240 --> 01:58.220]  Yeah, turn down your radio.
[01:58.700 --> 01:59.340]  It's off.
[01:59.500 --> 01:59.720]  Okay.
[02:00.780 --> 02:03.600]  I'm driving, so, you know, I have to hear when you put me on.
[02:03.740 --> 02:04.680]  Okay, well, be careful.
[02:04.700 --> 02:05.400]  How are you doing, Emmanuel?
[02:05.660 --> 02:06.160]  Good, how are you?
[02:06.340 --> 02:08.700]  And the rest of the fellas, this is Adam.
[02:09.580 --> 02:12.800]  I just want to say, you're absolutely right about the media.
[02:13.120 --> 02:15.160]  You know, you're saying everything you're going to say.
[02:17.180 --> 02:23.340]  I think that the fact that they call it Iraqi, I mean, Operation Iraqi Freedom is ludicrous.
[02:23.460 --> 02:24.820]  They should call it Operation Iraqi Freedom.
[02:24.840 --> 02:27.320]  Iraqi oil, you know.
[02:28.840 --> 02:31.140]  And guess who's calling me on the other line?
[02:31.440 --> 02:32.360]  I don't know.
[02:32.940 --> 02:33.360]  Rebel!
[02:34.260 --> 02:36.120]  Okay, well, we certainly don't want to hear that.
[02:36.200 --> 02:39.100]  He's so far away, and he wants me to call for him.
[02:39.500 --> 02:52.840]  So, yeah, and I was going to say, there is another radio station that does have the same sentiment as you and I and the rest of the BAI people, and that is WWRL.
[02:53.740 --> 02:54.180]  WWRL?
[02:54.180 --> 02:55.980]  That's AM radio.
[02:56.320 --> 03:01.300]  They're the originator of Gary Byrd from the 70s.
[03:01.440 --> 03:04.140]  And they have the same sentiment.
[03:04.380 --> 03:16.660]  Felipe Luciano, the ex-young lord and former Fox News reporter, it sounds exactly like you would not believe it.
[03:16.840 --> 03:19.420]  I mean, this is what's great.
[03:19.900 --> 03:27.600]  It's coming back, but unfortunately, this is a flag-waving, hateful nation we have overall in general.
[03:27.600 --> 03:34.740]  And that's why the networks work for the government.
[03:34.740 --> 03:42.480]  And like you're saying, like your friend on the phone, Peter, what's it?
[03:42.580 --> 03:43.060]  Bernie S.
[03:43.160 --> 03:43.560]  is on the phone.
[03:44.000 --> 03:44.220]  Yes.
[03:44.340 --> 03:45.780]  Yes, Bernie's absolutely right.
[03:45.780 --> 03:48.320]  It's all a publicity campaign.
[03:48.600 --> 03:50.840]  A watchdog like they should be.
[03:50.960 --> 03:52.660]  They should be monitoring us.
[03:52.840 --> 03:57.360]  We broke the Geneva Convention by declaring war.
[03:57.360 --> 04:05.940]  And here they're talking about Geneva Convention being waived by Iraq by displaying the soldiers or torturing them.
[04:06.880 --> 04:09.000]  You see, here's the way I look at it.
[04:09.220 --> 04:19.240]  In war, I don't understand this whole concept of rules of war, where people, if they wave a white flag, they can't trick you and shoot you, or they have to wear...
[04:19.240 --> 04:20.720]  The latest thing is they have to wear uniforms.
[04:20.720 --> 04:22.380]  They can't shoot you if they're civilians.
[04:22.660 --> 04:24.180]  Otherwise, they're breaking the rules of war.
[04:24.440 --> 04:26.320]  You know, war, do you know what war is?
[04:26.580 --> 04:28.240]  It's basically trying to kill people.
[04:28.400 --> 04:32.020]  I don't know how there can be rules that say, okay, you're violating this.
[04:32.060 --> 04:33.900]  It's not a fair fight to start with.
[04:33.900 --> 04:40.120]  It just seems so bizarre and ludicrous that we would actually talk about rules.
[04:40.260 --> 04:41.360]  I mean, I know these rules exist.
[04:41.360 --> 04:42.720]  I know they've been agreed upon.
[04:42.880 --> 04:45.120]  But I find the whole thing to be really obscene.
[04:45.400 --> 04:46.340]  Didn't you say a moment ago...
[04:46.340 --> 04:46.880]  Did Bush call the U.N.
[04:46.960 --> 04:47.300]  irrelevant?
[04:47.900 --> 04:48.520]  I'm sorry?
[04:48.860 --> 04:50.020]  He called the U.N.
[04:50.180 --> 04:50.660]  irrelevant.
[04:50.860 --> 04:51.680]  Bush did, yes.
[04:52.020 --> 04:54.900]  So, the Geneva Convention was a U.N.
[04:55.720 --> 04:58.100]  institution, not an American one.
[04:58.420 --> 05:11.440]  And if he avoids using the Geneva Convention for his needs, then what do you think is going to happen when Americans are sending 10,000-pound bombs on top of the heads of the Iraqi troops or civilians?
[05:12.000 --> 05:17.100]  Those troops are innocent because they are working for Saddam.
[05:17.280 --> 05:21.200]  They're like, you know, it's like Bush, our soldiers are innocent, too, no matter what they do.
[05:21.320 --> 05:22.620]  They're doing what they're told.
[05:22.840 --> 05:23.840]  This is the way it is.
[05:23.920 --> 05:24.520]  This is war.
[05:24.720 --> 05:25.740]  There are no rules.
[05:25.740 --> 05:28.100]  It's about murder on both sides.
[05:28.100 --> 05:32.560]  Yeah, you know, I've always had a problem with people just doing what they're told without thinking about the consequences.
[05:32.560 --> 05:37.280]  No matter what side they're on, if they're on the side of good, they're on the side of bad, you know, it's all a matter of perspective.
[05:37.280 --> 05:39.540]  But I always think people need to think as individuals.
[05:39.940 --> 05:42.380]  And, of course, that flies in the face of everything military.
[05:43.140 --> 05:45.820]  I guess I just have a big problem with the military no matter where it is.
[05:46.160 --> 05:47.360]  Anyway, thanks for that call.
[05:47.460 --> 05:47.900]  Oh, I know you've got a lot of callers.
[05:48.000 --> 05:48.700]  Thanks for that call.
[05:48.880 --> 05:49.360]  You're welcome.
[05:49.360 --> 05:50.160]  And drive safely.
[05:51.880 --> 05:54.180]  It's, you know, it's a weird thing.
[05:54.360 --> 05:54.860]  It really is.
[05:55.000 --> 05:55.580]  All the...
[05:55.580 --> 05:59.580]  You were making the comparison earlier about the sport analogy.
[05:59.840 --> 06:00.000]  Mm-hmm.
[06:00.060 --> 06:00.540]  As far...
[06:00.540 --> 06:02.160]  And that's basically what's going on here.
[06:02.240 --> 06:06.300]  I mean, we're looking at diagrams and plays of how this is going to work.
[06:06.420 --> 06:07.060]  Oh, my God, look at that.
[06:07.160 --> 06:10.640]  Yeah, on CNN right now, they're just standing over a little playing field.
[06:10.960 --> 06:11.300]  Exactly.
[06:11.580 --> 06:11.880]  A football game.
[06:12.040 --> 06:12.220]  Yeah.
[06:12.340 --> 06:12.600]  Exactly.
[06:12.700 --> 06:13.440]  Well, that's what it is today.
[06:13.460 --> 06:21.620]  With the neutral commentator, the former NATO general, Wesley Clark, is one of those two white men.
[06:21.760 --> 06:22.360]  I don't know which.
[06:22.520 --> 06:24.420]  That guy, he lives at CNN.
[06:24.640 --> 06:27.460]  He's always prattling on about one thing or another.
[06:28.500 --> 06:31.340]  Okay, our phone number 212-209-2900.
[06:31.340 --> 06:32.480]  Let's get your opinions.
[06:32.760 --> 06:33.200]  And good evening.
[06:33.280 --> 06:33.700]  You're on the air.
[06:34.980 --> 06:35.200]  Hello?
[06:35.420 --> 06:35.720]  Go ahead.
[06:36.160 --> 06:36.700]  Hey, how you doing?
[06:36.880 --> 06:37.400]  Okay, how are you?
[06:37.600 --> 06:39.300]  George, you're sure of a number of years now.
[06:39.800 --> 06:40.100]  Uh-huh.
[06:41.140 --> 06:45.520]  Okay, we've got a denial of service attack against Al Jazeera.
[06:45.600 --> 06:46.240]  Are you aware of that?
[06:46.380 --> 06:47.420]  Yeah, we've been talking about that.
[06:47.640 --> 06:48.460]  So here's the thing.
[06:48.460 --> 06:57.880]  We've got MSNBC, we've got CNBC, CNN, and Fox on the Internet with a denial of service attack against them.
[07:00.160 --> 07:06.940]  Well, I've heard there have been denial of service attacks against all kinds of different news agencies or governments.
[07:07.340 --> 07:07.520]  Right now?
[07:07.520 --> 07:08.740]  I don't know about at this very moment.
[07:08.800 --> 07:10.480]  I've heard that there have been denial of service.
[07:10.520 --> 07:13.600]  I mean, the whole thing is reprehensible regardless of who they're trying to silence.
[07:13.780 --> 07:15.640]  But, you know, I think you're right.
[07:15.640 --> 07:20.300]  I think there's very little in the way of interference with the mainstream news.
