AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to Democracy Now! That was Langston Hughes, here on The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we turn now to the renowned civil rights activist Ron Daniels, outspoken expert on police brutality and hate crimes, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, where he’s one of the leaders of the organization’s National Police Accountability Initiative. Ron Daniels ran for the U.S. presidency as an independent in 1992 and was the campaign manager in the South for the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential run. He also played a leading role in the National African American Leadership Summit and historic Million Man March. This week, he spoke at the Society for Ethical Culture in New York in an event organized by Pacifica’s WBAI. Ron Daniels talked about why and how civil rights movement continues today.

RON DANIELS: We are in a grave crisis in this country. And a part of it is, as one of our vice presidents at the Center for Constitutional Rights said at a recent board meeting, that Bush and Ashcroft and company — cabal, if you will — are attempting to orchestrate a permanent crisis, a permanent crisis, that has two prongs, but it’s the same crisis that they’re orchestrating.

One is, of course, the “war against terrorism,” the whole notion that we go up and down from yellow alert to orange alert, and maybe we’ll go to red alert, but we’re all being terrorized into inactivity, they think, but the notion is to keep us permanently frightened. And so, as the American people have done in so many instances, and it’s reminiscent of Giuliani and his policing methodology in the name of safe streets, indeed, there were many in the city who were willing to tolerate, as Verna said, the whole notion of just a few people getting their heads cracked, just a few people getting killed by the police in the interest of safety. So, now it’s in the interest of homeland security that we’re being told that our civil liberties must be eroded.

And the other prong, of course, is war abroad. And, of course, the war against Iraq was a part of the machination. Now, of course, we’re seeing what we already knew, because we’re not totally paranoid, and we’re not also stupid. We understood from the first play, in the first place, that if in fact Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, they were provided by the nation that has the most weapons of mass destruction in the entire world, the United States of America; you know, that this country selectively is about the business of supporting certain people when it’s in their best interest, and their interest — that interest is, as Calvin Coolidge said, the business of government in these United States of America is business. So, whenever they can find an ally along those lines, they will support them until such time as they fall out with that ally, and then they become public enemy number one.

We knew from the beginning that it was illegal to invade Iraq on the basis of regime change, a violation of international law and, of course, the U.N. Charter. We knew that it was illegal also to do a preemptive strike unless there was a sense of imminent danger. We also now know that there never, ever was any weapons of mass destruction, that it was always about oil. It was about this nation’s hunger, thirst for hegemony.

But in the name of this war, of course — and it was interesting how they changed from, you know, the whole question of weapons of mass destruction, because Iraq was complying and various things were happening, the inspections were working, then they began to demonize even more intensely Saddam Hussein. Now, I’m not here one — I’m not one here to defend Saddam Hussein. That’s not the point. The point is that never, ever in the history of this country, that I’m aware of, has being a bad person or a bad leader been the criteria by which the United States measures its alliances and its allegiance. If it were so, they would not have overthrown Allende and supported Pinochet, who in fact was responsible for the deaths and destruction of thousands of people in Chile. If it were so, the United States would never, ever have supported the leadership in Guatemala, successive junta after junta that was responsible for the slaughter of some 200,000 people there. They would not now, in fact, be harboring Emmanuel “Toto” Constant right here in Queens, who is responsible for, in fact, the deaths of thousands of Haitians during the coup led by Cédras and Biamby. And indeed, if the question of invasion for regime change had any legitimacy at all, then certainly the United States of America would have invaded South Africa under the leadership of the ruthless apartheid regime to overturn that regime. And so, obviously, it was never, ever about the whole question of Saddam Hussein. And the question becomes that what we’re looking at, therefore, is this permanent crisis.

But we must also say, in a broader sense, we must, as a progressive movement, articulate some solutions as we meet the American people, because this is the family. This is — we are, here tonight assembled, the true believers. Question becomes: How do we expand beyond our ranks? And one of the things is, we must tell the story to the American people. I’d like to be able to take — and we’re working at the Center for Constitutional Rights to take those stories that Verna Avery Brown just talked about and to spread them to people all over this country, because it is not just an intellectual exercise. We have found, in our fight against police brutality and misconduct and other struggles, that at the end of the day, it’s where we get people right here in their heart. When people hear those stories, they know that not only will the terror belong — afflict someone else, but it also can knock on their doorstep. But there is indeed among the American people a sense of empathy and effectiveness, if we can just share the stories and let people know really how bad it is, because it is this administration’s design to make sure that these things are done really in secret, that somehow people will feel isolated and insulated from the real terror and horror that is taking place.

