New Year's Eve at 11, here on listener-sponsored WBAI.
Well, we're safe for now. Thank goodness we're in a bowling alley.
Hi, I'm Barbara Nimri-Aziz, host of Arab Voices Crescent Rising.
That's our weekly magazine here on WBAI featuring Arab and Muslim peoples
and issues here in the United States and overseas.
We're on every Tuesday evening at 9 p.m., so why don't you join us?
That's Ibrahim Gonzalez, Anissa Bouzian, Hussain Ibish, myself, and other members of our team.
Tuesdays from 9 to 10 p.m. here on WBAI 99.5 FM, listener-sponsored radio in New York.
And that's coming up in just about one hour here on WBAI New York.
Time now, though, for Off the Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cough.
It couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bum-Dilly-Bum, but I best expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bum-Dilly-Bum!
Bum-Dilly-Bum!
Bum-Dilly-Bum!
Bum-Dilly-Bum!
Bum-Dilly-Bum!
Thank you.
Well, kind of nice and normal, but then it all hits the fan, starting on Wednesday, December
16th, the day before the impeachment hearing.
And, of course, that's when the bomb started to fall.
And things followed in rapid succession afterwards.
It was hard to go to sleep because you never knew what was going to happen next.
You didn't want to miss anything.
Yeah, it was daytime here, but it was nighttime over there.
And then, of course, when it was nighttime here, it was daytime there.
So, you never knew when something was actually going to happen.
But one thing that has happened, people are starting to take an interest again.
I think if you held an election tomorrow, you might have more than 30% turnout, which is something
for this country.
You know, it's pretty good when people actually show an interest in the future, in their representation,
where things are going.
Right now, last I heard, the approval rating for the president is at its all-time high.
In fact, it's at the all-time high for, I think, the century for any president.
I think it's pretty clear what you need to do.
Get impeached.
It really helps.
It really, really brings those votes in.
And I got to tell you, the way that this has been shaping out over the past, well, past few months,
but certainly reaching a culmination this week, I have to say, my views don't seem to coincide
with anybody else's views on the matter.
I don't know if anyone else has the same problem, but basically, all these things happening together
kind of made for an interesting combination of opinions and conclusions.
What I came up with, I doubt it's anything that listeners will agree with or anyone else out there.
Which is why we're going to be asking you for your opinion tonight as well.
Because amongst us all, we probably have some pretty wildly disparaging views.
I don't know.
We'll have to see about that.
You know, one thing that I learned out of all this is that it's vital to have diversity
in presentation of facts, world events, things like that.
I found myself listening to WBAI around the clock, which is awfully hard because I live
outside the listening area and, well, kind of on the fringe, so you have to sit in the
car and drive to a certain point in order to be able to hear it.
If you move a little bit, you get that nasty station from, I don't know, up in New England
someplace that plays nice adult-oriented music.
That sounds obscene, doesn't it?
Adult-oriented music.
But you know what I mean.
The boring stuff.
And in between all of that, when I can actually get the signal, I was able to hear the most
intelligent dialogue on both events happening at the same time, both the impeachment hearings
and the bombing overseas.
And it was enlightening, especially when compared to all the monotonous crap you get on the commercial
stations.
Forget radio.
Just forget radio because they're all owned by the same people.
They all read the same text from the Associated Press.
You don't get any diversity.
You don't get any opinion.
And if you're lucky enough to have an AM radio that still works, you're just going to hear
right-wing propaganda on it.
I don't know why that is.
Is there some sort of deal with the FCC that only right-wing propaganda can be broadcast
on AM radio?
I don't know.
I'd sure like to hear more diversity.
And here on WBAI and the Pacifica Network in general, we're able to get that.
Now, of course, there's bias.
And a lot of people hit me with this when I try to turn them on to WBAI and other things.
They say, hey, listen to the way they're talking about certain things.
They're criticizing the bombing of Iraq.
That's biased.
Well, of course it's biased.
You know, things are biased everywhere you look.
Every place.
There is no media outlet in this country that is not biased in some way.
It's just some of it is a lot harder to detect than others.
That's just the simple fact of the map.
We have the New York Times, which I picked up on the way in.
I have not yet looked at this.
So let's see if we can find bias in the New York Times.
Of course, we all know we can.
And no one should know this more than hackers and people who have been involved in the Mitnick case over the past couple of years.
Yes, of course, there's bias in the New York Times.
But the New York Times also happens to be looked upon as the bastion of newspapers.
You know, of presenting information in a non-biased way.
All right, what do we have here?
China sentences three for their dissent.
Okay, that's interesting.
Long terms are harshest steps so far in latest crackdown.
Let me just read the first paragraph, see if I can find anything in there.
Dated Beijing, December 22nd.
By sentencing three of the country's most prominent democracy campaigners to long prison terms,
China has taken its harshest step yet in its current crackdown on organized political opposition.
Okay, let me think about this for a second.
All right.
Now, obviously, we know the position that we're supposed to take here.
Pro-democracy people over there are good.
Chinese government, bad.
Cracking down.
Okay, so let's turn it around a little bit.
Let's just turn it around a little bit and pretend that they're pro-communist demonstrators in Iowa.
Okay?
Now, do you think we'd be calling them the most prominent communist campaigners in the country?
No, we wouldn't be.
We'd be calling them something else.
We'd be calling them radicals, subversives.
Something that has a bad connotation.
But most prominent democracy campaigners.
