Palestine Center Annual Conference

November 21, 2003

Panel 4: Congress and the Middle East

Rep. Cynthia McKinney

Lama Abu-Odeh: There's a rather lengthy introduction of Cynthia, she's had a very productive life. During her tenure in the U.S. Congress, Cynthia McKinney became a household name in many states across America and in many countries around the globe. Because of her service on the House Armed Services Committee and the House International Relations Committee, McKinney became known as an outspoken leader in the area of human rights and demilitarization. She sponsored legislation to end the use of depleted uranium weapons and to stop conventional weapons transfers to governments that are undemocratic or fail to respect human rights. She forced the United Nations to convene an independent commission on the Rwanda genocide and the role of the United States and the UN in failing the African people of the Great Lakes region. McKinney stood with poor Georgia farmers against South African mining companies operating in the United States. When the Uwa people of Colombia needed a voice against American big oil, they found Cynthia McKinney. This year, as her final congressional act, she nominated Spanish patriot Juan Carrero for the Nobel Peace Prize.

For all her effort on behalf of the world's poor and dispossessed in Africa, Asia, Latin America and in America, McKinney learned from news reports that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) had targeted her for defeat. McKinney refused to compromise her strong American values and refused to be silenced in the face of powerful special interests. She became a political force in Georgia. She brought hundreds of millions of dollars back to her constituents. She supported candidates representing the people who have been politically marginalized. She was one of the first Members of Congress to demand a thorough investigation into the events of September 11, a demand that made her a target of Republicans.

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, McKinney was the first African-American woman from Georgia to serve in the United States House of Representatives. She earned her B.A. in international relations from the University of Southern California, an M.A. in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. We're very glad to have her. Thank you.

Cynthia McKinney: Thank you very much. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to be here with you this afternoon – I hardly know if it's afternoon, morning, evening, what's going on. I'm hot off the plane from Ithaca, New York. It took me five airports to get there and it took me three airports to get here, so I don't know if I recommend travel to Ithaca, except that there's about 30,000 students that go to school at Cornell, so they must do a little bit better with their airport.

But at any rate, I'm extremely happy to be here and talk to you a little bit and answer your questions more about Congress and our policy. Of course, let me acknowledge Phyllis, who I always get emails from her even though she doesn't respond to my emails when I send them out. But we need tireless people who want justice and who want peace.

I want to tell you a story about an experience that I had in my last year on Capitol Hill. Yuri Avnery was in town, he was in the country, and he was making his way across the country doing public lectures. So I don't know how it came into my mind, but I thought we ought to invite him up to Capitol Hill and then we could do like a big press event, we could introduce him to other Members of Congress. Then we could do like a big press event with Jewish organizations for peace. Of course I extended the invitation. He and his wife graciously accepted. We spent a wonderful day together. At the press conference, we were able to mobilize about ten organizations to participate. Among them, we had Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel, Jews Against the Occupation, Not in My Name, Jewish Voices for Peace, Women in Black, and many other – about five other organizations of the Jewnity coalition participated in the press conference. When we actually got to the press conference, and the press conference was held on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol – when we got there, I was amazed. We had so many TV cameras. You know, you grade the quality of your press conference by the number of TV cameras that you get there. If you get one or two, you're doing really well. We had five or six or seven. It was just a whole bank of national and international press showed up, including C-SPAN. So we had there, at that very special moment on that very special place at the U.S. Capitol, for the first time Jewish organizations for peace and an Israeli activist for peace. C-SPAN came and we were particularly excited about C-SPAN being there, because we wanted to expose these new voices to the American people.

Well, what happened? We got back to the congressional office and looked up on the web site and there it was, and C-SPAN had given our event a number. Then once you get the number, then you can call C-SPAN and ask, "When is number so-and-so going to be aired?" We did that. Then something happened, like the number disappeared from the C-SPAN web site. So then there was no event. It just didn't exist. So then we organized a letter-writing campaign from the members of all of these different organizations to C-SPAN to inquire, what the heck happened? C-SPAN somehow had made the decision that the content of our press conference was not newsworthy and therefore it would not be aired. Of course, you can imagine how disappointed we all were. But I guess there was no one who was more disappointed than me, because my local news media ran a story that evening saying that I was associating with fringe Jewish organizations and that if I wanted to associate with Jewish organizations, I should associate with the mainstream. Of course the woman who was interviewed was a representative of the Anti-Defamation League.

