Content: Printer Friendly Page for Medea Benjamin Intvw Transcript, Part 2: How To Speak Out to Power, Including Presidents-- Tips, Advice, Strategies

tips, strategies and advice on how to use meetings, hearings and speeches to get your message out

Rob Kall: OK. Have you prepped or trained other people to do this kind of thing?

Medea Benjamin: Yes. We have a whole cadre of people who have done, and do, this kind of thing. Sometimes, people get scared and just don't do it at the end, and that's fine. Sometimes they do it and it doesn't go too well, in that they don't get too much out. Sometimes folks really feel that they got their message out loud and clear, and were really excited about it, and wanted to do it again. So peoples' reactions are very different.

I remember once there was a woman whom we trained and trained, and she went into the event, and instead of pulling out her banner in front of everybody, she actually went into the bathroom (laughs) and put it up on the bathroom wall; and we were saying, "What? Why did you do that?" and she said it just got too scary there. Some people just feel very intimidated, and rightly so, because these venues can be extremely intimidating, especially when it's during something like a presidential race, and you're in a very partisan atmosphere where everybody is Republican/Right wing, and you're coming up with a totally different message. Or, what's extremely scary is when we do this inside the meetings of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, because that's where you're almost guaranteed that somebody is going to beat up on you. The audience there is very violent.

Medea Benjamin: Yes, and we have had people like Rae Abileah, who worked with Code Pink for ten years, a young woman who interrupted Bibi Netanyahu, actually got her neck twisted and had to have over a year of therapy - ended up in the hospital.

Rob Kall: Was there any recourse legally, in terms of the people or person who did that to her?

Medea Benjamin: Yes, because she was brilliant. Instead of just letting it go, she found the person who did it, pursued him, and did a lawsuit against him; and he was forced to settle with her and pay for her medical expenses, and apologize to her.

Rob Kall: Beautiful. Yeah, Ray is another Code Pink force of nature, like you. So what do you advise people when they're preparing to do this? Do you give them any kind of advice or instructions on how to do it, what to do, and how to think about it, what mental mindset?

Medea Benjamin: Well the mental mindset we say is 1) to breathe deep, and 2) think about why you're doing it, think about what is motivating you. While I was sitting in the audience for such a long time before the President spoke, even not knowing whether I was going to speak out or not, I was preparing myself just in case. Part of preparing myself was to think about the innocent drone victims that I have met in Pakistan telling us the stories about losing their sons, and daughters, and loved ones. And I thought about the men in Guantanamo, and what it was like to be strapped to a chair with the tubing forced down your nose and throat and into your stomach, and what it was like to be held for eleven years when you had not committed a crime.

So you have to really think about the "Why?" Otherwise you shouldn't be in there. You have to be passionate about these issues, and then you have to go with your gut; and if your gut tells you, "This isn't right. Doesn't feel right," then just don't do it. But on the other hand, recognize that there's always two voices in your head. There's one voice saying, "Now is the time to stand up, and you've got to say this because somebody needs to hear the truth"; and there's another little voice that says, "Don't be disrespectful. You shouldn't be interrupting someone. Is this what your mother taught you to do?" (laughs) I mean, there is that other voice. Or, another voice saying, "You could get hurt. Don't risk it."

So while you listen to your gut, you have to listen to the voice that's speaking louder to you, and to remember that it's not about you: you might get arrested, you might get put in jail, you might face some risky consequences, but who are you representing that doesn't have a voice? And: is their issue powerful enough to compel you to take the risk?

Rob Kall: Let's talk a little bit about the arrest factor here. You've been arrested, right?

Rob Kall: Probably not quite as many times as Dan Ellsberg, but I'm sure you've had your share of arrests. What do you do in terms of preparing to be arrested ahead of time?

Medea Benjamin: I make sure that I have my license with me, that I have some money, that I have a person who's going to be in solidarity with me if I get arrested to find out where I am and what's happening. I oftentimes speak to a lawyer beforehand to ask what they think the risk is, if it's something I've never done before, just so you know what risk you're taking; but I understand that lawyers' job is to tell you the worst-case scenario, so I try not to get scared off by what the lawyer says - but it's a piece of knowledge to have.

And then, you want to do something that someone is going to know about! Because why get arrested if there's no media around, or if you don't have your own people with a camera? So try to make sure that you're somewhere that there already is media, or make sure that your person-with-you has a camera, and the camera is ready to go and charged, and that someone will be able to capture the incident, because it's oftentimes very inspiring to people to see that kind of standing up to power.

