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The White Helmets: As Syria Death Toll Mounts, Meet the Rescue Workers Saving Thousands of Lives
In Syria, renewed bombing has reportedly killed more than 150 people this week in rebel-controlled Aleppo. On Wednesday, at least 15 people died after airstrikes hit East Aleppo’s biggest market. Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports at least four children were killed and 10 wounded earlier today when shells landed near a school in western Aleppo, the area controlled by the government. On Wednesday, Pope Francis issued what has been described as his strongest appeal to date for an end to the fighting in Syria. We turn now to look at a group in Syria known as the Syrian Civil Defense, or the White Helmets. The group of some 3,000 volunteers has been credited with saving over 60,000 people from the rubble of buildings in war-torn Syria. Last month the group won a Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. We speak to Orlando von Einsiedel, director of the new documentary "The White Helmets."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn to Syria, where renewed bombing has reportedly killed more than 150 people this week in rebel-controlled Aleppo. On Wednesday, at least 15 people died after airstrikes hit East Aleppo’s biggest market. Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports at least four children were killed and 10 wounded earlier today when shells landed near a school in western Aleppo, the area controlled by the government. On Wednesday, Pope Francis issued what has been described as his strongest appeal to date for an end to the fighting in Syria.
POPE FRANCIS: [translated] I want to underline and repeat my closeness to all the victims of the inhumane conflict in Syria. It is with a sense of urgency that I renew my appeal and implore with all my strength those responsible that an immediate ceasefire is put in place and that this is enforced and respected at least to allow the evacuation of civilians, especially children, who are still trapped by cruel bombardments.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, at the United Nations, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein has criticized the Security Council for failing to act on eastern Aleppo following a Russian veto of a resolution drafted by France calling for a ceasefire and demanding the grounding of Syrian and Russian warplanes over Aleppo.
ZEID RA’AD AL-HUSSEIN: The Security Council was unable to take any decision in respect of halting the actions in eastern Aleppo last week. And it very much raises the question in my mind, when speaking of the Security Council: Security for whom? Certainly not for the people of eastern Aleppo. Certainly not for them.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to look at a group in Syria known as the Syrian Civil Defense, or the White Helmets. The group of some 3,000 volunteers has been credited with saving over 60,000 people from the rubble of buildings in war-torn Syria. Last month, the group won a Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. The group is also the focus of a new documentary titled The White Helmets. This is the trailer.
WHITE HELMET VOLUNTEER 1: [translated] Don’t give mom a hard time, OK?
REPORTER: The latest missile attacks on hospitals and schools in rebel-held areas that left up to 50 civilians dead.
WHITE HELMET VOLUNTEER 2: [translated] We are the first to arrive when there is a bombing. Everyone knows the truth about Syria, but no one can stop the killing. In the White Helmets, we have a motto: "To save a life is to save all of humanity."
AMY GOODMAN: The trailer for the new Netflix documentary The White Helmets. We go now to London, where we’re joined by Orlando von Einsiedel, the director of The White Helmets. His previous films include the Oscar-nominated documentary Virunga.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! Why don’t you start off by laying out just who the White Helmets are and why you did this documentary about them, Orlando?
ORLANDO VON EINSIEDEL: Sure. The White Helmets are a group of nearly 3,000 volunteers, made up of ordinary Syrian civilians. They are teachers. They are builders. They are carpenters. They are students. They’re just normal people, just like me or you, who decided not to pick up a gun, decided not to flee Syria, and instead decided to every day wake up and risk their lives to save complete strangers.
We wanted to make this film for two reasons. The first is that Syria is such a hard issue to engage with. The war has been going on for five years now. It’s so sad and it’s so upsetting that there isn’t—the international community hasn’t been able to find a solution. And I think a lot of people have just turned off. But the White Helmets, their story is a story of hope. It’s a story which cuts through politics, and it’s a story which resonates with people around the world. And also, the narrative which has come out of Syria for the last couple years, until very recently, has really focused on ISIS and terrorism and the refugee crisis. And clearly, those are very important issues, but the story of what’s happening to the millions of Syrian civilians who daily live under horrendous bombardment from the Assad regime and, more recently, its ally, Russia, that’s a story which has slipped down the headlines. And the story of the White Helmets brings that very much back into focus.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Orlando, the film was actually shot—the footage was shot by a White Helmet member, Khaled Khateeb. So, can you talk about when you met him and how you gained the trust of the White Helmets, who allowed you to use this footage?
ORLANDO VON EINSIEDEL: Sure. Well, I mean, this film was very much a collaboration. We were invited to collaborate with the White Helmets at a—in a particular group in Aleppo. The White Helmets film many of their rescues, because they want to share with the world what’s happening. And they put—they put those rescues online.
We worked very closely with a young man, a young White Helmet volunteer called Khaled Khateeb. He was 17 when the war started, and he began documenting it on his mobile phone and then moved to cameras and eventually to video cameras. And many of the White Helmets’ most, I guess, iconic photographs were taken by—by Khaled.
We shot the film in southern Turkey during a training course by the White Helmets, and Khaled joined us on that training course, and we spent five weeks living and working with him. And the very small contribution we could make to his filming was to help improve his documentary filming techniques. And then, after the training course, Khaled went back into Syria along with the other White Helmets that we’d been filming with, and he continued to do his everyday job of documenting their rescues, except in this case he shared the raw footage with us. So what you see in the film is a combination of the material we gathered and Khaled’s work inside Aleppo.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to another clip from your film. This is the clip that was seen around the world, the one about the "miracle baby."
WHITE HELMET VOLUNTEER 2: [translated] I thought that I was searching under the rubble for a baby that had died. But all glory is to God. We were not meant to leave the area without hearing a sound. After 16 hours under the rubble, a baby less than a month old, still alive, under the dust, under the ceilings that had fallen on him. We called him the "miracle baby."
AMY GOODMAN: The baby was saved, but the man who saved him eventually died. Orlando, can you tell us about this scene and how his savior was killed?
ORLANDO VON EINSIEDEL: I mean, as your viewers can see, it’s an extraordinary scene. There had been a barrel bomb, which is basically a barrel filled with explosives and metal fragments, was chucked out of a helicopter, and it destroyed a number of buildings. One of those was a three-story building which had baby Mahmoud in it. And he was trapped under there—the baby, he’s only a week old at the time, and he was trapped under there for 16 hours. And I think the guys had almost given up hope that there was anyone left alive, and then they heard the cry of the baby, which gave them renewed hope, and they kept digging, and eventually they rescued him. It’s an extraordinary scene.
The reality is that this is what the White Helmets are doing day in, day out, in Aleppo and across Syria at the moment, especially in Aleppo, because the last 10 days have seen horrendous bombardment. And you’re right, the man in the clip, Khaled Harrah, was killed about six weeks ago on a—during another rescue that he was doing, and a mortar round landed and, sadly, killed him.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Orlando, in total, you had something like 70 hours of footage. Can you tell us—and the documentary itself is 40 minutes. What went into the decision to include the part of the footage that you include in the documentary and that—all that you excluded?
ORLANDO VON EINSIEDEL: Sure. Well, we wanted to try and capture the reality for what the White Helmets live through. And like I said, these guys are normal—they’re normal Syrian civilians. A lot of them have no prior rescue experience. They are—they are teachers. They are builders. They are blacksmiths. And so, the way the film works is that half of the film is set in Aleppo as you witness the very visceral, very immersive material of them saving lives on a daily basis. And then the other half is in a training center in Turkey, where they learn—because they don’t have these skills, where they learn rescue techniques to help save more lives.
I think what was—what was very shocking making this film was the violence that they experience every day in Aleppo, you might expect, but even when they’re in somewhere safe, like Turkey, the psychological violence these guys go through every day was incredibly shocking. Almost every evening, when they came back from the training and they’d get back online, their phones would start to vibrate wildly as the day’s news came in. And it was very common that there would be a message saying, you know, one of your colleagues, one of your friends, one of—even one of your family members, has been killed. So, yeah, I mean, it was a difficult—it was very difficult to witness that.
But I think, despite all of that, one of the things which is most striking for me, personally, was the hope that these guys still have. After all that they’ve been through, in spite of everything, they still have hope. And as long as they have hope, I think we all have to have hope, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: One of the White Helmets featured in your film was previously a member of the armed opposition. Let’s go to a clip of Mohammed Farah.
MOHAMMED FARAH: [translated] Before joining the White Helmets, I was with an armed group. I fought for the opposition for three months. But I saw that the regime’s campaign was targeting civilians. And I thought, "It is better to do humanitarian work than to be armed, better to rescue a soul than to take one."
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Mohammed Farah, who says that he was a member of an armed group and then decided to give up and join the White Helmets instead, to do humanitarian work. So, Orlando, can you talk about that and also the criticism that some of the people involved in the White Helmets are armed rebels from the opposition?
ORLANDO VON EINSIEDEL: Sure. I mean, I think, you know, part of the reason we wanted to include that was this just shows how extraordinary this—the White Helmets are, that there are a number of people, you know, in Syria who were fighters, and they’ve then seen the work of the White Helmets, they’ve seen a path which is different from the one they’ve been on, a neutral path, an impartial path, where they can lay down their weapon and they can devote their life to saving lives. And I think this is something that the White Helmets are very proud of.