You see, that's positive.
That sounds good.
The most prominent democracy campaigners.
They're not rabble-rousers.
They're not hooligans.
They're not anarchists.
They're good people.
And China is taking its harshest step.
No, they're not cracking down on crime.
They're not trying to protect themselves.
All those other phrases we might use if it was a different country.
If it was, say, Israel versus Palestinians.
There's all kinds of ways you can do this.
But China is being seen as evil and bad.
I'm not saying I disagree with that at all.
But China has taken its harshest step yet in its current crackdown on organized political opposition.
Well, organized political opposition.
That's how one side sees it.
Another side might see it as an attempted coup.
A way of overthrowing the government.
A way of planting dissent amongst the populace.
Think about it.
I mean, I had to take a lot of heat from people that objected to hearing terms on this radio station.
And things like political coup.
You know, organized attempt to turn over the government.
Which is what was being referred to by many people as to what's happening in Washington, D.C. over the past week.
And I should point out, and I pointed out to these people, those phrases were being uttered on the House floor.
People were saying that there.
So it wasn't something that was being made up in the studios as actually one of the views.
Another word people objected to was the word extremist.
Yes, extremist is used to describe some of the Republicans that actually wanted to vote for impeachment.
Well, yeah, they were the majority.
But you can certainly be an extremist and be in the majority.
It happens all the time.
I think we've defined entire countries that way.
Countries like Iran, Libya, Iraq.
You know, filled with extremists of all sorts.
But they're the majority.
How can that be?
Well, it can.
It can be here.
It can be there.
It can be anywhere.
It's just one way of describing something.
And everything you describe has got some sort of a slant to it.
Extremist is defined in the dictionary as one who goes to extremities in opinion or action.
Well, gee whiz.
If that's not what we just saw this week in Washington, D.C., I don't know what is.
Of course.
They went to an extreme.
Impeachment is pretty damn extreme.
No question about that.
But you didn't see the CBS Evening News or ABC World News Tonight or NBC Nightly News say words like that because that might have gotten a strong reaction from a lot of mainstream people.
But sometimes the mainstream can be pretty extreme.
That's just the way it happens to be sometimes.
Okay.
So that's one story in the New York Times.
Let me see if there's anything else I can find.
Looking for something on Iraq.
Is Iraq not even on the front page?
That's pretty incredible.
Here's something on the inside section.
U.S. assesses Iraq damage.
I'll have to turn to page A18 for that.
Give me one moment here.
By the way, did anybody catch the Sunday New York Times?
That's the biggest headline I think I've ever seen.
Clinton impeached.
That was the big headline.
That was big.
I bought that just so I could save it.
Show the grandkids someday.
Boy, I was there when Clinton got impeached.
His career really took off.
Okay.
What do we got here?
All right.
Here's to something.
U.S. says 85% of Iraqi targets were hit.
Well, right there.
That's bias.
You know?
That sounds like something good.
Doesn't it?
And a lot of people do think it's good.
But the fact that it's good or bad is a slant of some sort.
When you read the headline, U.S. says 85% of Iraqi targets were hit.
I do not see anything there that is negative.
Seems like progress to me.
In the fullest military assessment since the bombing of Iraq ended,
the American commander who led four days of strikes said today that American and British forces hit 85% of their targets
and badly damaged the Republican Guard.
Well, there's so many ways you could say something like that.
You could focus on what many people throughout the world probably would consider to be the most important aspect of this.
Number of people killed.
But there's no mention of that anywhere in this paragraph.
In fact, I don't see any mention of this anywhere in the story.
Oh, I'm scanning the story now.
Okay, actually, I do see it.
I'd say it's about 12 paragraphs in.
And listen to the way they say it.
Today, the deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, said the attacks have had very little effect on Iraq's military,
killing only 62 military martyrs, in quotes, and only 38 in the Republican Guard.
They're human beings, you know.
And the only time that we're going to mention the people that were killed was when they're being described as propaganda by the other side.
So the fact that we put quotes around it and called them martyrs, well, that's ridiculing them.
That's ridiculing who they were.
These were people.
These were human beings.
They're gone.
They're destroyed.
We killed them.
President Clinton killed them, you know, by his order.
And that's, uh, that's something.
That's something.
So yeah, there's bias everywhere.
There's bias in the New York Times.
There's bias on Pacifica.
The important thing, though, is that there's bias from different sides.
What happens when you only get one side?
You're not encouraged to think.
You pretty much believe everything you're told.
See, one of the things, and I think this is a very healthy thing to do, is to question everything you're told by an authority figure.
And I think a lot of us who are in school, for instance, and that's why I think so many high school kids get it right, because they're still in this rebellious stage where they question things they're told.
Lots of times just for the sake of questioning it.
But they question nonetheless.
Unless, assume you're being lied to.
Whether it's a teacher, whether it's the president, whether it's the news commentator.
Assume they're not telling the whole truth, or maybe they're not telling any of the truth.
Question it.
Look for the evidence.
Come to your own conclusions.
And maybe then you'll be a step closer to the truth.
But don't just believe what somebody on the radio is saying.
You know, there's all kinds of ways to get information.
All kinds of ways to reach out and find things.
And not enough of us do that.
It's a lot easier to be told the truth and to just believe it that way.
And, you know, without almost any exception, I find that people that work regular nine to five jobs back this thing.
You know, they say the military campaign is exactly what we should be doing.