I am just now coming from Cornell University. In fact, the leader of Hillel there on the campus veritably told me the same thing, that all of these organizations that are organizing around the country in order to provide a different voice, a voice for peace, are fringe organizations. So now there's something terribly wrong with that in the first place, but there's also something terribly wrong with the fact that on Capitol Hill a Member of Congress could be literally punished for introducing a voice for peace. I would suggest that what we need on Capitol Hill is the introduction of more voices for peace.

So to the extent that people in Israel who happen to be in the United States can have an audience with Members of Congress, people in Israel who are activists for peace – not Netanyahu and the folks like that – can have an opportunity to meet with the Members of Congress, then that's a good thing. That's something that should be encouraged. The only voice on the Middle East, the only Jewish voice, should not be AIPAC. It should reflect the entire spectrum of thought of the Jewish community. So I would suspect that that may have been why the press came down on me so hard, because I was trying to provide a different voice. Again, to be a voice for the voiceless. So that's one sort of activity prescription, to get more Jewish voices for peace on Capitol Hill.

But there's another aspect of my story that I think needs to be considered, and that is, no sitting Member of Congress wants to end up like me. You have to readily acknowledge that nobody wants to end up like me. No matter how celebrated I may be outside of Congress, as I travel around the country and have the opportunity to speak to a vast number of people that feel the same way as we do, the fact of the matter is that those people who are there representing their constituencies do not want to end up like me.

I called Paul Findley after my election and I asked him, "Well, what do I do now?" Congressman Findley told me, "Well, don't expect a lot of money." To the extent that people who have been targeted fail, then that's a failure also of the community for peace. So I cannot be seen, and other Members who have been so targeted cannot be seen, to fail. It sets a terrible example for the Members of Congress who don't want to end up like me, which is 100 percent of them. So you ensure that they absolutely, under no circumstances, will end up like me, if they see me fail. So my fate rests with those who really say that they want peace.

Another thing is, what do we do in order to change the dynamic that operates now in Congress, where someone strong – because my position in my district is strong. In fact, one of the questions came up just yesterday, last night, at Cornell, about my constituents and their feelings about my positions on U.S. foreign policy. What I need to say to you is that the most important people in a Member of Congress' district are the voters themselves, as you know. The second most important people in the Member of Congress' life are his or her contributors. In my district, my election was not – how can I say – a referendum on U.S. foreign policy. My election ended up being a referendum on the ability of the Republican Party to understand the loopholes in the election law and utilize them to good effect, to their benefit. That's exactly what happened. So I wouldn't say that because I didn't win the election – I lost the Republican vote that happened to turn out in massive numbers in the Democratic primary. I didn't lose the Democratic vote in the Democratic primary, but I lost the Republican vote, as I was supposed to, because I don't subscribe to many of their values. But nobody expected that 48,000 of them would cross over and actually vote for the Republican that they had drafted to run in the Democratic primary.

So I think the overwhelming majority of the constituents of the Members of Congress would subscribe to an idea of a just resolution that satisfies both Israel's right to exist in security as well as the right of the Palestinians to have their self-determination. That could be in a one-state solution or a two-state solution, whatever the people themselves decide. However, the job of educating these constituents is another aspect of the problem. So there's a twofold problem. There's work that must be done in Washington, D.C., on Capitol Hill itself. But then there's also work that has to be done in selected districts around the country, an educational exercise.

Maybe there's a third component that I would like to ask you to consider, and that is actually running for office yourself. The American system is really an open system and anyone who wants to participate, can participate. Our problem is that too many people decide that they don't want to participate and we leave then the system prey to those who do. Oftentimes they have goals and objectives and missions that are the opposite of ours. So I always make a pitch for people to actually consider running for office. I don't know about the system in every state, but in Georgia all you have to do is pay your money. So don't think about qualifications – I've got to have this number of degrees and I have to have this amount of experience – no. You just have to have enough dollars in your bank account so that your check doesn't bounce when you qualify that day, on qualifying day.

