AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to Democracy Now! Ed Asner in our studio here in New York. We’re also joined by jazz musician Oscar Brown Jr. and by Palestinian poet Suheir Hammad. And we welcome you all to the studio, all part of the Not in Our Name activities that are taking place this week leading up to Sunday, the anniversary of the bombing of Afghanistan. Welcome, Suheir.

SUHEIR HAMMAD: Good morning.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to have you with us. And Oscar.

OSCAR BROWN JR.: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Oscar Brown, how did you get involved with this?

OSCAR BROWN JR.: Well, I was called by a friend of mine in Los Angeles named Michael Slate, who wanted to know if I would be interested in coming to New York to participate. And I certainly was.

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

OSCAR BROWN JR.: Well, it seems like they’re about to have a barroom brawl worldwide, and there needs to be something done to cool things out. The policies that the Bush administration seems to be pursuing are square, I mean, in terms of not thought out as to what their consequences would be. And I just feel that the names — in our names, we need to stand up and protest and oppose that, and try to come up with some solutions to some of the problems that plague the world.

AMY GOODMAN: By way of introduction, for those of you who don’t know, Oscar Brown Jr. is considered by many to be the father of rap music, a lyricist, poet, songwriter, playwright, actor, vocalist. Oscar first gained national attention in 1960 with the release of Sin & Soul, his critically acclaimed debut album. He served as artist-in-residence at Hunter College, Malcolm X College, Howard University, among his many accomplishments.

And Suheir Hammad is going to be part of the first slam poetry performance on Broadway. Can you talk about that, and then why you’re here, why you’re part of Not in Our Name?

SUHEIR HAMMAD: Yeah, sure. On November 14th, we open up Def Poetry Jam on Broadway. So we’re taking the great white way and making it yellow and brown and red and black and all of the colors that we represent. I’m really proud to be a part of that. But I think, today and every day, I’m really proud to be a part of this statement, giving my name and my word with the thousands of Americans across the country this weekend who will stand up and give our pledge to do everything we can to resist the militarization of our names in our country.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to talk about dissent in art. Ed Asner, you were born in — when? Nineteen twenty…?

ED ASNER: Nine.

AMY GOODMAN: Nine. Seventy-one, 73, 72 years old. You’ve been through the ’50s. What were they like in terms of Hollywood and acting? And how were you affected?

ED ASNER: One of the reasons that I became an activist was I thought I always — I needed to pay back my good fortune in being a no-name actor at the time of the blacklist of the '50s and early ’60s. That's one of the reasons why I became an activist, because the red terror that supposedly was occurring in this country — once again, the enemies of the state. Actors were blacklisted. Teachers were blacklisted. Whole unions were destroyed by this communist threat — response to the communist threat.

And I think we’ll probably be getting into that now with this, with the militaristic approach to this country and the phrases that have been made. We have to watch what we say and do. The people in prison, who are not privy to legal counsel, perhaps it’s gone to 2,000 people sequestered in Guantánamo. And I wonder if this war will ever be ended so that they’ll ever see the light of freedom again. And in this country, aliens arrested helter skelter, held without notification, no legal counsel. This reminds one of the Palmer Raids of 1919, I guess it was, when they tried to clean the country of anarchists.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you find people are afraid now in Hollywood, that there is a quiet dissent but people are afraid to speak out, or that just dissent is diminishing?

ED ASNER: People are always afraid to speak out, particularly if people won’t go to their movies when they do. So, it’s something of a business decision on speaking out. But people in this country are, I think, quite sheeplike. We do not protest like other countries do. We plod along, accepting as truth what our leaders tell us. For instance, in this particular case, the threat that [Iraq] poses, all kinds of nuclear weapons are implied, chemical weapons, biological weapons, and yet nobody has brought forth the truth as to what they have. The inspectors were asked to leave in — what was it? — ’98 or '99, because they admitted to being spies for the United States. One inspector even left a homing signal by which further bombing took place by American planes. So, it is no wonder that they are resistant — have been resistant to inspectors, and why it is a great concession on their part, by our monster, Saddam Hussein, who is a monster. Look at George Bush's comments this morning personally detailing what this man has personally done. Is that the case for killing thousands of Iraqis when we invade?

