[Peace-discuss] transcript of WDWS P4P interview clips

[Randall Cotton]

Here's a verbatim transcript of what Brant Hansen played from the interviews
recorded at P4P this past Saturday, followed by his comments. Though many
different questions were asked, some intelligent, it seems to me they chose
to focus on perhaps the most fuzzy, open-ended and non-sensical question and
then perhaps picked the most extreme responses in order to portray the
entire group of protestors as "disloyal" people who equate President Bush
with Saddam Hussein. The person asking the questions at the protest
("Chris", I guess) told me that the intention was to portray us as having
some intelligent well-thought-out views in contrast to the general public
perception of the protestors. The end result was a bait and switch smear job
in my opinion. I was interviewed, but I didn't say anything that would fit
their agenda, so my voice was not heard.

The call-in comments were just what you'd expect, of course. I did hear Paul
Mueth, Carol Inskeep and Doug Rokke call in at the end, but you really can't
even hope to undo this kind of tour-de-force smear job.

R

[commercial break ends]

Allright, 3:19 at DWS. We're gonna pl- I'll play this clip here, oh by the
way it's uh, it's 35, warming up a little bit. We'll play this clip, this
again from Saturday. Question is uh, "Who do you think is worse, Bush or
Hussein". And we - we're -  you can say "well, ya know, that's kind of a
st... strange little question - there's no way [untelligible] worse". But
actually we kind of intended it to be, uh, "take it for whatever it means to
you" kind of a thing.  So [chuckle] that was kind of the idea. Just kind of
le - leave it open. He - Here's the response - this is 3 or 4 minutes long -
not long. And we - we tried to make sure that we didn't edit ... uh,
unfairly. To, to make sure that we we give people a chance to - say what
they had to say and not - cut 'em off - uh, or anything like that. So here
is, uh, here - here's a clip from, from Saturday and Chris has the question.
----
Who do you think is worse - Bush or Hussein?

[male voice] [chuckle] Well, I think it's hard to answer in the abstract. I
think it depends on what you mean by "who's worse". In terms of who's killed
the most people in the shortest amount of time - ya know - um - uh -
certainly Bush has, has, has been doing that, uh, most recently. Now over
the long term, of course, Saddam Hussein has been in power a long time -
he's killed a lot of innocent people.  So I mean, neither one of them, is
really [chuckle], ya know, wearing the white hat, here, so to speak. The
current Bush administration, if it continues going the way it's gonna go,
it's going to be a lot worse, just because of the scale of the violence that
they can perpetrate. Uh, Saddam Hussein certainly killed a lot of people -
the kurds, they gassed, which was OK with the United States at the time.
[edit?] He - he's not a - he's not a good man at all but the scale of his
violence has been actually very small. I mean, for - for the Iraqi people,
he, he's, he's been terrible, but mostly for the Iraqi people. In terms of
who has the potential to do the most damage, it's clearly George Bush.
-
Who's worse - Bush or Hussein?

[male voice]: [sigh] I think, uh, Bush is because - it's more dangerous when
you have someone - that is - willing to - waste thousands of lives in order
for a cause that only benefits a few. Under Saddam Hussein, you're living
under a dictator, so you know basically what to expect. Here, it's like,
it's under a facade of a democracy.
--
[female voice]: All I know is that both of them have detained people without
charging them. Um, both governments are responsible for terrible atrocities.
Um - to [laugh] to me they're both pretty awful.
---
[female voice]: Hmm - That's a really tough one. Uh, they're, they're both
committing some of the same atrocities in my mind. You know, 50% of Iraq's,
uh, population is under 15. Like that country's almost all children. And,
uh, Hu - Hussein doesn't care about hurting any of his own citizens and
neither does Bush, so on my mind they're about the same level.
----
[male voice]: Bush - Bush has not presided over, um, a - a sort of Stalinist
style terrorization of 23 million people which Hussein has and Hussein has
proven that, um, he is brutal - and he is violent, and um, and he's
dangerous. Now does that mean that, uh, like at this point, is he - is he a
threat to our national security? I really don't think so. Uh, and I think,
ya know, short term, some people might think war is a good idea to get rid
of someone like Hussein, but I think you really have to look long term and
it doesn't mean compromising and supporting people like him.
----
[female voice]: I don't think that's really a question that, um, anyone can
answer. I'm not god. And I can't, uh, speak for, uh, the sort of ultimate
moral authority.
----
Who would you rather see still left in power?

