Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth 20240622 : comparemela.com

with iraq, the u.s. had just invaded afghanistan, and we were talking about how horrible it was that the u.s. was about to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, and we started laughing about the color code alerts. remember the george w. bush alerts, yellow, orange, red, and said it was to keep people in a state of fear, and that we needed another color coded alert to say, there's a different way of dealing with this. we go after whoever attacked us, not wholesale invasion of countries, that's when we came up with the idea of codepink. we originally wanted to by code -- code hot pink but the url was already taken so we payment code pink. >> host: how do you pick your issues. >> guest: we started out not wanting to be an ongoing organization. we just wanted to join the masses and mobilize to stop the invasion of iraq. and so we dead that. we got involved. we had tremendous support around the country. without really trying we found we had hundreds of thousands of people that signed up to our e-mail list. we had hundreds of groups that formed spontaneously in places around the country, and we were part of a larger movement that came out to protest on february 15th, 2003, which is recorded in the guinness book of world record of the largest demonstrations around the world in the history of humankind. so, our issue was to stop the war in iraq. unfortunately, we weren't able to do that. but in the process, we realized that there was a need for our voices to continue to try to bring our troops home to try to stop future wars, and to really address the issues of violence and militarism, and we have continued to do that. we pick our issues, peter, mostly by what is our government and the u.s. involved in. while we do have supporters around the world, most of us are from the u.s., and we look at how can we as american citizens fulfill our responsibility to try to make our foreign policy as positive in the world as possible. so, we look to where our government is not doing well in those respects, and tried to move government policies. >> host: so, the war in afghanistan justified? >> guest: we did not think that it was the right thing to do. we thought that we should go after individuals who attacked us, and not invade and occupy other countries. we have just commissioned a report to come out in the fall that will look at the results of all of these years of the u.s. being in afghanistan. the number of u.s. soldier that have died, the number of civilians in afghanistan that have died. but mainly we want to look at, has life really improved for the women in afghanistan? and with the research we have been doing, unfortunately, there have been very few changes in the lives of most afghan women, despite the fact that we have spent probably at this point trillions of dollars there, and that we have been there over 13 years. so, we don't feel that the afghan occupation in balance was a positive thing. >> host: your most recent book is on drone warfare. any justification for using drones in warfare in your view? >> guest: well, i don't like war at all so i wouldn't like any kind of technology to be used. unfortunately, the u.s. has been involved in all too many wars and all too many wars going on in other places that other countryies have started inch those situations drones become just another piece of technology used in warfare. but we see some special things happening around the use of drones where the u.s. is using them in places where we antibiotic even at war, like in pakistan, or in yemen, and i think that the drone technology itself has been making its easier for the u.s. to get involve in places where we're not at war, and has been making it easier for the u.s. to get involved in military affairs without a conversation even in congress, much less with the american people, about whether or not we should be involved in those conflict jazz from your book, drone pilots sit safely thousands of mile. airplane from the danger of the war they're fighting. the only danger they face is mental. >> guest: it has been shown by several studies that drone pilots face a level of ptsd that is similar to soldiers who are in the battlefield. it is not easy for a soldier to sit at a desk and be watching the screen, sometimes for ten, 12 hours a day, in some perverse way getting to know people on the ground, because sometimes they are hovering over a particular house, and might watch the father playing with his children, or see the mother going out to wash the laundry or the kids going out to school, and then one day being told to press a button and kill that person. and then they're supposed to go back to their homes, pick up a gallon of milk on the way home, and play with their kids, and coach the soccer team, and act like everything is normal, and it's not. so, there's a lot of problems that the drone pilots are facing. that's why there's actually a shortage of drone pilots now. >> host: you also write about abdur al-awlaki, son of anwar al-awlaki. >> his family moved back to yemen, his father was killed by a u.s. drone strike, and then he himself, the 16-year-old, in a separate