|
Edited on Wed Jan-16-08 06:27 PM by cyclezealot
Goodman: In court filings, NBC painted itself as the victim. Attorneys for the network wrote, “Mr. Kucinich’s claim is nothing more than an illegitimate private cause of action designed to impose an equal access requirement that entirely undermines the wide journalistic freedoms enjoyed by news organizations under the First Amendment.” Attorneys for General Electric’s NBC also argued, “A television station does not have to grant unlimited access to a candidate debate. If anyone’s First Amendment rights are being infringed, they are MSNBC’s ** REP. DENNIS KUCINICH:NBC, GE, maintained—well, they—you know, we were invited and as a result of meeting criteria of being in the top four in a national poll. This was before Bill Richardson dropped out. And when I met the criteria, NBC then announced they had changed the criteria so it would only be the top three that would be invited. We challenged that as a contract, and attorneys in Nevada won a case before a superior court judge, who said that NBC had an obligation to provide me with a place in the debate, and if they did not, he would stop the debate from happening. NBC—and when that account was journalized, NBC then immediately contacted the Supreme Court, and a hearing was held. I was told it was an extraordinary hearing of all seven members of the Supreme Court, who—three of whom were in Carson City, Nevada and were teleconferenced in, and they heard a presentation by NBC’s attorneys, who maintained that the debate was essentially a private matter and that no—you know, really little discussion on their part of any public interest came up. They alluded that, alternatively, this was a matter that should have been brought before the FCC, not a contract matter, and then, in the same breath, said that cable networks aren’t to the FCC.
So we’ve—you know, we’re in a conundrum here about what the public’s rights are, because this goes far beyond my humble candidacy. It goes right to the question of democratic governance, whether a broadcast network can choose who the candidates will be based on their narrow concerns, because they’ve contributed—GE, NBC and Raytheon, another one of GE’s property, have all contributed substantially to Democratic candidates who were in the debate. And the fact of the matter is, with GE building nuclear power plants, they have a vested interest in Yucca Mountain in Nevada being kept open; with GE being involved with Raytheon, another defense contractor, they have an interest in war continuing. So NBC ends up being their propaganda arm to be able to advance their economic interests.
**
AMY GOODMAN: Then we’re going to go to break. Congressmember Kucinich will take his seat, well, in a sense, at that debate last night in Las Vegas. When we come back from break, we’re going to play excerpts of the MSNBC debate and hear what Dennis Kucinich has to say, how he answers the questions as well. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report, as we break the sound barrier. Stay with us.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the Las Vegas debate on MSNBC, the debate moderator, Brian Williams, the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News
**
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Senator Edwards, I neglected to point out that one of the companies keeping these giant American banks afloat is Kuwait, a nation, an economy arguably afloat itself today, as you know, thanks to the blood, sweat and tears of American soldiers. What would you do as a remedy?
**
AMY GOODMAN: And now the voice excluded from this debate on this key issue around war, we put that question that Tim Russert put to you, Congressmember Kucinich, as well as the other candidates in New Hampshire, around the withdrawal of troops.
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: I’m the only person running for president who not only voted against the war, but voted 100% of the time against funding the war. What you’ve heard here is a bunch of nuancing. They’re all saying the same thing, that they will keep troops in Iraq. The troops will be kept there to protect an embassy. The troops will be kept there for counterinsurgency and for training the Iraqi military.
Well, the fact of the matter is, we must get out of Iraq. We must end the occupation, close the bases, bring the troops home. We don’t have a right to have an embassy there, as we are an occupying army. And any way that the United States government would keep its foot in the door of Iraq is a way that the war will continue, because the occupation is fueling the insurgency.
I’m the only one running who had a plan that was introduced immediately after the invasion that called for not only an end to the occupation, closing of the bases, bringing the troops home, but also a parallel process of an international security and peacekeeping force that would move in as our troops leave. We cannot get such a force until the United States determines it will end the occupation. Once we determine we will do that, we can move and to have a rapprochement with Syria, as well as opening diplomatic relations with Iran for the first time in twenty-nine years.
It’s vitally important that we work to effect a program of reconciliation between the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds; an honest reconstruction program, where we get rid of the crooked contractors and the mercenaries who have compounded the American occupation. In addition to that, we need to have a program of reparations to the Iraqi people. Over a million innocent Iraqis have been killed. We must repair the breach. That breach was a monetary one. It is a moral and social one. We have a lot of work to do there, and we’re going to have to do it not by occupying, but by showing that we can have a leader who’s compassionate enough to recognize a moral and financial responsibility to the Iraqi people.
We also have to make sure that the Iraqi people have full control of their oil. I’m the only one who’s running who understood immediately that the Bush program for reconciliation was in fact a plan to privatize Iraq’s oil in order to gain control over a $30 billion oil wealth.
I think that it is manifestly clear that the only person running for president who will bring our troops home, who will get out of there within three months from taking office, is myself. And all the others have tried to game this issue. They either voted for the war, in the case of Senator Edwards and Senator Clinton, or they voted to fund the war, in the case of Senator Edwards, Senator Clinton and Senator Obama, who, by the way, campaigned in saying, well, he opposed the war from the start, but then when he was elected to the Senate, his voting record is indistinguishable from Senator Clinton’s with respect to funding the war. So you can’t talk out of both sides of your mouth on this thing. You’re either for getting out of Iraq, or you’re not. If you’re for getting out of Iraq, you don’t keep troops there for any purpose whatsoever
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/16/breaking_the_sound_barrier_democracy_now |
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