AMY GOODMAN: Oscar Brown, these kinds of questions in the music world, in your world, where are you hearing the most dissent? And do you feel comfortable speaking out freely?

OSCAR BROWN JR.: Well, I’m not afraid. I have a — I’m older than Ed by three years. And I —

AMY GOODMAN: Congratulations.

OSCAR BROWN JR.: I have aches and pains to scare me worse than the police, so that I’m not afraid to speak out. I’m afraid to not speak out. I’m afraid that it’ll get to the point where you can’t speak out, because the Bush administration, Ashcroft and his ilk, are determined to shut down dissent. There’s a whole lot of stuff that needs to be questioned in this country and around the world. And there needs to be intelligent debate, intelligent investigation of what’s going on. Certainly terror terrifies me. I don’t want to be anybody’s damn collateral damage, I don’t care what the cause. But on the other hand, I want them to fight all the terror, you know, not just this perceived terror that scares Bush and his oil interests, but the terror that terrifies the neighbors in my neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, where, you know, the police will jump on you, and where the gangs have been organized to terrorize the communities in the interest of land and land grabs. So, yeah, let’s have a war on all of the terror. And let’s let that be an intelligent war that is thought out and that considers consequences. There are consequences of all these things that we’re about to do. And when you say, “Well, either you’re with us or against us,” that’s too simplistic. And so, somebody needs to speak up. As I said, you know, the squares are running it. And what we need is hip people. And by “hip,” I mean human improvement potential, that sees that the human race could get better, and not try to beat it down into submission.

ED ASNER: There’s a — the latest bumper sticker says, “There’s a terrorist behind every Bush.”

SUHEIR HAMMAD: That’s great.

AMY GOODMAN: I saw one that said, “War doesn’t determine who’s right. It determines who’s left.”

OSCAR BROWN JR.: Somebody said, “You can fool all of the people all the time.”

ED ASNER: Yeah.

OSCAR BROWN JR.: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, and those are the ones Bush is talking to.”

ED ASNER: The other one is that the first casualty of war is truth. And I think we’re watching that now.

AMY GOODMAN: Ed Asner, Oscar Brown Jr. and Suheir Hammad. Suheir, could you read some poetry for us?

SUHEIR HAMMAD: Sure. I’m actually going to read part of what we’re going to do tonight at Cooper Union at 7:30. This is “What I Will,” and I wrote this on September 10th of this year. I decided to spend September 11th of this year at home in prayer and meditation, and then meditative action for what we were about to do. This is “What I Will.”

I will not
dance to your war
drum. I will
not lend my soul nor
my bones to your war
drum. I will
not dance to your
beating. I know that beat.
It is lifeless. I know
intimately that skin
you are hitting. It
was alive once
and hunted stolen
stretched. I will
not dance to your drummed
up war. I will not pop
spin break for you. I
will not hate for you or
even hate you. I will
not kill for you. Especially
I will not die
for you. I will not mourn
the dead with murder nor
suicide. I will not side
with you nor dance to bombs
because everyone else is
dancing. Everyone can be
wrong. Life is a right not
collateral or casual. I
will not forget where
I come from. I
will craft my own drum. Gather my beloved
near and our chanting
will be dancing. Our
humming will be drumming. I
will not be played. I
will not lend my name
nor my rhythm to your
beat. I will dance
and resist and dance and
persist and dance. This heartbeat is louder than
death. Your war drum ain’t
louder than this breath.

That was dedicated to June Jordan, who we lost earlier this year. And I think her voice of — her voice as an artist and as an activist is deeply missed, at least in my living room.

