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Transcript
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Welcome to the Real News Network I'm
Paul JM Baltimore welcome to a new
episode of reality asserts itself we we
went he he he went on
to we went
on can you tell the Muslim people their
lives are as precious as our lives can
you take the drones out of the hands of
the CIA can you stop the signature
strikes that are killing people on the
basis of suspicious
activities apologize to the thousands of
Muslims that you have killed will you
compensate the innocent family victims
that will make us safer here at home I
love my country I love the rule of the
Dr are making us l and keep
people the voice of that
woman uh is worth paying attention
to obvious
obviously uh obviously I do not agree
with much of what she
said and obviously she wasn't listening
to me in much of what I said well the
young lady President Obama referred to
is now in our studio and now joining us
is Media Benjamin thanks for joining us
media thank you media Benjamin is
perhaps one of the nation's most
prominent anti-war activists she
co-founded the wom women's L Grassroots
activist group code pink in 2002 she's
also was co-founder and former
co-director of global exchange and
international human rights organization
in which media emerged as a key figure
in the anti- sweat shop campaigns to
change the Garment and shoe industry she
worked for 10 years in econom as an
economist and nutritionist in Latin
America and Africa for the United
Nations food and agricultural
organization the World Health
Organization and the Swedish
International Development agency and
she's written many books including drone
Warfare killing by remote control thanks
very much for joining us nice to be here
Paul and I I should add you're also a
favorite Target of of Glenn Beck but
we'll get to that later later in the
interviews um so as most of you know who
watch reality asserts itself uh we start
with a personal backstory of Our Guest a
little bit about why they think what
they think
so tell us a little bit about growing up
the household you grew up in politically
what what kind of household was it would
would your parents have be surprised
that you grew up to be this prominent
anti-war activist what what did they
expect of you well first I just got a
comment on the young lady from Obama
because when I go back tell my story I
was born in 1952 so that makes me over
60 uh and I grew up in a very um sort of
normal Suburban Long Island household
Jewish parents they weren't very
political when I look back I couldn't
even say if they were democrat or
republican I think it didn't really
matter very much they voted but they
weren't involved in politics and what
they wanted for me was that I marry a
Jewish doctor I think that was the
extent of it and had kids and um
and then uh my life changed because the
world was changing around okay well
before you move on um you're born you
know at the height of the Cold War and
and McCarthyism House of unamerican
Activities Committee and and the
narrative one grows up with in those
days is is one of America is it going to
save the world from the horrible evil uh
and the beacon on the hill uh and and
the whole idea of being a denter is is
is not just Mar marginalized it's it's
it's on the edge of being
criminalized that's the the general
culture of the time of the 50s uh your
parents kind of go wittingly unwittingly
are go along with that you're raised in
that you go to school put your hand on
your and say I pledge allegiance to the
flag you jump under the tables when
there's the the the drill that the the
Soviets are going to come to bomb us um
sure that was definitely the atmosphere
I grew up in I don't think it affect Ed
my life all that much because my family
wasn't political I mean they were more
concerned about when uh 5:00 came it was
happy hour and uh they were quite um
into partying and uh pretty um much into
their business world and friends and uh
the going to Temple was just something
we did on the weekend more for
socializing so I would say that until I
went into middle scho School uh politics
didn't enter into my life very much but
you internalized the general
narrative I'd never really internalized
the general narrative because I was a
rebel from the time I was born um my
mother says the first thing I learned
how to say was I'll do it myself uh I
was always questioning always
questioning so I I never really accepted
that narrative either I always wondered
you know why was it that we were being
taught to be afraid of somebody of of a
country that was uh thousands of miles
away and um I didn't really buy into the
narrative from early on well as you
start to become more mature and more
conscious you know you start becoming 11
12 13 and it's not very long before the
Vietnam war
starts yeah and it didn't affect me
until I got into high school because
that's when my peers were starting to be
drafted and especially my sister's peers
cuz she was 2 years older than I was and
so it was really uh I mean I I I heard
about it I saw it on the news but when
it really starts affecting you is when
you know people who are getting shipped
off to Vietnam and that's when it really
started striking me of wait you know why
are these friends of mine being uh told
that they should go fight an enemy
that's thousands of miles away that we
really know nothing about so and School
you organize an anti-war group so what
gets into you what I mean by that is a
lot of people knew people that were
being shipped overseas and had these
things happen to them but they don't
start to organize you do well what
really hit me was my sister's boyfriend
who was sent off to Vietnam and he was
in the football team a really nice