We know that if, in fact, there is to be peace, because we have — the American people have to answer the question also, because, in the final analysis, as that one marvelous demonstration pointed out, that these things are being done in the name of all of us. And so no American citizen can be immune from policies that are conducted in the names of the United States of America. And so, we must understand that this country will never be safe, it will never not be hated, it will never be loved, as long as there is no just resolution to the crisis in the Middle East. Until the Palestinians have a homeland with security and freedom and dignity, then they will hate the United States of America. And so, there has to be a resolution.

There will never, ever be — as Michael Ratner, I think, talked about militarization. Martin Luther King talked about that. The whole question of militarism, bases in places where people don’t want the bases, but they’re being imposed because of the will of just a few people who can profit from these bases being stationed. We have to have an end to militarism. They will never stop hating us until we stop imposing our military weight, our military might, on people all over this world.

And similarly, the question of global terror, because terrorism comes in many forms. And certainly none of us condone the heinous act that happened on 9/11 either in terms of the attacks on the World Trade Centers or the Pentagon. None of us condemn that — condone that. We condemn it. However, the reality is that there’s terror that lives in the lives of millions of people all over the world today. It’s economic terror. It’s economic injustice, wrought by U.S. corporations who have but one thing on their minds. They’re predators. They’re barracudas who want to drain people of their human resources and drain nations of their human resources. They will never stop hating us until we have a just foreign policy that, in fact, enables and aids people to live healthy and hopeful lives.

The other thing — because I don’t want to take too long, because we want to make sure all the speakers obviously have a full rein — is that this permanent crisis is also about diversion. It’s about diversion. It was quite interesting that the war against Iraq became the topic when Wall Street was reeling with scandal. It was the Enron around ethics. It was WorldCom and [inaudible] and all of these corporations, these barracudas on Wall Street who were ripping off the American people. If you just checked out your 401(k) plan recently, we understand the banditry, because our 401(k) plans have disappeared. There are no welfare mothers and homeless people involved in that. They’re always being demonized. This was being carried out by the real bandits in American society. And no one yet really has done serious time for that crime of, in fact, ripping off the American people.

But it was a diversion. Some of us don’t want to deal with electoral politics. But the reality is that that one conversion, out of, I think, Vermont, William Jeffers, stood in the way, really, of this conveyor belt of radical ideological judges that can transform the judiciary of this country. And so, to take over the House and to take over the Senate, we were diverted away from looking at the election. We were looking at Saddam Hussein, and we were looking at terrorists who were everywhere in the United States of America — a big, indeed, diversion.

That diversion, in fact, has allowed the Republicans to gain control of both houses of the Congress in the United States. And their aim and goal is very clear. They also want to take over the judiciary. And if they take over the judiciary, they will control — not just the Republicans. Let me not say that. The right wing, the arch-conservatives, the reactionaries, they will control all three branches of government.

And that’s terrifying to people of color, because it really means almost Plessy v. Ferguson all over again. The judicial branch will provide sanction for these mad policies that are being already contested by the Center for Constitutional Rights and other organizations. But we’re finding it difficult to contest in an environment where we’re running into right-wing ideologue after right-wing ideologue or judges who are intimidated themselves in this atmosphere from having the courage to say that what’s happening to this country is that the Bill of Rights is being ripped asunder. So we face that threat also.

The rollback of civil rights. While we’re looking at the war against terrorism and frightened about Saddam Hussein, the fact of the matter is that the judiciary and legislation has virtually turned its back on affirmative action, which is mild, environmental justice. Racism is virtually being defined out of existence. The whole notion of discriminatory effect, the whole notion of disparate impact, these notions of how you quantify and qualify, the whole question that people were being impacted by racism no longer exists in these United States of America, because the courts are saying, “You got to improve it. It’s got to be intentional.” But we all know that people just don’t kind of go around plotting and planning and open about how they’re going to discriminate against people. So racism has become something that’s being virtually defined out of existence.

Our cultural rights, if you will, the whole notion of what’s happening to people in this country, where we have for the first time since 1991 middle-class incomes have eroded, not just working families, where we now have 1.2 million more people in poverty than there was three years ago, under the Bush administration, a new tax cut, if you will, for the wealthy, that will never even trickle down beyond the wealthy. I mean, they talk about Leave No Child Behind. I mean, this administration wants to leave no millionaire or billionaire behind. That’s just [inaudible] in terms of how it wants this upside-down economic policies that we’re seeing. So, the cultural rights is being eroded.

