As usual, I've enjoyed, you know, sharing with you and being on the air with you. And
I think one of the things that I'm hearing is also that we can start taking care of ourselves
and other people before the crisis, before it gets to that level. I want to just end
with this poem by Pablo Neruda.
Like the earth, I belong to everyone. There is not a single drop of hatred in my breast.
Open wide, my hands scatter grapes to the wind. Pablo Neruda.
Thank you all. And, you know, take care of yourselves very, very well. Love yourselves
very, very well. That opens the path to all else that we need. And, yeah, sometimes it's
a struggle. The healing is a struggle and there's pain. But in the breaking open of
that, we get our clear thought and our clear mind and our clear action. You all take care
of yourselves very well. I love you. I love me. And until next time.
And it's just about five minutes after one o'clock. You're tuned to WBAI in New York.
The program normally at this time is weaponry. Tom Whisker is not here this week and nor
will he be here the next two weeks after this. My name is Emanuel Goldstein and we'll be
trying to follow the same vein that Tom's show normally takes around this time. We won't
be as specific as far as weapons and military details and things like that. But I certainly
want to talk about the things that are happening in the world today, particularly things that
are happening in Central America today and the things that so far just aren't happening
here. We'll be taking your phone calls. We'll be doing a lot of things. We'll run until
3.30. Our phone number is 279-3400.
Brezhnev took Afghanistan and Begin took Beirut. Galtieri took the Union Jack. And Maggie over lunch one day took a cruiser
with all of his pals to make him give it back.
I will not agree to another debate. The answer is no. I am not going to have any more debate.
We don't need any more debate. I've spelled out my position. There will be no more debate.
No peace. No justice. No peace.
No peace. No justice. No peace.
No peace. No justice. No peace.
No peace. No justice. No peace.
No peace. No justice. No peace.
We're fired up. Can't take it no more.
Can't take it no more.
We're fired up. Can't take it no more.
The answer is no. I am not going to have any more debate. We don't need any more debate. I've spelled out my position. There will be no more debate.
With the music of Mikey Dredd underneath us. And prior to that, a piece from Pink Floyd, Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert.
Well, good morning to you. My name's Emanuel Goldstein. You're listening to WBAI. I'm filling in for Tom Whisker this morning.
And a lot of things going on in the world. A lot of historic events, historic happenings.
1989 is going to be one of those years that you just wonder, what was I doing? Where was I? What do I have to show for it?
Well, folks, there are an appalling amount of nasty goings on in the world. Not a few of which this particular land that we are in right now is responsible for.
One of which is what's happening in El Salvador. If you were looking at yesterday's newspaper, that is Tuesday's New York Times, you may have noticed an article about the killing of six priests in El Salvador just about two weeks ago.
And a woman described as a witness to those slayings, the slayings of six Jesuit priests, has provided the first sworn evidence linking the killers to the Salvadoran armed forces, and hence to the U.S. government.
The judge investigating the slayings said today that he also thought that they had been committed by members of the armed forces.
They were wearing camouflage uniforms, said the 44-year-old witness, Lucia Barrera de Cerna, in a sworn statement shown to reporters by the judge, Ricardo A. Zamora.
Mrs. Barrera, who is now in the United States under the protection of the FBI, after giving her deposition here, added that the uniforms were identical to ones she had frequently seen on soldiers in the street.
Judge Zamora said, this was yesterday actually, that he had not received any information to contradict the widespread assumption that the slayings were carried out by members of the military or people linked to the armed forces.
It's logical, he said in a 20-minute interview in his office.
He noted that the killers were able to travel during a dusk-to-dawn curfew that is strictly enforced by the armed forces, and that army units surrounded the area at the time of the slayings.
It probably was members of the military.
But I can't discount any possibility, said the judge, who said he had been a close friend and student of one of the priests.
The six priests, who were among the most eloquent supporters of a negotiated settlement to the decade-old civil war, were slain on November 16th at the University of Central America on the edge of the capital during a rebel offensive.
I don't think we really need to hear much more to get the point across.
That article in yesterday's New York Times pretty much says it all.
There is little doubt that the armed forces were behind that particular slaying.
And you know what's interesting, what gets me the most?
If you were listening to the radios, TVs, what have you, reading the newspapers only a week ago, you may have seen the reports of those rebel terrorists who took over the hotel.
They actually had the nerve, they had the gall to go in there and hold Americans hostage.
I mean, it was the Ayatollah all over again.
Are Americans going to just sit still and take this kind of garbage?
Are we going to just allow these dirty foreigners to get away with these deeds, even if it's in their own home countries?
Boy, I mean, talk about riling people up.
Talk about getting everybody in a patriotic fervor.
Boy, those nasty rebels.
Now, it didn't matter that the people they were keeping an eye on, let's say, in the hotel were Green Berets, you know, military people in themselves, military people in their own country.
Now, you know, imagine, if you will, I mean, this is almost impossible to imagine, I realize, but imagine, say, a bunch of, well, all right, let's say Libyans, what the hell.
Let's say a bunch of Libyans were here in New York, a bunch of Libyans with guns and things like that, right?
Guns and M-16s, whatever you carry with you when you're a military person.
They were just sitting in the Penta Hotel, okay, across the street here downtown Manhattan,
sitting in the Penta Hotel with their, you know, machetes and guns and knives, whatever they have, you know,
talking all their military talk about how they were going to make this country safe for Libyan interests.
And then a bunch of our boys went in there and decided to run the check-in process for a little while.
You know, answer the phones and, you know, call taxis for people and just sort of run the hotel for a little while.
Well, that's kind of a similar type of a thing to what happened down in El Salvador last week.
There were no actual hostage-taking incidents.
Guns were not held to people's heads and, you know, it wasn't what it was played out to be.
And even if it was, even if it was, for God's sake, look at what we're dealing with here.
It's a war, you know. These things happen in a war.
And for us to get so high and mighty about this, when we're the ones that have sent in the people in the first place that keep this war going,
we get upset when they, you know, when people say, hey, you know, we don't like you all that much and maybe we'll hit you or something.
It's only been two weeks, two weeks since the Jesuit priests were murdered.
And the story was buried before their bodies were.
Now, whose fault is this?
Is it our media? Is it our government? Or is it maybe ourselves?
Maybe it's the fact that we just don't listen.
We don't look. We don't learn. We don't have links to the past.
We don't say, hey, only about 20 years ago this same garbage was going on.
Why don't we look at the parallels and see, you know, how maybe they interrelate and maybe we can learn from our mistakes in the past and not repeat them again.
You know, it'd be kind of nice. Good way to start the 90s.
Well, folks, I know there's a bunch of people that are very dedicated. I've seen them.
In fact, I can find the little piece of paper here that I clipped from last week's paper about the demonstrators in Times Square.