AMY GOODMAN: And Suheir Hammad is the poet, 26 years old?

SUHEIR HAMMAD: I’m going to be 29!

AMY GOODMAN: Twenty-nine.

SUHEIR HAMMAD: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Palestinian American, who’s published a book of poems, Born Palestinian, Born Black, and a memoir, of all of your 20 — what, how many years when you had written that book?

SUHEIR HAMMAD: Well, it was about my childhood.

AMY GOODMAN: Drops of This Story.

SUHEIR HAMMAD: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about your childhood?

SUHEIR HAMMAD: I grew up in Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Brooklyn, two Palestinian refugee parents. And I think that these — those two worlds, of growing up in a lower-, working-class, very multicultural neighborhood in Brooklyn, and being the daughter of 1948 refugees, helped to shape my vision of what the world could be, helped me to read between the lines of corporate media. I had that in my ear all the time. I knew that what was written and said about the people that I came from was not true. So it made me question what was said about other people in other situations. And I’m blessed to have been born into that and to have been raised with that.

And, you know, every day I am — I look at what I’ve been able to do and what I hope to do, and know that, for many people, I am the first Palestinian woman who was able to articulate herself in a position that they get to see or to hear or to meet. And it’s a responsibility that I carry humbly, and I’m very proud to be here with two of my heroes. Really. I mean, I know they said 73 and — they look really, really good, don’t they? This is what revolution and activism does. It keeps you looking young. Y’all have to see these men in front of me.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, some people are. We’re broadcasting on radio around the country, Pacifica Radio and Pacifica Radio affiliates, but also on public access TV stations around the country. Suheir Hammad, Palestinian American poet. And, Ed, maybe most people don’t know your full name is what? Yitzhak Ed Asner?

ED ASNER: Well, no. As is traditional in Jewish families, you’re given a Hebrew name when you’re born. Yitzhak was my Hebrew name. But my birth certificate reads — actually, it read “Eddie Asner.” And I changed it to Edward.

AMY GOODMAN: You were raised as an Orthodox Jew?

ED ASNER: Yes. Yes, in Kansas City, Kansas.

AMY GOODMAN: How does that figure into —

ED ASNER: Which ain’t easy.

AMY GOODMAN: — your politics?

ED ASNER: What’s that?

AMY GOODMAN: When you say it “ain’t easy,” because you were the only Jewish family in your area?

ED ASNER: Oh, no, not the only Jewish family, but certainly the only, I think, Orthodox family with young kids. You just had to work a lot harder to be Orthodox.

AMY GOODMAN: Uh-huh, and how does your religion figure into your politics today? Or does it?

ED ASNER: I think it helped shape me a great deal. I think the family I came from, which was shaped by the religion, helped form me a great deal. I don’t know where my liberal instincts — and I proclaim them loudly — came from, but I think being a Jew, automatically — at the time of Hitler, automatically, at that time, makes you a liberal. And I won’t take credit for being a liberal because of my own thinking. I think I had the advantage of a lot of background.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Ed Asner, Oscar Brown Jr. and Saheir Hammad. We’ll be back with them in a minute. We’re also going to hear from some of our listeners, who have been calling in and sharing their thoughts in this time of war. This is Democracy Now! We’re going to play a little music, and then we’re going to come back.

ED ASNER: I would like to —

AMY GOODMAN: Some music.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “Peace Now,” Tom Paxton. In fact, Ed Asner, were you a part of Peace Now? Any part of the Israeli peace movement or support?