So with that, I think I'll pause a moment and allow you to ask me some questions.

[applause]

Question: What kind of questions did the Cornell students ask you?

Cynthia McKinney: Many of the Cornell students were interested in a variety of issues. So as you can probably imagine, everything from gangsta rap to redistricting came up. But there was one segment of the Cornell student body that was particularly persistent in their pursuit of the interests of Israel. What appeared to be talking points had been distributed, so I would get the same questions in every course that I attended. The reason I could tell is that they would flip through the pages and so obviously something had been distributed. So those were the most persistent questions, but those were not reflective of the interests of the general student body that I came into contact with.

Question: What is the balance of lobbying on Capitol Hill as opposed to grassroots education that should exist? Is lobbying and big bucks – well, we know lobbying and big bucks pay a lot on Capitol Hill. But for a peace community that obviously does not have a lot of money, what is the balance of lobbying and education that should happen on the Hill to achieve a certain type of achievement or victory?

Cynthia McKinney: I would not agree that the peace community doesn't have a lot of money. The peace community has a ton of money. It's just a matter of what the priorities are of the people inside the peace community who have the most money. Those people are going to have to step up to the plate a little bit more and give a little bit more so that they can be secure right here in America.

The mix, I would probably recommend that the work in the communities perhaps be about 70-30, community work. Just because if you can get a critical mass in selected districts of individuals who really care about this issue and make their passion known, then you can influence the thinking of the representative. It all starts at home.

Question: This is a question about Tom DeLay, who is clearly on the other side. I recently read his speech to the Knesset, in which he boasted about the resolutions that he had rammed through that were against the Palestinians. He was boasting that the House of Representatives really represents the real America and so forth. I'd like you to give us some insight on how he did things and what the general population could do to change that phenomenon.

Cynthia McKinney: Probably about the only way – Tom DeLay, I mean, you can try to hit at Tom DeLay in his district, but the problem is that you probably wouldn't get another Republican to run against him. The district is probably solidly Republican, so that a Democrat wouldn't stand a chance of winning. Now, I don't know what kind of system they have there, if they have open primaries. But they took a Republican and ran a Republican against me in the Democratic primary, you might want to take a Democrat and run that person in the Republican primary. That's a tactic now that has been used successfully.

But it's probably better to say that – it's such a difficult question, because I don't know that it's possible to defeat Tom DeLay in any other way other than mobilizing massively all across the country to deny a Republican majority in the Congress. There are many ways to do that. Of course, the most important way to do that is to make sure that everyone who has been out there in any of these antiwar demonstrations actually goes to vote, and that they also take someone with them. I don't know if people are aware of this or not, but the reason that we know about what happened in Florida is because you had nearly 100 percent black participation on election day in Florida. So the scheme that had been put together to deny blacks and Latinos the right to vote and the right to have their votes counted – a scheme had been put together to actively try and deny blacks and Latinos the right to vote by constructing this convicted felons list and then when blacks and Latinos who weren't even convicted felons, weren't convicted of anything except being black or Latino, and having a name similar – not even exactly the same name, but a name similar to a name that was on a list that had been provided by the Republican administration in Texas and the Republican administration in Ohio and the Republican administration in New Jersey – those lists were all provided to the Republican administration in Florida. I hope you're getting to see a pattern here. So then thousands of people had their names on this list and were actually denied the right to vote. But the reason we know about it, ordinarily if 40 percent of the blacks had turned out you wouldn't have known about it. But we know about it because 100 percent of them turned out and overwhelmed the entire political system down there in Florida. There was bedlam and chaos in the streets because of the active overwhelming participation. That's what's got to happen next year. Don't let anybody say that, well, my vote isn't going to count, or they're not going to count it anyway, or they're going to steal it anyway. They will steal it, or maybe they will try to steal it like they did before. But if they do, just imagine the power if they have to steal it in front of the entire country and in front of the entire world – because the world will be looking at George Bush's second election because of the way the first one went so poorly.

So participate, participate, participate, and vote and vote and vote.