For example: just last week we went to an event at the Embassy of Bahrain. It was a dinner that we got tickets to. We went inside, and during the program, where they were just saying how wonderful Bahrain was, a couple of us who have been to Bahrain know what a lie all of that is and that it's a really repressive government, started standing up and saying, "This is not the Bahrain that we saw," and explaining to the audience what Bahrain was really like. But unfortunately, the person with the camera hadn't charged it, and so we didn't get it on tape; and that was really sad, because I know our friends in Bahrain would have been really excited to see us standing up at the Embassy. So ti's one of those things even the most experienced folks like ourselves sometimes make very simple mistakes.

Rob Kall: All right, well let's talk about - that's something we hadn't talked about now. Talking to the President, did you have somebody in the room with a camera? I'm guessing you didn't because there were already cameras there, but how often do you have somebody else who goes with you who has that camera ready, and are there any specifications, or plans on positioning, or the kinds of technology there?

Medea Benjamin: Well yeah, in that case it wasn't necessary because we knew there would be cameras, and plus we didn't have a chance to get two people inside. But we always otherwise try to have our own cameras and film things ourselves, to be able to pout them up on YouTube and send them off to our friends. In that case, you've got to be positioned so you can catch the interaction, and you'd be surprised how many people don't know how to position themselves when they're in a room to be able to get that, and sometimes you just have to slowly walk up to get in the right position. These days it really doesn't matter. If you have good camera and video on your phone you can do it. What's really important is the positioning: to be able to get the whole interaction. So yes, I think we try to always have somebody with us with a camera.

Rob Kall: So would the proper positioning be the person with the camera is closer to the front of the room so that they can turn around and get you? Or to the side of you? What's the best positioning for the person with the camera?

Medea Benjamin: Yeah. They should be way up in the front on the side. But they should also be gutsy and feel like they own the room, so that when the interaction starts they can get up close and walk where they need to walk. People are often just very shy and feel like they'll get in trouble if they move around. We say, "Do it until somebody tells you not to," and then, "If you want to make sure you don't get arrested then don't do it anymore. But until somebody tells you something, you're free to get up and walk around." So yes, be up towards the front, but be ready to move.

Rob Kall: OK. Do people take away the cameras? I mean, do the security people take them away and keep them? Do they take things from you at all?

Medea Benjamin: They sometimes try, and we insist that they don't have the right to do that. Sometimes they try to make you erase something. The police can make you do that, but a lot of times the security in these places are private security. They look like police, but they're not really police, and they don't have the right to take your possessions or make you erase anything. So it's important to feel confident that you can talk back to them, insist on keeping your personal property, and insist that what you're doing is your right.

Rob Kall: Do the police have the right to tell you to erase or delete what's on your camera or your phone?

Medea Benjamin: Yes. Er, I don't know - if they're involved in what they say is part of an arrest or something - they usually don't say anything like that. Like in the Capital, we -- I don't think -- it used to come up in the early days like ten years ago. When we first started they would try to stop us, but then, I think they realized they didn't have -- I'm not exactly sure about that. They would try to stop us whether or not they had the right to do it, but these days they don't.

Rob Kall: I know in some places police have literally arrested people for videotaping them. Is that ever a problem? I know in Philadelphia it was a problem. Police were arresting journalists for videotaping them, and they were losing civil lawsuits, and the chief of police eventually put out an order saying, "People are allowed to videotape police."

Medea Benjamin: Right. I think the same thing happened here. When we started doing this like ten years ago, the police would arrest journalists. I remember at one of our Civil Disobediences them arresting Amy Goodman when she was interviewing one of us. There were a lot of journalists who used to get arrested, but it doesn't happen as much now. I think during the Occupy Movement it happened because journalists were a part of the crowd, but the police have been better about it over the years here in D.C.

Rob Kall: OK. When you're done, what do you do with what you did in the room?

Medea Benjamin: Well, you put out a press release so that the press knows where they can find you and interview you, and you can tell your side of the story. We did that just immediately after I was released. In this case we had a barrage of phone calls and interviews, so I went to a space where journalists could come and find me and do interviews. Then, I think it's important to write your side of the story, and so I did that the following day. But also, just to get as much press as possible - you know, the old "Fifteen minutes of fame" - well, it's going to come and go quickly, especially when it's Memorial Day Weekend and the window of opportunity is very narrow, so we just did as much outreach as possible the rest of the day Thursday and Friday.

Medea Benjamin: No, and I don't expect to, (laughs) although somebody put up a funny petition on the White House site asking Obama to invite me for a beer.

Rob Kall: (laughs) So you've done this scores of times, and what is the best outcome that you ever achieved doing this?

Medea Benjamin: Well, I see this as a tactic in a whole host of other tactics; so I don't isolate it, and I don't - (laughs) well, it might sound like I spend a lot of my time doing this kind of thing. It's really a minimal amount of time. I spend a lot of time on other things that are more the day-to-day kind of [things]: organizing, and writing, and public education. So this is just a minor part of what we do.