And, yeah, we've got to keep that Saddam Hussein down.
And it's kind of weird how when people go into mainstream society one way or another,
their opinions really do seem to change.
Their way of thinking really seems to change.
They cease becoming rebels.
They cease asking questions where it's inconvenient.
And they just follow the party line without thinking, without questioning.
They cease asking questions where they're going.
They cease asking questions where they're going.
Well, I was looking for a CNN story that I printed out.
You know, maybe it just didn't print out.
That happens sometimes.
I've noticed that there are lots of sites that I connect to that for some reason they disable printing
or they just have so many ads on them that it takes a year and a day to print in the first place.
Probably waiting for me by the time I get back.
Oh, you know, here it is.
Here it is.
It was stuck in all my C-SPAN printouts.
Okay, this is a story that really got me.
It was in today's CNN website news, which, you know, I look at every day.
Last week's bombing of Iraq has further increased the chance of a terrorist attack against Americans living and traveling abroad,
but U.S. officials tell CNN serious threats against the United States and its citizens have doubled
since the August 7th terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania,
according to a senior law enforcement source who declined to give specific numbers.
So, so far, first two paragraphs here.
Here we have U.S. officials told CNN and a senior law enforcement source who declined to really give any information.
Law enforcement and intelligence sources, again, no names, say the missile attacks against Iraq
combined with U.S. air raids in August against alleged terrorist sites in Afghanistan and Sudan
have focused anti-American sentiment among suspected terrorist groups.
As a precaution, the State Department is warning U.S. officials in the Persian Gulf of a possible attack in the next 30 days.
Temporarily shut down most U.S. embassies in Africa and issued a caution to U.S. citizens traveling abroad.
So, now, right away, we have this whole situation where everyone's on the defensive.
Those nasty Arabs, those nasty terrorist Arabs, because, of course, they're all terrorists.
Looking at this, what else can you possibly believe?
But look at the facts. We've gone over there, bombed the hell out of their country.
They've done absolutely nothing in response. They haven't even hit back inside their own country.
I've heard no calls for retribution.
Nothing major, anyway. Just get out of our country. Maybe a few people saying that.
That's it.
Yet, the front page of the CNN news site says,
Iraq bombing heightens anti-U.S. terrorist threat.
What do you call somebody who goes into a foreign country and sets off bombs and kills people?
Well, you don't call them terrorists when they're Americans doing it.
You just don't do that.
And if you suggest that there might be some kind of retribution,
well, of course, the only way that that can be interpreted is a terrorist threat.
But we don't even have that.
We don't even have that kind of retribution being threatened.
All we have is anonymous government officials saying that they think maybe someday
somebody's going to take offense at this and do something back in return to us.
I mean, how could they do something like that?
After all, we didn't bomb them during Ramadan.
We didn't want to offend them.
But in all fairness, when a country doesn't follow U.N. guidelines,
they really deserve whatever it is they get, right?
That's how I've been brought up.
Did you know that this bombing campaign
went against 60% of the permanent members of the U.S. Security Council?
United States, England, France, China, and Russia.
Well, China and Russia right away expressed their outrage.
Russia recalled their ambassador.
And France was objected to it, too.
So Germany today joined and said,
you guys better figure out some other solution, not bombing.
So the reason for us bombing Iraq was because they didn't follow U.N. guidelines.
And by our own admission,
I guess any country can come in now and bomb us
because we weren't against U.N. regulations.
Except we did it slightly differently.
We didn't just say, you can't come in here.
We sort of killed a lot of people.
But, you know, that's U.S. tradition, isn't it?
Yes, it's all biased.
It's all one way of looking at things.
But it's no more biased than all the other ways.
And, you know, a lot of what is considered bias is what isn't said,
what we're not talking about.
You know, as a country where, over the last couple of years,
about a million people have been massacred,
can anybody name the country?
Anybody?
It's not talked about here.
But in Rwanda, 1994, 500,000 people were massacred.
500,000 people.
So, you know, that's a slight human rights violation right there.
Then you got Serbia.
You got Serbia going and invading everybody
and, you know, massacring people in Bosnia,
massacring people in Albania,
various other places.
We've got, we just got a piece of mail today about this, actually.
This has to do with websites.
Human Rights Watch today condemned a clampdown on the Internet in Serbia,
part of a concerted effort by President Slobodan Minošević
to stifle free expression and academic freedom.
The university administration's order prevents students,
professors, and researchers throughout Serbia
from accessing a website from OpenNet,
the Internet branch of Belgrade's independent radio B92.
We've talked about them in prior shows.
And I believe if you connect to Access4All over in Holland,
you'll be able to connect to the B92 radio site
if it hasn't been taken down.
On December 10th,
the new government-appointed dean
of the School of Electrical Engineering,
Vlada Tijodosic,
ordered filters to prevent users
of the Yugoslav Academic Internet Network
from accessing the OpenNet website,
a major source of independent news and information.
The measure also affects the independent media
and non-governmental organizations in the country,
many of which access OpenNet throughout the university.
OpenNet has played a central role
in breaking the government's information blockade,
according to Human Rights Watch.
President Milosevic and his allies
are spearheading a direct assault
on the free flow of information.
The act of censorship comes as the...
See, now here's bias.
I'm calling it the act of censorship.
I'm reading from this story here.
Obviously, that's a bias.
Someone else would say it's control.
It's necessary.
It's a way of keeping anti-government people
from taking control, maybe.