No domestic Marshall Plan. They can talk about rebuilding Iraq. They can talk about rebuilding Afghanistan, $200 billion [inaudible] can magically appear somehow to rebuild Iraq, but they can find no resources to rebuild the ghettos, the barrios, the reservations right here in these United States of America. No defense. No defense against poverty. No defense against poverty. No defense against homeless. And no defense against the intrusive invasion of our civil liberties.

Let me conclude, brothers and sisters — and the whole question of the conglomeratization of the media. These are really strategic questions. I mean, we’re so busy, we’re so occupied, until this whole thing that Michael Powell is getting ready to do will make things much worse, much more difficult, except we find a way to be creative, don’t we? One thing I like about this movement is, I mean, there’s really no turning back. I mean, they can do whatever they want to do. They tried to muster a pro-Bush, pro-military strategy, if you will, using Clear Channel, that has thousands of radio stations. We just had Pacifica, the internet and knocking on doors and passing out leaflets. We mobilized hundreds of thousands of people. They can only mobilize a few.

Let me conclude — let me conclude by saying that the final thing I want to do is to put this in historical context. And I want us to keep thinking about this, because in a real sense, it’s not just the erosion of civil liberties. It’s not just the whole question of the war against terrorism. It’s about a historic struggle that’s unfolding. And as I say and will continue to say time and time again, that ever since the inception of this country, there have been two great tendencies. One has been to constrict democracy. When George Bush says that he’s a strict constructionist, don’t take that lightly. That is a term of art. He is about keeping America constrained and constricted to white men with power and privilege. That’s what a white — that’s what a strict constructionist means, a narrow, legalistic, literal interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. Our side is different. Our vision has always been an expansive vision. You know, it didn’t include women. We wanted to expand it: It must include women. It must abolish — we must abolish slavery. We must have the right to organize and maintain unions. We must be in a position to also fight against the corporations, environmental protection, all kinds of things we fought for to expand democracy. So this struggle is really about what will be the nature of democracy in America today. And by extension, it will be the nature of what democracy will look like throughout the world.

So, the challenge is to keep organizing. The challenge is to keep mobilizing, but to do it smartly and intelligently. We cannot just have an incestuous conversation with ourselves. We must find ways and means of talking to our own families, our own neighbors. We must be in the laundromats. We’ve got to be in the bars. We’ve got to be in the churches. We’ve got to be everywhere the people are, articulating our vision and our values, because at the end of the day, we are on the side of Martin Luther King and Fannie Lou Hamer and all of those who fought to make freedom bigger and better and stronger for all of us. And in the final analysis, no matter how bad it is and how difficult it is, we have to have the confidence and belief, in the final analysis, because we on the right side of history. Might not be might. Might may triumph temporarily. But the temporary triumph of might does not make it right. We are on the right side of history — no pun intended — and we will ultimately triumph.

AMY GOODMAN: The executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Ron Daniels. And if you would like to get a copy of today’s program, you can call 1-800-881-2359. That’s 1-800-881-2359. Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, with help from Vilka Tzouras and Noah Reibel. Mike Di Filippo is our engineer, with help from Rich Kim. Our website is www.democracynow.org. You can watch or hear the program on the website. We video and audio stream at democracynow.org. And our email address is mail@democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.

[End of Hour 1]

AMY GOODMAN: From Pacifica Radio, this is Democracy Now!

I think it’s very important to understand that there is an American history with terrorizing its own citizens that’s held in the legacy of African Americans. Families wonder how they can get their young boys to the age of 35 without being killed.

Today, Part 2 of our special with legendary civil rights singers Sweet Honey in the Rock.

All that and more, coming up.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

U.S. soldiers opened fire on a festive wedding parade in Samarra, a town north of Baghdad, earlier this week. Medical officials and survivors told Knight Ridder newspapers three teenagers were killed and seven others were injured. The troops fired on the party after celebrants fired their guns in the air. But 17-year-old Abdul Salam Jassim told U.S. soldiers — said they did not open fire until several minutes after the celebratory shooting had occurred. Jassim’s colon has been destroyed by the shooting. Twelve-year-old Mohammad Ahmed has gunshot wounds to his abdomen, thighs and scrotum. Right after the shooting, armed U.S. soldiers walked into the hospital asking for the names of the wounded. Many of the people in the hospital were so terrified, they fled. Meanwhile, in the same town of Samarra, the U.S. military has admitted U.S. troops killed two Iraqi civilians and injured two others after their vehicle failed to stop at a checkpoint.