[07:20.300 --> 07:24.960]  It's the alternative news which is suffering and whose view is not getting out.
[07:25.020 --> 07:28.040]  And you have to wonder why is that scene as such a threat?
[07:28.240 --> 07:29.460]  Well, here's the question.
[07:29.480 --> 07:30.280]  What's the name of this show?
[07:30.780 --> 07:31.560]  What's the name of this show?
[07:31.640 --> 07:31.800]  Yeah.
[07:31.900 --> 07:32.360]  Off the hook.
[07:32.860 --> 07:33.100]  Okay.
[07:34.020 --> 07:35.200]  So, where are the hackers?
[07:35.640 --> 07:41.980]  Let's get these net shops that are basically propaganda operations off the air.
[07:42.780 --> 07:43.320]  Why not?
[07:43.380 --> 07:44.080]  You can't say it.
[07:44.120 --> 07:44.500]  I can't.
[07:44.620 --> 07:44.880]  Okay.
[07:44.980 --> 07:46.400]  You see, that's the whole thing.
[07:46.540 --> 07:51.180]  The theory that hackers are somehow the only ones that can do things like this.
[07:51.260 --> 07:55.000]  To launch a denial of service attack requires very little in the way of hacker skill.
[07:55.260 --> 07:56.020]  You need a script.
[07:56.020 --> 08:00.860]  You just need to run a program and you need to have some kind of bandwidth and you can take anybody down.
[08:01.000 --> 08:02.420]  You can take the White House down if you want.
[08:02.420 --> 08:03.420]  You can take the script monkeys rocking.
[08:03.720 --> 08:03.880]  Yeah.
[08:04.020 --> 08:06.960]  Well, you know, the script monkeys are the people that don't think about what they're doing.
[08:07.080 --> 08:11.740]  They just, you know, they just type commands and that's it and they consider themselves hackers.
[08:11.860 --> 08:13.760]  Hackers aren't interested in destroying.
[08:13.940 --> 08:15.060]  They're not interested in silencing.
[08:15.300 --> 08:17.760]  They're interested in learning and building and creating.
[08:18.020 --> 08:18.240]  Good.
[08:18.460 --> 08:19.280]  Hackers be cool.
[08:19.440 --> 08:20.500]  Let's call them the script monkeys.
[08:20.780 --> 08:21.160]  Okay.
[08:21.560 --> 08:22.480]  Well, I don't know.
[08:22.640 --> 08:25.720]  I don't support silencing anybody, even if it's Fox.
[08:26.060 --> 08:27.400]  That's just the way I feel.
[08:32.520 --> 08:34.400]  Sometimes that involves views you don't agree with.
[08:34.440 --> 08:35.400]  In fact, often it does.
[08:35.640 --> 08:41.520]  And if you can't deal with that, you have to ask yourself, why do you see that as a threat?
[08:42.040 --> 08:43.060]  Thanks for that call.
[08:43.160 --> 08:43.400]  Go ahead, Mike.
[08:43.640 --> 08:52.580]  Part of the issue is that a lot of these large companies just have a lot more resources to keep their internet sites up than some of the smaller sites.
[08:52.580 --> 08:57.660]  So, for example, the Indy Media Center has just kind of been recently a victim of its own success.
[08:58.320 --> 09:03.460]  No one can afford to run the server with the level of service that it would need.
[09:04.380 --> 09:06.800]  You know, Disney has no such problem.
[09:06.920 --> 09:08.140]  Well, let's talk about that.
[09:08.240 --> 09:13.100]  Now, what's the problem that Indy Media is facing right now as far as the actual site?
[09:13.960 --> 09:15.380]  We're being deluged.
[09:15.520 --> 09:17.500]  I believe it's being run out of Seattle right now.
[09:18.600 --> 09:21.160]  It's a popular site, which is good news.
[09:22.020 --> 09:31.200]  I guess we should say it's web address, indymedia.org, where anyone can go and post whatever they have to say.
[09:31.920 --> 09:34.680]  But the server that it's running on is old.
[09:34.880 --> 09:37.280]  It needs replacement parts.
[09:37.280 --> 09:38.520]  It needs more bandwidth.
[09:38.520 --> 09:39.140]  It needs this.
[09:39.200 --> 09:39.720]  It needs that.
[09:39.880 --> 09:41.820]  And it's all volunteer operation.
[09:42.120 --> 09:46.140]  There's very little, if no money around.
[09:47.500 --> 09:48.180]  So, that's what happens.
[09:48.320 --> 09:48.440]  Yeah.
[09:48.520 --> 09:52.280]  So, how can people help if they have resources that they'd like to offer something like this?
[09:53.200 --> 09:53.880]  I don't know.
[09:54.140 --> 09:54.800]  You don't know.
[09:55.220 --> 09:55.580]  Okay.
[09:55.660 --> 10:01.060]  How about you mail us, OTH at 2600.com, and we'll pass it along to the people in various offices.
[10:01.320 --> 10:06.840]  And hopefully, it'll get to the right people because it's important to keep these alternative views out there.
[10:07.300 --> 10:08.120]  It really is.
[10:08.420 --> 10:09.000]  It's vital.
[10:09.140 --> 10:10.660]  It's essential, especially at times like this.
[10:11.820 --> 10:12.460]  Go ahead, Leo.
[10:12.460 --> 10:21.080]  I'm pretty sure that indymedia.org, I-N-Z-Y-M-E-D-I-A.org, has the supporters' information on their website.
[10:21.580 --> 10:24.900]  So, if you want to find out how to send them money, I'm pretty sure.
[10:25.720 --> 10:26.160]  Okay.
[10:27.640 --> 10:28.520]  Well, okay.
[10:28.660 --> 10:29.780]  But we don't know the email address here.
[10:29.880 --> 10:36.000]  So, if someone out there sees that email address, feel free to tell us or just email it yourself.
[10:36.000 --> 10:40.080]  So, 212-209-2900 is our phone number.
[10:40.280 --> 10:43.860]  Now, I want to talk about the demonstration that took place on Saturday.
[10:44.520 --> 10:45.560]  Now, I was there.
[10:45.680 --> 10:46.380]  Mike, I know you were there.
[10:46.720 --> 10:46.860]  Yeah.
[10:48.140 --> 10:55.600]  It was a marked contrast to what happened on February 15th, as far as just the overall way it came about.
[10:55.840 --> 10:59.020]  On February 15th, if you recall, there was a rally near the UN.
[10:59.860 --> 11:07.400]  And what the police did was block all entry to the rally so that it was almost impossible to get to it.
[11:08.020 --> 11:13.200]  And you had situations where people were penned in all over the place throughout Midtown Manhattan.
[11:13.500 --> 11:14.920]  And there were numerous instances.
[11:15.220 --> 11:29.340]  In fact, there was a videotape being circulated by Indymedia to the major networks, which actually made it onto some news programs of police charging their horses into crowds and basically just acting like real jerks for no particular reason, apparently,
[11:29.540 --> 11:36.640]  because they were doing what they were told to do and keep these people from getting to the rally, which they, for the most part, succeeded in doing.
[11:36.640 --> 11:39.800]  It didn't stop however many hundreds of thousands of people showed up.
[11:39.920 --> 11:41.320]  Did we get a final crowd estimate there?
[11:41.960 --> 11:45.480]  The number that I believe is half a million people.
[11:45.600 --> 11:50.540]  You see, it's very hard because since they couldn't congregate, they were just in the street.
[11:50.720 --> 11:53.420]  But then again, people who were normally in the street were also in the streets.
[11:53.500 --> 11:55.160]  I don't know how it was even possible to count them.
[11:55.660 --> 12:10.720]  But anyway, on Saturday, we had a different situation where basically the United for Peace and Justice, that organization, was able to get a permit to march down Broadway.
[12:11.000 --> 12:12.760]  I was amazed when they pulled this off.
[12:12.860 --> 12:23.000]  But they got the permit, and it was almost like the city was trying to make up for the black eye it got on February 15th by actually being cooperative and allowing this to happen.
[12:23.140 --> 12:27.700]  I have a real problem with asking permission to demonstrate, but that's how it works in this country, unfortunately.
[12:29.300 --> 12:30.700]  Basically, it started where?
[12:30.820 --> 12:31.300]  Times Square?
[12:31.500 --> 12:32.740]  Or just south of Times Square?
[12:33.300 --> 12:34.100]  That neighborhood.
[12:34.320 --> 12:39.300]  I mean, there were just so many people that there was no single starting point that everyone could possibly fit at.
[12:39.440 --> 12:39.600]  Yeah.
[12:39.740 --> 12:42.660]  It was really just people joined in along Broadway.
[12:42.880 --> 12:55.800]  The entire width of Broadway, all the way down to 4th Street, really, where people turned and went to Washington Square Park, was packed full of people for hours and hours as they marched down.
[12:55.860 --> 12:59.820]  That's why I think it was significantly more than the people that showed up on February 15th.
[12:59.880 --> 13:00.740]  It just was huge.
[13:01.180 --> 13:04.000]  And people from all over were taking part in this.
[13:04.520 --> 13:10.340]  And, you know, I consider it a marked contrast because it really seemed so much better.
[13:10.600 --> 13:11.960]  It really seemed so much nicer.
[13:12.560 --> 13:14.400]  The police were smiling and chatting.
[13:14.660 --> 13:19.420]  And, you know, there wasn't the kind of intimidation that, you know, I saw on February 15th.