Oh, it's all the way over here. Here it is.
Excuse me.
250 demonstrators protesting United States involvement in El Salvador briefly blocked the streets south of Times Square yesterday, snarling traffic during the evening rush hour.
Carrying signs and chanting anti-war slogans, they broke through a cordon of police who had tried to confine their march to the sidewalk.
About 75 police officers, many on motor scooters or in patrol cars, formed a ring around the marchers, preventing them from moving south on Broadway.
The protesters then sat down in the street.
And after several tense minutes of negotiations with police officers, the demonstrators returned to the sidewalk and marched peacefully to the Chrysler building on 42nd Street, where Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan has an office.
The New York Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador organized the protest.
Well, apart from the fact that these three paragraphs in the paper were the only real mention of this event, 250 people in the city of New York City?
Only 250 people feel strongly enough about the killing that's going on in El Salvador to get out there and just march a little bit?
Let alone, you know, lie down in front of doors or participate in civil disobedience or something like that.
But I mean, you know, we're sponsoring things.
I'm not going to say that the U.S. government went in there with the intention of killing six Jesuit priests, but indirectly, we're every bit as responsible as the people that pulled the triggers.
Because we're setting it up.
We're setting it up in such a way that these things are just going to keep happening.
It's really sad.
Now, I understand that there's going to be some kind of a demonstration in the city on Saturday against U.S. involvement in El Salvador.
And if you feel strongly at all, and even if you just have doubts, learn something by then.
And, you know, maybe you'll be persuaded to take part in it.
I don't have the full details.
I'm in the process of trying to get the full details.
If you have some details, please call in with them, and we will spread them around.
We've got to do better than 250 people protesting a policy like this that allows a big, huge government like the United States government to go into a tiny country like El Salvador.
And it would be unfair to say that we caused the hell that's going on there, but we certainly are allowing it to continue.
Our number is 279-3400. We'll be taking your phone calls.
It's something that...
You know, I've always felt something about this issue, but it wasn't until the last few weeks.
And it was a couple of things.
The renewed fighting, obviously, that brought El Salvador back into the headlines, you know, at all.
For a while there, it wasn't even in the headlines.
Where did it go? Where did the country go?
It's still down there.
You know, there's still people living in fear, just like, you know, in Lebanon.
But it was recently that the fighting and the killing started again, the horrors and the atrocities.
So that's going to sell some newspapers, so you read about it again.
Sometimes you listen to a station like this and you might hear about it a little bit more.
But it wasn't just that.
It was also the events taking place in Eastern Europe that got me thinking so much about what people can do when they set their minds to it.
You know, when they say, enough already. We're not going to take this garbage.
You know, we're going to go into the street, not just once, but every single day until there's a change, until something happens.
Now, I was part of the march in Washington this spring for abortion rights.
And that was incredible, to say the least.
I believe we had about 500,000 people there, half a million people in Washington, D.C., the largest rally ever.
From what I understand.
And it was good, it was, you know, rejuvenating to be a part of that.
But folks, we all went home on Monday.
You know, we were there on Sunday and we all went back on Monday and that was it.
Now, imagine if 500,000 people had marched in Washington, D.C., every damn day until something was done.
I mean, they're doing that in Prague right now at this very moment.
There's probably a march going on in Prague of a couple of hundred thousand people.
I mean, there was an incredible general strike yesterday, which was incredibly successful.
And there's a lot less people in Czechoslovakia than there are in the United States.
The thing that it boils down to is the fact that we aren't focused enough.
We're just not caring enough about this one particular issue.
And perhaps that's the problem.
Perhaps there are too many issues to think about.
And we don't know where to focus our attention.
Well, folks, I think this El Salvador policy is a good starting point.
Let's wipe out that policy and take it from there.
Because, you know, justice is something that you've got to fight for.
And you've got to argue for it.
And you've just got to keep going and keep pushing until something happens, until something changes.
It's never easy.
I mean, here we don't really have to worry about putting our lives on the line.
Maybe we'll spend a night or two in jail or something like that.
But in all the countries, in Eastern Europe, in Asia, you never really know what's going to happen.
And when the victories are won over there, they mean an awful lot.
And the people have an incredible spirit.
And I think what's going to come out of all this is perhaps, regrettably,
democracy will be cherished more in other countries than it is here.
Because we've grown complacent.
We don't really think that there's anything to care about or to fight for or to worry about.
You know, we're happy. We've got our McDonald's. We've got our HBO. We've got our MTV.
And the battle is won.
Well, folks, I don't think so.
I think the battle is being lost every day that we don't say something.
Every day that we just go to work and worry about our own petty concerns.
Not to say that our concerns are trivial or meaningless.
But there's a bigger picture, the picture of humanity.
You know, the people you pass by in the street every day, we all have a common link.
And that common link extends all throughout the globe.
And we've got to be a part of that.
Whether it's caring for the environment, caring for what we're doing to some poor people,
some thousands of miles away or even hundreds of miles away.
We've got to be aware of what's going on.
Our number is 279-3400.
I'd like to hear what people up at this time of night have to think.
My name is Emanuel Goldstein. I'm filling in for Tom Whisker tonight and for the next two weeks after that.
And let's hear what you folks have to say. 279-3400. Good evening.
Hi. Thanks a lot for doing the program on this subject. I agree with you. It's really crucial.
And I also agree that the activist response to U.S. intervention in El Salvador has not at all been adequate in New York City.
Around the country there's been dozens of demonstrations, some of them ranging up to 3,000 and 4,000 people in different cities.
And so the demonstration this Saturday is called by a broad coalition of peace groups.
And I do have the information on it and it's a really, really important time for people to do a lot of outreach
to make this the biggest thing yet to raise a loud voice about what's happening there.
It starts at 11 a.m. at the Times Square recruiting station and there will be a brief rally there
that will be marching down later towards Union Square. I don't know exactly what time it will leave,
but it will be going on for several hours.
And besides the demonstration Saturday, there is also going to be a rally and a civil disobedience on Monday morning
at the Federal Building downtown and that will start at 8 a.m. at I believe it's Broadway and Reed Street.
I'm sorry, what day is that? Is that the same day?
No, that's Monday.
That's Monday. Okay. And that's the civil disobedience and that will be taking place where again?
At the Federal Building, which is, hold on, it's at Broadway and Duane Street at 8 a.m.
Is this the biggest rally scheduled so far?
Yes, this is the biggest one in New York City and it's been endorsed by dozens of groups
and hopefully there will be more follow-up activities after that,
but this is the first step to really broadening out the protest.
Any estimate on how many people are expected?
Not really. It's always hard to predict in advance, but we're really hoping it will be in the thousands.
More than 250?
Definitely. No, there's no question about that because a lot of organizations are involved in building for this.