But if you look at the issue of drones, I'm quite amazed at how much we have helped to change policy in the course of one year! When my book came out, there wasn't a lot of organizing going on, and now there are protests regularly at the bases where the drones are being piloted, at the headquarters of companies making the drones, at the offices of Congresspeople, in front of the White House, at the Pentagon, The CIA. There are religious leaders now speaking out, and there are more people in the legal community that are involved, and the more traditional Human Rights groups.

So things have really changed, and I put all of those pieces of our tactics together to say that they have been very effective forcing the administration to shed light on a policy that they had refused to talk about, because it was "covert," and force them to talk about civilian casualties, force them to restrain themselves in the use of drones. The number of drone strikes has been going down in Pakistan thanks to all of these protests, and especially inside of Pakistan, and the number of drone strikes in Yemen this year has been going down.

I think it's an example of how to mobilize strategically, to embarrass the administration. And we're not done yet. We still have a lot of work to do, because as Obama said in his speech, they're still going to be using these killer drones. But we're making a lot of progress.

Rob Kall: That's cool. Now, are there times when you have multiple people go into a room, so that if one person is grabbed, another person can start? Is that a strategy that you have used also?

Medea Benjamin: Oh yes. When it was John Brennan's confirmation hearing to be the head of the CIA we had about thirty people, and maybe twelve of them were willing to risk arrest. And so we actually numbered them: you go first, you're second, you're third, you're fourth, because we wanted to really drag the whole thing out and have people popping up periodically. So it was a great strategy; and after the fifth person got up and said something, and each one of them getting pulled out and arrested, Diane Feinstein just closed the hearing and said, "We won't have any more of this," and it made huge news.

So I think our definite preference is to get more people in a room and have different people who are ready to do different things. In that case everybody had a different issue that they were going to focus on. People had different ways that they were going to do it: one woman standing up on a cheer, one guy was going to do a kind of a rap, one person had a rag doll which she was going to be using as her prop. So it's great when you have more people. I know that there's a lot of times that people just do a symbolic arrest where everybody's doing the same thing, but I like to see it more varied.

Rob Kall: Well, Code Pink - one of their trademarks, I think, is street theater, and it's sounds like that's what was the plan here. Was it rehearsed? Did you actually, it another location, rehearse it? Was there some scripting involved? It sounds like that.

Medea Benjamin: We didn't have a chance to actually all be in a room together to go one by one, so I rehearsed with each person and said to them, "What's the issue you care the most about? OK. How are you going to say it? Rehearse it with me. Go over it a couple of times so you're comfortable with it. Do you need a prop? Can we help you with that? What are you going to wear?" I mean, all of these things are very important. So, yes. We certainly rehearse it one by one if we aren't able to do it as a group.

Rob Kall: OK. Any other approaches to getting in front of an audience, when there's a speaker or a hearing?

Medea Benjamin: First, I should say: on the issue of rehearsing, we've refined this over the years, because there are some really funny clips of us that people like Jon Stewart have played, that showed us getting up during a hearing, like when General Petraeus was testifying, and just screaming, and everybody yelling out different things. And there's something loveable, I think, about the chaos, but (laughs) we have gotten better in trying to make sure that our message actually gets heard.

In terms of other tips to get out in front, ninety-five percent [95%] of the tip is just showing up. And whether you're on the inside or on the outside of the event, you're still making an impact by being there. Whether it's three people or three hundred people, it's still important. So every time I'm debating in my mind, "Oh, should I go to that thing? Oh. I have other things to do today. Oh, I don't know how important that's going to be," I always try to tell my self, "Yes! Go!" because you never know, and if you're not there you can't do anything.

For so long, people in, what I would say, "The pro-war realm of things," they don't have to shout people down: they buy their way with money; they have the influence of their multimillion dollar lobbyists; they have the open door into the Congressional offices, but we have to find other ways, because we don't buy our way in to speak with people of power. So I would just say: anytime you hear your Congressperson is going to be giving a talk somewhere, try to be there. If you see that Donald Rumsfeld comes out with a new book, his Rumsfeld Rules, where's he going to be speaking? Go in and get a seat in the bookstore where he's speaking, and get up and tell him he's a war criminal.

There are endless opportunities, and people can sign up on Codepink.org , and we'll send you out some of these opportunities. But I would say that whether it's past administrations, present administration, people who are in power or people, or people who are part of the Intelligentsia that gets us into these wars. Or, if you're talking about any other issues: global warming, money in politics, whatever it is, it is important to confront those who are maintaining the status quo, and to have them get a dose of reality and opposition every once in a while.

Rob Kall: So: you've got somebody relatively new who is going to attempt to do this with somebody -- what kind of a pep talk do you give them? What do you say to her or him?