[13:19.600 --> 13:25.600]  All kinds of people on the side were, you know, waving at us and smiling and, you know, workers inside buildings.
[13:26.900 --> 13:29.300]  I didn't see any counter-demonstrators.
[13:29.320 --> 13:31.180]  Not that that would have been a bad thing, but I didn't see them.
[13:31.320 --> 13:31.860]  There were a few.
[13:32.000 --> 13:32.560]  There were a few.
[13:32.720 --> 13:36.640]  And, of course, all the networks went to those people and gave them so much airtime.
[13:37.000 --> 13:40.840]  You know, three people on the side and 500,000 people walking by, however many.
[13:41.460 --> 13:43.500]  And they gave equal time in that regard.
[13:43.740 --> 13:46.460]  That's just the way they choose to do things.
[13:47.220 --> 13:50.180]  The funny thing is, we made it all the way down to Washington Square Park.
[13:51.000 --> 13:52.160]  And there was...
[13:52.560 --> 13:55.100]  As soon as you got there, there was a recording being played.
[13:55.200 --> 13:55.600]  Did you hear this?
[13:55.680 --> 13:56.540]  A recording from the police?
[13:56.680 --> 14:00.080]  I was actually sitting about a block away from that recording for about half an hour.
[14:00.240 --> 14:01.360]  It must have driven you mad.
[14:01.480 --> 14:01.860]  Oh, yes.
[14:02.700 --> 14:03.600]  It was hilarious.
[14:03.800 --> 14:09.480]  There was basically this cop with a Brooklyn accent that was saying, The march is now over.
[14:09.480 --> 14:14.560]  Or, please, leave the area so that other marchers may participate as you have just done.
[14:14.660 --> 14:15.580]  Or something along those lines.
[14:15.860 --> 14:16.320]  May complete their march.
[14:16.360 --> 14:17.160]  May complete their march.
[14:17.380 --> 14:17.820]  As you have done.
[14:17.920 --> 14:18.200]  Yes.
[14:18.860 --> 14:24.280]  And, you know, at first I was kind of annoyed by this because I thought, Hey, they're trying to, like, you know, break this thing up.
[14:25.860 --> 14:33.500]  And then I just thought it was funny because they were, you know, They really just weren't trying to, like, move anybody out of there.
[14:33.580 --> 14:36.640]  They just wanted people to, you know, kind of try and disperse.
[14:36.760 --> 14:41.060]  But there wasn't any actual hostile action on their part.
[14:41.240 --> 14:43.700]  And, you know, I was looking at all the cops during this.
[14:43.720 --> 14:48.580]  And I realized, you know, how they just seemed to be blending into the crowd.
[14:48.780 --> 14:49.440]  They were, you know...
[14:49.440 --> 14:50.900]  In some cases, more than others.
[14:50.900 --> 14:51.980]  Well, yeah, we'll get to that.
[14:52.200 --> 14:54.140]  The thing is, they were being friendly.
[14:54.140 --> 14:54.900]  They were talking.
[14:55.140 --> 14:56.280]  They were talking amongst themselves.
[14:56.540 --> 14:56.900]  It just...
[14:56.900 --> 14:59.560]  They seemed so much more relaxed than they did on February 15th.
[15:01.000 --> 15:03.840]  And, you know, everybody was having a great time hanging out in Washington Square Park.
[15:04.140 --> 15:07.760]  You know, chatting, talking, passing out leaflets, selling t-shirts, all that kind of thing.
[15:08.080 --> 15:14.220]  And, you know, sometimes people are doing things they don't have permits for, like using megaphones, you know, and that's fine.
[15:14.580 --> 15:16.360]  You know, democracy survives.
[15:17.120 --> 15:18.020]  That's what it's all about.
[15:18.160 --> 15:19.080]  But it was a great feeling.
[15:19.940 --> 15:21.120]  Until 4 o'clock.
[15:21.440 --> 15:22.660]  4 o'clock rolled around.
[15:22.860 --> 15:27.700]  Apparently, that was the hour that the permit expired for the march.
[15:28.180 --> 15:36.840]  And, bam, right at that hour, like clockwork, all the cops suddenly started to surround the park and keep people from getting across the street.
[15:37.220 --> 15:39.320]  All these horses appeared out of nowhere.
[15:39.680 --> 15:40.200]  Motorcycles.
[15:40.860 --> 15:42.180]  You know, riot gear.
[15:42.440 --> 15:42.920]  Everything.
[15:43.740 --> 15:45.220]  I was incredulous.
[15:45.500 --> 15:46.920]  Everybody was having such a good time.
[15:46.920 --> 15:47.820]  It was a beautiful day.
[15:49.080 --> 15:51.260]  Long, there were no problems that I could see.
[15:51.440 --> 15:57.800]  And then, all of a sudden, like a switch was thrown, all these cops started to surround peaceful demonstrators.
[15:58.320 --> 16:01.600]  And it really, it changed the entire dynamic of the day.
[16:01.780 --> 16:07.120]  It created this confrontation where none had existed before.
[16:08.060 --> 16:10.040]  Or at least very little had existed before.
[16:10.280 --> 16:10.720]  I mean...
[16:10.720 --> 16:12.280]  It's not quite true.
[16:12.440 --> 16:16.420]  I mean, some friends of mine were beat up at about 2.30 by police officers.
[16:16.420 --> 16:17.380]  Well, give us the details.
[16:17.380 --> 16:18.440]  What exactly happened?
[16:19.060 --> 16:20.240]  A group of...
[16:20.240 --> 16:22.860]  I don't want to say too much because I don't want to...
[16:22.860 --> 16:24.020]  Well, say enough so that...
[16:24.020 --> 16:24.500]  I don't want to...
[16:24.500 --> 16:26.880]  Well, I don't want to incriminate anybody except undercover officers.
[16:26.880 --> 16:27.720]  Well, don't give any names.
[16:28.020 --> 16:28.880]  Don't give any locations.
[16:31.520 --> 16:32.620]  A group of people...
[16:32.620 --> 16:33.400]  There's 500,000 people.
[16:33.480 --> 16:34.740]  I don't think they'll figure out who they are.
[16:34.740 --> 16:44.920]  Well, a group of people left the main march and walked westward along one of the side streets.
[16:45.220 --> 16:49.860]  And apparently this is the worst thing you can ever conceivably do.
[16:50.040 --> 16:58.920]  So they were attacked by police officers, including some undercover police officers who did not bother to identify themselves.
[16:58.920 --> 17:00.040]  I saw those guys.
[17:00.220 --> 17:01.100]  They all look the same.
[17:01.100 --> 17:05.840]  I don't mean to sound nasty here, but they all dress in the same white t-shirt and baseball cap.
[17:05.960 --> 17:06.880]  I mean, come on.
[17:07.020 --> 17:07.580]  Who are you trying to...
[17:07.580 --> 17:08.560]  Why don't I just get a uniform?
[17:09.760 --> 17:10.920]  Everybody knows you're a cop.
[17:11.120 --> 17:12.140]  Well, apparently not everyone.
[17:13.540 --> 17:17.780]  So, and you know, if you get beat up by a cop, then of course you get charged with assault.
[17:18.940 --> 17:19.940]  So there are people...
[17:19.940 --> 17:21.460]  For what, blocking the fist with your face?
[17:21.460 --> 17:29.340]  You know, the charge won't stick, I believe, in the cases I'm familiar with.
[17:29.580 --> 17:32.800]  But it's just a real hassle that people don't need.
[17:33.340 --> 17:35.120]  Is there any video of this?
[17:35.180 --> 17:37.140]  Because there are plenty of video cameras all over the place.
[17:37.360 --> 17:38.420]  Lots of things are captured.
[17:38.920 --> 17:39.680]  I don't know.
[17:39.800 --> 17:40.500]  We're trying to find out.
[17:40.500 --> 17:42.620]  Okay, that's very important in situations like this.
[17:42.740 --> 17:53.320]  In fact, the National Lawyers Guild was around asking people if you have any signs of police brutality to contact them, to give them as much information as possible, because we have to prevent this kind of a thing.
[17:53.700 --> 17:54.140]  Now...
[17:54.140 --> 17:59.020]  You know, we like playing on this show with phone tree systems trying to get to a human.
[17:59.840 --> 18:06.100]  For a real challenge, I would encourage people to try and file a complaint about brutality with the New York Police Department.
[18:06.360 --> 18:09.700]  Well, right there, there's a problem, because who are you filing the complaint with?
[18:09.700 --> 18:13.340]  Well, there's allegedly this body called the Civilian Complaint Review Board.
[18:15.040 --> 18:17.620]  I encourage anyone to try and get anywhere with it.
[18:19.020 --> 18:21.780]  I was... I got involved in this conversation.
[18:21.780 --> 18:22.400]  It was great.
[18:23.260 --> 18:25.440]  We were all hanging out in the street corner.
[18:25.640 --> 18:29.060]  It was on the northwest corner of Washington Square Park.
[18:29.180 --> 18:29.960]  We were across the street.
[18:30.600 --> 18:32.260]  And it was me and a bunch of other people.
[18:32.560 --> 18:37.620]  And I got into this long conversation with this 75-year-old woman who was terrific.
[18:37.620 --> 18:40.500]  She just came down there and was, you know, part of this whole rally.
[18:41.020 --> 18:44.300]  And she just had the most interesting points.
[18:44.600 --> 18:49.900]  Like, you know, why are these policemen seeing me as a threat to them?