And I could give out a phone number for more information if people would like.
Well, that could be very helpful. Go ahead.
Okay, it's 431-9251. That's 2-1-2.
Okay, you want to give it one more time?
Sure. 431-9251.
And that's a number for which?
Well, that's actually the office of CISBES, the Committee on Solidarity with the People of El Salvador,
which initiated this coalition, which is called the Emergency Coalition for Peace in El Salvador.
And those are the folks that, of course, got investigated by the FBI for their patriotism.
That's another thing I think that we should really be outraged at, both what happened to CISBES.
How long ago was that? A year or so? Two years?
Revealed about a year and a half ago because of CISBES and the Center for Constitutional Rights
pressing the issue and agitating to get their files under the Freedom of Information Act,
which took a lawsuit for them to get that.
But, of course, the surveillance had been going on, at least according to the documents,
since the establishment of CISBES in 1980.
And although the FBI is now claiming that this is a thing of the past and they've cleaned up their act,
it's quite clear that the whole Central America Solidarity Movement still continues to fall under surveillance and disruption.
And let's not also forget, if this is claimed to be something in the past,
then how come the exact same thing just happened to the librarians
that raised a fuss over the FBI's proposal for librarians to work with them
to try to find people that are reading things that they shouldn't be reading,
or perhaps people with foreign-sounding last names that are reading things that could be harmful to this country.
Some librarians objected to that, and a case was opened on each and every one of them.
It's not something that's in the past.
Absolutely.
It's an ongoing thing.
All right, thank you, sir, for calling. Thanks for passing on that information.
And let's hope that there's something maybe reported in Prague
that hundreds of thousands of people massed in the streets of New York to protest something that's unfair.
Thanks for calling.
279-3400. Good evening.
Good evening.
Go ahead.
Hello.
Go ahead. You're on.
I would like to say that I concur with you entirely, or almost entirely.
I want to just go and say to you that I was at rallies.
I've been to the Mandela rally a year ago, and the recent one,
to the Martin Luther King birthday rally,
to the homelessness and housing rallies where we met at the Colosseum,
and we went across 57th Street.
I've been there three times in three years.
To the AIDS rally.
To the one for the tree that was cut down where they had this giant redwood tree at the U.N.
To the Namibian rally.
To the Abbie Hoffman rally at Bleecker Street Cinema when he had just died.
Okay, so apart from saying that there are a lot of rallies...
About the tuition.
Okay.
I want to just say that there are people who go to these rallies.
I did miss the Salvadorian one, I must admit that.
You know what I mean?
For the record, I did miss that one.
We all missed it. If we blinked, we missed it. That's the problem.
What?
If you blinked, you could have missed it. That's the whole problem.
But the point is that at all these rallies, how shall I say,
except the housing one, the housing one had, at the last one,
we went across 57th Street, around 7,000 or 10,000 people.
But when you stop to think of the millions of people in New York City,
you say to yourself, well, it would be nice if there were a million people there.
However, WBAI, which if it had a million subscribers, could amass $3 million.
You see what I mean? If each person contributed just $3.
Now, if 3 million New Yorkers gave a dollar,
they could achieve $3 million monies to work with.
You know what I mean? Bob Fass made this point at one time.
Okay, but you obviously know the importance of WBAI.
I know the importance of WBAI.
But what we're talking here with the policy in El Salvador,
we're talking about life and death.
We're talking about something that's grossly unfair
and is very likely to reach the stage of the Vietnam War if it continues unchecked.
Well, let me say this.
This is low-intensity warfare, but it is another Vietnam.
The whole world is another Vietnam.
How the United States of America could have a person,
if they had a choice between Mr. Bush and myself,
they should have chosen me.
If New York City had a choice between Mr. Dinkins or Mr. Koch or me,
they should have chosen me.
But the world, in a sense, it's like Murphy's Law,
where the good is rejected, but the less good is highly acceptable.
Do you see my point?
This is one of the tragedies of the human condition.
Hello?
Yeah, I see your point.
I would like to just continue.
You may have heard Carl Etters show,
but I want you to know something,
that my crying out against the restraint of a person,
if he so or she so desired, as an author,
to mention the price of a book.
What has happened to me on this station,
amongst supposedly civilized and sensitive audiences.
What is happening in Salvador is no different than
I have actually been personally told by Bob Fass
that he would break my jaw and that he would eliminate me.
Okay, I think we're straying just a slight bit from the subject here.
279-3400 is our telephone number.
Good evening.
279-3400.
Oh, that's me, but hopefully there's another person there.
Hi.
Yeah, go ahead.
It's Delay, it's the wonderful world of Delay, yes.
Hi, good evening, Mr. Golson.
I heard your show once before, I really admired it,
and I just want to know also,
are you on the air ever, aside from Mr. Wischow?
Well, I'll be filling in two more times after this,
at this time slot, and after that,
only God knows what I'll be doing,
but I'll be doing something.
I just wanted to say, you know,
I'm against the United States getting involved in El Salvador,
but I just wanted to correct you on one thing.
When you just compare it to Libya, it's totally different.
One is the government of El Salvador, whether we like it or not, I don't like it,
was elected, and two, they invited us to help there as military advisors.
I personally do not think we ought to get involved militarily in El Salvador,
especially since the Iron Curtain has gone down.
If there was an Iron Curtain there
and they were being helped clandestinely through the Russians,
I would be the number one for defending, you know, the Monroe Action,
but I don't think communism at this point, or leftists,
is a big threat in El Salvador to us, even if they got elected.
And I'm very nervous that we're going to get involved there,
and, I mean, that we're going to get much heavier involved.
And I personally think that now's the chance we can cut down our military budget
and get back to the days prior to before we were the world's policemen.
And, you know, if we have a CIA, they can be a listening device,
not an active CIA going into different countries and doing things,
just to listen to see, to protect us in case if something happens,
so we should have ears.
Yeah, you know, I sense a kind of a dismay among many people
with all this glasnost and democratization in Eastern Europe.
It's, wait a minute, where are you guys going?
Come back here, we've still got some fighting to do.
And I saw a cartoon in, I think it was the New York Times last Sunday,
saying we have to stay in El Salvador,
it's one of the few places left where we can fight communism.
Well, human nature does not like change.
And, you know, most humans do not like change.
You have some people, and it's good to have some of these people,
like, for instance, Dan Quayle, he is very pessimistic.
I mean, and it's good to have someone like him in the administration
to keep things moderate, you know, because now Bush is big with glasnost.
I think that's good, I think that's good.
But you need the other side of the point of view, like Madison, James Madison,
always said you need both sides of the equation for an even-handed policy.
But another thing is, the reason why I haven't marched with El Salvador,
I'm basically a libertarian conservative,
and with these protests, some of these protests,
I feel very uncomfortable with.
