Notes from an afternoon with Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman and Juan Cole

I went, took notes and afterwards, had a chance to meet and talk briefly with each of them. 

Here are the notes and some photos from the event. 

The notes were taken on the fly, so quotes may not be precisely accurate. 

Here's a pic I couldn't resist-- and I usually do resist this kind of pic.

photos in this article by rob kall

Before pasting all the notes in here, I want to point out that Amy Goodman talked about Emmett Till. He was beaten up, tortured, his skull bashed, shot in the head, then dumped in the Tallahatchee River, where we was found three days later. 

(The full wikipedia entry on Emmett Louis Till  is very moving and something every progressive should read. it brought me to tears. rob)

Amy Goodman noted, in her talk: 

Emmet Till's mother had the coffin brought back from Mississippi to Chicago, and insisted that it be  kept open so people would see the violence and brutality of racism. (see images and video  here.)

Amy emphasided, "Mamie Till had a lesson for journalists-- show the pictures". 

Today, one of our regular writers emailed me that she'd received news and photos of a massacre in the Republic of the Congo-- that the photos were brutally graphic-- so bad that some of the regular progressive places she'd run them would not cover these. Here's the link to the article.  The images are horrible. I hadn't seen them, but remembering Amy's words, I replied that we'd run them. There's a warning at the top of the article. They are horrible. They might keep you up at night. Maybe more people need to be kept up at night because they've actually seen how horrible it is out there. You don't have to go to the Congo to see horrible. It's happening here in the US. 

I just had to start with that story above. Words make a difference. In this case, Amy Goodman's words touched me and reached Georgianne so she could tell a story about victims in the Congo. You never know when your words, your photos will make a difference. But, if you don't utter or write them, if you don't show the pictures-- then they won't. 

Here are the notes for each speaker.

Juan Cole

Iran-- at nexus of issues having to do with peace and war. 

Washington always seems to have wars planned. Once one fails then they go on to the next one. 

Beltway think tanks were founded by billionaires tired of uppity professors hung up on facts" and reporters call the think tanks because they're so lazy. 

Old proverb:  Boys throw stones at frogs in jest but the frogs die in earnest-=

Kind of a summation of the American relationship with Iran. 

Sanctioning Iran takes a million barrels of oil a day off the market-- helps to keep the price of oil much higher. 

Japanese govt has two tons of plutonium and Japanese private companies have more that can be requisitioned. The Iranians want the Japan option-- a country that can put together a bomb very quickly