ED ASNER: I contributed to it, but I was not an activist. I contributed to it there.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! And we’re going to play a few comments of our listeners. We have been inundated with calls, as, by the way, I should add, have been congressmember and senators’ offices. Last week, Democracy Now! did a poll, called more than 70 Senate offices and found, with Republicans and Democrats alike, that the calls are coming in, not just 50 to one, and 100 to one, but sometimes 500 and 1,000 to one, Senate offices have been getting thousands of calls, overwhelmingly against war. Certainly flies in the face of what we’re seeing today on the front pages of the papers, that there will be a joint House resolution supporting Bush in an invasion of Iraq, a unilateral invasion. It does not even require U.N. sanction and does not require the president, the president-select, to inform Congress beforehand. It gives him a 48-hour grace period, but —

ED ASNER: Which is such a laugh, because the Congress has had that before, and they’ve never had the guts to be able to overrule any president.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s take a listen to some listeners.

JOHN PAT: Hi, Amy. My name is John Pat. I listen to you on KKCR. I’m on Kauai in Hawaii. And we have a retail clothing store here. And in protest of the war, if the resolution is passed, we will be closing our store one day a week on strike. And we ask all other like-minded people to join us in a one-day-a-week work stoppage.

ELLEN MURPHY: Hi. My name Ellen Murphy. I listen to KUGS, K-U-G-S, in Bellingham, Washington. We have made two 12-foot-high puppets, that are pretty awesome. One is of an Iraqi woman holding a dead child, and one is of Resident Bush, and his two arms are gas pumps. So, I know that we are ready to do any nonviolent thing we can possibly do to stop this most dangerous, dangerous administration from waging war in the Middle East.

JAMES COOPER: Hi. My name is James Cooper. I’m calling. I listen to KPFK in the Los Angeles area. I’m a Vietnam vet. And I’m really challenging all Vietnam veterans to stand up and not allow our children or our grandchildren to be raped by another war effort. The promise of our generation was destroyed by the liars in Congress, who we know for a fact have lied to us all along. So I’d like to see that change. And I challenge all Vietnam vets to stand up and make a difference. Thank you.

TEACHER: I teach at Humboldt State University. I’m in the theatre department. I have a couple classes I always teach. One is called Art of Theater. One is called Theater of Mass Media. I now go through the history of media totally looking at the history of propaganda in this country. And the focus of both classes is now America in crisis. And the good note is, these young people, who have never really thought about this stuff before, are fully engaged. Some of them are giving me a lot of resistance, but they’re there every day listening and giving me feedback. So, hopefully, that’s a good sign. Thanks a lot for your work. Bye.

HECTOR: My name is Hector. I’m calling from upstate New York. I have a 8-years-old son who saw this article that I have, and you’re saying that the United States is going to spend $200 billion in the war against Iraq. And when I returned from work, he asked me, “Daddy, is $200 billion a lot of money?” I said, “Woo, yes, that’s a lot of money.” He asked me then, “How many toys can I buy with that?” “You can buy all the factories that make toys.” “Aaah.” And I asked him, “Why? Well, why are you asking me if that is a lot of money?” “Ah, because I saw in your desk that the United States is going to spend $200 billion in the wars against Iraq. Why are we going to do that? Why don’t we do something better with that, instead of spending our money in war?” And I said, “That’s a good question, son.” So I’m planning to have my son calling the president and ask that question.

ALEXIS KOEFOED: My name is Alexis Koefoed, and I live in Vacaville, California. The neighbors think I’m crazy, but I painted a huge sign that says “peace,” and I posted it in front of my property. Today, as I drove down the highway, I found myself crying. I don’t support our military involvement in the Occupied Territories of Palestine with the military support we give Israel. And I don’t believe in going and killing more innocent victims in Iraq. And so, there is another soccer mom out there in the world who thought it was important to stand up and just say out loud that this is not the American spirit. This is not how the American people feel. We do not hate. And we do not want to kill other people. And this is completely the plan and the objective of a government. But the American people have a greater spirit than that. And I believe that we want peace. And we understand that peace, it does not involve weaponry. So, I just needed to say that out loud today to somebody, to connect and let my voice be heard, that not in my name and not in my children’s name and not in the name of all those that I love.