[18:50.280 --> 18:58.280]  You know, why am I being placed in this situation where I'm told I can't cross this street because I'm going to be a threat if I do?
[18:59.000 --> 19:00.840]  And she was very upfront about it.
[19:00.900 --> 19:04.080]  She confronted some of the cops saying, you know, why are you doing this?
[19:04.260 --> 19:10.320]  And to their credit, some of the cops actually, you know, engaged in sort of a, you know, semi-debate about the whole issue.
[19:11.820 --> 19:20.420]  This one in particular was talking about how his friend, his friend had just been beaten up by some of the demonstrators and taken to the emergency room.
[19:21.060 --> 19:22.700]  And again, I ask the same question.
[19:22.700 --> 19:25.520]  If such a thing happens, I want to know about it.
[19:25.580 --> 19:26.440]  Let's see the documentation.
[19:26.720 --> 19:28.460]  Let's see, there's got to be video of this somewhere.
[19:28.560 --> 19:29.980]  There's so many people with video cameras.
[19:30.220 --> 19:36.280]  There has to be some kind of a report that this person was rushed to the hospital, that he, you know, had to get all these stitches.
[19:36.920 --> 19:40.040]  If such a thing happens, it's got to be condemned, obviously.
[19:40.480 --> 19:49.780]  I have a lot of trouble believing something like that, though, based just on the emotional aspect of telling somebody that this just happened to a friend of yours.
[19:50.420 --> 20:00.040]  In the crowd of people that I saw, such a thing, if such a thing were to happen, if there was a couple of lunatics that would actually do something like that, they would quickly be quelled by the rest of the people.
[20:00.240 --> 20:10.540]  Well, you can't do that, because if you touch the person, a lot of times the fights are started by undercover cops, so if you touch the person, then you've all of a sudden assaulted a police officer.
[20:10.540 --> 20:21.520]  Well, if it's an undercover cop that does not identify himself, that actually tries to start something with somebody and the person responds, it's not the same thing as attacking a police officer.
[20:21.680 --> 20:24.160]  It's, you know, you think you're responding to an idiot.
[20:25.000 --> 20:26.600]  Well, they prosecute it the same.
[20:26.760 --> 20:28.000]  Okay, but we don't know that's what happened.
[20:28.080 --> 20:29.140]  We don't have any information.
[20:29.140 --> 20:34.480]  And what I'm saying is, when something like this happens, it's very important for all the documentation to come forward.
[20:34.600 --> 20:38.320]  You know, we shouldn't be saying that that's impossible, that couldn't have happened.
[20:38.360 --> 20:40.660]  No, it's possible, it could have happened, but let's find out if it did.
[20:40.940 --> 20:49.260]  You know, let's find out all the situations where somebody was attacked in any particular way, cop or protester, and let's get the facts out there.
[20:49.360 --> 20:54.620]  Because right now you have people just saying things like, well, you know, my friend was assaulted, he got all these stitches.
[20:55.320 --> 21:02.100]  But until you have the actual evidence that that really happened, you know, it's just an emotional type of a thing.
[21:02.100 --> 21:03.840]  You're just getting an emotional reaction.
[21:04.620 --> 21:10.400]  And, you know, that's... I didn't want to say that to the cop, because, you know, it struck me that that's what he was trying to do.
[21:10.480 --> 21:15.580]  And maybe he believed it, maybe he didn't know the facts himself, or maybe he did know the facts, and maybe we don't want to hear those facts.
[21:15.580 --> 21:17.960]  The important thing is to get all the information out there.
[21:18.380 --> 21:22.000]  One thing he said, though, which, you know, convinced me that he wasn't that bad a person.
[21:22.240 --> 21:26.040]  He said that, you know, there's always bad people in any crowd, and that includes the cops.
[21:26.700 --> 21:37.980]  You know, for someone to actually make that step and say that, volunteer that information, I don't know if he's actually going to testify against somebody, one of his fellow officers, if he does something, but to actually admit it up front like that to protesters,
[21:38.000 --> 21:39.900]  I think, you know, takes a degree of guts.
[21:40.360 --> 21:41.680]  And let's hope there are more people like that.
[21:41.680 --> 21:44.680]  All right, 212-209-2900 is our phone number.
[21:44.760 --> 21:50.100]  If you had any particular experiences at the demonstration or anything involving mass media, we'd like to hear about it.
[21:50.840 --> 21:51.880]  And let's go over here.
[21:52.000 --> 21:52.720]  Good evening, you're on the air.
[21:53.180 --> 21:56.660]  Yes, this is about the style of the mass media.
[21:57.460 --> 22:00.900]  Generally, it seems that, okay, I'm in my 50s when I was a kid.
[22:01.200 --> 22:11.660]  We used to play that game called, you know, guns or war, where everyone runs around like the local empty lot, and one person's like a lieutenant or something like that.
[22:11.680 --> 22:23.040]  And it seems like the very lingo that the American, most of the American mass media uses, especially network, is geared towards, say, like a 15-year-old.
[22:23.040 --> 22:28.300]  It's geared towards 15-year-olds playing with, let's go get them, let's go kill them kind of lingo.
[22:28.700 --> 22:30.520]  And they're doing that deliberately.
[22:30.900 --> 22:35.120]  Because those people that are talking like that, don't talk like that when they go home.
[22:35.120 --> 22:40.240]  I mean, it's like Marshall McLuhan said, the media is the message or the massage.
[22:40.440 --> 22:48.140]  I mean, it's very, very cleverly calculated to appeal to, like, say, like high school kids.
[22:48.300 --> 22:50.440]  Because then they'll enlist.
[22:51.100 --> 22:52.480]  Because it's their style.
[22:52.820 --> 22:57.120]  Did I hear right that MTV refused... somebody told me this.
[22:57.180 --> 23:03.020]  MTV refused to air any kind of anti-war public service announcement.
[23:03.640 --> 23:04.840]  I've heard that too, yeah.
[23:04.980 --> 23:14.560]  And people got around it, actually, by simply going to the local cable systems and having them air the same advertisement during, you know, on MTV's channel during a local break.
[23:14.680 --> 23:19.940]  But the thing is, you know, MTV airs recruitment ads for the Army, for the Navy.
[23:19.940 --> 23:21.580]  Well, they're part of the big machine.
[23:22.500 --> 23:30.140]  And they're not something in any way that's about human freedom or thinking.
[23:30.440 --> 23:40.900]  I mean, they're about selling their product and achieving, you know, that kind of cynical manipulation of the public.
[23:42.860 --> 23:46.020]  And it's done very, very skillfully.
[23:46.300 --> 23:56.820]  And it's sad that the audience it's aimed at is like an audience of mostly poor kids and working class kids who maybe have an argument with their father or something.
[23:56.980 --> 23:59.380]  And just want to get out of... get away from home.
[23:59.380 --> 24:00.380]  So they join the Army.
[24:00.760 --> 24:05.580]  And they think it's going to be like running around with their friends playing guns or something.
[24:06.300 --> 24:08.840]  Yeah, unfortunately, a lot of people do get trapped into that.
[24:09.880 --> 24:12.260]  And I know there are a lot of unhappy people in the military.
[24:12.420 --> 24:13.520]  There's no question about that.
[24:13.580 --> 24:14.380]  I hear from a lot of them.
[24:14.440 --> 24:15.340]  A lot of them send us email.
[24:16.500 --> 24:17.400]  And, you know, it's hard.
[24:17.540 --> 24:28.440]  Imagine being an individual, an individual thinker in such an environment where you have to not question and have to follow all kinds of orders that you might not understand or agree with.
[24:28.560 --> 24:30.040]  Well, then they have a nervous breakdown.
[24:30.240 --> 24:34.260]  I mean, I've known people when I was younger that that had happened to.
[24:34.260 --> 24:44.880]  They went in, because I'm from a working class background, and a lot of people went in kind of just thinking that, like, they were doing what they thought was right.
[24:45.080 --> 24:48.640]  And then when they got in, they realized they had been conned.
[24:48.700 --> 24:50.400]  I'm talking way back to Vietnam.
[24:50.660 --> 24:56.200]  And, like, cousins of mine came home, heroin addicts and all kinds of things.
[24:56.200 --> 25:06.920]  And they had never suspected the way they were going to be treated and manipulated by their own government.
[25:07.880 --> 25:18.180]  And another thing, it's like when I was a kid, we were always taught how, you know, during the American Revolution, the English had these, like, stiff formations.
[25:18.180 --> 25:25.700]  And how great we Americans were for fighting a guerrilla war against the English during the Revolutionary War.
[25:25.860 --> 25:28.760]  And now the Iraqis are fighting a guerrilla war.
[25:28.960 --> 25:39.760]  And our public relations, I mean, the American public relations apparatus is very much like the old British Empire, the way it talks about them.
[25:40.040 --> 25:43.860]  You know, calling them, like, unfair animals, all this stuff.
[25:43.860 --> 26:01.240]  They're fighting a guerrilla war, because our country is the one of our leaders that are manipulating this kind of grand-scale apparatus of huge mechanisms, I mean, bombs and all kinds of technology.
[26:01.280 --> 26:05.440]  So people are pulling every little desperate action they can.
[26:05.720 --> 26:24.740]  Yeah, I mean, ask yourself, if there was a foreign army that was far superior to anything that we had in this country, and they were basically just moving, you know, slowly but surely across the entire country, you think maybe you might try all kinds of skullduggery and trickery to defeat them.
[26:24.760 --> 26:26.920]  You won't necessarily play by the rules of war.