In terms of criticism, I mean, frankly, in making this, we did a lot of in-depth research. We went through dozens of hours of material. It’s very clear to us that this is—the White Helmets are nothing but a humanitarian group.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what about, Orlando, the criticism that the White Helmets only operate in rebel-held or opposition areas and not in areas controlled by the Assad regime?
ORLANDO VON EINSIEDEL: I mean, that’s absolutely true. I think you need to ask the Assad regime why they don’t—they won’t let the White Helmets operate there. The White Helmets would certainly like to operate throughout the entire country, but they’re not allowed to operate in regime-controlled areas. And the regime actively targets them. I mean, you know, just two weeks ago, four of their centers in Aleppo were destroyed. And, you know, that was direct, deliberate targeting.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s turn to a clip of the White Helmets spokesperson, Farouq al-Habib, speaking to Al Jazeera in September, asked to respond to the claim that the White Helmets are biased toward the rebels.
FAROUQ AL-HABIB: We know that there are always political games trying to politicize everything happening in Syria. But our humanitarian message is obvious and clear for everybody. It’s working impartially and neutrally to help all the Syrian people, wherever and whenever. The White Helmets teams are allowed to respond to attacks in any area in Syria. They will be always ready to help.
AMY GOODMAN: Orlando von Einsiedel, your final comment on the White Helmets and what you just heard?
ORLANDO VON EINSIEDEL: I would—I would urge all your viewers to watch the film. And I think when people watch the film, they will have no doubt in their mind exactly what these men represent, and the women, that work for the White Helmets.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And could you say, very quickly, before we conclude, Orlando, how has the film been received so far? And what would you like audiences to learn from it?
ORLANDO VON EINSIEDEL: Like I said at the start, I think the two things are, that we’d like people to take away from this, we’d like people to be able to watch a film about humanity, about real-life heroes, that cuts through the politics, and also to understand what’s happening to Syrian civilians who are experiencing a horrendous bombardment daily from the regime and from its allies.
AMY GOODMAN: Orlando von Einsiedel, thank you so much for being with us, director ofThe White Helmets. Previous films include the Oscar-nominated documentary Virunga. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Stay with us. ... Read More →
Journalist James Risen: CIA Torture Methods Caused Long-Term Psychological Harm to Former Prisoners
A New York Times investigation has found at least half of the 39 detainees who went through the CIA’s so-called enhanced interrogation program have since shown psychiatric problems—some have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, paranoia, depression or psychosis. These detainees were subjected to torture techniques such as severe sleep deprivation, waterboarding, mock execution, sexual violations and confinement in coffin-like boxes in secret CIA prisons and at Guantánamo. We speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist James Risen and military psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Xenakis.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We continue to look at the shocking new report detailing how harsh American interrogation methods have led to devastating psychiatric disorders in former prisoners. The New York Times exposé is titled "How U.S. Torture Left a Legacy of Damaged Minds." It found at least half of the 39 prisoners who went through the CIA’s so-called enhanced interrogation program have since shown psychiatric problems—some have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, paranoia, depression or psychosis.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by two guests. James Risen, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist with The New York Times, his new pieces are headlined "How U.S. Torture Left a Legacy of Damaged Minds"and "After Torture, Ex-Detainee is Still Captive of 'The Darkness.'" We’re also joined by Dr. Stephen Xenakis, a psychiatrist and retired brigadier general who has advised the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on military mental health issues. Xenakis reviewed medical and interrogation records of about 50 current and former prisoners, and examined about 15 of them, more than any other outside psychiatrist.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Jim Risen, let’s begin with you. Talk about the origins of this series and what you found.
JAMES RISEN: Well, thanks for having me.
Matt Apuzzo and Sheri Fink and I, at the Times, began looking about six months ago at—what we had heard from some good sources was that there was a pattern of psychological problems with the people who had been tortured by the CIA. And I remember the first kind of epiphany moment for me was one source told me he thought that there were 65 to 70 percent of the people who had been tortured were suffering some kind of problems. And then I talked to someone else, and I asked them about that, and they said, "No, no, it’s all of them. All of them have some kind of problem."
And so, we began to look, tried to track down these people. Many of them are scattered all over the world in very remote places. They have—some of them are completely off the grid today in remote Afghanistan or Pakistan. But we found as many as we could, and we found that the pattern and the evidence of severe psychological problems is very striking.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: James Risen, you write in the piece that the symptoms of the torture victims’ experience were the same as American prisoners of war who were held by what you describe as "some of the world’s cruelest regimes." Can you talk about some of these methods and the similarities between prisoners of war, American prisoners of war, where they were held, and what you found about former Guantánamo and other CIA facilities?
JAMES RISEN: Yeah, one of the things that’s so interesting about this is that the torture techniques that were used by the CIA were basically reverse-engineered from what’s called the SERE program, which is the program set up by the United States to help U.S. military personnel deal with the torture that regimes that might capture them use. And they were based on the techniques that had been used by North Korea and North Vietnam in previous wars. And the CIA had decided to try to use those same techniques, that they had simulated for practice and for, you know, the efforts to keep military personnel aware of what they might face, and then use them for real against CIA detainees. And so, what we were using, what the United States was using, were some of the worst techniques that had ever been used to try to break people. You’ve got to remember that these techniques were designed to break people psychologically.
And that’s what we found, is that we broke people psychologically. And originally, the Justice Department had approved these methods in the Bush administration by saying that there would be no long-term physical or psychological harm to the people. But what we’ve found is that that’s not true. There has been long-term psychological harm. The only problem is the United States government never went back to check; after saying and assuring itself that there would be no harm, they never went back to check with—to see whether that was true. And so that’s what we’ve tried to do, go back and check and see whether there was long-term harm to these people.
AMY GOODMAN: The stories, the profiles of the men, are devastating, Jim. Can you talk about Suleiman Abdullah Salim and "The Darkness"?
JAMES RISEN: Yeah, Suleiman is—he’s from the town Stone Town, Tanzania—Stone Town, Zanzibar, which is in Tanzania. He was a fisherman. And when he grew up in—on Zanzibar, he just was a very kind of a easy—what you might—in America, you might call him a slacker. He just liked to hang out and fish, and he kind of was a—had a nomadic life early on. He wandered from Tanzania to Kenya and then finally ended up in Somalia, where he worked as a harbor pilot. And then, after he lost that job, he ended up kind of begging on the streets of Mogadishu by 2000.
And in 2003, he had gotten a job as a driver for a local shop owner. The shop owner’s sister worked for a Somali warlord named Mohammed Dheere. And by 2003, Mohammed Dheere had cut a deal with the CIA in which he would turn over terrorism suspects to theCIA. And one day that—in 2003, Mohammed Dheere’s militia grabbed Suleiman out of his car and beat him and then picked him up a few hours later and turned him over to the CIA, which—eventually, he was thrown into a secret prison in Afghanistan, where he was tortured.
The torture he endured is really hard—hard to hear from him. And that was, to me, the hardest part of doing this, was actually hear the person that the CIA had tortured describe the torture that they had endured. You know, many of us have read about this torture in the Senate torture report or in the newspapers, but to actually hear someone and sit with someone who had to endure this is a very difficult process to go through.
AMY GOODMAN: Jim Risen, we wanted to turn to Suleiman Abdullah Salim in his own words, speaking to the ACLU about the long-term impacts of the torture he endured.
SULEIMAN ABDULLAH SALIM: Every time I think of prison, flashback come. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t smell. Flashback come. Flashback come many time, you know. So much it make you crazy. I’m in so much pain. I don’t understand anything. I have headache. Too much headache. I want to vomit. I’m innocent. Why they beat like that?
AMY GOODMAN: "I’m in so much pain. I vomited. I have a headache. Why are you doing this to me?" he says. Tell us what happened to Suleiman. Where was he held? Who tortured him? And what did they do?
JAMES RISEN: He was held—well, he was picked up in Somalia. The CIA flew—arranged to fly him to Kenya, where he was questioned by the Kenyans. The Kenyans then turned him back to the CIA in Somalia. Then he was flown to Djibouti. And then, from Djibouti, he was flown to a secret prison run by the CIA in Afghanistan, which he calls "The Darkness." I think it was probably one part of a CIA prison that is now known as the "Salt Pit."
It was—he was kept in total darkness in a cell where he was chained to the wall constantly, with loud music playing 24 hours a day. And then he would be dragged out of the cell and then beaten in another room. He would be hung by chains while he was beaten and kicked. And then he would be—he was threatened with dogs. He was walled, which is a process where they put a leash around your head and then slam your head and your body into a wall. And then they would—one of the things that was worse—worst for him was ice water dousing, which was a form of waterboarding where they would put—lie him on a tarp and then pour ice water all over him, and then they would wrap him up in the tarp with—filled with ice water and then kick him and beat him.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Let’s bring Dr. Stephen Xenakis into the conversation. He’s a psychiatrist and retired brigadier general who’s advised the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on military mental health issues. Dr. Xenakis, you’ve reviewed medical and interrogation records of about 50 current and former prisoners, and examined about 15 of the detainees, more than any other outside psychiatrist. Could you tell us what you found?