drone strike, while he was having dinner with a butch of other teenagers, was killed in a u.s. drone strike. this is just an amazing example of the u.s. killing an american citizen, killing a child, and doing it without any kind of attempt to explain to the family or to us why it was done. was it a may have stake? what is was on purpose? what did he ever do? was he ever charged with anything? no. was he ever tried to -- did they try to capture him? no. was he ever given a trial? no. it is one of the most blatant examples of the illegal use of drone warfare. >> host: may 1st, 20, here is the president at the white house correspondents dinner. >> the jonas brothers are here. they're out there somewhere. sasha and malia are huge fans. but, boys, don't get any ideas. i have two words for you. predator drones. [laughter] >> you will never see it coming. >> host: your reaction to that joke. >> guest: it's not funny at all. certainly not funny to the people that live under the fear of drones. one thing i learned doing the research, peter, it's not just the people who are killed, whether they're innocent civilians, militants, high-value targets. it's the entire population in the area that is being punished collectively. imagine, peter, if you were out in your home in -- wherever you live and you were looking up at the sky, and there was a buzzing of drones. you knew that the drone had missiles on it that was going to kill somebody. you didn't know who, when, where, why. and what i found is that in these areas where the drones are flying overhead, parents are afraid to send their children to school. people are afraid to go out to the market. they're afraid to go to any community events, whether it's even weddings or funerals, because drones have been known to target weddings and funerals. so, it's a terrifying thing to live under drones, and i don't think it's anything that the president should be joking about. >> host: january 30, 2015, codepink is pretty well known. capitol hill. for interrupting hearings. let's watch this video. >> in the name of -- [shouting] >> we don't want to hear from you anymore. >> in the name of the people of chile in the name of the people of vietnam. in the name of the people of east timor. in the name of the people -- >> been a member of this committee for many years, and i have never seen anything as disgraceful and outrageous and despicable as the last demonstration that just took place about -- you know, you have to shut up or i'm going to have you arrested. if we can't get the capitol hill police in here immediately. get out of here, you low life scum. [applause] >> so, henry, i hope you will -- dr. kissinger, i hope on behalf of all of the members on the committee, both sides of the aisle, in fact from all of my colleagues i'd like to apologize for allowing such disgraceful behavior towards a man who has served his country with the greatest distinction. i apologize profusely. >> host: low life scum. >> guest: yes, this is coming from john mccain, somebody who pushed to get abuse the war in iraq. you know, peter, whether it's henry kissinger or john mccain or george bush or donald rum felled and i could name many, many. unfortunately people in this country rarely are held accountable for their acts. i have lived in lattin america -- latin america. i have seen the kind of responses to henry kissinger, responsible for the coup in chile that led to so much death and destruction in that country. i've been to east timor, where henry kissinger gave a green light for the dictatorship to invade that island, and again, wrecked so much death and destruction there. i grew up during the time of vietnam, so i remember henry kissinger and all the lies that we were told. so, henry kissinger to me is a war criminal and should be treated as such. john mccain has -- is somebody who is responsible partially for getting abuse a horrendous wore in iraq that led to the deaths of thousands of u.s. soldiers in vain, and to, by some accounts, over a million iraqis, shy also say it paved the way for isil today. so why aren't people held responsible? perhaps because this is the super power, this is the country that has been all powerful and the powerful countries are usually not held accountable. look at the international criminal court. it's not the powerful that go there to be held accountable for war crimes. it's the vanquished. so, i think it's important that there be voices out there that say that we remember, and that we do not hold some of these people in high regards as statesmen who we should listen to tell us how to run our foreign policy. these are people that have taken us down a path of militarism that has made such mayhem around the world that we should look for other voices, the voices who said let's look for nonviolent solutions. let's have a foreign policy based on diplomacy, on mutual respect, and that is not the policy, unfortunately, of people like henry kissinger. >> host: from our facebook page, this question from steven: i would understand if you chose not to answer, he writes. how do you and other activists in our yours gain admittance to these press conferences and hearings? i would think they would know you by now, but maybe it's