Lynne Mosier is Mike Gravel's daughter. On Sunday, she appeared with Daniel Ellsberg on the Katie Halper Show.
October 13, 2000
JOHN GIBSON, GUEST HOST: Hi, everybody. I'm John Gibson filling in for Bill O'Reilly, who's on assignment. Thanks for watching us tonight.
We've got a packed program for you. The political Hollywood film "The Contender" is released today and the producer and one of the stars say the studio chiefs reedited it to present a pro-Gore agenda. Much ado about now much or Hollywood liberals at it again?
Plus, the presidential race is in a statistical dead heat, but the violence in the Middle East could affect who wins in November. We'll find out how the stakes have changed. And the crisis in the Mideast is our top story tonight. Here are the latest developments.
One Palestinian is dead and 12 injured in clashes today in Hebron. Ninety-eight people have been killed in 16 days of violence. President Clinton is calling for calm while many say the peace process is dead. What will it take to resolve this and have the Palestinians been treated unfairly?
Joining me now from Washington, D.C. is the former media director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Sam Husseini.
Sam, what is the case for the notion that Palestinians have been treated unfairly?
SAM HUSSEINI, INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC ACCURACY: Well, going back to the beginning of the Oslo Accords, if you take a look at it, as the group that I'm currently with, the Institute for Public Accuracy, has been doing, you find that the Oslo Accords were tremendously unfair to the Palestinians and the agreements that they have gone through since then, since the big handshake, the big photo-ops and so on.
They hide the fact that Israel continues to perpetuate its occupation over the Palestinians.
GIBSON: But Sam…
HUSSEINI: All the Israelis have done is withdrawn from some population areas.
GIBSON: Sam, I'm confused. Didn't the Palestinians agree to the Oslo Accords? So who was unfair to who?
HUSSEINI: Well, it was either agree or get nothing. Basically the Palestinians were put a gun to their head saying agree to this piece of paper or you get nothing or you get bombed or you, you know, just stay out of the picture or you get absolutely nothing at all because Israel's got all the weapons.
There's a tremendous disparity -- Israel's got one of the biggest, most powerful militaries in the world. They've got 200 nuclear weapons. And what they are at war, some people are saying against, is a civilian population…
GIBSON: But Sam…
HUSSEINI: … that's unarmed, that all they've got is rocks.
GIBSON: But Sam…
HUSSEINI: So it's an incredibly…
GIBSON: Israel is not going to bomb Gaza with nuclear weapons. That wouldn't…
HUSSEINI: No, but they can bomb other people in the region.
GIBSON: Well, sure, but -- all right, Sam, look…
HUSSEINI: They can determine their dominance of the region.
GIBSON: … how do you expect the American people at large to develop some empathy for the Palestinians when we see in the last couple of days mobs killing a couple of guys…
HUSSEINI: Well, you know, John…
GIBSON: … guys waving their bloody hands out a window in triumph?
HUSSEINI: Right, exactly. Exactly.
GIBSON: How does that build any empathy?
HUSSEINI: Yeah, what doesn't build empathy and I hear the music and I guess they'll show the clips that are getting played, I want to see the clips that haven't gotten played. There have been almost 100 Palestinian civilians, not soldiers -- I'm sorry about those soldiers, those Israeli soldiers getting killed. But what were they doing there? They're occupying soldiers.
GIBSON: They were…
HUSSEINI: They're occupying…
GIBSON: They were there by mistake.
HUSSEINI: They weren't in uniform, John.
GIBSON: They ran to the Palestinian police station for protection.
HUSSEINI: They weren't in uniform, John. You know, they're undercover units, OK? It's not a secret.
GIBSON: Well, Sam, I know that's in dispute. But I mean one picture…
HUSSEINI: So, let's see the pictures…
GIBSON: At least one picture today…
HUSSEINI: Let's see the pictures that we're not seeing…
GIBSON: … showed the guy in uniform being…
HUSSEINI: … of our -- John.
GIBSON: … shoved to the ground.
HUSSEINI: John, the other pictures of our, of American made helicopter gunships hitting civilian targets, of Palestinian children being shot. Neither one of the presidential candidates had the guts to say I condemn Israel's killing almost 100 Palestinian civilians.
I used to think we shouldn't get MLK Day "off" since we should work extra hard on this day. But I've mellowed and think of his own debauchery and give myself some slack. No matter how many self indulgent things you've done: plagiarism, cheating on your spouse (as King did) you can still do great, even historic, things and be capable of great love. Finding "bad" things about MLK didn't make me respect him less, it made me realize that whatever I or others do that's "bad" -- we can still do good and great.
Independent Science News just published my piece "Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance Has Hidden Almost $40 Million In Pentagon Funding And Militarized Pandemic Science." Prior pieces on this subject are here.