DR. STEPHEN XENAKIS: Well, I found that many—the ones that I’m asked to evaluate, that many, if not all, of them are still suffering with the consequences of what they had been subjected to. They have all the symptoms that we commonly attribute to post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety. They have nightmares. They’re—anything can trigger them. They just feel lost sometimes in their world. They have problems getting adjusted. It has significantly affected their lives.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, in 2013, you examined Tarek El Sawah. And in a plea for better medical treatment, he told a judge that—you told a judge that Mr. El Sawah’s mental state has worsened and "he appears apathetic with diminished will to live." The military responded that he was offered excellent medical care but then refused it.
DR. STEPHEN XENAKIS: Well, you know, they—the detainees in Guantánamo are offered medical care, and they’ll have technicians and occasionally psychologists and other physicians who will be available to them, but the entire environment is not conducive to the quality care that they need, for any number of reasons. And there’s no doubt that Mr. El Sawah did not feel comfortable with the practitioners there, the clinicians who reached out to him, and also that many of them really had not had experiences with them. So, the definition of quality here gets into the debate. I mean, is this really what is best for an individual who’s been subjected to torture? How many of the clinicians have had experiences with people who’ve had torture? Do people understand the environment that they’re in? Do people even in the cases we published—Dr. Iacopino and I published an article, said, in our review of the histories in the medical records, we found that many of these clinicians didn’t really ask about the details of what these people had been—had experienced, and really didn’t set the stage for there to be good rapport and to have—and to be able to treat them and help them in the way that they needed. So, there is a gap between what we think is quality medical care and what the Department of Defense said was quality medical care.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Dr. Xenakis, the similarity between some of the people, some of the prisoners, ex-prisoners, you examined and soldiers you’ve treated decades ago, coming back from Vietnam, who had suffered horrific abuse?
DR. STEPHEN XENAKIS: Well, that was what was stunning and, perhaps, even some ways, obvious. I, as a young doctor in the '70s during the Vietnam War, had evaluated returnees from Vietnam, former prisoners of war, and we saw that these people were really suffering, as well. And there's a record of that. I mean, we—the Department of Defense had tracked these POWs for many, many years. We knew that these people were affected. We knew that it really made their lives extremely difficult. There was no surprise that if we’d, in fact, subjected these men, that now we have during the Iraq-Afghanistan War, to those kinds of circumstances and situations, that they, too, would suffer long-term consequences. And, in fact, there is a vast similarity. People are people. You know, their psychology is the same.
AMY GOODMAN: So, James Risen, at this point, with these prisoners, what recourse do they have? Is there any way to get compensation from the U.S. government? These are the questions that we have right now, but I want to first go to Khaled El-Masri [sic] in his own words, describing his time inside a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan.
OMAR KHADR: I would like to thank the court for trusting me and releasing me. I would like to thank my—Dennis and Nate, my lawyers, and their families for all the work. They’ve been working for such a long time. And I would like to thank the Canadian public for trusting me and giving me a chance—
AMY GOODMAN: I want to—I want to go back to—I want to correct who this is. We’re going to start it at the begining. Omar Khadr, once the youngest prisoner held on terror charges at Guantánamo, released on bail from a Canadian prison last year, briefly speaking to the media after he was released.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Omar Khadr, once the youngest prisoner held on terror charges at Guantánamo Bay. This is Democracy Now! We want to thank James Risen and Dr. Xenakis, and we’re going to continue our discussion and post it online at democracynow.org. The series in The New York Times, stunning series, written by James Risen, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, and his colleagues, we’ll link to at democracynow.org.... Read More →OMAR KHADR: I would like to thank the court for trusting me and releasing me. I would like to thank my—Dennis and Nate, my lawyers, and their families for all the work. They’ve been working for such a long time. And I would like to thank the Canadian public for trusting me and giving me a chance. It might be some times, but I will prove to them that I am more than what they thought of me. And I’ll prove to them that I’m a good person. Thank you very much.
MEDIA ADVISORY: Journalist Amy Goodman to Turn Herself in to North Dakota Authorities
October 13, 2016 – Award-winning journalist Amy Goodman, charged with criminal trespassing for filming an attack on Native American-led pipeline protesters, will turn herself in to North Dakota authorities on October 17.
Amy Goodman will surrender to authorities at the Morton County–Mandan Combined Law Enforcement and Corrections Center at 8:15 a.m. local time (CDT).
"I will go back to North Dakota to fight this charge. It is a clear violation of the First Amendment," said Goodman. "I was doing my job as a journalist, covering a violent attack on Native American protesters."
The charge in State of North Dakota v. Amy Goodman stems from Democracy Now!’s coverage of the protests against the Dakota Access pipeline. On Saturday, September 3, Democracy Now! filmed security guards working for the pipeline company attacking protesters. The report showed guards unleashing dogs and using pepper spray and featured people with bite injuries and a dog with blood on its mouth and nose.
Democracy Now!’s report went viral online, was viewed more than 14 million times on Facebook and was rebroadcast on many outlets, including CBS, NBC, NPR, CNN, MSNBCand the Huffington Post.
On September 8, a criminal complaint and warrant was issued for Goodman’s arrest.
Ironically, in the state’s criminal complaint, North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Lindsey Wohl, referencing the Democracy Now! video report in a sworn affidavit, stated, "Amy Goodman can be seen on the video identifying herself and interviewing protesters about their involvement in the protest." This is precisely the point: Goodman was doing the constitutionally protected work of a reporter.
The pipeline project has faced months of resistance from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and members of over 200 other tribes from across the U.S., Canada and Latin America.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has said that the warrant is "a transparent attempt to intimidate reporters from covering protests of significant public interest." Steve Andrist, executive director of the North Dakota Newspaper Association, told The Bismarck Tribune, "It’s regrettable that authorities chose to charge a reporter who was just doing her job."
Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning public television/radio news program that airs on over 1,400 stations worldwide. Goodman has co-authored six New York Times bestsellers and won many of journalism’s highest awards in her more than three decades working as a reporter.
Press Statement:
Time: 8:00 a.m., Monday October 17, 2016
Place: 211 2nd Ave NW, Mandan ND 58554
Followed by short walk to jail:
Time: 8:15 a.m. Monday October 17, 2016
Place: 205 1st Ave NW, Mandan, ND 58554
For more information, contact Denis Moynihan at +1-646-217-7231 (on-site cell) or media@democracynow.org.
Live camera position/uplink available.
To book contact Denis Moynihan.
To book contact Denis Moynihan.
Press availability will follow Amy Goodman’s arraignment, expected (but not guaranteed) to be several hours after 8:15 a.m. Goodman will be available for TV interviews via live TV camera position.
Live camera positions with satellite uplink connection available onsite to interview Amy Goodman or for use by your correspondent.
Broadcast/print quality video and still photos of Amy Goodman entering Morton County Jail will be available at democracynow.org or by emailing request to media@democracynow.org.
Surviving Torture in a CIA Secret Prison: Khaled al-Sharif of Libya Recounts Horrors
A shocking new report details how harsh American interrogation methods have led to devastating psychiatric disorders in former prisoners. The New York Times exposé is titled "How U.S. Torture Left a Legacy of Damaged Minds." It found at least half of the 39 prisoners who went through the CIA’s so-called enhanced interrogation program have since shown psychiatric problems—some have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, paranoia, depression or psychosis. These prisoners were subjected to torture techniques such as severe sleep deprivation, waterboarding, mock execution, sexual violations and confinement in coffin-like boxes in secret CIA prisons and at Guantánamo. We air a video of Khaled al-Sharif speaking to New York Times correspondent Sheri Fink about how his two years in a secret CIA prison continues to haunt him today.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to a shocking new report detailing how harsh American investigation methods—sorry, interrogation methods have led to devastating psychiatric disorders in former detainees. The New York Times exposé is titled "How U.S. Torture Left a Legacy of Damaged Minds." It found at least half of the 39 detainees who went through the CIA’s so-called enhanced interrogation program have since shown psychiatric problems—some have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, paranoia, depression or psychosis. These detainees were subjected to torture techniques such as severe sleep deprivation, waterboarding, mock execution, sexual violations and confinement in coffin-like boxes in secret CIA prisons and at Guantánamo.
AMY GOODMAN: Later in the show, we’ll be joined by New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter James Risen, co-author of the series. But first let’s turn to Khaled al-Sharif, who spoke to New York Times correspondent Sheri Fink about his two years in a secret CIA prison and how it continues to haunt him today.
KHALED AL-SHARIF: [translated] Of course, the psychological effects of this experience and this injustice that happened to me from spending a long time in solitary, there’s no doubt that you go through states of depression. Likewise, the family went through this experience of fear. They’re now worried. They’re always afraid of tomorrow. They fear I’ll disappear like I disappeared the first time.
SHERI FINK: Khaled al-Sharif is a Libyan citizen. He was a deputy head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an anti-Gaddafi organization that, according to the U.S. State Department, had ties to al-Qaeda. Because of this, he was arrested in 2003 in Pakistan and sent to a secret prison operated by the CIA. And there he stayed for two years.
This is Sheri Fink. I’m a correspondent for The New York Times. I met Mr. al-Sharif, now a free man, in Turkey in September to interview him about these secret CIA prisons, like the two where he was held, and the lasting effects of his treatment there.
KHALED AL-SHARIF: [translated] I was put inside this small cell, and my wrists were tied to the ceiling. I was in this position for a few hours. Then they took me to the interrogation room. The questions from the start were about my relationship with al-Qaeda. I told them I wasn’t a member of al-Qaeda and had no relationship with them at all.