Who knows?
Anyway, the act of censorship comes
as the latest step in an ongoing attack
on the universities by Yugoslav President Milosevic.
In May 1998,
a new university law stripped
Serbian universities of their autonomy
and required all professors
to sign new contracts within 60 days,
regardless of the terms of existing contracts
and guarantees of tenure.
And professors who refused to sign
the new contracts,
viewed by many as loyalty oaths
to the government,
have been harassed, suspended, and fired.
Tidosic, who has authority
over the computing center
at the University of Belgrade,
has been a central figure
in academic repression.
In October, he suspended
12 engineering professors
who refused to sign the new contracts,
including professors
such as Branko Popovich,
with nearly 150 publications to his name
and awards from several
international scientific societies.
Tidosic hired private security guards
to forcibly remove
any of the 12 professors
who attempted to return
to their classrooms.
The attack on the Internet
also comes amidst increased
government harassment
of the independent media in Serbia.
A new law on information
passed on October 20th
established a system
of prior censorship
and imposes prohibitively high fines
on journalists, editors, and publishers.
Three newspapers have been shut down thus far.
That's the kind of thing
that's happening over there.
This control of information,
and of course you have
the violent stuff that's going on
on their borders,
newspapers and newspapers
and journalists
are being shut down.
Places where information
is being sent out
are controlled fiercely.
So why is it in our country
we do all this voluntarily?
You know, we
we shut down our free thinking
without somebody telling us
we have to.
We don't have diversity of thought
because it's inconvenient.
We don't want to be controversial.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Just can't go along with that.
You know, over the past week
it's been difficult
because I was very anti-impeachment
a week ago.
And then when the bombing started
I was all for it.
I'm saying impeach that bastard.
I mean, he's using
he's using the office obviously.
And I don't see how anybody
can say otherwise.
I don't see how anybody can say
that this was not connected somehow.
It's the day before the vote.
You know, you have 365 days
a year to bomb an innocent country
or, you know, whatever, you know.
Whether they're innocent or not.
Just a helpless country.
How's that?
Because they are kind of helpless.
We've bombed them before many times.
Now, keep in mind
this happened once before
in the summertime
the day of the video testimony.
We bombed two countries then.
We bombed Afghanistan.
We bombed Sudan.
And people saw
the wag the dog syndrome then.
Seems kind of repetitious.
And that's the impressions I got.
And I lost all respect
for Democrats.
I got the respect last week
or before Wednesday anyway.
Seeing them battling
these monolithic Republicans
reminded me of nothing
but Star Trek's Borg.
The way that it's relentless
and all-encompassing
and not backing down in any way.
Just, yeah,
we have to impeach this guy.
He lied.
He's a menace to society.
We must get rid of him.
No compromise.
Nothing like that.
And the Democrats,
diverse,
kind of weird,
some of them
but standing up
for their individual beliefs.
But then the next week
they're actually standing up
with a straight face saying
we can't impeach the president now
because there's a military action
going on
and that would simply
hurt the country
and yeah,
we must destroy Saddam Hussein.
I don't know.
I don't know.
At that point it was just
who do you go with?
What's,
what's the best way
to go?
It's confusing.
It's disillusioning.
So,
right now,
right now I don't know.
I don't know what,
what side to take,
what side to listen to.
I do like
what's going on though.
I like seeing new ground
being plowed,
I guess.
We're going into a trial,
an impeachment trial
with the Senate.
I mean,
this is cool.
We've never done anything
like this before.
Back, what,
130 years ago
and they did it once before.
There was no C-SPAN then.
There was no CNN.
There was no way
to watch this,
to see what's going on.
Nobody knows
what's going to happen.
There's talk today
of compromise.
There's talk today
that let's have a censure
instead of an impeachment.
Well,
it's kind of late for that.
You know,
that's what we were
talking about last week.
Now they want to compromise.
I think the Republicans
have already dug their grave.
I don't know.
It's,
it's awfully weird,
awfully groundbreaking
what's going on today.
So it's exciting
but at the same time
it's disillusioning.
That's why
we need to get
as many different kinds
of opinions
out there
as possible.
But one thing
that really,
really bothered me a lot
was just
turning on the TV
and seeing the,
the kind of
disembodied voices.
You know,
as you watch a city,
a city that looked
like green jello
because it was night vision
and that's the color
that it came out as.
Just watching things
falling all over the place
and realizing,
hey,
you know,
this is a city.
Yeah,
we're,
we're highly accurate.
Our bombs are amazing.
You know,
they know exactly
what to hit.
They know who's good
and who's bad.
They're like Santa Claus
up there in the sky
and they,
they target certain things
and,
you know,
that's,
that's sophistication.
that's a,
that's a testament
to our superiority
in the,
in the race
to perfect
the ultimate smart bomb.
But,
you know,
keep in mind,
there's people
in these towns.
If we really want
to test these things
so much
and they're really
so accurate,
why don't we aim them
at some abandoned
warehouses in,
you know,
Detroit or Chicago
or,
or Wheeling,
West Virginia?
Well,
you know,
probably not because,
hey,
there's people
in those towns.
Might scare them
having,
you know,
missiles whistling
over their houses,
hearing explosions,
things like that.
Even if you don't
target apartment buildings,
it still has a big effect
because there are
still people there.
These are human beings
and that's something
you didn't get
by watching CNN.
Well,
actually,
not true.
