David Swanson: Yes, it's obscene. It's a "Heck of a job Brownie" with Katrina. It's obscene, and now we're hearing, well maybe they'll attack Iran next, and in this play, there is this notion that maybe they can bring the people around to the side of the defendants, the president, vice president, secretary of defense, by attacking another country, and yet my impression in reality is that Americans don't want to attack Iran, and doing so would not......
Ed Asner: All right, let's take a flight of fancy here. Suppose in their wildest deliberations, to save their last two years, if the election does not go well for them, that to maintain their hold on power they can't stage another 911, can't thereby threaten Americans with he terrorist threat "they're at the door, they're at the door", so instead they cook up, "let's go into Iran, let's bomb the shit out of Iran", and they do it, and there are enough officers and pilots and ships willing to carry out these commands and they nuclear bomb the hell out of Iran. What will the American people do then? Who will lead them to say, "You must leave, get out of office immediately. We are ceasing all war. We will stop this right now." Do you think that would happen?
David Swanson: If it doesn't, I don't know where we'll be.
Ed Asner: We are an unmotivated, cowering people. We will say, "Shame on you, shame on you, shame on you", but teachers are dying in the streets in Mexico from the federales. Do you think teachers would be dying in the streets in....
David Swanson: Washington, DC? No.
Ed Asner: ....Peoria?
David Swanson: Not yet, and I don't know what it'll take.
Ed Asner: I know not yet, and there may never be a yet....I mean, look at the farce that was perpetrated on habeas corpus. John McCain, 3 great Republican soldiers, politicians, were facing down the president on habeas corpus, and what happened in the end? They all caved. They all said no, now it's okay. They put some dimples in it or something, but the removal of habeas corpus was accepted.......
David Swanson: It's done.
Ed Asner: .... by them, and became the law of the land.
David Swanson: Yes, as with torture.
Ed Asner: As with torture.
David Swanson: If these elections are stolen next week and if that evidence is clear...
Ed Asner: Yeah, what do you think the American people will do then?
David Swanson: I don't know. I'm holding out some hope that maybe that will be what finally gets people to act like citizens. I don't know.
Ed Asner: Well I would be glad to become part of a mob protesting on any major thoroughfare in this country if....I wouldn't lead it, but I'll certainly become a part of it.
DAVID SWANSON is a co-founder of After Downing Street, a writer and activist, and the Washington Director of Democrats.com. He is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and serves on the Executive Council of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, Media Coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as Communications Coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Swanson obtained a Master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1997.
Very few in our entertainment industry dare to speak out the way Mr. Asner does and he deserves accolades for his courage and his conscience.
The people of Mexico are nowhere near as convinced of the honesty of their government as are most Americans. For so long we have held this image of our nation as pure and honest and well intentioned that even the last five years have made only a little dent in that facade. The Mexican people understand that they live under corrupt leaders and thus are out in the streets while the average American will not accept the blatant facts of their leader's incompetence and unscrupulous looting of our treasury for the personal gain of the few, thus they have faith in the election process and stay at home. Pity.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Saturday, November 4, 2006 at 6:19:45 PM
1 comments
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