SHERI FINK: Mr. al-Sharif was held in these so-called CIA black sites at the same time as two of his fellow LIFG members, Mohamed Ben Soud, who produced the drawings you’re seeing in this video, and Salih al-Daeiki.
KHALED AL-SHARIF: [translated] Yes, they were all members of theLIFG, and we all knew each other. And we lived together as Libyans in Peshawar.
SHERI FINK: Their treatment in CIA custody during this time has been partially documented by the U.S. government in the Senate torture report of 2014.
KHALED AL-SHARIF: [translated] I was put in a tub, and then they pour water on your face until you start suffocating and you can’t breathe. They threatened to put me in a small box that they would cram you into by force. I was also tied from my wrists and feet to a ring on the wall for more than a month.
SHERI FINK: Starting in 2004, the U.S. handed the three men over to Libyan authorities. In Libya, they were imprisoned until the fall of Gaddafi in 2011. Today, Mr. al-Sharif runs a prison in Tripoli, where his prison mate, Salih al-Daeiki, became the head interrogator. It’s an irony that’s not lost on Mr. al-Sharif.
KHALED AL-SHARIF: [translated] [The prison] was created after the revolution by government decree. And I was appointed by the government to run the place. It’s a strange paradox that a man finds himself in places he didn’t expect or want to be in. I was a prisoner, and I became the head of a prison that had in custody many members of the previous regime.
SHERI FINK: Mr. al-Sharif found himself on the other end of torture allegations when, in August 2015, this video recording surfaced. It’s a graphic scene of interrogation in his prison. The man blindfolded is a son of Gaddafi. Outside the door, men appear to be undergoing beatings. The man you see in the blue vest and robe is none other than Salih al-Daeiki, Mr. al-Sharif’s former prison mate. He stands by and watches as the interrogations continue. When I interviewed him, Mr. al-Daeiki told me that he was there when Gaddafi’s son was beaten, and didn’t try to stop it. Despite being in charge of interrogations, he said it wasn’t in his power.
INTERPRETER: [translated] Was Salih endorsing the torture in the video?
KHALED AL-SHARIF: [translated] Of course, the video, regarding Salih—I don’t think he himself struck anyone, but it was possible for him to prevent that from happening. It’s not a policy. It’s not usual for Salih or those with him to behave that way.
SHERI FINK: That answer was in response to a line of questioning I had for Mr. al-Sharif. How might the CIA’s treatment of Salih have continued to influence his behavior? I asked Mr. al-Sharif if his own detainment still affected him.
AMY GOODMAN: That was former prisoner Khaled al-Sharif speaking to New York Timescorrespondent Sheri Fink. Al-Sharif is just one of the many prisoners who, The New York Times found, continues to suffer persistent mental health problems after surviving beatings, sleep deprivation and torture techniques in secret CIA prisons. When we come back, we’ll speak with New York Times reporter James Risen and military psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Xenakis. Stay with us. ... Read More →KHALED AL-SHARIF: [translated] The effects are still there. And they still affect my life. Sometimes, when I hear the music that was played to us for a whole year in prison, when I’m just walking by or in a place and I hear a bit of this music, I’ll feel a cold shiver, and my memory will take me back to that time.
Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Prize for Literature: Listen to Rare Interviews and Songs from Pacifica Radio Archives
Today Bob Dylan turns 70 years old, and we air a special program on his life and music. Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota. Raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, he moved to Greenwich Village in January of 1961. Within a couple of years, Dylan would be viewed by many as the voice of a generation as he wrote some of the decade’s most famous songs, including “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “The Times They Are a-Changing,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Masters of War,” “Desolation Row” and “Mr. Tambourine Man.” After emerging from the New York City folk scene, Dylan explored many other genres, from rock to country to the blues. He continues to tour to this day. In 2008, the Pulitzer Prize jury awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power." But before Bob Dylan became a musical star, he was one of countless young musicians in New York City trying to get heard. Some of his earliest radio appearances were on Pacifica radio station WBAI. We speak with the legendary WBAI broadcaster Bob Fass, the host of Radio Unnameable, who interviewed Dylan several times. Fass’s show began in 1963 and became a leading outlet for the emerging counterculture of the 1960s. It still airs every Thursday night at midnight. We play excerpts from the Pacifica Radio Archives of a 1962 performance by Dylan on Fass’s show and an interview when he was only 20 years old. We also speak with music writer Elizabeth Thomson, co-editor of the newly reissued book, No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan, written by the late Robert Shelton. And we feature part of Dylan’s 1963 performance at the March on Washington and hear why Dylan refused to sing out at protests against the Vietnam War. [includes rush transcript]
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Today Bob Dylan turns 70 years old, and we bring you a special on his music and his life. He was born Robert Allen Zimmerman , 70 years ago today, on May 24th, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota. Raised in Hibbing, Dylan moved to Greenwich Village in January of 1961. Within a couple years, Bob Dylan would be viewed by many as the voice of a generation, as he wrote some of the decade’s most famous songs, including "Blowin’ in the Wind," "The Times They Are a-Changing," "Like a Rolling Stone," "Masters of War," "Desolation Row" and "Mr. Tambourine Man."
BOB DYLAN: [singing] Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy, and there is no place I’m going to
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle-jangle morning, I’ll come followin’ you.
AMY GOODMAN: In 1963, Bob Dylan performed with Joan Baez at the March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.
BOB DYLAN: [singing] Oh the time will come up
When the winds will stop
And the breeze will cease to be a-breathin’
Like the stillness in the wind
Before the hurricane begins
The hour that the ship comes in.
AMY GOODMAN: After emerging from the New York folk scene, Bob Dylan would explore many other genres, from rock to country to the blues. He continues to tour to this day. In 2008, the Pulitzer Prize jury awarded Bob Dylan a special citation for his, quote, "profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."
But before Bob Dylan became a musical star, he was one of countless young musicians in New York City trying to get heard. Some of his earliest radio appearances were on Pacifica Radio station WBAI.
CYNTHIA GOODING: Bob Dylan is — well, you must be 20 years old now, aren’t you?
BOB DYLAN: Yeah, must be 20.
CYNTHIA GOODING: Are you?
BOB DYLAN: Yeah, I’m 20. I’m 20.
CYNTHIA GOODING: When I first heard Bob Dylan was, I think, about three years ago in Minneapolis. And at that time, you were thinking of being a rock-and-roll singer, weren’t you?
BOB DYLAN: At that time I was just sort of doing nothing. I was there —
CYNTHIA GOODING: You were studying.
BOB DYLAN: I was working, I guess. I was — I was making pretend I was going to school out there.
AMY GOODMAN: Today we’re going to celebrate Bob Dylan’s life with a special show featuring many rare early recordings of Dylan. We’ll also be joined by the legendary WBAIbroadcaster Bob Fass, the host of Radio Unnameable. The show began in 1963 and became a leading outlet for the emerging counterculture of the 1960s. It still airs every Thursday night at midnight. Bob Dylan appeared on the show several times.
BOB FASS: This is Bob Fass. We’re back on here with Radio Unnameable. Remember I told you about 10 minutes ago that we were going to have somebody come up who wasn’t Shirley Temple? No —
BOB DYLAN: Aw, come on now. Don’t do this to me.
BOB FASS: What — oh, I’m sorry. What am I doing to you?
BOB DYLAN: I’m not supposed to do that. I’m not going to apologize for not being Shirley Temple. Come on.
BOB FASS: You want me to introduce you like Mike Wallace?
BOB DYLAN: No, no, no. I wouldn’t —
BOB FASS: Alright, this is Bob Dylan —
BOB DYLAN: No, no, no. Oh, [inaudible] say that.
BOB FASS: Oh, I can’t say who it is? Oh, alright, OK.
AMY GOODMAN: Along with Bob Fass, we’ll be joined by music writer Elizabeth Thomson, co-editor of the newly reissued book No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan, written by the late Robert Shelton.
I want to begin by going back to early 1962, when Bob Dylan appeared on Cynthia Gooding’s program Folksinger’s Choice on WBAI. It was one of his first radio appearances. Special thanks to the Pacifica Radio Archives.
CYNTHIA GOODING: And now you’re doing a record for Columbia.
BOB DYLAN: Yeah. I made it already. It’s coming out next month — or not next — yeah, it’s coming out in March.
CYNTHIA GOODING: And what’s it going to be called?
BOB DYLAN: Uh, "Bob Dylan," I think.
CYNTHIA GOODING: That’s a novel title for a record.
BOB DYLAN: Yeah, it’s pretty strange.
CYNTHIA GOODING: Yeah. And this is one of the quickest rises in folk music, wouldn’t you say?
BOB DYLAN: Yeah, but I really don’t think to myself as a folk — you know, folksinger thing, because I don’t really much play across the country in any of these places. You know, I’m not on no circuit or anything like those other folksingers. So, I play once in a while, you know. But I don’t know. I like more than just folk music, too, and I sing more than just folk music. I mean, as such, like other people, they will just folk music, folk music. You know, I like folk music, as Hobart Smith stuff and that. But I don’t sing much of that. And when I do, it’s probably a modified version of something. Not a modified version. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just that there’s more to it, I think, old type jazz things, you know? Jelly Roll Morton, you know, and stuff like that.