For instance, we were at a cocktail party, this had to do with AIDS.
I have delivered meals at one time every day to AIDS patients,
but we had these protests, this person called ACT UP,
I don't know if you've ever heard of him.
Oh, yes, certainly.
And we were at a fundraiser for George Bush,
and they came in and they just started raising hell and screaming.
But, sir, that's democracy, that's what happens, it gets messy.
The thing is, it actually gave everyone at the party a laugh,
but when you looked at these people,
I wouldn't want to sit there, and many of these people
might be at the El Salvador rally too,
you know, they had like bleached blonde hair,
and they were like spooky-looking people, they actually hurt their cause.
Yeah, but, sir, I mean, look at New York City.
Do you live in New York?
Yeah, I live in Baltimore City, yes.
Look at all the people in New York.
There are some people that you probably don't want to hang out with,
yet that doesn't keep you from coming into the city.
This is bigger than the personalities that you may see there.
Yeah, you're not going to agree with everybody,
and every movement has idiots,
people that follow for no reason other than to be popular,
that don't know what they're talking about.
No movement is immune from that,
so that's no reason not to be a part of it.
If you believe in something, be there,
and forget everybody else, be there for yourself.
But I find a lot of these movements, I mean, I love America, for instance.
If I were to protest, I'd be protesting not out of a hate for America and things like that.
Of course not.
I mean, I'd be doing it out of love, almost like a parent,
not hitting a child, but almost like, I mean, it's my patriotic duty.
And our founding fathers would be dumbfounded that we're getting involved in so many...
Of course they would, and what's annoying is the fact that
the people who support this policy say that it's the patriotic thing to do,
and they've got the flag behind them.
You know, in Prague over the last couple of days,
the one thing that you saw on the streets,
almost as much as you saw the people,
was the Czechoslovakian flag.
And that is so right.
I mean, that makes so much sense.
It's the people saying something.
They are the flag.
If anything is a symbol, it's that.
And any mass movement, any movement where people are calling for something,
in this country, deserves the flag behind it.
Well, you've got to remember something.
In this country, the reason why we're so complacent is because we've had democracy.
We were adjusted to it.
And a lot of these countries, they go too fast.
For instance, France in the 1700s went very fast,
and John Adams was like,
yo, wait a minute, slow down, this is not such a great thing for them over there,
because of the way they handled it.
They went too quickly into it.
We always went into it very slowly.
And the thing is, you know, I'm very scared of big government in any way.
I mean, I disagree with George Bush on his El Salvador policy,
but I think he means well.
I disagree with George Bush on his drug policy.
I mean, I basically believe in a phased-in legalization of drugs,
and George Bush doesn't.
I mean, he believes in a very harsh policy,
but I think deep down in his heart he thinks he's doing the right thing.
A lot of people, especially at these rallies,
think they're purposely doing it clandestinely and for evil motives.
I don't think that.
I just think that they're looking at it from a totally different angle.
But another thing that everybody seems to assume, first of all,
that these people are completely apart from the rest of the world,
that they're superstars,
and that there's no way that the average person can ever be in contact with these people
or anything like that, that's a sickness.
But the other thing that folks seem to think is that the politicians
and the leaders of governments are vastly intelligent people
that know exactly what to do in a crisis.
To a degree that may be true,
but they're not smarter than a lot of us.
They just know what it is they want to accomplish,
and they have the means to do it.
And that's what sets them apart,
and unfortunately it's us that sets them apart more than they are.
Every president except for General Ford since Herbert Hoover's time
has been very distant from the people.
And the reason why security reasons, the Secret Service, keep them away.
Prior to Herbert Hoover, people were able to go over to the president,
and he was with every day the common man.
The reason why Ford was such a good president was because he was in Congress.
He was elevated to the presidency so quickly.
Right, but I've seen things over the last few weeks with Gorbachev,
with Egon Krenz, where people are shouting at them and he's responding.
Recently in Chicago, somebody shouted a question
about the El Salvador policy to George Bush,
and they were ushered out of the room.
That's what I'm trying to say.
This isn't just shouting and sitting down and chatting.
Except you can't sit down and chat.
They won't let you do that, you see.
That's what I'm saying.
That's very bad.
This is what's the destruction of the president.
This is what killed Lyndon Johnson,
and this is what killed a lot of presidents, and Nixon especially.
But even, it's become so imperial.
Even people who like, let's say, I happen to like Bush,
but I could not go over to George Bush.
There'd be a secret service.
I mean, even to talk with him, chat with him on a friendly type basis,
not even on a hostile basis.
I think it's very damaging to him himself
because he doesn't get the feel of the common man.
That's what I was trying to say.
That president since Herbert Hoover, I mean,
they've never had interaction, really, with the common man.
They're always with their advisors or planned, scheduled group of people.
I think that's very dangerous.
That certainly is, especially, I mean, it happens to any celebrity.
I mean, I know celebrities that have complained vigorously
of not being able to walk down the street, and it's really a sad thing.
But when you have somebody in a position of power,
it becomes dangerous because that person thinks they know what we want,
and perhaps they don't.
Well, George Washington was a celebrity in his day, believe me,
and people still would, I mean, that was a problem.
People used to walk into his house and just sit there and start talking to him,
and people still, he would walk down the street,
and people would be able to approach him.
I mean, this was, I mean, and these people were not, you know, peasant farmers.
These were aristocratic people, but they still touched and they spoke with the common man.
I mean, that is very, and, you know, you don't know what to do
because for security reasons you have to keep people away from the president,
so you don't know.
It's like a Catch-22 type situation.
But why in God's name can't we have a real debate when it's election time?
Why do we have to have this structured garbage
where the two candidates don't even talk to each other, you know?
At least give us that.
I have to agree with you.
I mean, like this is more local with the Giuliani and Dinkins debate.
I mean, Giuliani, I was very upset with Giuliani.
I mean, Giuliani, true, Dinkins had a lot of negative stuff,
but Giuliani, I felt, should have concentrated on his positive
instead of concentrating so much on the negative.
I mean, you bring up the negative, fine,
but also bring up the positive with the Bush campaign.
I mean, I supported Bush.
I still support Bush,
but I think there are a lot of things lacking in Bush and anyone,
whether it was Bush or Dukakis,
is because they're so far removed from the people.
No human being.
If I were to come over and shout at you something like those people in El Salvador,
even if you're correct, just the approach of it is very alarming.
That's human nature.
So I can understand the president's reaction to it,
even though I disagree with his ideas.
Do you follow what I'm saying?
Yeah, I do.
But still, I sense more suppression of ideas here than in other places,
in other countries where things are happening now, where there is change.
If somebody were to shout out a question, they might be told to be quiet,
but the question would be answered here.
The person is ushered out.