You did get it
by watching CNN
if you paid attention
to the screen
because,
I think it was
on Saturday night,
we,
we saw the city
just being bombed
relentlessly
for about
45 minutes
and then
after,
after the bombs
stopped,
within a couple
of minutes,
you heard
singing.
You heard
human singing
coming from the mosque
that was on
the television set,
a call to prayer
and I don't think
anything
could have
given a more
positive view
of the people
in that city
and their strength,
their resolve,
their ability to
sit through it all
and start
again.
If you read
about it in the
paper,
you didn't get
that.
You heard
the wail
of,
they called it
a wail,
the wail of,
I don't know
how it is
they described it,
something that
made it sound
like propaganda
or hysterics
or something like
that,
but it was
really an
amazing sound
if you actually
were able to
see it without
hearing somebody
telling you
what it was
you were seeing.
Alright,
we want to
take some
phone calls,
212-209-2900.
I'd like to
know what
other people's
reaction to
this whole
mess really
is.
It's been
an interesting
week.
And it does
relate to what
we usually talk
about here on
Off the Hook
because we talk
about dissent
of various sorts,
we talk about
how the
government has
their particular
way of presenting
things,
we talk about
how the
media never
really gets
it right.
Well,
do you think
that's only
pertinent to
the world of
computer hackers?
It's not.
It extends to
everything to
various degrees.
And everybody
has to find
their own truth
by looking at
the various
sources out
there.
And we're
certainly not
all going to
agree.
That's a given.
And that's not
a bad thing.
That's the only
way you actually
reach consensus.
I mean,
somebody made a
decision for us
in the past
week.
Someone said
this was the
right thing to
do.
And there was
very little
evidence presented.
In fact,
I heard,
it might have
been on
Pacifica I
heard this,
or it might
have been
someplace else,
that this
whole mess
where supposedly
we were denied
access,
or the UN,
or whoever it
was,
was denied
access to a
particular building,
which was a
different kind
of building
than the ones
we were supposed
to have access
to in the
first place
from what I
heard someplace
else.
And I just
wanted to
know,
you know,
we always
go to these
places,
we always
have all
these ways
of gathering
evidence,
surely there
must exist
someplace a
video documentation
of them
telling us
to get out.
And if it's
the way that
they tell it,
they didn't
do that.
They told us
simply that we
needed to fill
out a form to
get access to
this political
office, which is
something different
than a
presidential palace
or a military
airfield or
an industrial
complex.
So it's
entirely possible
that they simply
wanted us to
fill out a
form or get
some sort of
authorization to
do this, which
seemed to be
different than
what it was we
had agreed to
in the first
place.
So I'd like to
see the primary
evidence of that.
I don't think I
ever will.
And that's got to
tell you something
right there.
Okay, we're going
to read one
letter and then
we're going to
go to some
phones.
212-209-2900.
I'm listening to
the December show
in which you
discussed this
student who had
his 2600
magazine confiscated.
His notebook
taken away and
his calculator's
memory deleted.
On the same
theme, similar
things have
happened in my
school.
Last year, a
student who wrote
about the horrible
state of the math
program in my
school, without
mentioning any
names of teachers,
was suspended and
forced to read a
book about respect.
Yeah, I believe
his suspension was
repealed after
community pressure,
but he was still
forced to read the
book.
Also, the school
board of my
school actually and
openly considered
banning, yes,
banning the
color black in
my school.
I don't know if
that affected any
people, or if it
was just clothing or
what, but yeah,
banning the color
black.
And finally,
probably the most
startling thing, I
had to contact the
national organization,
www.au.org, who
ended up sending my
school two letters in
which they threatened
to sue because my
school refused to
allow the formation of
an atheist club,
although we have
Bible study.
Fair enough.
Freedom of speech
and religion is
basically dead in
public schools,
especially out here
in the Midwest.
Anyways, I love
your show, enjoy your
political commentary,
so I don't know if
you're going to
enjoy tonight's.
Get a lot of
people mad when I
say things like this,
but you know, it's
got to be said
someplace, right?
I just have a
quick question.
Have you noticed
the backlash against
Kevin Mitnick?
I've seen burn
Kevin banners,
et cetera.
I just wonder
what you think
about this.
Seems like cutting
off your nose to
spite your face.
Well, that's a
good point, and I
think I agree that
it is cutting off
your nose to spite
your face because
I found upon
talking to a lot
of people that
say these things
that the only
reason they say
it is because
they resent the
fact that this is
getting publicity
and people are
actually saying
free Kevin.
It's what's known
as rebellion, but
rebellion without a
focus.
You see something,
you want to rebel
against it, but
you know, there's
an important part
of rebellion, and
that's the thinking
part.
If you just rebel
against something
because you can
and because you
can say something
else about Kevin
and not free Kevin
without having any
facts, I mean,
yeah, okay, maybe
you disagree.
Maybe you think he
should still be in
prison after four
years.
Maybe he should be
in prison for 20
years, but at least
have a reason for
saying it.
Not just that you
don't like the people
who are saying free
Kevin, or you don't
think that they're
educated themselves,
or whatever.
So, I mean, that's
what I've, I'd love
to hear from people
who honestly agree
that Kevin Mitnick
should not be free.
I really would like
to debate these
people, ask them
some questions, but
I have yet to really,
I've come across
people who say,
well, he broke the
law.
It's like, yeah,
okay, he broke the
law, but everybody
breaks the law.