Question: I have two questions actually. The first is, I wonder about the extent to which you see or you could just comment on the support for Palestinian rights within the African-American community, particularly as it related to your election when that theme was so visible and so prominent. The second question is, to what extent do you think the providing of information to Members of Congress, who from my experience have really perspectives only from one side, and your comments seem to corroborate that – to what extent does that enter into their decisions in terms of making policy and their staff decisions as well? Are we entirely absent in that debate, in your opinion, or largely absent? Thank you.

Cynthia McKinney: I'll give you a short answer – yeah, you're pretty absent. Pretty absent.

Lama Abu-Odeh: Can you elaborate on that? Why are we absent?

Cynthia McKinney: That's a question for you guys to answer, because I mean – I think I've done my best to provide balance. So you see what happened to me. So having conferences like this is fine, but it's what comes after the conference. It's just the hard work of – and also coalition building. I really believe that as we have seen in the antiwar demonstrations, that there's a tremendous coalition out there of people who really do want America to do the right thing and respect human rights around the world. They want America to do the right thing by everybody. So now how do we sort of translate that into political power? Forming coalitions is absolutely necessary, because of course no one community can do it alone. Coalition building is key.

The African-American community – as you know, many African Americans are Muslims themselves. But as I've traveled around, what I also have seen is that there's even a division inside the mosque. You've got the black mosque and you've got the non-black mosque, you've got the black part of the mosque. So all of these little divisions are really silly at the end of the day, because when the ship goes down, we all drown. The ship, I'm telling you, it is going down. University professors where I just came from, university professors are being threatened, cajoled, intimidated. Area studies is under attack. There's legislation that was just brought to my attention on area studies. You name it, across the board there is something that is happening in this country – or as Al Giordano, the famous (or infamous) Internet journalist who reports from somewhere in America, because of the investigative kind of reportage that he does, says, "There's something moving under the carpet." It is. It is like evil – I hate to use that, because I shouldn't, but I'm a Catholic, and the worst thing you can say is that something is like a sin. But it's like, what our country is becoming is – I'll put it this way – a caricature of what we used to be. That is truly sad.

Question: Was this Cornell where you were – Cornell University, where they're having problems with area studies and this kind of –

Cynthia McKinney: No, the legislation is introduced in the Congress and it will affect every university in this country. It's not just Cornell.

Question: My name is Clay Swisher and I'm a graduate student at Georgetown. There are a number of Americans, I think, that have come to the same realization that you have. Some of us in the 2000 election did vote for George Bush and we're going to be looking for a different candidate in '04, meaning that we're going to be crossing party lines. Are you willing at this stage in the elections to make any predictions on which candidate would A) give us the best Middle East foreign policy, and B) improve our image in the world and our overall standing.

Cynthia McKinney: You know, at this point Bush has been so bad, it's like – what is it, ABB? In Georgia it was ABC, "anybody but Cynthia," but ABB, "anybody but Bush."

Audience: ABL, "anybody but Lieberman."

Cynthia McKinney: Yeah... but it doesn't appear that he's caught much fire. It seems that the only ones who seem to have something is Dean, of course, and maybe Kerry, but Kerry has sort of faded out, and maybe Gephardt.

Question: Did you see the remarks of General Wesley Clark in the Jewish Forward and Haaretz, about why he'd be a good president for Israel? It just seems like the pickings are slim. It seems as if it's just Kerry or Dean that seem to be advocating this balance of Middle East approach.

Cynthia McKinney: Then that might be instructive as to where your energies should go, to make sure that they get the nomination.

Question: Your being in Congress, is there any possibility, you think, of Congress changing its views at all on the Palestinian issue or even for that matter on Middle East issues? Because as of this moment, it looks very bleak.

Cynthia McKinney: Yes, but there's always hope. I do believe that it is possible for Congress to change its view, but you'd also have to change the Congress. That's sort of the point. We have to change the Congress. That is not difficult. It's not difficult.

Question: It's been difficult so far.

Cynthia McKinney: I know, but perhaps the correct strategy hasn't been employed. I do have some ideas about that, and we can talk afterwards.