AMY GOODMAN: Some of the comments of listeners and viewers around the country, talking back to war. And if you’d like to share your thoughts or what you’re doing, give us a call at 212-209-2999. That’s 212-209-2999 This is Democracy Now!, the exception to the rulers. I’m Amy Goodman. Our guests Ed Asner and Oscar Brown Jr., the jazz musician, Suheir Hammad, the Palestinian American poet. Miles Solay is also with us right now. He’s with Refuse & Resist!, and he’s one of those who is organizing the Not in Our Name movement in this country.

I’m looking at a week ago New York Times, I know there’s going to be another one in the Los Angeles Times coming up this next week, that has the names of hundreds of people, including, well, the ones that stand out here, Angela Davis, Ani DiFranco, Suheir Hammad, Jeremy Glick, who lost his father in the plane crashes of September 11th — he’s co-author of — co-editor of Another World Is Possible — Eve Ensler, Tony Kushner, Michael Ratner, Saskia Sassen — just hundreds — Marisa Tomei, Gore Vidal, Gloria Steinem, Howard Zinn, John Edgar Wideman, Alice Walker, Kurt Vonnegut, Adrienne Rich, Edward Said, Wallace Shawn, Oliver Stone. Tell us about these ads and the movement, Miles Solay.

MILES SOLAY: Well, like you said, the Not in Our Name “Statement of Conscience” was first published in The New York Times this past September 19th. And tomorrow it will be in the Los Angeles Times. And after that, it’ll go on to USA Today and the International Herald Tribune. And the statement has since been signed by over 20,000 people. And it was initially come out from prominent individuals in this country, including all the others sitting at this table this morning. It has struck a particular chord within people in this country. Within days of the statement appearing in The New York Times, 80,000 people visited the website, and an additional 15,000 people signed their names on to it. And what this sort of tells us is that there is tremendous discontent and discomfort with the war on terrorism and the repression that’s going on in this country. We know it exists out there. We here sitting in this room are not alone. There are millions of people against this. What we’re now confronting, and as we move on to October 6th, which is the one-year anniversary of the bombing of Afghanistan, is that that discontent and discomfort is not enough, that we actually have to manifest resistance and not just say “not in our name,” but actually show it in word and deed and action. And tonight at Cooper Union, there’s going to be artists — here in New York City, there’s going to be artists performing pieces inspired by that, and on October 6 in cities around the country. And we encourage people to come to New York City’s Central Park, to ground zero, to say, “Not in our name.”

AMY GOODMAN: So, the other places? San Francisco, where is it going to be on Sunday?

MILES SOLAY: In San Francisco, it’s going to be in Union Square.

AMY GOODMAN: In Wisconsin?

MILES SOLAY: In Wisconsin, it’s in the Kickapoo region of the Kickapoo region hills of Wisconsin. In Los Angeles, it’s going to be at the Westwood Federal Building. In North Carolina and South — for more information, people can go to NotInOurName.net. And to read, contribute or sign the Not in Our Name “Statement of Conscience,” people can go to NION.us.

AMY GOODMAN: Ed Asner, what is America today?

ED ASNER: I just wanted to add one other thing. My wife is part of a group that created another ad, which is appearing in The New York Times today, protesting the war, and I’m very proud of her and her confederates. And they’ve got 4,000 signatures on their petition. So, petitions are coming from all over. NION, of course, is taking the lead in this and has done a gorgeous job, because we’re talking about changing America as we know it. Now, there have been times in the past where the integrity of my country was challenged. And I tried to fight it, or I worried about it, and we overcame it. But this is the worst representation. This is the worst attack on what America represents and has stood for all these years. We are destroying our credibility throughout the world by this action.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m looking at the ad in The New York Times today. It says, “Bush’s Weapon of Mass Distraction: War with Iraq. Is the Bush administration pushing this war because war will take our minds off our failing economy, our broken education system, the environmental meltdown, the healthcare emergency, the raids on Social Security, the corporate scandals, the new $157 billion deficit? And we won’t notice the loss of our civil liberties. … We the people of the United States are not willing to send our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives to die for politics or oil. A vote for war is a vote against the American people,” and then encourages people to call their congressmembers at 202-224-3121, and says, “Tell your congressperson and senators to vote no war with Iraq.” And the group is called Americans Against War with Iraq. It looks like there are thousands of names in this. It’s like a page of newsprint with tiny little names written throughout this full-page ad. Yet we’re not seeing this in — through the lens of your world, Ed Asner, through television, for example.