The president makes some kind of a joke, and that's it.
It's all over, and everybody laughs and applauds and feels patriotic.
Well, that's for a momentary purpose, those countries in Eastern Europe.
I mean, I don't know what's going to happen with them.
I mean, you know, because they might move so rapid that they might move back again.
Right, but you see, they're at the crest of something exciting, which we were once at,
and it's at times like that that the government is closest to the people,
whether it's the people throwing them out or the people ushering them in.
There's contact there, and you have to somehow preserve that contact.
Oh, I agree, and I think that this country, I mean, we might lose it,
might ebb down, but it'll come back.
It'll come back.
I mean, if you look from the 40s and then in the 60s, it was a movement.
I mean, I don't necessarily, I don't know, I was too young until I'm 26.
I don't know if I would have agreed at the time with these people in the 60s.
Now in hindsight, of course, I think many of what these so-called radical hippies,
many of them had ideas that were, believe it or not, very similar to our founding fathers,
which might surprise a lot of people if there were some ideas that were.
But that movement came up.
That was a homespun idea.
It was a grassroots movement in the 60s.
So here you had a very complacent 1950s society.
You even had McCarthyism, which almost destroyed our democracy and our whole form of government.
And then on top, then the 60s came.
So I think Americans do fight it off.
Do you know what I'm saying?
I think so.
Well, you're saying that eventually things will work themselves out.
But I think it's not quite that simple if we don't take an active role.
In other words, we don't do things like demonstrate against something that we think is unfair
and know why we're demonstrating, not just go because it's the thing to do.
But think about it.
Sit down and think about it a little bit and say, you know, this is not right.
Look at the papers.
Read the papers.
I mean, I can't tell you how many people I know that take pride in saying,
you know, it's been two weeks since I've read a newspaper.
I don't even know what's going on in the world.
It's like, how can you be proud of something like that?
Only in America do I see things like this,
especially in a country that has such an effect on the rest of the world.
The rest of the world looks to us for...
These men who took the power, and you have that in every society,
especially in democratic society.
I mean, the Greeks forced their people to participate,
and that's why they did it.
One of the reasons they downfalled was just too much.
Well, apathy will do it to you every time.
Well, apathy...
But there's still enough people, I think, to arouse.
And I think that when things are like with the whole My Lai incident,
that aroused people's anger.
I mean, I know this from history, not from being there at the time.
And, you know, Nixon did pardon the man, but, I mean, that aroused anger.
As well it should.
Similarly, it was in a very isolated instance.
So what happened in Nazi Germany, we did not allow it.
See, what I sense here today is
we must avoid talking about things that will get us into arguments.
And I say, why?
Why avoid these things?
Why not plunge right into an argument and know what it is we're arguing for
and discuss things?
You know, we don't discuss things enough here,
and there are so many things happening,
and we really have to take a stand on some of these things.
That's the problem when you have a large government.
I mean, I'm not just talking about, for instance,
this National Endowment for the Arts.
Take that for an example.
Now, I don't like when they were first being proposed.
Most people, most moderate to conservative people said,
we don't want it.
And the reason why we don't want this is because
then the government's going to tell people how to do art.
Then it's only going to be moderate art.
And believe it or not, it so happens that it's the conservative Republicans.
I wouldn't even say conservative.
I would say fascistic Republicans,
because Jesse Helms is not your typical Republican,
who's put these sanctions on the National Endowment.
And when you take things from the government like that,
they, in a sense, have a right to tell you what to do.
Maybe that's why I'm against all these government programs.
Government has grown too big.
In emergencies, you do need government to get big.
But right now, we don't need such a large government.
That's why they have such control over the media
and things like that.
The media is not as investigative enough also.
Well, that's certainly true.
And I think they certainly should be.
Listen, sir, I'm going to try to get on some more calls.
Have a good night and keep up the good work.
I hope you get your own programs.
Okay. Thanks for calling.
Bye-bye.
Our number is 279-3400.
And I was thinking the other day
of all the things that we've been accusing
the Eastern European governments of doing.
And I'm not America bashing here.
This is just objective thinking.
And if your reaction is to say
that somebody who comes up with these thoughts
is anti-American,
then I think you should think about
just what is America
and why it is that we can't question
the values and what's being done.
And perhaps if you automatically assume
that someone who criticizes is anti-American,
perhaps that's the most subtle form
of anti-Americanism in itself.
In any event, what I was thinking
was sort of a collection
of all the different things
that we used to accuse the Soviets of doing.
Things like shutting people up all the time,
not allowing debates.
Well, we've heard it from the president.
There'll be no more debates.
And things like sending up secretive space missions.
Well, now we do that, too.
We send up these space shuttles.
We don't tell anybody when they're going up.
We have no media coverage,
at least not very good media coverage.
And all these other things.
Controlling of the art,
like the gentleman on the phone just mentioned.
Actually cutting off funds to an art exhibit
because it was, quote, too political,
as if politics has no place in the art world.
Little things like that, little steps,
little symptoms of a society
that looks ever more...
with ever-increasing hostility
towards any form of dissent.
And here we see sort of a flip-flop.
We see change.
We see dialogue over there.
And here, silence.
It's kind of scary.
279-3400. Good morning.
Hello?
Yeah. Did I wake you up?
Is this WBA?
Yes, it is. You're on.
Okay.
Are you there?
Yeah, go ahead.
Okay.
The thing that I wanted to talk about
is how incredibly interesting the coverage
on Eastern Europe has been in the major media.
It used to be when, say, during the Brezhnev era,
it seemed like there was no hope for positive change
in authoritarian socialist countries.
The standard line is,
these countries are totalitarian,
they're incapable of any positive change
short of a violent revolution.
The Jean Kirkpatrick line.
And now that the countries are going through positive change,
the established media in this country only says,
this means that communism doesn't work.
But they don't...
It seems like they purposely are trying to avoid
what the leaders of those opposition movements
believe in, what they're about.
For instance, in East Germany,
there were some very interesting articles
in the Village Voice about the oppositionists,
such as the New Forum Party.
Well, not the New Forum Movement, rather than the New Forum Party.
It's not a political party.
And it appears that the major thrust of the oppositionists in East Germany
is really towards a democratic, humane form of socialism.
It's not towards a capitalistic economy.
As a matter of fact,
the leaders of the opposition in East Germany
wrote some sort of manifesto.
And in the manifesto,
they actually criticized Hungarian steps towards a market economy,
saying that it's really promoted an egalitarianism
and it was not fair to the poor people in Hungary.
It's just kind of interesting how the media is handling it.
You know, you might find this interesting,
the fact that there has been a lot of coverage
of things like the scaling of the Berlin Wall
and the events in Prague,
but I read someplace where the actual ratings
for that particular news coverage
were the lowest ever,
as if the people in this country couldn't care less
about what was going on over there.