To get back to Swisher about which candidate – I have a hunch, it's just a hunch, but I think George Bush is a one-termer. I really, really do. Because if you look at what's happening, you've got the CIA fighting the White House, you've got DoD fighting DoD. They're about to implode. So now how his team is going to be able to hold this all together when some of the most powerful elements in the country are actually against elements of his administration, I just don't see them reaching an accord, which then gives an opportunity for other people. So I really do think he's going to be a one-termer. So what I'm doing, I'm doing my part, because I'm going everywhere I can possibly go and I'm telling all of the progressives that you've got to vote. There are some people who say some of these progressives, they believe in marching but they don't believe in voting. I'm saying, if they don't believe in voting, then they don't believe in the very mechanism that took me out of office. Now they glorify me for all that I supposedly did and want me to run again and want me to do – but it's votes that put me in and it was votes that took me out. If I go back again, it'll be votes that will put me in. So we can't get around the power of the vote.

Question: I would like to know what your long-range plans are. I think that you are a truly talented and competent [inaudible] and we don't want to lose you.

Cynthia McKinney: Thank you very much. What are my long-range plans? Heck, you know, I'll be honest with you. I didn't want to get into politics, that wasn't like my goal. I wanted to be a teacher. It was my dad who actually got me involved in politics, but I was trying to get married and he was trying to get back at a colleague – he signed my name on the ballot and the rest is history. But I was always taught that no matter what you do, you have to do a good job. So while I was in Congress, I wanted to do a good job. I don't think I'm too ambitious – or at least, I'm not ambitious for myself. But I am pretty passionate about justice. So the passion would push me to do more.

Question: Like what?

Cynthia McKinney: I'm not ready to make any announcements tonight, but what I'll say to you is stay tuned. [applause]

Question: [inaudible]

Cynthia McKinney: Okay, beautiful. We can start an auction on E-Bay, okay?

Question: Come back and [inaudible].

Question: I'm just wondering, a couple minutes ago you said that we've become a caricature of what we used to be. I was wondering if you could explain a little bit more about what you mean by that. Also, in the context – I know you weren't here earlier, but a couple of the panelists referred back to maybe the values that our country was founded on. But also we've been talking about democracy and that this country isn't a democracy, it doesn't seem, and how democracy needs to be a global effort. So I'm wondering if you can explain a little bit about what you think in terms of, has the United States ever really been a democracy or is it something that we have to really work towards? Because I think there's what I think is sometimes a myth that we had this thing and now it's gone.

Cynthia McKinney: Of course we certainly haven't been a perfect country. But our country has done some noble things to help bring other areas of the world to peace. We celebrate our greatest generation for helping to end World War II. I join in that celebration. However, what my investigations – when I was in Congress, I was very interested in the counterintelligence program, COINTELPRO, and the targeting of – I was specifically interested in the targeting of black leaders. Out in Jeff's car, I have all of my documents, which I had for the students at Cornell, but I didn't bring them in here. But our country began to do some terrible, terrible things to black organizations, Native Americans, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, progressive white organizations. We had a regime change right here at home. We had repression right here at home. From the work that I did specifically on the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I began to do more sort of research into Bobby Kennedy, of course, and from the work I was told that Bobby actually was considering naming Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as his running mate. When JFK was murdered, we were on the path toward having a country that could be respected around the world. I know there's a lot of revisionism going on today and I've seen the article that Christopher Hitchens wrote about denigrating the tenure of JFK, but that even is being done, in my estimation, for a purpose, for a political purpose. JFK and MLK and Bobby represented something that was good in our country. Three assassins' bullets stole that from America.

So I do believe that there was a time that we not only were a good country, a moral country, and a country that had intelligent and conscientious leadership, but then something happened. Because when that something happened, the American people accepted it, then something worse happened. Then something even worse happened. All of this has gotten us to the point where we are today. The failure of the black community to challenge regime change within our own community has given us Ward Connolly, Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. So now they go around and they speak for – as if they represent black America, when they really don't. But all over the world, because we African Americans haven't raised our voices enough in opposition, the rest of the world thinks that those people represent us.