CYNTHIA GOODING: Well, what I would like is for you to sing some songs, you know, from different parts of your short history.
BOB DYLAN: Yeah, my history?
CYNTHIA GOODING: Short because you’re only 20 now.
BOB DYLAN: Yeah, OK. Let’s see. I’m looking for one.
CYNTHIA GOODING: He has the — I gather, a small part of his repertoire pasted to his guitar.
BOB DYLAN: Yeah. Well, this is — no, actually, I don’t even know some of these songs. This list, I put on because other people got it on, you know, and I copied the best songs I could find on here from other guitar players’ lists. So I don’t know a lot of these, you know? Gives me something to do, though, on stage.
CYNTHIA GOODING: Yeah, something to look at.
BOB DYLAN: Yeah. I’ll sing you — oh, you want to hear — want to hear a blues song?
CYNTHIA GOODING: Sure.
AMY GOODMAN: Bob Dylan in 1962, appearing on Cynthia Gooding’s program,Folksinger’s Choice, on WBAI, one of his first radio appearances. He appeared a number of times on WBAI on Bob Fass’s show, the legendary radio programmer. His program continues to this day. It’s called Radio Unnameable.
Bob, it is a great pleasure to have you on Democracy Now!
BOB FASS: Well, the same goes for me, Amy. I’m very happy to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: So, when did you first meet Bob Dylan?
BOB FASS: Well, I first heard about him, of course, before I met him, in a lot of different places, and I’m not — I’m certain about one of them. I was an actor at the time, a poor young actor, believe it or not, who didn’t — you know, didn’t know a whole lot about almost anything. I was in a play by Brendan Behan called The Hostage, and I learned so much there about Ireland and Ireland in its revolutionary period. And people ought to look that play up and take a good gander at it, because it will goose them to go on further. And I was sitting there trying to remember my next entrance, when the — I was a replacement in the cast. I wasn’t cast in the play in the beginning. I was there probably for the last month of its run, which I think was a couple of years. And I noticed the stage mistress, the woman who was climbing the ropes and changing the lights and telling the rest of the people in the chorus when to sing and where to stand backstage and telling us, "Shhhh, the audience out front can hear you." And she was so good at all these things that, among other things, she was really wonderful to look at. But I knew there was a lot more than a pretty face there. And somehow I was lucky enough to remember that.
And somehow, when she said, "What are you looking at?" I said, "Well, I’m not sure why, but you." And she said, "Well, you should see my sister." Her sister was Suze Rotolo, who was Bob Dylan’s very best live-in roommate friend at the time. And, you know, I was more than a little interested. And after a couple of weeks, I asked her to, you know, have a cup of coffee with me. And she said, "Alright." And we had the cup of coffee, and I got to know her a little better. And she said, "Do you think that I’m good looking? You should see my sister. And you know who her" — this was on the downlow — "boyfriend is?" And I said, "No." And she said, "Dylan." I said, "The poet?" She said, "No." I said, "Who?" She said, "Bob Dylan." I said, "Bob?" She said, "Yeah. Well, that’s not really his — but we’ll tell you more about it later."
And I hung around long enough so that I got to visit them while in their shared apartment. I got to play poker once. I was very bad at it, but he was brilliant at poker. And, you know, I was fascinated by him. I got to drive around with him. I got to spend long times talking to him. And there were moments there that I’ll never forget.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to Bob Dylan’s early WBAI recordings. In May of 1962, he appeared on the Broadside radio show on WBAI. The show was hosted by, well, Pete Seeger, Sis Cunningham and Izzy [Young]. This is Pete Seeger.
PETE SEEGER: I’d like to hear some of the songs that Bob Dylan has made up, because of all the people I’ve heard in America, he seems to be the most prolific. I don’t — Bob, do you make the song before breakfast every day or before supper?
BOB DYLAN: No, I don’t make up a song like that. In fact, sometimes I could go about two weeks without making up a song.
PETE SEEGER: I don’t believe it.
BOB DYLAN: Oh, yeah. But then, sometimes — well, these are the songs that I sing. I might go about two weeks in making up a — I write a lot of stuff. In fact, I wrote five songs last night. I gave all the papers away someplace. It was in a place called the Bitter End. And some were — some were just about what was happening on the stage. And I would never sing them anyplace; they were just for myself in front of some other people. They might say, "Write a song about that," and I do it. But I don’t sit around and do it with the newspapers like a lot of people do, spread newspapers all around and pick something out to write a song about. It’s usually right there in my head before I start. That’s the way I write. I mean, it might be a bad approach. But I don’t even consider even writing songs. I don’t — when I’ve written it, I don’t even consider that I wrote it when I got done.
PETE SEEGER: Put it together.
SIS CUNNINGHAM: You made it up.
BOB DYLAN: Yeah, yeah. I just figure that I made it up or I got it someplace. I just sort of — the song was there before me, before I came along. I just sort of came down and just sort of took it down with a pencil, that it was all there before I came around. That’s the way I feel about it.
SIS CUNNINGHAM: We can let him give us an example of how these songs just sort of come to him and flow through him.
GIL TURNER: Well, I think this particular song is historical in the sense that it’s the first psychological song of the modern generation that I’ve heard.
BOB DYLAN: I took this from Bonnie Dobson’s tune. "Peter Amberly," I think the name of it is.
[singing] My name is Donald White, you see,
I stand before you all.
I was judged by you a murderer
And the hangman’s knot must fall.
I will die upon the gallows pole
When the moon is bright and clear,
And these are my final words
That you will ever hear.
If I had some education
To give me a decent start,
I might have been a doctor or
A master in the arts.
But I used my hands for stealing
When I was very young,
And they locked me down in jailhouse cells,
That’s how my life begun.
To give me a decent start,
I might have been a doctor or
A master in the arts.
But I used my hands for stealing
When I was very young,
And they locked me down in jailhouse cells,
That’s how my life begun.
Oh, the inmates and the prisoners,
I found they were my kind,
It was there inside the bars
I found my peace of mind.
But the jails they were too crowded,
Institutions overflowed,
So they set me loose to walk upon
Life’s weary tangled road.
I found they were my kind,
It was there inside the bars
I found my peace of mind.
But the jails they were too crowded,
Institutions overflowed,
So they set me loose to walk upon
Life’s weary tangled road.
And there’s danger on the ocean
Where the salt sea waves split high,
And there’s danger on the battlefield
Where the shells of bullets fly.
AMY GOODMAN: Ah, that was Bob Dylan on the Broadside radio show on WBAI, which is hosted by Pete Seeger, Sis Cunningham, and Izzy Young. You were smiling, Bob. You were singing along to —
BOB FASS: I was there when some of these programs were recorded, kind of lurking in the background.
AMY GOODMAN: Were you doing your own show at that time?
BOB FASS: No, I was an engineer at the station and an announcer at the time.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to go to break, and when we come back we’re going to talk more about Bob Dylan, his impact, his music, one of the remarkable moments when he sang "Blowin’ in the Wind," one of the earliest recordings. And we’re going to talk about his life. It’s hard to believe, but yes, Bob Dylan turns 70 years old today. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Bob Dylan singing "The Ballad of Emmett Till," which was recorded onWBAI, the Pacifica station here in New York. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Bob Dylan turns 70 today. Yes, it’s hard to believe. Today we are honoring his life work, his music, his legacy, by playing his songs, his early recordings. And we’re joined by Bob Fass, who was a friend, who hosted him on WBAI on his show Radio Unnameable, then and today. He continues to do his show after midnight every Thursday night.
We’re also joined by Elizabeth Thomson, co-editor of the newly reissued book, No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan, that was written by Robert Shelton. She is also co-editor of The Dylan Companion.
It’s nice to have you with us, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH THOMSON: Nice to be here. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this book and, well, the man who wrote it, Robert Shelton.
ELIZABETH THOMSON: Well, Robert Shelton was the music and arts critic of the New York Times. He joined it as a copy boy in the mid-'50s. And in fact, he was a news reporter who fell foul of one of the McCarthy committees, because he was brought up before the Eastland Committee and accused of being a communist. He refused to answer the questions, and it was a celebrated case. The New York Times, of course, said, "Well, you're absolutely free to believe what you want, but we can’t have you writing news." So they put him on the arts beat.
And he chronicled huge aspects of folk music, particularly. If you look up the archive, you can see all kinds of stuff — some classical music, people like Ravi Shankar, I think, and then eventually this scruffy kid who was playing at a Manhattan cabaret. And he brought word of what was going on in New York, the New York folk revival, not just to the people of New York and the surrounding area, but to the country. It was an amazing revival that I suppose, in part, was prompted by the success of the Kingston Trio and Tom Dooley, and then everyone picked up a guitar. And he chronicled not only Dylan’s rise, but Baez at the Newport Folk Festival in 1959. I think he saw the moment when Peter, Paul and Mary actually became Peter, Paul and Mary in Grossman’s office. He reviewed people like José Feliciano, Woody Allen doing stand-up, Joni Mitchell. An incredible, incredible career. And yet he’s sort of forgotten by all but the most ardent Dylanites, I guess. But he was a very significant on the scene — a tastemaker on the New York music scene.