And I found that kind of dismaying, too, you know?
I don't know why it should be so dismaying.
In regards to oppression going on in the world,
the oppression of people in Eastern Europe
compares nothing to the oppression of people
living in capitalist countries in the Third World.
Yeah, well, I mean...
There's just absolutely no comparison.
You see, I think that phrase would probably turn off people
that are pro-capitalist,
but I don't see why it should,
because it's to everyone's advantage
who lives in a capitalist society
to see that it works somehow, you know?
If you're a capitalist,
and there's oppression going on
because of capitalism someplace,
that should affect you,
and you should want to change that.
And that's what I think is happening
in all kinds of places all over the world.
Yeah, but it's very questionable
whether capitalism in the underdeveloped countries
really can do much for the average citizen
in improving their lives.
I mean, there's some examples that are used,
such as South Korea.
I don't really know much about the standard
of living in South Korea,
but some of the examples that the establishment
has previously used in this country
as models for development of Third World countries,
such as Brazil,
it ends up, even though Brazil had very high economic growth,
there's an incredible amount of poverty
and malnutrition in that country.
Cuba, on the other hand, for all its flaws,
and I'm certainly not a defender
of the authoritarian brand of socialism there,
I think in many ways it may have been imposed
by the unnecessarily hostility
on the part of the most powerful military country in the world,
the United States,
which seems to have the highest standard of living
in Latin America,
if you're judging standard of living.
Without us taking a good hard look at our own system
and saying, well, maybe there's something we can learn
from what they tried to do
or what they are trying to do now.
And, you know, the people there have no objection
to taking on ways that are alien to their society,
you know, taking on capitalist type of means of doing things
or democratic reforms, that kind of thing.
But if you say to anybody here,
let's try, you know, a socialist way of dealing
with this particular problem to see how that works,
it's, oh, my God, no, no, no, socialism, communism,
oh, it's horrible.
You know, we're the most powerful country in the world.
Why are we so scared of trying out something
in a slightly different way, you know?
And that's what we have to get across, is that fear,
that horrible fear of change, fear of anything different,
which is the basis of any kind of hatred
and nationalism, all that nasty stuff, you know?
The thing about democracy is it's a very nebulous
and vague term.
However, democracy, whatever that means exactly,
there doesn't seem to be any real conflict
or contradiction between socialism and democracy,
just as capitalism can exist in many different forms.
There can be authoritarian capitalism,
as certainly practiced many places in the world,
such as El Salvador, and it was practiced in Nazi Germany,
even though some people think that was a socialist economy,
but it was essentially a capitalistic economy.
Nazis really didn't, in essence, save German capitalism.
And, you know, capitalism before the, you know,
what Marxists would call the bourgeois revolution,
such as the American Revolution and the French Revolution,
certainly had dictatorial governments.
So, you know, just as capitalism can exist in, you know,
with varying governmental forms, so can socialism.
It's just, I think socialism is a very young system,
with a lot of external resistance from without powerful capitalist countries.
Maybe even the Mao Zedongs are actual enemies of socialism
because they would introduce oppression, totalitarianism type of things
that give socialism a bad name and make the people want something else
and maybe lose track of what it is that they fought for in the first place.
Anyway, sir, I want to thank you for calling.
We are taking more phone calls at 279-3400.
You're listening to WBAI in New York.
And we're looking at an article here by Robert E. White.
Remember Robert E. White? I do.
He was the former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador from 1977 to 1980.
But what was particularly interesting about him was the fact that
he would say all these things about how the United States
is really messing things up over there by their policy,
even while he was part of the policy,
even while he was part of the United States government
representing us in El Salvador.
It was incredible. I'd never seen such a thing,
and it was quite a surprise.
But it was no surprise when he got sacked,
and he was ambassador from 1977 to 1980.
Right now he's president of the International Center for Development Policy,
and perhaps in the coming weeks we'll have him as a guest.
I certainly would hope so.
This is a piece that he had in the Times about a week ago on the opinion page,
and I think it bears listening to because this is somebody that's been there.
This is somebody that obviously knows something about the policy,
the country, the people, and where it's all leading.
The history of El Salvador bears consistent witness to the greed and brutality of men
who look on compromise as weakness,
and who regard torture and murder as routine
and acceptable methods of coping with dissent.
The failure of U.S. policymakers to press for a negotiated end to the war in El Salvador
has placed our country in league with a clique of assassins
masquerading as an army.
The war in El Salvador entered a new phase last week, actually two weeks ago,
when the left-wing Farabunda Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN,
angered by government rejection of their peace proposals,
launched its heaviest offensive of the war.
If revolutionary leaders thought this impressive show of strength
would lead quickly to negotiations, they miscalculated.
To the Salvadoran military, the rebel attacks came as a gift,
an opportunity to wipe out not only insurgents, but also priests,
labor union organizers, peasant leaders,
and thousands of poor citizens who support change.
On November 16th, 1989,
armed, uniformed men dragged six Jesuit priests and two servants from their beds.
They tortured the priests for close to an hour,
then executed all their captives.
The Catholic University where these priests lived and worked
is under 24-hour surveillance by the security forces
and is located in a zone far away from the fighting.
To their credit, both President Alfredo Cristiani
and the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Bernard Aronson,
have acknowledged that right-wing forces probably bear responsibility
for these barbaric murders.
They never would have made such statements without evidence.
Through its intelligence assets inside the Salvadoran military,
the U.S. Embassy can find out which officers carried out these crimes.
Unless the U.S. reacts strongly,
the lives of all priests, nuns, and Protestant missionaries
who work with the poor of Central America are in jeopardy.
The highly professional U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, William Walker,
misspoke when he stated that whoever killed the Jesuits did the work of the FMLN.
Whoever killed those priests did the work of the military death squads,
the same people who assassinated Archbishop Oscar Arnafal Romero,
the same who violated and murdered four American churchwomen
and massacred hundreds of priests, nuns, and lay workers.
There is little tolerance inside the ruling ARENA party
and the hardline military for Mr. Cristiani's commitment to a negotiated solution to the war.
In the sick minds of men like the former death squad leader, Roberto D'Abusan,
Mr. Cristiani is only a figurehead.
ARENA's 1988 campaign chant tells the story,
Cristiani to the presidency, D'Abusan to power.
Day after day, the world watches with horror as modern engines of war supplied by the U.S.
strafe, bomb, and burn the shanty towns of San Salvador,
maiming and killing thousands of innocent civilians.
They do little damage to the pockets of mobile guerrillas armed only with handheld weapons.
The government has denied Red Cross' request for a ceasefire to evacuate the wounded.
No civilized people can support such a war without inflicting substantial moral harm
on its own body politic.