All-American kind of guy and 6 months
later he sent her the ear of a Viet Kong
as a souvenir you know with a to wear it
around her neck and that really struck
me that was one of those pivotal moments
when I said Uh something's really crazy
if you think somebody else's body part a
dead person's body part is something you
should proudly wear uh this ain't right
how'd your sister react to it my sister
uh showed it to me and then stuck it in
her draw and never took it out again and
uh in the end did not continue her
relationship with this guy who turned
out to you know be totally changed by by
this experience and in the meantime
there were also racial issues in my
school um it had been a white Community
where black families started moving in
and uh it didn't go down well in the
school with black and white kids uh in
those days we didn't have guns thank
goodness but we had knives and people
were really you know knifing each other
in the halls of the school on a racial
basis on a racial basis and so my school
had Riot police in the Halls
and um between seeing people stab each
other around race issues and the Vietnam
issues I just started realizing
something was very very wrong started
researching learning talking to people
and began organizing and you're now what
15 I'm now about 15 yeah to start with
the race issues and how did you react
this must have been a shock for you this
starts happening you hadn't had you
encountered anything like this before
and and and what sparked
it well what sparked the fights or what
sparked my own uh the fights well it was
a very redneck community and um it was a
pretty a poor community and when uh
black families started moving in there
was the whole issue about what's this
going to do to property prices and the
the the parents of a lot of my friends
in school saying you know this is not
good for our community and I think they
got got it from their parents the the
redneck kids and um immediately started
taking out their aggression against the
black kids many of whom had just moved
into the community or or started to be
bust into the community so it was um
racial tensions flaring and uh and in
the country the Civil Rights Movement
Rising how aware are you of that well I
became aware of it once I started seeing
the the the fights going on in my school
I started getting more involved in it
and realizing that this was part of
something that was happening all over
the country and that I wanted to be on
the side of uh uh that I thought was the
side of justice and so I was siding with
the the new uh black girls in my class
and learning from them what it was like
coming into a white school and were you
targeted or marginalized by some of the
white racist
kids um yeah yeah um but um I I found
and created a group that tried to bridge
that gap which was what it was uh
unitarians Jews some of the an actual
formal group called what a group that we
created um it was a it we started among
the the the women the the girls and
started actually through the gym class
where there had been a lot of the fights
erupting so um what made you think to do
that I mean had you seen some models of
organizing somewhere well actually I I
got beat up by one of the girls in the
gym class and um it wasn't a fun
experience and it was one of the black
girls and uh I went to get some help to
try to from the counselor to try to deal
with it and realized that this was part
of a much larger thing and that it
wasn't about me um it was about a part
of a a bigger movement that was
happening and I then wanted to sit down
with that girl and and talk it through
uh which we did and out of that came
this
group so then from there comes the
anti-war organizing yeah the anti-war
organizing I realized that uh we need to
educate people in the schools because
there were a lot of pro uh Vietnam kids
in the school and that we needed to
create a visible presence Pro Vietnam
War Pro Vietnam War also kids in with
parents in the military yeah parents in
the military and these kids had Brothers
in the
military so um we created a group that
would learned peace songs and uh started
singing outside of school and organizing
walkouts from school uh we even went so
far as to realize that this was
happening in a national level how do you
have a voice at the national level and
started working on the campaign of a uh
a very strong anti-war candidate his
name was Al Lowenstein and got involved
in his campaign talk about the walk out
I mean how much support was growing for
you in the school for the organizing
well first we were about four of us and
um it was growing and people were
learning as we went along and we did a
number of walkouts and we started
coordinating them with other schools in
the area uh and as we organized we got a
lot more support and a lot of antagonism
so I did learn at an early age that when
you stick your neck out uh you're going
to get uh a lot of negative attention
and you were okay with that and I was
okay with it and it made me stronger and
I became uhe of my um uh student
newspaper and the student yearbook and
uh became involved in trying to uh shape
how the students what they were reading
uh what was coming out from our school
and um I learned that uh I could be
persuasive persuasive in talking to
people and that uh organizing was an
important part of educating so in terms
of your formative years and pivotal
moments in terms of your outlook what's
what's the next big event for you I went
off to college and it was
the60s when so much was happening to
question the entire World it wasn't just
questioning Vietnam it was questioning
capitalism it was questioning the way we
live together it was questioning how we
learned uh it was questioning our
relationships with anybody over 30 and