There's law breaking
and then there's law
breaking, you know?
You go speeding,
you're breaking the
law, you run a stop
sign, maybe you've
broken the law.
What do you define
as breaking the law
enough to be in
prison for over
four years?
That's something we
need to define.
But fortunately, I
think a lot of
people realize that
this is a tremendous
injustice and they
see it as something
that needs to be
done.
And it's
discouraging.
You don't get
immediate results.
But it still is
something that you
can't ignore.
All right, in
closing, before we
take some phone
calls, I just want
to encourage people
since there are
sources out there
if you look for
them for alternative
news, for different
things that are set
out there.
And Pacifica,
obviously, is one of
the leading sources.
You can go to the
website, www.pacifica.org,
and listen to
newscasts every single
day from now back
until, I believe,
1996.
And you can see
for yourself how
things develop, how
stories change, how
perceptions change.
And you can also
hear a lot of
stories that simply
aren't covered in
mainstream media.
I mean, we've got
neo-Nazis running
governments.
The president of
Croatia is somebody
who believes the
Holocaust never
happened.
You know, that's
something I think we
should be talking
about, thinking
about, aware of.
The Rwandan
massacre, there's lots
of dead people over
there.
It's not in the
media.
We don't care
about that.
Saddam Hussein
insults the New
York Yankees.
Well, that's
something that you
got to take action
against.
That's important.
Regardless of the
fact that we put him
there in the first
place, regardless of
the fact we put
Manuel Noriega where
he was in the first
place, there are
certain times where
suddenly our policies
change.
You have to ask
why.
There's 11,000
people in Central
America that aren't
around anymore because
of a hurricane this
summer.
That's a lot of
people.
There's a lot of
people and that's
something that we
don't care about
anymore because
they're not people
like us.
Well, it's time
that we started
looking for the
stories that aren't
being covered.
There's an awful
lot of them.
All right, 212-209-2900.
Let's see if we can
keep it on the
topic, whatever that
topic might be
tonight.
Let's go over here.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yeah, hi.
Before I get into my
political...
I picked a different
number this time.
Okay, listen,
Rebel, we're going to
set some ground rules
here right now.
You're going to talk
about the subject.
We're not going to
talk about Citibank
pay phones.
We're not going to
talk about co-cups.
We're not going to
talk about how to
rip off a motel by
making calls and
billing it to them.
Okay, do you agree
to that?
Yes.
Okay, go ahead.
Okay, before I get
into my political views,
which you have...
Listen, let me just
caution you because
that sounds like an
excuse for talking
about something
directly opposite of
what we're going to
be talking about
tonight.
So go ahead and
talk about something
relevant.
It's my cellular
phone to call you.
I get charged
when it rings.
All right.
We gave him a chance.
We gave him a chance.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yes.
Go ahead.
Yes, as far as
Kevin's concerned,
that's very petty
to pick on a small
person.
I guess it's also
the same as there
are a lot of people
under surveillance
that have never
done anything.
And I always
wonder about that.
There are a lot of
people under surveillance
who have never done
anything.
Yes, and they
question why they
are under surveillance.
But I don't know
if it's because they
were in some marches
or maybe because
they're using their
computer.
First of all,
how do you know
they're under
surveillance?
Well, that's the
thing.
They question if
they are peculiar
things.
Well, you know,
here's the thing.
A lot of people
believe they're
under surveillance.
And a lot of
people tell me I'm
under surveillance
because, hey,
I'm here on the
air every week.
I put out a
magazine.
Well-known
dissident, as
some people might
say.
Of course, I'm
under surveillance.
But you can either
let it bother you
and affect you,
or you can say,
so what?
You know, the more
people who are
under surveillance,
the better,
because that makes
their job a lot
harder, and it
makes it a lot more
ineffectual.
You know, back in
Romania, in the
days of Cisescu,
they used to record
virtually every phone
call made in
Bucharest, their
capital.
And when the
revolution finally
took place back
in 1989, they
found the room
where they recorded
all these
conversations.
It was a room
filled with
cassettes.
Nobody ever had
time to listen to
it all.
It was a big
waste, completely
ineffectual.
Of course, the
society was so
completely paranoid
that nobody really
could get anything
done, and I don't
think we should be
moving in that
direction.
And who pays for
all of this?
That's a good
point.
That's a very good
point.
It's something that
the taxpayers wind
up paying for.
I don't mind
paying for something,
but I don't like to
waste money.
You do it when it's
needed and it's
warranted, but when
it's not warranted,
it's becoming a
waste, and they
don't really care
about the people's
money.
No, that's
certainly true.
That's something
they demonstrate
time and again.
That's right.
Have a good night.
Thanks.
Thanks for calling.
212-209-2900.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yes, I have a
comment and a
question.
Go right ahead.
Regards with the
impeaching of the
president, I think
that as long as he's
not affecting, you
know, whatever he
does in his personal
life is none of our
business, and as long
as what he does is not
affecting the people,
then who cares?
You know, I think he
should have said that
to the grand jury.
When they asked him
those certain
questions, he said,
that's none of your
damn business.
You know, that's what
I would say.
If I'm ever in front of
a grand jury and they
start asking me
questions like that,
you know, true, not
true, whatever.
It's not their
business.
You want to put me in
jail for saying that?
Go right ahead.
But there's certain
things that nobody
really has a right to
know.
Yeah.
And the question, what's
up with HOPE?