[26:27.060 --> 26:33.980]  You engage in all kinds of, you know, who knows what, just anything to stop them, or just to at least make a last stand.
[26:34.360 --> 26:37.080]  I mean, you know, let's not be surprised by this.
[26:37.080 --> 26:48.060]  Yeah, it surprises me that people are so surprised, but I think people like, okay, the president is being totally disingenuous.
[26:48.220 --> 26:50.080]  Everything he does is about manipulating.
[26:50.600 --> 26:55.580]  I mean, he's an old New England Yankee, and there he is pretending he's this southerner.
[26:55.660 --> 26:56.240]  He's not.
[26:56.500 --> 26:58.680]  He's from this rich New England family.
[26:59.680 --> 27:08.520]  And he goes off, you know, talking like that in this calculated way, like he's always, you know, went to barbecues all his life and things like that.
[27:08.640 --> 27:10.200]  That ain't the case with him.
[27:11.240 --> 27:14.980]  I mean, that's all public relations that he tricks everyone with.
[27:15.260 --> 27:15.480]  Mm-hmm.
[27:16.000 --> 27:17.320]  Well, that's what it's all about, is trickery.
[27:17.520 --> 27:18.860]  Anyway, thanks for your call.
[27:18.960 --> 27:19.720]  Okay, thank you.
[27:19.880 --> 27:20.240]  All right.
[27:20.400 --> 27:20.540]  Bye.
[27:29.160 --> 27:40.580]  And people chimed in on that, where people got around the MTV commercial, anti-war commercial ban by purchasing ads on their local cable system.
[27:40.780 --> 27:49.720]  Well, a group of Quakers here in Philadelphia just a few weeks ago tried the same thing with Comcast Corporation, which runs the cable monopoly here in Philadelphia.
[27:49.720 --> 27:55.000]  And Comcast refused to broadcast their ad on the cable system.
[27:55.160 --> 28:01.220]  And the reason was that Comcast said that the information in the ad could not be verified.
[28:01.600 --> 28:14.600]  And that was basically the claim in the ad was that the Bush administration has made some false claims in justifying this war.
[28:15.260 --> 28:33.020]  And, well, we've all known that to be the case with the forged documents about Iraq trying to obtain uranium from Africa, that sort of thing, which the president mentioned during a presidential, you know, State of the Union address, and this was forged documents.
[28:33.140 --> 28:33.520]  That's right.
[28:33.580 --> 28:33.940]  That's right.
[28:34.320 --> 28:52.200]  But anyhow, this group of Quakers, which have a long, you know, multi-century history back to the birth of this country and promoting peace, they were prevented by Comcast Corporation from airing a pro-peace ad here on the Philadelphia cable monopoly system.
[28:52.480 --> 28:54.480]  So that doesn't always work in all markets.
[28:54.680 --> 28:56.020]  It didn't work here in Philadelphia.
[28:56.220 --> 29:03.100]  All those damn Mormon ads, you know, that, you know, are talking about virtue of the family and traditional lifestyles and things like that.
[29:03.140 --> 29:03.880]  No problem there.
[29:03.960 --> 29:06.280]  Those get aired every place, you know.
[29:06.740 --> 29:08.080]  It's nothing against Mormons.
[29:08.080 --> 29:21.240]  I'm just saying, you know, when you preach something that's mainstream and that goes along with, you know, with the way the powers that be want things to be, then you have no problem at all.
[29:21.340 --> 29:21.960]  But if you start...
[29:21.960 --> 29:27.900]  It's like, you know, with these stickers, these war stickers that we're handing out.
[29:30.200 --> 29:32.140]  Basically, they get ripped down very quickly.
[29:32.140 --> 29:37.460]  But you try putting up something that says, united we stand, perhaps.
[29:38.100 --> 29:38.900]  That doesn't...
[29:38.900 --> 29:40.500]  That does not get torn down.
[29:40.800 --> 29:42.040]  That doesn't get torn down.
[29:42.040 --> 29:54.520]  Because the people that aren't opposed to being united, but they're opposed to, you know, being stupid, they're also opposed to ripping down views of people they might not agree with 100%.
[29:54.520 --> 30:01.780]  And you have to wonder, you know, the people being silenced here are the ones who are speaking a particular view, that particular view is seen as dangerous.
[30:02.400 --> 30:07.440]  I see the people who want to quell any kind of alternate opinion, I see them as dangerous.
[30:07.760 --> 30:11.420]  And they're the ones that really have to be fought, like, vigorously.
[30:11.580 --> 30:19.460]  It really baffles me, Manuel, why people think that being anti-war is the same as being anti-patriotic.
[30:19.600 --> 30:21.720]  If anything, it's more patriotic.
[30:21.820 --> 30:22.180]  Exactly.
[30:22.320 --> 30:24.500]  I consider myself a very patriotic person.
[30:24.640 --> 30:25.620]  I love this country.
[30:25.620 --> 30:40.460]  I don't like how our government has changed our rules of law and other things, but I'm a constitutional conservative in many ways, and I'm disgusted with how things are going lately.
[30:40.560 --> 30:42.040]  But I love this country.
[30:42.140 --> 30:42.900]  This is a beautiful country.
[30:43.040 --> 30:48.000]  It has so much promise with the way our government was formed and designed to operate.
[30:48.960 --> 30:53.980]  But I think questioning how it's going now is highly patriotic.
[30:53.980 --> 31:01.740]  And anyone who's protesting the war on those grounds is generally being accused of being anti-American or anti-patriotic.
[31:01.840 --> 31:03.840]  And it's really the opposite of the case.
[31:04.240 --> 31:04.680]  Yeah.
[31:04.680 --> 31:14.180]  And I think it's very low for somebody to take that approach, to call somebody anti-American because you disagree with them and you think that what they're doing is detrimental.
[31:14.180 --> 31:26.500]  I mean, you know, it's a very low blow and it's something that, you know, it might work to get people to rally around you without thinking, but you're not really backing up what it is you believe in.
[31:26.540 --> 31:30.640]  I've had many, you know, calm conversations with people that completely disagree with me and that's fine.
[31:31.420 --> 31:47.180]  But once you start trying to label people, once you start trying to shut them up and you try to keep other people from hearing other views, that's when you're turning into something that I think maybe the whole point is, you know, those are the kinds of people that are really a threat.
[31:47.380 --> 31:52.700]  They're the people that really are against what this nation is supposedly standing for.
[31:53.160 --> 31:56.560]  Have you seen all the negative comments about Michael Moore's statement at the Oscars?
[31:56.660 --> 31:58.200]  Oh, thank God for somebody like Michael Moore.
[31:58.200 --> 32:08.660]  You know, here's the thing, okay, you got all these chuckleheads out there that say, oh, these celebrities, they should not be allowed to speak out and they should not be allowed to have opinions because, you know, so many people take them seriously.
[32:09.100 --> 32:21.820]  I mean, you know, if you have a way of expressing yourself, like, you know, we have here, we have our way of expressing ourselves, we use that, anybody has the right to express themselves in whatever means they can.
[32:22.080 --> 32:26.140]  Michael Moore was handed a microphone in front of God knows how many hundreds of millions of people.
[32:26.140 --> 32:28.660]  Did you really think he was not going to say something?
[32:28.880 --> 32:30.200]  Of course he was going to say something.
[32:30.260 --> 32:32.440]  I'm just sad he wasn't allowed to say more.
[32:33.120 --> 32:40.180]  I'm sad people tried to shut him down because, you know, the guy has something to say and fine, you know, let somebody say something.
[32:40.360 --> 32:42.040]  It's not that big a deal.
[32:42.120 --> 32:43.860]  But you know what the real irony of this is?
[32:44.060 --> 32:51.280]  The same people that are saying that these celebrities should not be allowed to air their views because they have an unfair advantage.
[32:51.280 --> 32:53.960]  How do you think we got Ronald Reagan in the first place?
[32:54.520 --> 32:56.120]  You know, he was an actor.
[32:56.300 --> 32:57.820]  He was an actor, for God's sake.
[32:57.960 --> 33:03.220]  And that's, you know, he ran off his big mouth and a lot of people listened and they like what he said and he got elected president.
[33:03.860 --> 33:07.000]  If you're interested, Emmanuel, I have the text of Michael Moore's speech.
[33:07.120 --> 33:08.740]  It'll probably take about 30 seconds to read.
[33:09.500 --> 33:10.280]  Sure, go ahead.
[33:10.480 --> 33:11.760]  Maybe you won't be shouted down.
[33:12.080 --> 33:12.440]  I can.
[33:12.680 --> 33:14.680]  Well, everybody can shout me over the radio, I guess.
[33:14.680 --> 33:16.980]  Yeah, we can try to shout you down.
[33:17.120 --> 33:17.940]  Mike has offered to...
[33:17.940 --> 33:18.620]  If you want.
[33:18.700 --> 33:19.140]  It's up to you.
[33:19.440 --> 33:22.100]  I didn't actually see the speech, but this is the text of the speech.
[33:22.140 --> 33:23.140]  I'd like to hear it for once.
[33:23.400 --> 33:26.520]  When he got up on stage, he said, Whoa!
[33:27.240 --> 33:33.060]  On behalf of our producers, Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this.
[33:33.320 --> 33:39.240]  I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to...
[33:39.240 --> 33:43.440]  They're here in solidarity with me because we like non-fiction.
[33:43.440 --> 33:47.600]  We like non-fiction, and we live in fictitious times.
[33:48.040 --> 33:53.500]  We live in a time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president.