AMY GOODMAN: And though there are more than a thousand books written about Dylan, his was the only one where he got the cooperation —
ELIZABETH THOMSON: Yes, absolutely.
AMY GOODMAN: — of Bob.
ELIZABETH THOMSON: Because they became buddies. I mean, they met, knocking around in the Village at Gerde’s, at the Gaslight, all these places that existed then. The review happened, of course. By that time, they knew each other a bit. And they were friends. They drank at the White Horse Tavern together with the Clancy Brothers. Dylan passed out on Shelton’s sofa a couple of times. He knew Suze. They went out on dates — you know, Dylan with Suzie and later with Baez. So, they were buddies. And the centerpiece of the book, of course, is the 1966 tour, where Shelton is on the plane with Dylan from Lincoln, Nebraska, to Denver, Colorado, for this amazing, you know, free-rein interview.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about that.
ELIZABETH THOMSON: Well, by that time, Shelton was working on his book, and he joins Dylan for a leg of the 1966 tour, that of course would be ended by the motorcycle crash. It took in Australia, Europe, and famously London and Manchester, with the "Judas!" cry. And they leave Lincoln, Nebraska, after a show at the break of midnight on a private jet and fly into Denver. And Dylan and Shelton just talk like old buddies. I mean, if you hear the tapes, it’s just a chat. And then they check into a motel in Denver, and Dylan and members of the band, what we know as the band later on — Robbie Robertson — lounge on beds in their motel rooms singing, trying out these songs, like "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," with Shelton watching. And then the next morning, they go to Central City for a little outing, and then they come back, and Shelton and Dylan chat again while Dylan is getting ready for a concert. And then Dylan continued on to his next stop, and Shelton came back to New York, I guess. And the friendship continued. The book ends, in fact, in 1978 — ends a bit earlier; I’ve cut it — with the two men backstage at London’s Earl’s Court during the very successful 1978 tour.
AMY GOODMAN: We had Pete Seeger in our studio — I think this was in 2005 — to talk about his own life, perform a few songs. And I asked him about Bob Dylan’s controversial 1965 appearance at the Newport Folk Festival.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Pete Seeger. And on thisallmusic.com bio of you, it says, Pete Seeger’s "adherence to the sanctity of folk music came to a boiling point with the advent of folk rock," and it’s long been rumored that "he tried to pull the plug on Bob Dylan’s very electrified set with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1965." Is that true?
PETE SEEGER: No. It’s true that I don’t play electrified instruments. I don’t know how to. On the other hand, I’ve played with people who play them beautifully, and I admire some of them. Howling Wolf was using electrified instruments at Newport just the day before Bob did. But I was furious that the sound was so distorted you could not understand a word that he was singing. He was singing a great song, "Maggie’s Farm," a great song, but you couldn’t understand it. And I ran over to the soundman, said, "Fix the sound so you can understand him." And they hollered back, "No, this is the way they want it!" I don’t know who "they" was. But I was so mad, I said, "Damn, if I had an axe, I’d cut the cable right now." I really was that mad. But I wasn’t against Bob going electric.
Matter of fact, some of Bob’s songs are still my favorites. What an artist he is. What a great — I would say maybe he and Woody and Buffy Sainte-Marie and Joni Mitchell and Malvina Reynolds are the greatest songwriters of the 20th century, even though Irving Berlin made the most money. They wrote songs that were trying to help us understand where we are, what we gotta do. Still are writing them.
AMY GOODMAN: And here is a little taste of Bob Dylan performing "Maggie’s Farm" at Newport in 1965.
BOB DYLAN: [singing] I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
Well, I wake up in the morning
Fold my hands and pray for rain
I got a head full of ideas
That are drivin’ me insane
It’s a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more
Well, he hands you a nickel
Hands you a dime
Asks you with a grin
If you’re havin’ a good time
Then he fines you every time you slam the door
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother more.
AMY GOODMAN: That is Bob Dylan, "Maggie’s Farm," in 1965. Bob Fass, why was it such a huge deal that he went electric?
BOB FASS: Well, everybody was at that time. And the people in the folk community were very PC about not letting him go on. They thought they knew what was correct. There were places in England where you would be thrown out of the club if you were a folksinger, so-called, and you sang somebody else’s song. You were only supposed to sing your own songs, the ones that you had either discovered alone by yourself or you had written yourself. And that kind of an attitude made a lot of people not like things that Dylan was doing from the very outset. And I think it’s still a big part of his life. And at least —- I’m sure he doesn’t pay that much attention to that right now, but there are a lot of people who always have had differing opinions, multiple opinions, about Bob Dylan. And I don’t want to go on too much about that, because I have a lot of -—
If you will permit me one more digression — you know that there was a very friendly relationship between two important women in literature, Dorothy Parker and Mary McCarthy, and at one time, I think it was Mary McCarthy said of the other, "You can’t believe anything she says. Every sentence, from the quotation marks around it until the period at the end, are true, or lies." And, of course, that wasn’t — certainly wasn’t completely true in either case. But it’s certainly true about Bob Dylan. And some of the lies he told are also the truth.
And, you know, I’m nearly 80 years old, and I only had some months when I was in constant contact with him. I lived not too far from him. And sometimes I saw him sitting at the typewriter, which is one of those things that wasn’t photographed until, you know, a few years later in his career and published. And he would go to the typewriter in almost all of his spare moments. In almost all of his spare moments, he was doing at least two things at once. And I was confused by that at first, as I am about almost everything. And I hope later on I clear things up for myself, at least.
AMY GOODMAN: Elizabeth Thomson, "Maggie’s Farm" became very big in Britain.
ELIZABETH THOMSON: In a certain way. In 1979, when we had Margaret Thatcher as prime minister — she was there for a long time — "Maggie’s Farm" did acquire a special significance. And I remember in 1978 at Blackbushe, which is a big outdoor event in England, at the end of his U.K. tour, he did "Maggie’s Farm." And it was clear then that, you know, we were going to be living on Maggie’s Farm very soon, which we were, and it was — and there was a cartoon strip for a while called "Maggie’s Farm."
AMY GOODMAN: Because they called her Maggie Thatcher.
ELIZABETH THOMSON: Yes, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about his early politics, Bob Dylan’s early politics.
ELIZABETH THOMSON: Well, he — I mean, I imagine his parents must have been very amazed to hear these songs that he wrote. But I mean, he came into — blew into New York in the early days of the '60s when things were going from sort of Eisenhower black and white into Kennedy Technicolor, I suppose, and began writing all these amazing songs — I mean, "Masters of War," "With God on Our Side," "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall," allegedly written as the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded — I mean, extraordinary songs which are timeless. I mean, "With God on Our Side" has had, you know, a life with the Iraq war, as it had in Vietnam, during the time of Vietnam. And because they were fantastic songs, a lot of people, including obviously his one-time good friend Joan Baez, wanted him to carry the torch and to be the leader of the movement.
And one thing is very clear when you read Shelton’s book, is that he was very — he didn’t want to be the leader of the movement, but he was also very frightened by the pressure that came with, you know, being the messiah, the spokesman of the generation. But he just wrote these — I mean, they remain extraordinary songs. I don’t think anyone’s ever written anything that even comes close to the quality and the timelessness of things like "With God on Our Side" and "Times They Are a-Changing" and "Blowin’ in the Wind."
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Bob Dylan appeared on your show, Bob Fass, late night radio,Radio Unnameable, several times and would often take calls from callers, because that’s your show —
BOB FASS: I do.
AMY GOODMAN: — callers holding forth, you holding forth. This is an excerpt of the show from 1966 when a caller criticized Bob Dylan for not continuing to write more explicitly antiwar songs.
CALLER: No, I’m not asking you to be a Phil Ochs, you know. But like "God on Our Side."
BOB DYLAN: Yeah.
CALLER: Or "Masters of War." Yeah, yeah.
BOB DYLAN: Oh, God, man. "With God on Your Side" is contained in like — you know, like two lines of something like "Desolation Row."
CALLER: Yeah, yeah, right. Yes, yes.
BOB DYLAN: My whole song is [inaudible] you know, in two lines. I mean, if you can’t pick it out, single it out, that’s not my problem.
CALLER: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. But what I’m saying is — what I’m saying is, like, it’s a lot more subtle there. I think it is.
BOB DYLAN: It’s not —- it’s not -—
BOB FASS: Wait a minute, which one do you think is more subtle?
CALLER: Pardon?
BOB FASS: Which one do you think is more subtle?
CALLER: Something like "Desolation Row."
BOB DYLAN: It’s not more subtle. It’s just more to the point. It’s just more — it’s just more — it doesn’t spare you any time to, you know, to string anything together. It is all together. It doesn’t pretend like it has to do anything, that’s all.
CALLER: Yeah, well —
BOB DYLAN: Hey, I don’t know. I can’t talk about what I do. I’m not going to —
CALLER: Well, no, no, no. Well, take, like, the Forest Hills concert.
BOB DYLAN: I don’t do that. That’s all.
CALLER: You’re not, you know, doing something now, I mean, about it. I mean —
BOB DYLAN: About what?
CALLER: Well, OK, yeah, there’s very little anybody can do about — like, let’s say, take the war. OK? There’s very little anybody can do about it.
BOB DYLAN: So what can anybody do about it? It’s a war. It’s a war.
CALLER: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know, something.