Medea Benjamin: I would say, "You're really brave to be even be wanting to do this, and it's great that you're so passionate about this issue. You are about to go into an area where people are in total disagreement with you. You don't want them to hate you, and yet you want them to know that you have a message that's important for them to hear. So try not scream; try to project, try to stay calm, and make sure that you know exactly what your message is. Let's hear you say it. Can you say it louder than that? What are you going to do if somebody starts to pull on you? And don't lose your temper! Try to stay cool the whole time, because if you're a peace activist and you are seen to be aggressive, then your message is not going to get heard." And then I would say, "And don't worry if it doesn't come off the way you want it to, because oftentimes these things don't work, and this is the practice for you. So just go in with the best of intentions, and we'll see how it goes!"

Rob Kall: If you attempt to do one of these and it's fabulously successful, what has happened? In other words, what are the criteria, or benchmarks, or measurements that you can use for success in doing this?

Medea Benjamin: One is if the media picks it up and it starts to get out, and what gets out is the message that you had, because we don't have a lot of access to CNN, or ABC News, or the New York Times, the Washington Post; so if they pick it up, then that's successful. If there is a great photo that was taken, and that gets spread around and you see it popping up in places around the world, that's successful. Sometimes, believe it or not, it does actually lead to us getting a meeting with somebody who then decides, "Better to meet these people then have them popping up in these kind of venues." And then if, after the meeting you actually see a change in the policy, well that's certainly successful.

I used to do this more about corporate issues: issues like sweatshops, or Fair Trade. And there, we would go to shareholder meetings, and get up in front of a shareholder meeting; and you can be enormously successful, because when you embarrass the CEO, or embarrass the company, you could see immediate changes in policies. So success is getting media attention for the issue, but the ultimate success is getting movement on the issue that you're trying to affect. One thing I also would say to people who try to do this is to not let it go to your head, because sometimes you do get a flurry of attention afterward, but I tell them "It'll die down very quickly, and remember, it's not about you, you are just a voice at the moment of something much larger."

Rob Kall: What about how it feels? You spoke to the President, you engaged in a dialogue with him, then you are being pulled out and you're still talking to the President, you're outside the room, you're with the police; what are the feelings that are associated that? I've talked and spoken to other activists who have gotten themselves arrested or at least grabbed, and they love it. It feels great! What about you? What are the feelings that are involved with it?

Medea Benjamin: I don't love it, and I don't say it feels great. I was sure I was going to get arrested, and I was dreading that. I really don't like to be arrested. I don't like the feeling of being claustrophobic in a cell, I don't like being in handcuffs, I don't like doing it by myself. If I'm going to get arrested, I like to do it with other people. I don't like all the time and money and energy it takes to (often) go back to court and all that's involved in that. So I don't "like" it, and I don't like the uncertainty about what's going to happen to you. I mean, the woman was threatening to arrest me. I was assuming I was getting arrested. I didn't know if it was a Federal offense because I was on a military base, I wasn't sure how severe the charges might be. So, a lot of things are going through my head at the same time, like, "Oh, I wonder what's going to happen now. My phone is dying! How am I going to get a message to the outside?"

But there's also a certain serenity to the whole thing. In fact, I was feeling quite serene afterward, because I did feel that it was the right thing. If it had gone badly I would have felt differently; but I felt like I got to address the President on three different occasions, that he actually answered me, and so I felt I was ready to face the consequences, whatever they were, and I thought it was worth it.

Rob Kall: OK. So, that sounds like that was a good feeling. But were you nervous or scared while you were speaking, were you confident? I'm just trying to go through the kinds of emotions that you experience during the different stages which only took a couple seconds, really, I guess, but -

Rob Kall: Well you know what? We've got enough, and we're just about at an hour, so I'm going to let you go now, OK?

Medea Benjamin: OK. Well I'll just answer that last question of saying, you asked if I was confident?

Medea Benjamin: I would say I felt confident because I felt I had gotten my message out, and when you have a chance to interact in a way where the President is not belittling you, not trying to ignore you, but actually saying that "That is a voice worth listening to," it doesn't get much better than that.

Rob Kall: Yeah. Great job. I've been speaking with Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, and Global Exchange, the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by remote Control, and a person who heckled the President just recently. Thanks so much Medea!

Rob Kall: I was going to ask you about that, but we're running out of time. What would you call it, then?

Medea Benjamin: I would say either "Spoke up during the President's speech," "interrupted," perhaps. What it ended up being was actually more of a dialogue, or even saying "Protested during the Presidents speech." But the word "heckle" just has such a negative connotation, and the connotation that you're actually trying to embarrass the person speaking. I think what we're trying to do has a much more positive message of trying to get another viewpoint out there, rather than trying to embarrass the speaker.

Rob Kall: OK. The Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show, WNJC 1360 AM. Advice from Medea Benjamin on how to speak out when powerful people are speaking. Thanks Medea.

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
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Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.

For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.

To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.

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