Oh, you mean the
Hacker Conference?
There's rumors there will
be a HOPE 2000, but we're
going to need some
organization, and we
haven't even gotten to
the stage of thinking
about that.
We're still trying to
de-organize from HOPE
1997, but it's something
that we're considering.
So if anybody has
suggestions out there,
possible venues,
possible service
providers, things like
that.
Yeah, I'll try to come
to the next meeting,
and I'll bring it up.
Okay, great.
All right.
Thanks.
Speaking of that
next meeting, I'm not
entirely sure if the
CityCorp building is
open or closed.
Isaac, you're here.
Do you know?
Yeah.
I came all the way
from Queens.
Just to tell us this.
Yes.
I have no idea if
CityCorp is open or
not.
I plan on being there
both days.
So I have no life.
I'll be there.
Well, you're there
most of the days,
anyway, that guy
that walks around
with the big
shopping bag.
Yes.
Okay.
Well, I don't know.
I'm not sure when
it'll be.
If the CityCorp
building, maybe
somebody could make
a call sometime
because we're too
busy worrying about
the Mideast to do
that.
If the CityCorp
building is closed,
that means there is
no meeting on
January 1st.
If it's open,
then there is a
meeting.
And if there is no
meeting, that means
the meeting is
postponed one week
to January 8th.
Got it?
Okay.
And the meetings
take place first
Friday of every month
from 5 to 8 p.m.
Okay.
Now, we've gotten
all that settled.
Let's take another
phone call.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Now, what I was
going to say is...
It's better be on
topic, Rebel.
Okay, yeah.
The political thing.
I really don't care
because it doesn't
affect my life
what the President
does.
I mean, he didn't
do anything to the
country.
But who the President
is certainly affects
your life.
Well, that's true,
but...
If he got impeached,
if he got taken
out of office,
you know, something
could happen.
And by the way,
everyone thinks,
you know, they were
talking, oh, the
President's got to
resign now that this
happened.
First of all,
even if the President
goes out and commits
murder, he's not
going to resign until
January because that's
when Gore can take
office and also run
for re-election in
2004.
If he was to take
office now, he'd be
considered an incumbent
president come 2000.
So he couldn't run
again in 2004.
So there's no way he's
going to resign before
then.
And you know, I also
hate these new
co-cats in New York
City.
Yes, I do too.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
How are you doing?
You sound very happy
to be on the air.
Yes, I haven't called
you in a while.
Now I've got to lower
the radio and I'm
looking for the
remote.
Oh, I hate that.
Remote on the radio.
Now that's high tech.
Well, thank you.
By the way,
International Dispatches
did the best documentary
on Rwanda if anyone
wants to see it.
How did we see
something like this?
Well, who knows
whether they play it
again, but it shows
how the Belgian and
the French measured
the Tutsi's heads
and saw that they had
Nordic noses
instead of flat noses.
So the crazy thing
started, but I was
a witness to this
conspiracy.
The coup really took
place in 1979.
It's what happened
then and what's
happening now is the
same thing.
Two oil men get
into my cab in L.A.
just getting off the
plane from San
Francisco and saying,
we're going to make
Reagan president
because we can
control him.
Bush is one of our
oil guys.
He might be a little
off the handle on
the thing with Reagan
to his political
stuff because there
was a gas shortage
at the time.
That's how they got
Carter out, which was
artificial as revealed
by the Kerry
Commission.
So right now,
all-time low on gas.
Sometimes the most
outrageous thing is
right in front of your
face and you think
it's so outrageous
it can't be true.
We don't know, like
the Dow Jones averages
we see every day, we
don't know how much
Iraq is selling, how
much oil they're selling
each day, how it's
being controlled because
of that price of oil.
So what else have they
got to bargain with?
The sanctions aren't
lifted.
These guys are going
everywhere looking for
the weapons that they had
supplied them.
And if you've got a
bargaining chip and
you're not living in
these sanctions, listen
I'm sick of this, you're
going here, you're going
here, I'm not letting you
in here today, how about
some sanctions stuff?
So what do they do?
They bomb them.
Everybody's buying this
crap.
And it's the same thing
because these are the
people who are really
running the country, the
oil companies, the NSA, all
the corporations, ABC,
Westinghouse, these are the
people who are really
doing the bombing.
We really don't have a
president, we haven't had a
president since Jimmy
Carter.
And these are the people
that are reporting on the
bombing too.
And the people who's
Well, they're all doing
their things.
Let's see, we've got to
get rid of some of these
munitions.
That's $1 billion in
artillery, we've got an
excuse to use it, we can
get now $1 billion, and
we've got an excuse to
use it.
That's right.
Everything we fired at
Iraq in the past week,
every missile, that's a
million dollars right
there.
A million dollars.
They say this operation
will cost a billion
dollars.
And that really comes to
the bottom line, it's
almost like a movie
network, they're giving
you these things in
dollars and figures and
things, like these
aren't real people.
And we think we even
have a president and a
Congress?
Why there's no campaign
finance reform?
Because those are the
people really making the
decisions, putting up the
money.
Their salaries are nothing
compared to what special
interest pays, and we
think we elect these
people.
That's exactly it.
They aren't real people
to us.
We see it on TV.
How many real people
did we see?
The thing is, all the
Congress and Senate,
they're not real people
either.
Okay, I'll let you get
another call.
Okay, thanks so much
for calling.
Actually, somewhere in my
papers here, I have a
phone number.