BOB DYLAN: Hey, war has been around for a long time. What makes you think this is anything special?
CALLER: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, yeah, but guys are dying now.
BOB DYLAN: Of course they’re dying. Guys have always died.
CALLER: And it just seems like, you know, a couple years back —
BOB DYLAN: No, no, it’s not — you know, it’s none of my doings. I really do other things. I’m not like you.
CALLER: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I know, but —
BOB DYLAN: I’m very tied up in a lot of other daily exercises.
CALLER: Yeah, yeah, well —
BOB DYLAN: And my mind just does not work —
CALLER: Well, I realize that, but —
BOB DYLAN: — thinking about the troubles of the world. I mean, like it’s —- who am I to think about -—
CALLER: Yeah, yeah, but you were —
BOB DYLAN: — to carry the world on my shoulders?
AMY GOODMAN: Excerpt of Bob Fass’s show, Radio Unnameable in 1966. Bob Dylan being taken on for not singing more about the Vietnam War. Bob, you remember that show?
BOB FASS: Yes, I do. I also have something to say about "Maggie’s Farm." It’s very important to me, right at this moment, for a lot of reasons I don’t need to go into. And it’s also important to me in many different ways in the past. For instance, in the — around the first time I met him, when I heard the song, I knew immediately that it wasn’t referring to a farm — in my mind, anyway — but it was referring to a kind of tape recorder called a "magnetoscope" or a "magnetophone" that —- I can tell you more things about that, but you’ll have to ask me. I’ll go on. It was owned by John Hammond, Sr., who looms large in his legend. And -—
AMY GOODMAN: Explain quickly who John Hammond is.
BOB FASS: Well, he was the man who first recorded Bob Dylan and many other very important people who were, when he discovered them, completely unrepresented in major recordings and in the major mainstream popular culture. He was brilliant. And his son is a brilliant, brilliant folksinger, and who has all of those other — John Hammond Jr., as well. Again, I have a tendency now to tell you too much.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk also about Vietnam.
BOB FASS: Vietnam.
AMY GOODMAN: And Bob Dylan.
BOB FASS: Well, from almost the first minute that we went to demonstrations about Vietnam, other people that had known him or knew him were trying to pull his coattail about, you know, singing some kind of a song. And the best that anyone could ever get from him is, "Yeah, I know about that. I already wrote about it. Look through my stuff. See what you can find." I’m not even sure if that came directly from him, because he never said it to me. But one of the many, even then, Dylan imitators who called me on the phone, whose faces I didn’t see, said, "Let’s hear ’Maggie’s Farm.’" And, you know, sometimes I was tired of it, and other times I was really glad to hear it. And more about that some other time.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s go to a break.
BOB FASS: Good.
AMY GOODMAN: And then we will come back. Today, Bob Dylan turns 70. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: "Tangled Up in Blue," Bob Dylan, here on Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. [...] Our guests are Elizabeth Thomson, who has revised and updated Robert Shelton’s book, No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan, and Bob Fass.
Now, as we were playing "Tangled Up in Blue," Bob, you were looking at Bob Dylan’s face and saying it’s a mask.
BOB FASS: Yeah, I said that there are always masks in his private life and in his public life. And in that "Rolling Thunder" tour and in a movie that’s not released at the moment,Renaldo and Clara, he — in one of the improvised scenes, as well as the concert performances that are in the film, you can see him in some of the unedited versions of that film with a mask. You can see Joan Baez wearing a mask to look like Bob Dylan. And you can see both of them having masks on top of masks, translucent masks over paint masks. And, you know, he always, without necessarily meaning it, gives little clues like that. And I’m always overwhelmed and amazed.
AMY GOODMAN: You talked about Joan Baez.
BOB FASS: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk about Bob Dylan’s, well, one of his closest musical partners in the ’60s and ’70s, Joan Baez. In 2002, she joined us on Democracy Now!, and I asked her how she first met Bob Dylan.
JOAN BAEZ: I think the first time I saw Bob was in Gerde’s Folk singing — what do you call it? Gerde’s Folk City. And he was just standing up there, a kid, and singing things he wrote that I thought were phenomenal. And I think the next time I saw him was in somebody’s apartment, and he was singing "Hard Rain," which he had just written. It’s just hard to believe the words that he wrote. The stuff that came out just poured and poured and poured.
AMY GOODMAN: How did it influence you? How did you influence him, in your music, in your politics, the routes you chose to go?
JOAN BAEZ: I don’t know how I influenced him. I think what he gave me was — I refer to it as a musical arsenal, you know, because he wrote — if I had been able to write the songs like that, that would have been what I would have written, you know? And they’re songs that are everlasting. And at that time, it’s interesting, once they came from him, and it had a hint of something political, it didn’t matter what they said. They were a tool. They were antiwar. They were pro-civil rights, whether he liked it or not.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, "whether he liked it or not"?
JOAN BAEZ: Well, he wasn’t actively political. After — I think at the beginning, he had been in the South, and he had — you know, he had been political, in a sense, by being with the people there. But by the time I knew him, he didn’t — I mean, for the next 40 years, people — every time I went to a march, they’d say, "Is Bob going to be here?" And he didn’t go to marches, you know?
AMY GOODMAN: And what did he think of your getting arrested, of your marching with Martin Luther King?
JOAN BAEZ: I have no idea. I think he just didn’t want to think about it all, you know.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Joan Baez talking about Bob Dylan. Elizabeth Thomson, their relationship?
ELIZABETH THOMSON: Well, I think she said at some time that it was a very — in fact, it was a very brief affair. I mean, it’s acquired a vast, mythic status, and they’ve both written about it. I think it’s — the period of time that it went on for was actually really quite brief in 1963. Of course, it meant that Dylan split up with Suzie. But they were incredibly — I mean, he gave voice to her. She wasn’t then writing songs. She did later write songs. And, you know, when you see those pictures from Newport '63, when she crowned — you know, the folk queen with the crown prince of folk, all the rest of it — I mean, they're not particularly good musical performances, but I think the intensity of those — "With God on Our Side" and "We Shall Overcome," the finale to the '63 Newport Folk Festival — were extraordinary, and then the March on Washington in ’63, when they were together. And, of course, it ended unhappily in London, when he didn't invite her on stage. And then they got back together for the "Rolling Thunder Revue" for those more extraordinary performances.
But it’s a very — I was very struck in the Baez documentary on PBS a couple of years ago with all the joint footage. You know, you could see in their eyes — they were kind of horsing around backstage doing "Wild Mountain Thyme" — you know, they clearly really loved each other. And they’ve both written about their affair, she most famously inDiamonds and Rust, where — which ends, you know, "There we are hanging out the window of that crummy hotel over Washington Square," which was the Earle, which was the hub of the folk music. It’s now no longer a crummy hotel over Washington Square. It’s the Washington Square Hotel, and a fantastic hotel, wonderful place to stay. And it has a huge part in the whole story, as does Washington Square. It was where it happened, for me. It’s full of — I was three when the '60s dawned, but I'd walk around those streets, and the kind of the ghosts and the excitement of that time, I mean, they’re palpable still, I think. An incredible period of time and an incredible relationship.
AMY GOODMAN: Since we’re talking birthdays, today the 70th, I wanted to go to 1986 just before Bob Dylan’s 45th birthday. He called in once again to Bob Fass’s radio show, Radio Unnameable, on BAI.
BOB FASS: Hello.
BOB DYLAN: What you doing?
BOB FASS: Well, Bob, it’s your birthday in a couple of days. That probably slipped your mind.
BOB DYLAN: [inaudible] birthday back. I forgot to tell you.
BOB FASS: What’s that?
BOB DYLAN: I pushed my birthday back this year.
BOB FASS: Oh, you did?
BOB DYLAN: Yeah.
BOB FASS: Did you go to a court and have it legally changed?
BOB DYLAN: No, I just did.
BOB FASS: You went to an astrologer?
BOB DYLAN: No, I just — you know.
BOB FASS: When did you push it back to?
BOB DYLAN: Pushed it back just a few weeks.
BOB FASS: Uh-huh. When will it be now?
BOB DYLAN: I don’t know. I’d like it to be in New York. You know, I think I’ll push it back, actually, until I get there.
BOB FASS: How does it feel to sing the same song, "Blowin’ in the Wind," for 30 years?
BOB DYLAN: Well, it still feels the same, you know? Still feels like it was just written yesterday.
BOB FASS: It sounds like you still mean it, really mean it. And one time you told me you didn’t think people would get it about one particular song. And I really think people are getting it. Maybe a little too late.
BOB DYLAN: Well.
BOB FASS: But —
BOB DYLAN: Well, you know, it’s nice to be appreciated, though, on any level, at any time.
BOB FASS: Well, we don’t mean to embarrass you, Bobby. We just want to say thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Bob Fass and Bob Dylan just before Bob Dylan’s 45th birthday, as we go back now to Bob Dylan’s appearance on WBAI, again Broadside radio show, May 1962. He performed an early version of a song that would soon become that classic. He was introduced by Izzy Young.
IZZY YOUNG: Topical songs have been the topic of the program this afternoon. We’ve just about reached the end of the program, and I’d like Bob Dylan to sing the last song, called "The Answer Is Blowin’ in the Wind." And — I’m sorry?
BOB DYLAN: I was just going to sing it. Oh, is it "The Answer Is Blowin’ in the Wind"? That one. Oh, OK.