Tensions are also escalating in the industrial Iraqi town of Hit, some 90 miles northwest of Baghdad. The New York Times reports a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at a U.S. convoy on Tuesday. U.S. troops responded conducting house-to-house searches. Residents say the soldiers kicked down doors while an assault helicopter circled above. According to the Times, residents are furious that U.S. soldiers had burst in on Muslim women in their homes. The next day, as U.S. soldiers talked with local authorities in the police station, a crowd gathered and pelted the station with stones. Then someone threw a hand grenade over the wall. Two soldiers were injured. The soldiers formed a cordon with their guns aimed outward as they evacuated their wounded and warning shots rang out. One local man said he had been shot in the leg. When the troops retreated, the crowd rioted for hours, burning the municipal building and the police station in protest of what was viewed as the collaboration of the police. The U.S. military says six U.S. soldiers have been killed this week under hostile fire.

And UPI is reporting a group calling itself the Unification Front for the Liberation of Iraq announced its existence yesterday with a statement published in the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir. The group said its principal mission is to liberate the Iraqi territories from foreign occupation. It called on Iraqi national political forces for immediate resistance action and to prevent cooperation with U.S. forces.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has admitted the Bush administration chose to focus on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction as the primary justification to invade because it was politically convenient. The extraordinary admission comes in an interview Wolfowitz gives to the magazine Vanity Fair, which is published in the July issue. Wolfowitz also says there was another justification that was, quote, “almost unnoticed but huge,” that the U.S. could withdraw its forces from Saudi Arabia once the threat of Saddam Hussein had been removed. Wolfowitz told the magazine, quote, “For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one [reason] everyone could agree on.” This comes just days after Wolfowitz’s boss, Donald Rumsfeld, admitted for the first time that the arms may never be found.

A Russian newspaper is reporting Washington has drawn up a plan for military action against Iran. Citing diplomats, the paper reports the action would be launched mainly from Iraq, but military bases in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan would also be used. It says the Bush administration has struck a deal with the Azerbaijani president for U.S. troops to be deployed there. Both Georgian and Azerbaijani diplomats are denying the report.

This as ABC News is reporting the Pentagon is advocating a massive covert action program to overthrow Iran’s ruling ayatollahs. The program would include covert sponsorship of a group currently deemed terrorists by the U.S. government. The proposal is not new and has so far not won over enough top Bush administration officials. But ABC News reports the proposal is getting a new look as the administration ramps up its rhetoric against Iran.

Meanwhile, Britain’s Financial Times reports on its front page that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is spearheading efforts to make regime change in Iran the official policy goal of the Bush administration. However, his campaign is meeting with considerable resistance with other senior figures.

And the Agence France-Presse is reporting the Bush administration has slapped punitive sanctions on an Iranian company, two Moldovan firms and one Moldovan businessman. State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher says the sanctions were imposed because the firms contributed to missile programs in Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas last night. It was their second meeting in two weeks on the U.S.-backed so-called Roadmap to Peace. Sharon said he’ll order Israeli forces to pull out of the West Bank cities. Israel Radio reported today Sharon also intends to give permanent permits for Palestinian officials to travel between the Gaza Strip and West Bank, increase the amount of tax money transferred to the Palestinian Authority, allow some Palestinian laborers back into Israel, and ease restrictions on humanitarian organizations working in the territories. But Sharon’s spokesperson said the redeployment of troops is dependent on the Palestinians’ fight against militant groups. Sharon demanded that the groups be dismantled. He also would not agree to a statement recognizing the Palestinians’ right to a state. Palestinian sources told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that, for his part, Abbas demanded that Sharon transfer to the Palestinians security control over all of Gaza, as well as Ramallah in the West Bank.

Meanwhile, the 21-year-old British peace activist Tom Hurndall yesterday returned to London from Israel. He’s in a coma after an Israeli shot him in the head, an Israeli soldier. His parents don’t think he’ll ever regain consciousness. His parents returned with Tom after spending six weeks in Israel and the Occupied Territories investigating their son’s shooting. The couple says their investigations were hampered at every turn and called the Israeli army’s report a fabrication.