[33:54.020 --> 33:59.000]  We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons.
[33:59.620 --> 34:07.900]  Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts, we are against this war, Mr. Bush.
[34:08.220 --> 34:09.200]  Shame on you.
[34:09.420 --> 34:11.160]  Mr. Bush, shame on you.
[34:11.600 --> 34:16.200]  And any time you've got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up.
[34:16.580 --> 34:17.560]  Thank you very much.
[34:17.960 --> 34:19.040]  And that was his whole speech.
[34:19.180 --> 34:19.780]  That was his whole speech.
[34:19.820 --> 34:35.000]  And, you know, it was brilliant, too, because I think, you know, by getting all those other people up there with him, assuming that they agreed, I think they did, I think his plan was, even if he had lost, by having this agreement with all the other documentary makers,
[34:35.180 --> 34:39.320]  I think he would have made that speech anyway, even if he had lost the award.
[34:39.960 --> 34:42.760]  I'm just glad to see somebody standing up and saying something.
[34:42.880 --> 34:44.040]  And why is that a bad thing?
[34:44.140 --> 34:49.480]  You know, if somebody had said, I wish the best for, you know, our troops, I wish them every success, they would have gotten cheers.
[34:49.660 --> 34:53.000]  But isn't that just as political a statement because you're taking one side over another?
[34:53.880 --> 34:54.760]  It's hypocrisy.
[34:55.120 --> 34:58.520]  Now, I want to just read something else that appeared in yesterday's New York Times.
[34:59.320 --> 35:03.800]  This was a short article by Paul Krugman concerning the recent demonstrations.
[35:03.800 --> 35:07.800]  And we're still going to take phone calls, 212-209-2900 in the time we have left.
[35:07.800 --> 35:14.720]  By and large, recent pro-war rallies haven't drawn nearly as many people as anti-war rallies, but they have certainly been vehement.
[35:14.900 --> 35:20.860]  One of the most striking took place after Natalie Maines, lead singer for the Dixie Chicks, criticized President Bush.
[35:21.000 --> 35:31.400]  A crowd gathered in Louisiana, they always gather in Louisiana, to watch a 33,000-pound tractor smash a collection of Dixie Chicks CDs, tapes, and other paraphernalia that no doubt they had just bought.
[35:31.960 --> 35:33.300]  But, yeah, brilliant.
[35:33.800 --> 35:40.740]  To those familiar with 20th century European history, it seemed eerily reminiscent of dot, dot, dot.
[35:40.920 --> 35:43.040]  But as Sinclair Lewis said, it can't happen here.
[35:43.580 --> 35:46.060]  Who has been organizing those pro-war rallies?
[35:46.240 --> 35:53.540]  The answer, it turns out, is that they are being promoted by key players in the radio industry, with close links to the Bush administration.
[35:53.540 --> 36:02.320]  The CD-smashing rally was organized by KRMD, part of Cumulus Media, a radio chain that has banned the Dixie Chicks from its playlists.
[36:02.580 --> 36:08.440]  Most of the pro-war demonstrations around the country have, however, been organized by stations owned by Clear Channel Communications.
[36:09.280 --> 36:11.580]  That's right, that huge chain we always talk about.
[36:11.680 --> 36:12.460]  They're based in San Antonio.
[36:12.560 --> 36:16.780]  They control more than 1,200 radio stations, and they increasingly dominate the airwaves.
[36:16.780 --> 36:26.340]  The company claims that the demonstrations, which go under the name Rally for America, reflect the initiative of individual stations.
[36:26.540 --> 36:27.480]  But this is unlikely.
[36:27.680 --> 36:38.880]  According to Eric Bollert, who has written revelatory articles about Clear Channel, the company is notorious and widely hated for its iron-fisted centralized control.
[36:39.280 --> 36:42.780]  Until now, complaints about Clear Channel have focused on its business practices.
[36:42.780 --> 36:49.100]  Critics say it uses its power to squeeze recording companies and artists and contributes to the growing blandness of broadcast music.
[36:49.500 --> 36:55.680]  But now, the company appears to be using its clout to help one side in a political dispute that deeply divides the nation.
[36:56.260 --> 36:59.620]  Why would a media company insert itself into politics this way?
[36:59.780 --> 37:03.180]  It would, of course, simply be a matter of personal conviction on the part of management.
[37:03.420 --> 37:04.340]  Well, it could, rather.
[37:04.740 --> 37:13.520]  But there are also good reasons for Clear Channel, which became a giant only in the last few years, after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 removed many restrictions on media ownership.
[37:13.940 --> 37:17.160]  It could be an attempt to curry favor with the ruling party.
[37:17.420 --> 37:19.680]  On one side, Clear Channel is feeling some heat.
[37:19.680 --> 37:25.380]  It is being sued over allegations that it threatens to curtail the airplay of artists who don't tour with its concert division.
[37:25.620 --> 37:30.320]  And there are even some politicians who want to roll back the deregulation that made the company's growth possible.
[37:30.320 --> 37:39.620]  On the other side, the Federal Communications Commission is considering further deregulation that would allow Clear Channel to expand even further, particularly into television.
[37:39.980 --> 37:56.100]  Or if perhaps the quid pro quo is more narrowly focused, experienced Bushologists, yeah, that's a word, let out a collective aha when Clear Channel was revealed to be behind the pro-war rallies because the company's top management has a history with George W.
[37:56.300 --> 37:56.540]  Bush.
[37:56.540 --> 38:03.100]  The vice chairman of Clear Channel is Tom Hicks, whose name may be familiar to readers of the New York Times.
[38:03.340 --> 38:15.460]  When Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, Mr. Hicks was chairman of the University of Texas investment management company called Utimco, and Clear Channel's chairman, Lowey Mays, was on its board.
[38:15.940 --> 38:24.040]  Under Mr. Hicks, Utimco placed much of the university's endowment under the management of companies with strong Republican Party or Bush family ties.
[38:24.040 --> 38:30.440]  In 1998, Mr. Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers in a deal that made Mr. Bush a multimillionaire.
[38:31.300 --> 38:32.900]  There's something happening here.
[38:33.340 --> 38:41.520]  What it is ain't exactly clear, but a good guess is that we're now seeing the next stage in the evolution of a new American oligarchy.
[38:41.720 --> 38:50.760]  As Jonathan Schaite has written in The New Republic, in the Bush administration, government and business have melded into one big us.
[38:50.760 --> 38:59.440]  On almost every aspect of domestic policy, business interests rule, scores of mid-level appointees now oversee industries for which they once worked.
[39:00.020 --> 39:02.420]  We should have realized that this is a two-way street.
[39:02.680 --> 39:17.680]  If politicians are busy doing favors for businesses that support them, why shouldn't we expect businesses to reciprocate by doing favors for those politicians by, for example, organizing, quote, grassroots, unquote, rallies on their behalf?
[39:17.880 --> 39:21.820]  What makes it all possible, of course, is the absence of effective watchdogs.
[39:22.000 --> 39:27.860]  In the Clinton years, the, um, merest hint of impropriety quickly blew up into a huge scandal.
[39:28.020 --> 39:32.180]  These days, the scandal mongers are more likely to go after journalists who raise questions.
[39:32.980 --> 39:35.140]  Anyway, don't you know, there's a war on.
[39:36.440 --> 39:43.280]  That article came from, uh, Paul Krugman, yesterday's New York Times, entitled Channels of Influence.
[39:43.560 --> 39:43.940]  Who's there?
[39:44.200 --> 39:47.920]  212-209-2900 is, uh, our phone number.
[39:48.060 --> 39:49.560]  And, uh, Leo, I believe you had something.
[39:49.800 --> 39:51.660]  Uh, who's the chairman of the FCC?
[39:52.180 --> 39:59.260]  Uh, the chairman of the FCC is, uh, of course, uh, someone who's related to the, uh, the guy, uh, the Secretary of State right now.
[39:59.680 --> 40:00.300]  Yeah, of course.
[40:00.440 --> 40:01.180]  He's his son.
[40:01.180 --> 40:04.400]  And, and, Emanuel, for the record, I'm an experienced Bushologist also.
[40:04.620 --> 40:04.860]  Oh, okay.
[40:05.060 --> 40:06.260]  I didn't, I didn't see your card.
[40:08.600 --> 40:11.500]  By the way, you know, I, I, I finally got my ACLU card.
[40:12.120 --> 40:16.020]  This, this whole thing, you know, well, actually, for a while, it's been inspiring me to, uh, to do this.
[40:16.060 --> 40:16.960]  I finally got around to it.
[40:17.020 --> 40:18.700]  Thank you, Mr. Bush, for, uh, for getting me to do that.
[40:18.760 --> 40:20.600]  But, you know, when you get the card, it's really flimsy.
[40:21.160 --> 40:22.080]  It's made out of paper.
[40:22.340 --> 40:23.140]  It's got nothing on the back.
[40:23.240 --> 40:24.460]  I thought I was going to get something a lot more.
[40:24.920 --> 40:28.140]  I mean, if I put this thing in my pocket, it'll disintegrate inside of a week.
[40:28.460 --> 40:29.780]  I used my Monopoly card.
[40:30.640 --> 40:31.760]  You used your Monopoly card?
[40:31.920 --> 40:33.040]  The one that says, go to jail free.
[40:33.440 --> 40:33.800]  Ah.
[40:34.140 --> 40:34.880]  Well, good for you, Jim.
[40:35.340 --> 40:36.180]  You could laminate it.