[female voice] Uh, I really would say, have to say neither. I think that,
um, both of them are, as leaders, have been extremely detrimental to their
countries and have really hurt the average working people of both Iraq and
the US.
----
Who's worse? Bush or Hussein?

[female voice]: Wow...

[male voice off-mic]: - Hey, uh, I'm not freezin out here for no reason
[other laughs off-mic]

[female voice]: That's a gooooood question. Um - [sigh] who's worse for what
people? Um - I - ya know - I - I don't - I can't - that's a complicated
question - I don't think it has a simple answer. Uh - but - um - I don't
know - you'll have to ask those two. I really - I can't - that's a good
question.

[another male voice off-mic]: That's good.
----
[male voice]: It's a pretty tough question, uh - might be a tie [female
voice chuckles off-mic] - uh - in regards, uh - you know that - that doesn't
sound good - uh - I'm certainly not for Saddam Hussein.

[male voice off-mic] Right.

[male voice] And everybody here that I saw in this peace rally is not for
Saddam Hussein, but we're against a policy of pro-war, which Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Perle and that gang and Cheney and Bush - I'd just like to get th
at stopped. Uh, we - we don't need to be bullying people. We don't have to
play policeman for the world. I've - I've thought that's been the policy for
the last 50 years and I think it needs to be stopped.
-----

[Brant Hansen]: All right, that's from, uh, Saturday, again, out on, uh,
north Prospect, in case you wanted to - you may [laughing] may not have - in
case you wanted to hear what the protestors had to say on that issue. I
thought that was especially disappointing. I mean, again, on, on other
questions, uh, I, I heard some thought, but, and thi-, and thi-, and this
is - I'm not saying they're not thinking, here, either, but frankly, when
you're unable to make a distinction between G- between  - George Bush and
Saddam Hussein, morally, then there's some, there's some myopia going on, in
terms of moral thinking,  I think. Uh, I would love to know what your
response to that is. To, to me, that's the key issue - on this whole thing.
There's, there's so much antagonism between, uh, people who are pro and
anti-war. Not everybody who's anti-war is with these people. I think, I
think a lot of people are, uh, reflective, able to understand  "you know
what, George Bush is not the moral equal to Saddam Hussein, it's laughable
to think he is, but I disagree with him on this, on this policy question".
There's an awful lot of people who have that point of view. The difficult
thing, I think for a lot of us to take, frankly, is when we hear this sort
of thing - when we hear people who essentially don't think America, by and
large, and for all the, uh, and taken on balance, they don't think America's
good for the world, they, we're a force of destruction, we're an evil force
of globalization. When you hear that, look, you're entitled to your
viewpoint, but we don't have to accept your advice, then, on what's best for
our country. No group - no group - these are just -  it's just Th- no one
would. Why would you? [guffaw] Why would you say - oh, this is what you
think is best for our group  - you've decided that basically we're a force
for destruction and evil. Um, why would you want what's best for us? I mean
that - that's - the level we're at with this sort of answer. And it's also
interesting too because - uh, would you rather have Bush's simplicity where
he says "you know, there are some things that are evil" or would you rather
have a viewpoint that can't distinguish - between uh, between Bush and
Hussein in terms of, of, of level of depravity, for instance. I'm all for,
uh, the simplicity, I guess. If that's the way we have to put it.

[At this point he begins taking calls]