So the American people have, I believe, suffered a really tragic loss. Mario Savio in 1963 at the Berkeley arch said that at some point, when the machine becomes so odious, we have no choice but to put our entire bodies against the gears and the levers and the wheels and stop the machine from operating at all. The American people have only done that one time, and that was that one time at the convergence of the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement. That was the one time, and it worked. So if we are willing to do that again, it will work again. But we will have to put our entire bodies against the machine and make it stop.

Question: [inaudible] We had the Iraqi demonstrations a year ago, you've got a lot of feeling and frustration about the economy. [inaudible]

Cynthia McKinney: The question is, do I think it should happen now? I think we are well overdue for – but see, individuals can't be sacrificed. So you have one individual – we got a set of nuns who threw their blood on the School of Americas, and now they got to go to jail. So we can't sacrifice individuals. Now, during the civil rights movement, the entire community went to jail, and in fact there were so many people in jail, asking to go to jail, that they said, "We can't handle it," and threw their hands up. That's the way we have to be again. People can't be so – oh, my son is in school and so therefore I can't – this is not my priority and you go. There's a role for everybody, just like there was a role for everybody in the civil rights movement. There were some people who wrote checks and that's all they did. There were some people who specialized in going to jail and that's all they did. There were some people who specialized in negotiating with the powers that be to get those people out of jail, and that's all they did. You know what? Those people who did that important work are still walking around in our communities today. We need to learn from them – let them come and do some workshops on civil disobedience and how you go into a town and take over the town. It is possible, because it happened before and we did it.

Lama Abu-Odeh: We have time for two more questions. One more question.

Question: I want to thank you for your voice and your courage, and I do hope you'll run again. Thank you so much. I've been one in academia who's been targeted because of standing up for Palestine and the antiwar thing. What I'm wondering is, do you sense that there's a real targeting of the African-American leadership and Hispanic and other minorities right now? I'm wondering, is the black community and Hispanics and minorities and others ready to form a movement? Do you sense a readiness to resist that and make the kind of strides that you're talking about, or is the intimidation factor and the fact that we've got Clarence Thomas and Condoleezza Rice representing minority voices taking that power away? What's your sense of the barometer of where we are right now and what the hope is for a movement to do that? Second, are they willing to take on Palestine and Iraq?

Cynthia McKinney: It was probably about three years ago that I approached certain members of the Arab-American community and also the Muslim community and asked them to consider forming a strategic partnership with black and Latino America. But it was never done.

Question: [inaudible] is it coalition building or is it more [inaudible]?

Cynthia McKinney: It can start off with coalition building and it could end up being more than that. But coalition building is certainly a start. You see, I went to – if I can have a little frank discussion here – I went to one town and I had never been in a neighborhood like I was hosted in. I had never seen that kind of wealth. This group of individuals that were hosting me, in order to get to their offices, they had to ride through the black side of town. I don't know if you know what a shotgun house is – that'll probably also kind of tell you what part of the country I was in, maybe not, and that would be a good thing, because I don't want to give away anything. But a shotgun house is a house where the front door aligns with the back door, so then you shoot a gun and it goes straight through the house, that's a shotgun house. I think about my uncle who said that if you fired a gun at a shotgun house, black folks would be running out for days. But a whole lot of people can live in these little shotgun houses. But anyway, these professionals had to ride through this neighborhood, which was Martin Luther King Drive, in order to get to their offices. I couldn't believe that they rode through in their air-conditioned cars and ignored what they were riding through. The partnership, the coalition, should have been to do something to help those people on Martin Luther King Drive. There's been too much of that. There's been too much division. As Dick Gregory says, the Arab Americans came here thinking they were white and now they found out they are colored people, just like us.

The partnership should have happened a long time ago. The bridge is the black person that prays next to you, the black American who prays next to you. That bridge was never crossed. So it's a bit late, when you're in trouble now, to come and say, I want to form a partnership with you all. It's a bit late. But because the entire country is in trouble, everybody needs help. So we all need to join together. I believe that the black community and the Latino communities are absolutely ready to form a partnership that is going to benefit all of America. And progressive whites.

Lama Abu-Odeh: I'd like you to join me in thanking Cynthia McKinney for being with us. [applause]