[40:36.300 --> 40:37.400]  Yeah, you, yeah, you could do that.
[40:37.520 --> 40:41.720]  I'm not sure if, if, if, uh, you violate any, any terms by doing that.
[40:42.060 --> 40:43.120]  Let's take some, uh...
[40:43.120 --> 40:51.980]  Bush's father, who was, uh, railing against, quote, card-carrying members of the ACLU during his, uh, his campaign, uh, well, how many years ago was that, 10 years ago?
[40:52.220 --> 40:53.660]  It was something along those lines, yeah.
[40:54.800 --> 40:57.400]  Uh, let's take some more phone calls, 212-209-2900.
[40:57.400 --> 41:01.480]  By the way, uh, Pacifica was featured in the, uh, Wall Street Journal on Monday.
[41:01.860 --> 41:06.860]  Uh, there's an article all about, uh, Pacifica Radio Network becoming the anti-war voice.
[41:07.460 --> 41:12.780]  Um, and, uh, focused on, uh, Pacifica, on Democracy Now!
[41:12.900 --> 41:13.680]  and WBAI.
[41:13.800 --> 41:15.660]  It was, uh, really... oh, we have an actual picture of it.
[41:15.660 --> 41:17.100]  So, and look, it's Michael G.
[41:17.200 --> 41:19.840]  Haskins' picture there, uh, on, on, on our board.
[41:20.340 --> 41:22.840]  War protest, find an alternate channel on radio.
[41:23.000 --> 41:25.160]  Pacifica Network offers all peace all the time.
[41:25.340 --> 41:26.640]  Most successful fun drive ever.
[41:27.980 --> 41:28.800]  Oh, interesting.
[41:28.980 --> 41:29.980]  I mean, it is in the Wall Street Journal.
[41:30.120 --> 41:30.940]  You have to realize that.
[41:31.060 --> 41:33.680]  But, um, it's good that people are noticing.
[41:34.480 --> 41:35.420]  Let's take another phone call.
[41:36.480 --> 41:37.500]  And, good evening.
[41:37.640 --> 41:38.140]  You're on the air.
[41:39.260 --> 41:39.660]  Hello?
[41:39.860 --> 41:40.260]  Yes, go ahead.
[41:40.260 --> 41:50.420]  Uh, hi, my name is Ken Mayers, and I just had a couple of comments about, uh, some of the things you were bringing up earlier about trying to get some reliable information about what's going on in Iraq.
[41:50.600 --> 41:50.800]  Okay.
[41:51.620 --> 41:59.840]  Uh, first of all, um, I've been following this stuff for a while, and one of the things that I try and look at are some of the experienced journalists that have been out there for a while.
[42:00.580 --> 42:05.880]  Um, I know some of these people actually make it to Pacifica once in a while, like, uh, Robert Fisk.
[42:06.360 --> 42:09.580]  He writes for The Independent in, uh, in Britain.
[42:10.260 --> 42:10.620]  Okay.
[42:10.840 --> 42:13.060]  And, um, he has a website.
[42:13.400 --> 42:19.420]  It's www.robert-fisk.com, where he has a lot of his articles available.
[42:20.180 --> 42:23.500]  And one of them kind of, uh, falls apropos this evening.
[42:23.640 --> 42:26.700]  He wrote this article recently about touring hospitals in Iraq.
[42:27.260 --> 42:29.480]  Uh, the title's We Bomb, They Suffer.
[42:29.700 --> 42:30.080]  Mm-hmm.
[42:30.320 --> 42:36.640]  And, um, one of the things he was talking about is, I mean, he's done this a lot of times over the last 30 years or so.
[42:36.640 --> 42:49.840]  So, and, um, he mentioned the fact that just about every Western journalist who goes into these hospitals asks people the same question, which is, do you think that these people could have been wounded by your own anti-aircraft weapons?
[42:50.620 --> 43:00.300]  Um, and it's, he just said it was just kind of an, it's kind of an odd thing when you realize that that's going to be the first question that these people get asked every time that anyone sees them.
[43:00.300 --> 43:03.800]  Um, and he had a number of other observations like that.
[43:04.840 --> 43:06.380]  Okay, uh, that website one more time?
[43:06.900 --> 43:10.720]  Uh, www.robertfisk.com.
[43:10.720 --> 43:15.320]  It's r-o-b-e-r-t-f-i-s-k dot com.
[43:16.900 --> 43:17.340]  Okay.
[43:17.780 --> 43:18.940]  Thanks for, uh, sharing that.
[43:19.420 --> 43:25.000]  Um, the other thing that, there was a good article in the International Herald Tribune, um, on Monday.
[43:25.320 --> 43:25.760]  Okay.
[43:25.960 --> 43:30.180]  By John Vinocure, V-I-N-O-C-U-R.
[43:30.340 --> 43:30.600]  Uh-huh.
[43:30.820 --> 43:36.540]  You have to kind of walk back in their site to get it, but they leave their, uh, a week's articles up for people to look at.
[43:36.780 --> 43:41.040]  And in that article, he was looking over the way that the war's been covered throughout Europe.
[43:42.260 --> 43:49.160]  And, um, he was basically focusing on the disconnect that there is between the journalists and the people that are editing the stuff that they report.
[43:50.040 --> 43:50.480]  Yeah.
[43:50.480 --> 43:52.840]  And he had a couple of good examples about that.
[43:55.580 --> 43:56.780]  Um, and, uh...
[43:56.780 --> 44:03.120]  Have you, have you been able to, uh, to see any, uh, alternative, uh, television news, uh, from, from, say, other countries or anything?
[44:03.500 --> 44:10.080]  Uh, yeah, you can, you can tap into the Italian and French and German news pretty easily over the internet.
[44:10.880 --> 44:13.160]  How about if, how about if you just have a TV set, though?
[44:13.220 --> 44:14.120]  Are you able to do it then?
[44:15.840 --> 44:16.200]  Um...
[44:16.200 --> 44:16.640]  Hello?
[44:17.400 --> 44:17.760]  Hello?
[44:18.000 --> 44:18.260]  Yeah, sorry.
[44:18.260 --> 44:26.200]  Yeah, we get, um, on our cable, we get things like, uh, BBC and the Italian news also comes on ours, RAI.
[44:26.720 --> 44:27.160]  Okay.
[44:27.360 --> 44:30.760]  Um, some experienced people, uh, in Baghdad also.
[44:31.180 --> 44:31.520]  Mm-hmm.
[44:32.240 --> 44:38.260]  Um, anyway, I, I know you've probably got other people that are waiting to talk, so there was just one other thing that I thought I'd mention.
[44:38.460 --> 44:38.620]  Okay.
[44:38.840 --> 44:44.120]  It's just a kind of off-base kind of idea, but I haven't really seen anyone do anything with this.
[44:44.740 --> 44:54.380]  Um, I lived most of my life in Los Angeles, and there's kind of a tradition there for radio stations to do alternative voiceovers for the Rose Bowl Parade.
[44:54.780 --> 45:00.220]  Yeah, in fact, um, I think the Fireside Theater did that on this radio station, uh, January 1st, 2000.
[45:00.700 --> 45:01.440]  I was there for that.
[45:01.900 --> 45:07.840]  Yeah, it just occurred to me that with the internet, it'd be pretty easy to do that kind of voiceover thing over some of the mainstream media.
[45:08.720 --> 45:09.620]  Yeah, yeah.
[45:09.860 --> 45:10.940]  I wonder which would be funnier.
[45:11.480 --> 45:11.780]  Yeah.
[45:11.780 --> 45:13.440]  Thanks, uh, thanks for your call.
[45:13.720 --> 45:14.080]  You're welcome.
[45:14.240 --> 45:14.520]  Thank you.
[45:14.960 --> 45:18.420]  And, um, actually, uh, he mentioned, uh, BBC available on cable.
[45:18.520 --> 45:30.420]  He's probably talking about BBC America, which I, I just found out this past week, the extent to which that channel has been destroyed by, uh, the Discovery Network, because Discovery Network actually is the, is the network that owns that channel.
[45:30.600 --> 45:40.060]  Uh, rather than, uh, than show news coverage of, uh, a different view, they've taken to just showing home improvement shows over and over and over and over again.
[45:40.520 --> 45:49.620]  And if you go to their website, bbcamerica.com, and, and just go into any of the forums there, you'll see how many people are upset by this, how many people want BBC World in this country.
[45:50.200 --> 45:52.960]  And you just have to wonder, who's preventing this?
[45:53.220 --> 45:53.540]  Why?
[45:53.780 --> 46:00.320]  You know, why are they trying to, uh, you know, keep us from seeing 24 hours a day, like everybody else in the rest of the world, different views?
[46:00.460 --> 46:03.260]  I mean, I think I know the answer, but who has the power to do that?
[46:03.320 --> 46:04.500]  That's what I'd really like to find out.
[46:05.200 --> 46:05.520]  Yes, Leo.
[46:05.520 --> 46:15.960]  Maybe, well, the call before this one mentioned about, uh, also media control, and I think it's, uh, the advertisers, the, the, uh, the mainstream news media focuses...
[46:15.960 --> 46:18.940]  Yeah, but how do advertisers prevent some other voice from getting in?
[46:19.000 --> 46:25.260]  Uh, if you're a company, you want to have sponsors, and the sponsors, uh, sell their products to a certain group of people.
[46:25.460 --> 46:34.340]  And so the news media broadcasts, uh, aims the news at the people who they think will buy the products of the sponsors, who they think are just dumb, stupid people.