IZZY YOUNG: Because I think this song, while being a topical song, is just filled with poetry that people of all kinds are going to enjoy.
BOB DYLAN: [singing] How many roads must a man walk down
Before he is called a man?
And how many seas must a white dove sail
Before he sleeps in the sand?
And how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
And how many years must a mountain exist
Before it is washed in the sea?
And how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
And how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
And how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
And how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
And how many deaths will it take ’til he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Bob Dylan on WBAI in 1962. And that does it for today’s broadcast. ... Read More →IZZY YOUNG: Thank you, Bob Dylan. Gil Turner, Pete Seeger, Sis Cunningham, myself, Israel Young.
Headlines:
Woman Accuses Trump of Sexual Assault: "His Hands Were All Over Me"
Donald Trump is facing a barrage of accusations of sexual harassment and assault from multiple women, including a journalist, two former Miss USA beauty pageant contestants and two women who told The New York Times Trump sexually assaulted them, groping their bodies or kissing their lips without their consent. This is Jessica Leeds, speaking about sitting next to Trump on a plane in the early 1980s.
Meanwhile, a former Miss USA beauty pageant contestant has told The Guardian Donald Trump walked in on her and a fellow contestant as the two were getting dressed during the pageant in 2001. She says she was changing when she heard a security officer tell someone outside the room that people were naked in the dressing room. She says Trump then "walked in, he stood and he stared. He was doing it because he knew that he could." Donald Trump owned the Miss USA pageant at the time. Four years later, Trump boasted of walking in on beauty pageant contestants during an interview with "The Howard Stern Show."
At least two other women have also come forward to accuse Trump of sexual assault, following the release of a 2005 video in which Trump boasts about sexually assaulting women. Mindy McGillivray told the Florida newspaper The Palm Beach Post that Trump groped her while she was at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club 13 years ago. People magazine reporter Natasha Stoynoff also says Trump sexually assaulted her at the Mar-a-Lago in 2005, when she was interviewing him and Melania for a story about the first anniversary of their wedding. Stoynoff writes Trump was giving her a tour of the estate when "Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat." She writes that he also said, "You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you?"
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The winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature this year is Bob Dylan. In an announcement this morning, the Nobel Committee praised Dylan "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."
In Iowa, water protectors have again temporarily shut down construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline, after Krissana Mara locked herself to an excavator at a worksite in Keokuk. The group Mississippi Stand says a reporter was also arrested while covering the lockdown. The proposed Dakota Access pipeline would carry fracked oil from the oilfields of North Dakota through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois.
And an update on our coverage of the Dakota Access pipeline and the resistance to it: Democracy Now! will be heading back to North Dakota to continue our coverage of the standoff at Standing Rock. As has been reported here and elsewhere, as a result of Democracy Now!’s reporting over Labor Day weekend last month, Amy Goodman was charged by the state of North Dakota with criminal trespass. A warrant was issued for her arrest on September 8—five days after we released video of the Dakota Access pipeline company’s security guards physically assaulting nonviolent, mostly Native American land protectors, pepper-spraying them and unleashing attack dogs, one of which was shown with blood dripping from its nose and mouth.
-------
Donald Trump is facing a barrage of accusations of sexual harassment and assault from multiple women, including a journalist, two former Miss USA beauty pageant contestants and two women who told The New York Times Trump sexually assaulted them, groping their bodies or kissing their lips without their consent. This is Jessica Leeds, speaking about sitting next to Trump on a plane in the early 1980s.Jessica Leeds: "It was a real shock when all of a sudden his hands were all over me. He started encroaching on my space. And I hesitate to use this expression, but I’m going to. And that is, he was like an octopus. It was like he had six arms. He was all over the place. But it’s when he started putting his hand up my skirt, and that was it. That was it. I was out of there."
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Bob Dylan Wins 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature
The winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature this year is Bob Dylan. In an announcement this morning, the Nobel Committee praised Dylan "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."TOPICS:
Iowa: Woman Locks Herself to Excavator, Delaying #DAPL Construction
In Iowa, water protectors have again temporarily shut down construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline, after Krissana Mara locked herself to an excavator at a worksite in Keokuk. The group Mississippi Stand says a reporter was also arrested while covering the lockdown. The proposed Dakota Access pipeline would carry fracked oil from the oilfields of North Dakota through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois.TOPICS:
DN! Returning to North Dakota to Continue Coverage of Dakota Access Pipeline
And an update on our coverage of the Dakota Access pipeline and the resistance to it: Democracy Now! will be heading back to North Dakota to continue our coverage of the standoff at Standing Rock. As has been reported here and elsewhere, as a result of Democracy Now!’s reporting over Labor Day weekend last month, Amy Goodman was charged by the state of North Dakota with criminal trespass. A warrant was issued for her arrest on September 8—five days after we released video of the Dakota Access pipeline company’s security guards physically assaulting nonviolent, mostly Native American land protectors, pepper-spraying them and unleashing attack dogs, one of which was shown with blood dripping from its nose and mouth.Protester: "These people are just threatening all of us with these dogs. And she, that woman over there, she was charging, and it bit somebody right in the face."
Amy Goodman: "The dog has blood in its nose and its mouth."
Protester: "And she’s still standing here threatening us."
Amy Goodman: "Why are you letting their—her dog go after the protesters? It’s covered in blood!"
Goodman will be turning herself in to authorities at the Morton County jail in North Dakota on Monday morning at 8 a.m. North Dakota time and intends to vigorously fight this charge as she sees it as a direct attack on the First Amendment, freedom of the press?and the public’s right to know. More information is available at democracynow.org.
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"Putting Their Bodies on the (Pipe)line" by Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan
Hurricane Matthew has come and gone, leaving devastation in its wake. So far, at least 1,000 people are reported to have died in Haiti, and at least 39 have died throughout the southeastern United States. In North Carolina, the rivers are still rising. In this election year, given the destruction, you would think climate change would be a major issue. In the presidential debates, which tens of millions watch, there has hardly been a mention. It is what is happening outside, at the grass roots around the country, that gives us hope.
The movement to combat climate change is growing dynamically and unpredictably, and is facing increasing repression from the fossil-fuel industry and government authorities. There is perhaps no better example of this than the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The tribe has made treaties with the United States for more than a century and a half, and every one of them has been broken by the federal government. So it should come as no surprise that a panel of federal judges ruled against the Standing Rock Sioux, allowing construction of the controversial $3.8 billion oil pipeline to continue. To add insult to injury, the decision came, surprisingly, on a Sunday, on the eve of Columbus Day, which many indigenous people view as a day celebrating the start of the genocide against native peoples in the Western Hemisphere.
“The Standing Rock Sioux tribe is not backing down from this fight,” Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, said in a statement. “We are guided by prayer, and we will continue to fight for our people. We will not rest until our lands, people, waters and sacred places are permanently protected from this destructive pipeline.”
In a break with history, though, and despite the court’s order, the U.S. Army, along with the departments of Justice and the Interior, issued a statement as well, saying: “The Army will not authorize constructing the Dakota Access Pipeline on Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe. We repeat our request that the pipeline company voluntarily pause all construction activity within 20 miles east or west of Lake Oahe. We also look forward to a serious discussion during a series of consultations ... on whether there should be nationwide reform on the Tribal consultation process for these types of infrastructure projects.”
It is on that Army Corps of Engineers land that the main resistance camps have been set up, where thousands, mostly indigenous people from more than 200 tribes from across the U.S., Canada and Latin America, have gathered to protect land and water from the pipeline. This is Lakota-Dakota ancestral land, taken without tribal consent by the U.S. Army.
In August, these protectors — they don’t call themselves “protesters” — put out a call for international prayers and solidarity. Each day, creative acts of nonviolent direct action are happening, up and down the 1,200-mile length of the proposed pipeline. On Wednesday, in Keokuk, Iowa, 31-year-old Krissana Mara locked herself to an excavator at the site where the Dakota Access Pipeline is slated to cross the Mississippi River. The growing resistance there, called #MississippiStand, seeks to block the pipeline from traversing that river, as the Standing Rock actions are blocking the pipeline from going under the Missouri River.
Meanwhile, in a stunning coordinated action, nine climate activists were arrested Tuesday for attempting to shut down all tar-sands oil coming into the United States from Canada by manually turning off pipelines in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and Washington state. One of the protesters, Leonard Higgins, said on a video later posted online from the pipeline site in Coal Banks, Montana: “We’re in a state of emergency to protect our loved ones and our families, our communities. We need to step up as citizens and take action where our leaders are not. That’s what I’m prepared to do when I close the valve.”
Also among the nine arrested was Ken Ward. In 2013, Ward and Jay O’Hara anchored a small lobster boat off the coast of Massachusetts, blocking a ship from delivering 40,000 tons of coal to the Brayton Point power plant, one of the region’s largest contributors to greenhouse gases. In a remarkable turn of events, their prosecutor, local District Attorney Samuel Sutter, dropped the criminal charges against the men, saying: “Climate change is one of the gravest crises our planet has ever faced. In my humble opinion, the political leadership on this issue has been gravely lacking.”
Perhaps leadership from the top has been lacking. But from a small boat bobbing in the ocean to the growing resistance camps in North Dakota, the climate movement is on the rise.
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