The leaders of our nation have never made any plausible case
that U.S. security benefits in any way from this continuing slaughter.
President Bush described the Salvadoran revolutionaries as terrorists
and the Salvadoran government as a democracy.
Wrong on both counts.
The revolutionaries took up arms only after the military and economic elites of El Salvador
had rejected all avenues of peaceful change for more than half a century.
No competent observer doubts that the Salvadoran revolution is homegrown, authentic,
and endures wide popular support.
The revolutionaries have made serious proposals for a negotiated end to the conflict.
In response to their well-thought-out peace plan,
the reply was,
the government of El Salvador will not give an inch.
Their demand that the military purge itself of its most notorious abusers of human rights
was derided as absurd, ridiculous, and impossible.
The composition of the armed forces was not negotiable.
A week ago, the House, at the request of Mr. Bush,
rejected efforts to restrict military aid to El Salvador.
The outdated security doctrine that guides Bush administration thinking
demands the subordination of El Salvador's need for social and economic justice
to our supposed national security requirements.
This has meant the establishment of a veneer of democracy in El Salvador
where the armed forces, with U.S. acquiescence,
decide with deadly force who can and cannot participate in political life.
In El Salvador, the fundamental duty of a democratic government
to protect its citizens has been stood on its head.
People are tortured, disappear,
and are killed at the whim of security forces that enjoy absolute immunity from legal action.
The guerrillas are not trying to shoot their way into power.
They are trying to shoot their way into serious negotiations.
The Salvadoran government would not survive for one month without U.S. support.
If the Bush administration had used this leverage to ensure good faith discussions,
the tragedies of these last few weeks might never have occurred.
That piece from Robert E. White, former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador.
Worth thinking about.
Again, there is a rally in New York this Saturday, beginning at 11 o'clock.
If you think the U.S. policy in El Salvador needs a bit of fixing.
Our phone number is 279-3400. We'll be right back.
Two eyes took the aim behind a man's brain
But he can't be blamed, he's only a pawn in their game
New South politician preaches to the poor white man
You got more than the blacks, don't complain
You're better than them, you've been born with white skin, they explain
And the negro's name is used, it is plain
For the politician's gain as he rises to fame
And the poor white remains on the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame, he's only a pawn in their game
The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool
He's taught in his school from the start by the rule
That the laws are with him to protect his white skin
To keep up his hate so he never thinks straight
About the shape that he's in, but it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game
From the poverty shacks he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoofbeats pound in his brain
And he's taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back with his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch, to hide beneath the hood
To kill with no pain like a dog on a chain
He ain't got no name, but it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game
The day Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They're lowering him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one that fired the gun
He'll see by his grave on the stone that remains
Carved next to his name, his epitaph plain
Only a pawn in their game
...
Stamp your feet and rock your hips till your band-aid has turned
Shoot out, helicopter crash, another six-man burn
One in nine million loves to play football
Hijacked helicopter helped him scale the wall
Kicked the hill from rivals who preyed upon the poor
He don't sell bananas, wealthy visitors want to store
Reign supreme, the cops say he's no good
Selling drugs to feed the poor to oxys robbing hoods
Tourists have an appetite for ganja and cocaine
He escaped just in time, supplies they need to gain
Televised love's traditional rite
The sound of music ricochets through the night
Packed in his son, farmers just wait for him
Buying a dollar penthouse and people on the street
Packed in his son, shaped by foreign debt
And he's here in the sand, the drunken bandit's gonna swell
Rebellion nears back, a band of bats is found
At the foot of the hill, the police stand their ground
Fear flows, drums pound, slummers got scraping me
River let's go, it's rickety and there's bodies in the street
Packed in his son, slummers just wait for him
Buying a dollar penthouse and people on the street
Packed in his son, shaped by foreign debt
And he's here in the sand, the drunken bandit's gonna swell
Three months of freedom, a huge tip on the law
Got to take him alive, shame on him, no more
He's full of children, not on proposals
Flattered cops warn him, their king is never caught
Some still are by compassion, yet crimes are patient
King Bandit for president of the San Antonio Nation
Bullet holes all over the body
Are you thinking?
Your Excellency Corregedor running the police bag
What do you think?
A 14 to 15 year old
Your Excellency Corregedor running the police bag
What?
A 14 to 15 year old
Bullet holes all over the body
Are you thinking?
Your Excellency Corregedor running the police bag
I went on the free to another today, and I'm currently in jail
Packed in his son, summer skies break the moon
Buying a dollar penthouse and people on the street
Packed in his son, shaped by foreign debt
And he's here in the sand, the drunken bandit's gonna swell
It's Socrates
Júnior, he cut right through her, still Júnior, to the head, to the goal
He hit it!
Socrates, goal!
The world needs trouble
Oh yeah now
Oh the world needs trouble
And living ain't easy
The world needs trouble
You got to believe it
The world needs trouble
And living ain't easy
I said the world needs trouble
You got to believe it
Cast away all evil spell
Don't play our hero, you'll end up in hell
You've got your troubles and I've got mine
Let's work together to make things fun
Gotta be sure of all things we do
Preserve our lives, be pure and true
The things we feel and see were meant to be
It's the fulfillment of prophecy
I said the world needs trouble
And living ain't easy
I said the world needs trouble
You got to believe it
The world needs trouble
And living ain't easy
I said the world needs trouble
You got to believe it
Oh right now
Yeah
Yeah
See, after all these things
Shall come to pass
The end shall not be near
And after all these things
Shall come to pass
The end shall not be near
There shall be hijacking
Kidnapping all over the earth
Oh yeah
Hijacking, kidnapping all over the earth
Oh yeah
Got to get together
Cause the world needs trouble
And living ain't easy
The whole wide world needs trouble
You got to believe it
The world needs trouble
And living ain't easy
I said the world needs trouble
You got to believe it
Oh yeah
The whole wide world needs trouble
The whole wide world
It's all troubled, all messed up
This whole wide world of ours
That's Dennis Brown here on WBAI in New York
And we heard from Big Audio Dynamite
With the story of the drug bandit of Brazil
Which doesn't really tie into El Salvador blatantly
But I think you can see a few parallels there
If you look a little bit
And that song incidentally was called Samba Drum
And we heard from Bob Dylan up on top
From the times they are a-changing
And the times are always a-changing
That's the marvelous thing about it
And what's even more marvelous is that the time is in our hands
I mean it sounds like a sickening kind of saying
That gets said all the time
But it's really true
It's something that we have the ultimate control over
And right now you can be a part of things
You can be a part of things at this very moment in time
By simply calling us 279-3400
And spouting your various rhetoric on the air
But there'll be no retributions and that's a promise
And in the bigger sense be a part of things on Saturday
When there'll be a demonstration in New York
And you don't have to be a communist to go
You don't have to be a socialist to go
You don't have to be anything to go
Except a human being that thinks enough is enough
Or even a human being that just wants to learn
And perhaps decide later after talking to a lot of people
It's an educational experience
That's what life is supposed to be about
That's at least what I read in the instructions
Good evening
Good evening and good morning
If you don't address the situation at WBAI
Where a station manager is paid a salary
To do a job and then is not at the station
Because she's in Asia, southern Asia
Doing a thesis
Hello?