[46:34.660 --> 46:38.360]  Right, and that works when you have particular, a particular channel already airing.
[46:38.420 --> 46:44.800]  But what I'm saying is, what, something that obviously so many people want, you know, bringing that in, what's preventing that from happening?
[46:44.960 --> 46:53.180]  Oh, uh, the, the, all the home improvement shows actually get high ratings, which is why the learning channel, the discovery channel, all of them show that during the daytime.
[46:53.400 --> 46:56.660]  Right, and again, though, this is a non-commercial station that I'm talking about.
[46:56.800 --> 47:02.160]  There are no commercials on it, so what's preventing that from being brought in as some kind of a, you know, C-SPAN has it occasionally.
[47:02.380 --> 47:04.420]  They, they sometimes air foreign news, and that's a good thing.
[47:04.640 --> 47:08.960]  There are other stations out there that do this, but, uh, I'm talking about this in particular that the rest of the world sees.
[47:09.200 --> 47:18.960]  Because, uh, discovery channel networks are, all of the learning networks are owned by them, and I mean They distribute BBC programs in this country.
[47:19.040 --> 47:19.800]  They don't control it.
[47:19.860 --> 47:20.060]  They don't.
[47:20.060 --> 47:22.500]  They can't say, you can't have news in this country.
[47:22.600 --> 47:25.440]  But they will, I'm guessing they only show the programs to get the most ratings?
[47:25.440 --> 47:26.800]  On that channel, yeah.
[47:26.900 --> 47:30.520]  But my point is, they have this other channel that, you know...
[47:30.520 --> 47:33.440]  Oh, I'm sorry, then I misunderstood the whole...
[47:33.440 --> 47:37.160]  So, I mean, that's what I'd like to find out, is why that's the case.
[47:37.520 --> 47:39.960]  Why we can't get what the rest of the world sees.
[47:41.100 --> 47:48.740]  A lot of this, Emmanuel, comes down to, really, corporate and government intermediaries who are preventing these from reaching...
[47:48.740 --> 47:49.720]  But that's what I want to see.
[47:49.820 --> 47:51.320]  I want to see how they're doing that.
[47:51.340 --> 47:56.140]  I want to see the memos that say, Oh, you know, make sure that this view is not shown.
[47:56.160 --> 47:58.040]  You may never see those, but you can go direct to the source.
[47:58.280 --> 48:08.040]  I mean, people can spend $50 or $100 or $100 by a shortwave receiver, or go spend $200 or $300 and get a GPS...
[48:08.040 --> 48:09.340]  Yeah, but Bernie, the problem...
[48:09.340 --> 48:10.540]  Direct to...
[48:11.000 --> 48:12.040]  I realize this.
[48:12.140 --> 48:13.040]  I realize this, Bernie.
[48:13.080 --> 48:20.080]  But the problem with that is that only the most dedicated people that have the time and the money and the resources to do all this are going to do it.
[48:20.080 --> 48:31.720]  But I'm talking about, you know, let's have this available so that somebody who just has maybe, you know, a half hour to watch television after he gets home from work and has to go to bed, he can actually maybe have a chance of seeing something alternative by accident,
[48:31.920 --> 48:32.140]  you know?
[48:32.400 --> 48:37.500]  Once you are able to open the door to that degree, you might actually have a chance of reaching people.
[48:37.740 --> 48:38.220]  You're right.
[48:38.440 --> 48:38.720]  All right.
[48:39.100 --> 48:40.940]  Let's take one more phone call, then we're going to have to get out of here.
[48:41.460 --> 48:41.920]  Good evening.
[48:41.940 --> 48:42.380]  You're on the air.
[48:44.840 --> 48:47.080]  Okay, well, you're going to have to say something a little bit more intelligent than that.
[48:47.160 --> 48:48.060]  Let's go over here.
[48:50.080 --> 48:52.180]  I've got a plain old telephone service question for you.
[48:52.780 --> 48:53.580]  Years ago...
[48:53.580 --> 48:54.420]  Sorry, I'm sorry.
[48:54.560 --> 48:55.820]  We're not talking about telephone service tonight.
[48:55.820 --> 48:56.340]  I'm sorry.
[48:56.740 --> 48:59.820]  Don't like cutting people off, but we have a very strict topic tonight.
[49:00.300 --> 49:00.780]  Good evening.
[49:01.100 --> 49:01.220]  Oops.
[49:01.720 --> 49:02.220]  Good evening.
[49:02.320 --> 49:02.800]  You're on the air.
[49:03.300 --> 49:04.180]  Hi, Emmanuel.
[49:04.420 --> 49:04.760]  How are you doing?
[49:04.920 --> 49:05.540]  Pretty good.
[49:05.760 --> 49:07.120]  I want to just a couple things.
[49:07.320 --> 49:11.240]  You can stream Al Jazeera, and there's a website.
[49:11.540 --> 49:13.080]  I can tell you what it is.
[49:13.880 --> 49:14.760]  Okay, make it fast.
[49:14.800 --> 49:15.720]  You only have 30 seconds.
[49:15.720 --> 49:38.400]  Okay, well, it resolves to HTTP 194.109.160.107 slash radio, and it seems to have lost the name of what the link is, but that's what it resolves to.
[49:38.400 --> 49:42.920]  And I also wanted to say, we keep calling this a war, but it's not.
[49:43.000 --> 49:43.820]  It's an invasion.
[49:44.060 --> 49:44.560]  That's right.
[49:44.720 --> 49:46.860]  People will defend their communities.
[49:47.120 --> 49:50.480]  They don't have to like Saddam to defend themselves.
[49:50.720 --> 49:52.480]  So I think that's really important.
[49:52.640 --> 49:55.000]  We've got to change our language and keep calling what it is.
[49:55.120 --> 49:55.660]  It's an invasion.
[49:55.840 --> 49:56.540]  It's not a war.
[49:57.240 --> 49:57.600]  Understood.
[49:57.880 --> 50:02.740]  Thanks very much for that call, and that's going to have to be the last word as far as telephone calls tonight.
[50:03.000 --> 50:06.460]  I want to thank everybody who participated, who was a part of this.
[50:06.540 --> 50:08.260]  Thanks, Bernie, for being there.
[50:09.380 --> 50:12.820]  And we'll be back again next week with more.
[50:13.820 --> 50:14.380]  Stay tuned.
[50:14.480 --> 50:14.700]  Good night.
[50:15.760 --> 50:19.220]  How can a country larger as ours be scared of such a threat?
[50:19.480 --> 50:23.020]  Well, if they won't work for us, they're against us, you can bet.
[50:23.280 --> 50:33.440]  They may be sovereign countries, but you folks at home forget That they all want what we've got, but they don't know it yet.
[50:33.440 --> 50:44.220]  Tra-la-la-la, tra-la-la-la, tra-la-la-la, tra-la-la-la We're making the world safe, we're going to lose.
[51:07.640 --> 51:24.220]  Here we come with our candy and our guns And our corporate muscle marches in behind us But freedom's just another word for nothing left to sell.
[51:24.700 --> 51:29.340]  And if you want narcotics we can get you those as well.
[51:29.520 --> 51:33.160]  We help the multinationals when they cry out protect us.
[51:33.360 --> 51:36.960]  The locals scream and shout a bit but we don't let that affect us.
[51:37.140 --> 51:41.900]  We're here to lend a helping hand in case they don't elect us.
[51:43.480 --> 51:47.300]  How dare they buy our products and still they don't respect us.
[51:47.300 --> 51:54.280]  Tra-la-la-la, tra-la-la-la, tra-la-la-la, tra-la-la-la-la.
[51:54.840 --> 51:57.880]  We're making the world safe for Caudelaire.
[51:59.000 --> 52:05.380]  If you thought the army was here protecting people like yourself.
[52:06.680 --> 52:12.980]  I have some news for you, we're here to defend wealth.
[52:25.960 --> 52:30.320]  Tra-la-la-la, tra-la-la-la.
[52:30.720 --> 52:36.580]  We are presently moving down a dead-end road that can lead to national disaster.
[52:36.580 --> 52:42.320]  America has strayed to the far country of racism and militarism.
[52:42.740 --> 52:48.780]  It has left hearts aching with guilt and minds distorted with irrationality.
[52:48.780 --> 53:00.960]  On April 4th, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered an important speech at Riverside Church, Why I Opposed the War in Vietnam.
[53:01.340 --> 53:12.280]  This was his first major speech on the war and rapidly became the focus of the growing awareness of the nexus between militarism abroad and the growing economic and political repression at home.
[53:12.460 --> 53:20.880]  Join Riverside Church and WBAI Radio in an evening of resistance on Thursday, March 27th from 7 to 10 p.m.
[53:20.960 --> 53:26.720]  as we all raise our voices in objection to this illegal, unjustified war against Iraq.
[53:26.720 --> 53:38.600]  Some of the participants already confirmed are the Reverend James Forbes Jr., Ozzie Davis, Jimmy Breslin, Pete Seeger, Tom Chapin, the Reverend Herbert Daughtry, and other guests are signing on as contributors.
[53:38.920 --> 53:44.440]  That's an evening of resistance on Thursday, March 27th from 7 to 10 p.m.
[53:44.540 --> 53:47.660]  At the Riverside Church nave at 490 Riverside Drive.
[53:47.960 --> 53:53.220]  For additional information, call area code 212-209-2869.
[53:53.220 --> 53:57.680]  That's 212-209-2869.