See piece in Salon: "Joe Biden won't tell the truth about his Iraq war record — and he hasn't for years."
See January 2007 questioning of Biden and Tony Blinken.
VotePact is a voting strategy that advocates that people vote for their actual preferences by pairing up with someone on the other side of the Democratic-Republican divide. So people can strategically vote for the candidates they most like without fear of helping those they most fear. Instead of effectively cancelling out each other -- one for Trump and one for Biden, they can both vote Libertarian or Green or whatever they want.
It is effectively DIY ranked choice voting, which allows voters to list their preferences 1-2-3. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom just vetoed a RCV bill in California and Republicans in Maine are still trying to block voters from using RCV in the presidential election -- which is expected to be a historic first.
Such attempts to limit voter choice are endemic to the establishment parties. indeed, much of our political and media system is designed to keep voters in perpetual subjugation to the Democratic and Republican parties: atomized, perpetually triggered by the latest outrage of 'the other side.' This effectively makes the establishment parties less and less accountable to the public since ironically, if each of the parties becomes worse, more fear kicks in spurring desperate support for the other. This creates a vicious cycle of fear and hatred and actually strengthens the duopoly. VotePact gives a strategic path out of this -- and even modest use of it could give the voting public leverage over the duopoly candidates since their votes can no longer be taken for granted."
While many establishment Democrats complain constantly that Green Party candidate Jill Stein 'took votes away' from Hillary Clinton and handed the 2016 election to Trump, they effectively block RCV reforms which would solve the problem.
But unlike RCV and other institutional reforms, VotePact doesn't require waiting for governmental sign off that may never come. Anyone can do this right now with someone from the other side of the duopoly.
A related problem is polling. Most polls are phrased something like 'if the election were held today, which of the following would you vote for: Democrat Joe Biden, Republican Donald Trump, Libertarian Jo Jorgensen or Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate.' But that just echos the voting bind and doesn't get at voter preference.
If pollsters cared to measure actual voter preferences, they would ask people to rank candidates 1-2-3, RCV style. Or they can ask: "Biden, Trump, Jorgensen and Hawkins are in a four-way tie. You are the tie-breaker, the deciding vote. Who do you vote for?' That would get at actual voter preference.
But voter preference and control are hindered, including by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a creation of the establishment Democrats and Republicans that is sponsoring what should be called a joint televised appearance Thursday night between Trump and Biden. Third party candidates are having their own debate with the group Free and Equal on Saturday. See my letter 'The Huge Problem with Polls' to Frank Newport of Gallup and the CPD.
Some advocate that people voting third party in safe states and 'lesser evil' in swing states, which is certainly a positive step, but it obviously restricts voter choice in 'swing states,' is likely a recipe for muffling national advocacy of third parties -- and it's not scalable. That is, a third party candidate gaining traction would likely redefine which states are safe states, though that seems unlikely this year. VoteTrumpOut lists these as swing states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, or Wisconsin.
But VotePact can work with two people in any state and it doesn't advocate for any candidate, it is simply a tool anyone can use to strategically vote for their preferred candidate with the radical act of cooperating with someone from the other side of the partisan divide. If needed, the issue of trust in this election can be overcome by people filling out mail in ballots together. A PAC backing Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson rebranded VotePact as 'The Balanced Rebellion' in 2016, got 37 million views on Facebook with an entertaining video featuring 'dead Abe Lincoln' and helped Johnson score the biggest third party success since Ross Perot. However, most third party candidates seem to have no strategy for electoral success, the Greens this year are saying they are largely out to preserve their ballot access.
I'm not out to compare myself to Jack Whitten, but on this day, my mind is on his 9-11 story and my own.
I'm sure we all have lots of 9-11 stories, but I told one of mine for the first time in my new art show, "Invisibly Present/Visibly Absent" that just opened at Gallery Al-Quds at the Jerusalem Fund near the Kennedy Center.
The piece is "The Scorching Sun Which Brings Them Forth" (see below).
Here is my talk today with Dagmar Painter, curator emerita at Gallery Al-Quds, and Mohamed K. Mohamed, executive director of the Jerusalem Fund about my new art show: "Invisibly Present/Visibly Absent." Catalogue is here.
More of my art is at: BeThatEmpty.org.
The Problem of Racism is Not Black and White
by Sam Husseini
by Sam Husseini
[From the January/February 1998 issue of Poverty & Race]
In what was billed as one of President Clinton's most important speeches, he urged us to "begin" a dialogue on race relations. Clinton spoke of "the problem of race." There is no such thing — except for racists. There is the problem of racism, a word Clinton managed to use only once during his speech.
In what was billed as one of President Clinton's most important speeches, he urged us to "begin" a dialogue on race relations. Clinton spoke of "the problem of race." There is no such thing — except for racists. There is the problem of racism, a word Clinton managed to use only once during his speech.