ED ASNER: No.

AMY GOODMAN: The networks are hardly covering dissent at all. When was the last time on TV someone saw a peace activist speaking out? You will have some people who are conservatives, who occasionally will be turned to, like Dick Armey, when he started to express dissent. You’ll have Pat Buchanan.

ED ASNER: Pat Buchanan.

AMY GOODMAN: But when it comes to progressive peace activists, you almost never see them on television talking about war and saying no to war. What’s going on?

ED ASNER: Well, I have no idea. We have found — my wife approached a few congressmen to try to sign this on, public officials. They run like rabbits. They would not want to be identified with anything antiwar, not because they believe in it, but they think it’s going to cost them. I’m waiting for one congressman — it looks like Daschle is our best representative so far — to stand out against the war. And I don’t know how long he’ll be able to stand up against it.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it doesn’t, though, sound like he is standing out against war. In fact, someone who is a union lobbyist went up to him on an issue of concern. He said, “Everything’s on hold right now. You have to join us in fighting Iraq.”

ED ASNER: He said that?

AMY GOODMAN: Yeah. I don’t think the issue so much is his opposing war. It’s opposing —

ED ASNER: Unilateralism.

AMY GOODMAN: — the rhetoric of Bush saying that those who challenge his ideas of homeland security are unpatriotic.

ED ASNER: Well, then you’ve destroyed my one example. And all I can say is —

AMY GOODMAN: Though he did not stand with the president yesterday, with Gephardt and others —

ED ASNER: Yeah, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — for the joint resolution.

ED ASNER: Well, they are — they are — all right, Oscar, you’ll get your chance. They are shameful. They are shameful. And they are supposed to represent the American people. And they don’t even listen to the American people.

AMY GOODMAN: Oscar Brown, what is the solution, in your eyes?

OSCAR BROWN JR.: Well, if I had — I perhaps wouldn’t be here if I had the solution. I’d bring out — try to process it.

ED ASNER: You’d be dead.

OSCAR BROWN JR.: I’d be — well, maybe so, Ed. I don’t think you can terrorize terror. I don’t think you can drown out noise. You have to tone down the decibels so that people will pipe down and listen to reason. All my life, we’ve been in problems. There was Hitler, and then there was McCarthy. And, you know, it just keeps on going. There’s a constant fight to make it possible for people to actually live free, free from imposed poverty, you know, free from — and you have that not just around the world. You have it right here in my hometown, right in Chicago, the projects that they have there. They are determined to punish the poor, and dare them to say anything about it. I had a wonderful experience this summer working with 40 kids in Chicago, putting on a show, a musical. And young people today get a bad rap that they’re, you know, hard to control and out of it. And there’s a considerable evidence to some of that.

AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.

OSCAR BROWN JR.: But these kids came together. It’s not hard. It’s not easy, but it’s not hard.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you all for being with us, Miles Solay of Refuse & Resist!, Ed Asner, joining us in our studio, Oscar Brown Jr., the jazz musician, Suheir Hammad. And if you’d like to order a video of today’s program to just see how good they look and to look across the generations, 1-800-881-2359, or an audio or CD, 1-800-881-2359. Democracy Now! produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran. Mike DiFilippo is our engineer and music maestro, sitting in for Anthony Sloan. Our website is www.democracynow.org. Our email address, mail@democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for listening.