Yeah, no, I really do
have a phone number.
I really have to get
better organized.
Look over here.
I had a phone number in
Iraq that I wanted to
try calling.
Of course, I don't know
if, yeah, here it is.
I don't know if there's
any chance at all of
getting through.
And this is something I
just, I scanned the web
for before, just before I
left, because I didn't
want to call somebody.
If I was going to make a
call to Iraq, I didn't
want to call somebody who
was asleep, you know.
Last thing they need is to
be called at whatever time
it is over there.
It's pretty late.
So, oh, that sounds
terrible.
Let's not use that
line.
Let's try.
All these lines are
broken?
Wow, that's bad.
Okay, let's try over
here.
Okay, you know what I'm
going to have to do?
I'm going to have to
take somebody and
disconnect them.
I'm sorry I had to do
that.
Okay.
Oh, you know what?
I'm not supposed to
dial 9 either.
Sorry about that, too.
Okay.
Let's try this.
Okay, I'm not sure
this is going to go
through.
If we even allow
calls to Iraq from the
control room.
It's quite possible,
too, that...
Okay, it wants my
code, which I'm not
going to broadcast.
Let's see if this
works.
Oh, dear.
Oh, there's a
restriction someplace.
Okay.
Well, then, there's the
other place I wanted to
call today.
And I think this is
something a lot of us
should do.
It's our civic duty,
after all.
White House?
Hi, is this the
White House?
Yes, it is.
Hi, my name is
Emmanuel Goldstein.
I'm calling from New
York.
I've been watching the
TV news over the past
week.
The offices are closed
until tomorrow.
Okay, I just want to...
Is there anything I can
do now to help?
It's closed, sir.
There's nothing I can
do overnight, because
I'm really energetic?
No, it's closed
tonight.
Okay, well, should I
call this same number
tomorrow?
Yes, you can.
That's 456-1414?
Yes.
Okay.
By the way, what kind
of phone system do you
have?
Sir, I have no
information.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Bye-bye.
Figured I'd ask, you
know.
All right, so that's
what you do.
You go over there and
you try and help out
whatever way you can.
I would have sent
fruit or something, you
know, fruit basket, they
like that.
It just shows that you
care.
They need all the moral
help they can get.
Anyway, we have time
for one more phone call,
so let's take it over
here.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello?
Yes, go ahead.
Oh, okay.
Well, that was, I guess,
a dissenting comment.
All right, let's try
this one.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi, how are you?
Pretty good.
How are you?
I have an idea for
the, which you were
mentioning, the year
2000 conference.
I'd like to see sort of a
conference done on the
Y2K and how it would
affect the communications
industry.
Well, hold on a second.
If the conference isn't
taking place until summer
of 2000, then I think it's
going to be a post-mortem
of sorts.
All right, forget it.
The other thing I wanted
to ask you about is, I had
heard of a technology, not
really a technology, but
there are several websites
I'd have heard about where
you could actually use your
email account, and depending
on how you address it in the
two sections, like remote
printer at, and then the one
and the fax number, et cetera,
that you could actually fax an
email to a fax, I'm sorry,
email an email to a fax
machine and have it come out
as a regular fax.
Did you know anything about
that?
No, I haven't really been
paying attention, actually, to
that kind of thing, but Isaac,
what do you think?
I don't think that'd be
surprising at all.
Yeah, I mean, it seems like a
fairly trivial thing that's
certainly possible.
All right, thank you.
Thanks for calling.
And I think we're pretty much
out of time.
But, you know, we have no
idea what's going to happen
in the next week.
Next week's show could be just
as controversial as this
week's, but if it's not, we're
going to have our 1998 review
next week.
We talk about all the things
that have happened and all
the things to look forward to
in the next year, the last
year of the 20th century.
Well, no, that's not true.
The second to last year of the
20th century, the last year
before the year 2000 hits, which
according to many could be the
last year of our existence on
this earth.
So with that sobering thought,
this is Emmanuel Goldstein
for Off the Hook, inviting you
to stay tuned to WBAI for the
next program, Talk Rear, which
talks about Arab issues.
And if you want alternative
views, views you may not have
heard on ABC News, then please
listen.
And hopefully the coders who are
coding tonight on Real Audio
will keep the stream going for
another hour just so people can
do that in various parts of the
world, it would be highly
appreciated.
And again, I'd like everybody
to do this later.
Go to Pacifica.org, listen to
the news for today, yesterday,
whatever day you want.
Just hear how it's not being
reported in other places.
And yeah, you'll find bias
there, you'll find bias
everywhere.
Pick up a newspaper, look for
the bias, figure out different
ways to say the same thing.
It's all out there, just waiting
for you to discover it.
Until next week, Emmanuel Goldstein.
Good night.
The telephone keeps ringing
So I ripped it off the wall
I cut myself while shaving
Now I can't make a call
It couldn't get much worse
But if they could, they would
Bumbin' Le Bon
For the best, expect the worst
I hope that's understood
Bumbin' Le Bon
What the hell you should
What the hell you should
I would go
It could.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And there will be live entertainment featuring vocalist Ann Sinclair and the legendary Cotton Club All-Stars.
So, pass the word to your neighbors in need or to the community organizations that serve the homeless.
Remember, Christmas Day, 1 to 5 p.m. at the Cotton Club, 125th Street, just off of Broadway.
For more information, call 718-834-9034.
718-834-9034.
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