If you don't address this as a fundamental issue
Of American democracy at home
Or your worthwhile conversation about distant things
Which aren't so distant
Are not valid, are not worthwhile
Because the thing is
You're allowing an insidious disease
To rage and desecrate this very wonderful institution
Now Rosemary Reid is paid a salary
Once she doesn't listen
She doesn't get tapes of what's going on
The situations that have occurred to me
As a result of my concern for freedom of speech
Where the price, which was a fact
Was asked to be denied to the public
Even Samori Marksman, a wonderful person
I like him very much
Says, oh we're not going to mention the price of this thing
And then we're also not going to tape record
Any material from this discussion of Germany
Because it's that way
And it's simply that way, he said
I love radio, we can just fade people away
I wish life was like that
Well, anyway
Oh, thank you, he closed the door on the way out too
I don't know what's going on out there folks
But please try to stick to the subject
You know, we're talking about El Salvador
We're talking about world events
I don't want to hear about BAI events, you know
I mean, okay, it's a radio station
We have all kinds of things going on here
But I don't know about that right now
And I don't want to get involved in that right now
I want to talk about the issue at hand
And let's stop bickering about these minor little things
Prices of books, for God's sake
279-3400
I guess I should have said it before
Call up if you have something to say
Good evening, good morning rather
How are you?
Okay
You know, I've been a communist for a long time
I was about 15, I'm like 28 now
And to me the events in Eastern Europe
Are consistent with Marxist thesis of the
Coming dictatorship of the proletariat
And the withering of the state
You know, so I'm not surprised
When I watch those things
I get rather bored after a while
Because I just see the historical program
Working itself out
Which the American media is apparently oblivious to
What is that historical program?
The historical program of Marxist thesis
Of the coming dictatorship of the proletariat
After a period of socialism
Okay, I mean, I know that
But can you translate that into, you know
Common talk here, so that
What does that specifically mean?
In the 20th century?
Specifically, it means that
The events that we see
From Poland to Czechoslovakia
Are the actual facts
Of Marxist predictions
Which he wrote in the communist manifestos
And various other texts
Which, if people care to read
They will more or less get
World events of the future
Written at some point in the late 19th century
And thereabouts
And also, I guess I wanted to say that
I wanted to project further
Into the United States
And I wanted to ask your feeling
About the idea of
In the coming decade
You know, a mass consensus
In the United States
To overthrow the government
And taking into account
Historical trends
And, you know, do you feel that
You know, given that kind of event
That there would be
A consequent backlash
To a super authoritarianism
Which is only hinted at now
By extreme conservatism
And the reason why I say these things
Is because when I started listening to you
Two phrases occurred to me
One was the old line
That history repeats itself
And the second was
The Marxist line
That those who don't remember history
Are doomed to repeat it
So if we learn our history
We don't have to repeat it
But we would then be in a position
To know what was coming
Well, you know, I think there's a key there
I think that if
If we don't take an active interest in the past
And if we don't somehow link with the past
Either through reading
Which is something that certainly
Has happened over the last couple of decades
In this country
Or by studying history
By seeing the parallels
By seeing how going into one particular episode
In history is very similar to what we're doing
In the present
And how, you know, things could repeat themselves
If we don't do that
Then, in fact, we are
We are doomed to
To go through the same thing over and over again
And I'll say this
It's fascinating to watch
The unfolding events
Overseas
But at the same time it's disturbing
Because we're sort of backing away
From the precipice of
World War III
Of nuclear annihilation and everything like that
But...
That's depressing?
No, that's not depressing at all
But what's depressing is
Or, you know, worthy of some concern
Is the fact that we're also backing away
From what brought us there in the first place
And I'm just wondering
Maybe in 20 years
When we've forgotten the danger
The fear of living in the nuclear age
Some minor thing
Could spark it all over again
And we'll just jump into it
Perhaps even more quickly
Without realizing what it was that we learned
If we don't keep up with the past
In other words, if the future generations
Are as disinterested in us
As we are in the past generations
What will they learn from this?
Absolutely nothing
And we won't have accomplished anything
So that's why we can't break that link with the past
You see?
What strikes me as very interesting
Is that not very long ago
I was rummaging through an older friend's
Filing cabinet
With that person's permission
A political manifesto of the weather underground
And I pulled it out
And immediately became engrossed
And it was like an alien entity
From outer space
To people that I brought the subject up to
They were like, what are you talking about?
They thought I was talking about
Something on cable or anything
They had no conception of the weather underground
The weather channel, right?
But if I gorge myself on that kind of information
And people
Activate their memory
Not only of the 60s
But of history
European history or
World history
Through whatever distorted sources they can get it through
They will
There will be a community of souls
As I like to call it
And that may
The soulless ones
Are the ones that I would fear
Because they're the ones who would
Be in power
But they're also the ones who become disempowered
I think their fear
Would paralyze them
But I'm not sure if it would paralyze them
To forgive
Or whether it would paralyze them
It's a fact
But if say an old man in the White House
Is weak
And a young man
Is strong
That old man will push his red button
Because that is the only strength that he has
Against the moral weight of the young man
And if the old man is impotent
Perhaps that would do something
There's all kinds of things there
I could push the red button too
But I'd have to be a mad man
But it's not inconceivable
There's so much power
The way things are now
But certainly it's dangerous
To give that much power
To even twelve people
However many
The power of the media
You can give an individual
An enormous degree of power
You can give somebody more power
Than they ever would have ordinarily
The media can more or less serve
As a shield in itself
A suit of armor against public opinion
Or a way to sway public opinion
That's sad
The average person
I'll tell you to be honest
I don't know very many average people
Most of the people I know
Are heavily into this kind of thing
I imagine a mob of millions of people
That have no access
To any of this stuff
They just read the paper
They read what's being said to them
But they don't talk back
They don't say anything back
That's so sad
There's nothing more
Harmful
Than a public
That doesn't react
The silent majority
Is that old phrase?
There is some harm in a public
That merely reacts as well
On the other hand
The silent majority
Of just holding it in
Not saying anything
Just keeping your eyes closed
And hoping that it all goes away
Hoping left but your reaction
Or not even hoping that it'll go away
Just ignoring it all together
And not even knowing it's there
You know?
You guys should just sort of step in
As you go along
Well, gee
Your show is
I must be honest with you though