um I dropped out of school after the
first semester I went to tus University
but um it uh it didn't seem right to me
uh I joined the students for Democratic
Society SDS uh I um started doing um
organizing in school and uh I felt like
uh tough's University was part of the
problem because they had a a Diplomatic
School called the Fletcher school and I
thought at that time I wanted to be a
diplomat so I went and sat in on the
classes and it was all about the Cold
War and it was war games and it was uh
teaching us how to conquer and uh uh
other people and I felt that the whole
school was caught up in that mindset and
I didn't want to be there so I dropped
out and decided that I wasn't going to
pay anybody to teach me I was going to
travel around the world and learn and uh
spent the next four years traveling and
how are your parents with all of this
well for a while they didn't know they
thought I was at a a semester
overseas uh and I tried to keep that
secret for a while until um I realized
that it was important to try to move
them along as well well and uh I must
say it took me many years my parents
thought I was going through a phase and
they kept waiting for that phase to be
over till the day they died I think
never married the uh the Jewish doctor
uh never had the more traditional life
that they had wanted now you were born
with a fairly traditional name Susan is
your name but you renamed yourself media
when and
why when I turned 18 and I was went off
to school at tough
I felt that uh 18 was a transition
period for people and that they should
uh then look back and see if their names
fit them and I looked back and I was
suie I was the little Susie and there
were always s Susans and uh uh I didn't
like my name I felt that it didn't
reflect um who I was and that I was
going to change my name so i' had been
reading Greek myths at the time and I
would try a different name every month
and tell everybody to call me okay now
I'm IO and now I'm uh uh whatever the
name of the month was and when it got to
Media I really liked the name I mean I
knew that there were there was the
version of media that she was a uh a
woman with magical powers who didn't use
them to the best ends let's say I
doesn't she have a her boy her boyfriend
husband betrays her so she kills her
kids yeah but you know that was one
version of another version said it was
because she had magical powers that was
blamed on her but then I started looking
at the name and the name actually means
a lot of things in different languages
and different cultures and I just
thought it was actually a pretty name so
I CH I kept that name and it's been your
name since been my name since so in
terms of traveling around the world
often uh changes the way someone looks
at the world especially when you start
breaking all the old habits you get away
from home I I personally found it can be
very transforming it kind of frees your
brain up to look at things again was
that like that for you well it made me
not only look at the world very
differently it made me look at my own
country very differently traveling in
Latin America I learned a history of US
intervention in Latin America that I
never knew before uh traveling
throughout Europe I found uh other
cultures and peoples and met uh
immigrants from Africa who told me about
us influence in in Africa uh and I was
just fascinated by the the kinds of ways
that people looked at the United States
and um so I traveled throughout Europe
for I went into Africa and along the way
you pick up like four or five languages
I studied uh languages just on the
street I ended up learning a lot of
languages I worked my way along with
everything from picking grapes to
teaching English and uh finally realized
that I wanted to work in Africa
with uh poor communities that were
trying to liberate themselves or had
just liberated themselves from
colonialism and that I needed a skill
that I couldn't just show up and say
okay you know I'm going to do physical
labor or teach English that I really
should learn something that I could give
back and that's when I decided to uh
quickly get an undergraduate degree and
then get a graduate degree in uh Public
Health Nutrition how quickly I did that
all very very quickly how
quickly I'd say I did the undergraduate
degree in about a year um and then I um
did the graduate degree in another year
I did a a degree at Colombia that would
normally take about three years I did it
in one year this is because you worked
hard it's because you're a smart cookie
it was because I decided that um that's
the only uh amount of time that I would
dedicate to it I would take all the
classes that I could take and just get
it done because I knew I wanted to go
back to Africa and I just felt uh once I
had a skill and a and a graduate degree
it would be easier for me to get the
kind of work are you already at this
point mostly a political being in the
sense that that's what's driving you in
making most of your life decisions I
think so I had a teacher when I was at
Columbia doing the Master's Degree who
uh to taught me to look at the food
situation from a very political point of
view and I told her you know you
radicalized me she said you're crazy you
came in here radical uh I think having
traveled around the world uh I really
looked at the us as uh a country that
was trying to impose its political and
economic will on a lot of other
countries around the world and uh always
coming from the point of view of the
underdog uh it didn't seem right to me
and I I guess at that point I was
already an activist okay we're going to
pick this up in part two of our
interview with media Benjamin on reality
asserts itself on the Real News Network
please join us for that
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