just open to the public. >> guest: well, it's a very good question and we're asked that a lot. when i went to my first hearing on capitol hill, i was living in san francisco at the time, and it was when i read in the paper that donald runsfeld was going to testify about going to war in iraq, and i was so opposed to the war in iraq, i asked another friend from texas if she would fly to washington, dc and join me and try to get into this hearing. she said, well, if somebody can help me pay for my ticket, i'll go ahead and do it. we found ourselves in line. we didn't know the public other could go to these hearing. be dressed up in pant suits like we were journalists, got little steno pads pads and tucked a "washington post" under our warms and put our banners down our pants because we thought we had to pretend we were journalists. lo some bee hold, anybody is allowed in there if you got up early enough and got on line. so it was a revelation to me that these public hearings mean the public is invited, and so we go to public hearings. we tend to be the first ones on line, we get envery early. there have been times, like during the iraq war, when there was so many people trying to get into these hearings, we actually slept outside the billing to be the first ones to get in, and technically, we have to be allowed inside. now, sometimes when we gotten arrested we might have a stay away order by the court that says we can't go to those buildings for x amount of time, and sometimes the people who run the hearings try to stack the hearing. they bring in all their interns, all their staff, take up all the seats so there's no seating for the public. but in general, public hearings and -- i would a to you viewer, more of the public should attend these hearings. if you're coming to washington, dc on vacation, look up online senate.gov or house.gov, look up the hearings happening. it's fascinating to go to these hearings. it's important to go to these hearings. it's important for people who don't live inside the beltway to go to these hearings. and feel how government works,, in action, and actually it's not pretty often times, because what you see is very narrow viewpoints, both by the democrats and republicans, who are asking the questions, and by the witnesses, who tend to be people who think alike. and so i found it quite remarkable to go to the hearings and feel very frustrated that the questions that i as a citizen had were not being asked. for example, the very first hearing with donald rumsfeld he was being asked softball questions by the congress people about why he was advocating we good to war. and so i had originally thought i would just hold up a banner budget i felt like i had to stand up and say, i have some questions as the public. how many lives are going to be lost in this? how many civilians are going to die in this? how many companies are going to make a lot of of money from this? what is the exit strategy in this plan? have you exhausted all nonviolent solutions? why are the u.n. inspectors -- i had just been to iraq -- saying there nor weapons of mass destruction, and so i was asking all these questions. and holding up a banner, and i realized that i feel an obligation as a u.s. citizen to expand the conversation. i think, for example, that public hearings should have a time, maybe it's ten minutes 5 minutes, at the end of the hearing, where the public should get a chance to say something. i think before the gavel goes down, the public should be able to express their views in these hearings. and unfortunately, because of codepink being out there and holding up signs and doing this nonviolent protests, the police have been told to be harder on us. that even before a hearing starts, before the gavel goes down, if we're there holding a sign, we can be arrested for that. and i should add, peter, that the capitol police are not very happy about that. they, to their credit, believe in free expression, and they think before hearings starts and after the hearing ends we should have a chance to express ourselves. unfortunately, there are people who run these committees, like john mccain, who oppose any expression coming from the public. >> host: medea benjamin, what happens to you after your escorted out of the hearing. >> guest: most of the time we are arrested. if it's somebody -- >> host: taken to capitol hill headquarters. >> guest: it depends how many times you have been arrested. if it's your first rarity you get a fine. if it's your second arrest you get a fine. your third arrest or higher, then you can't just pay your way out of it. then you have to go to court. you're assigned a date to come back. then you are either taken to trial or you might be given some kind of plea bargain, which might include a stayaway that you can't go back to the congressional offices for a certain amount of time. you might have to do a certain number of hours of community service. you might have certain financial amounts of money you have to pay. sometimes people refuse to pay the fines and say this is a moral position we have, and so might spend some time in jail. >> host: how many times have you been arrested and automatic of those penalties have you encountered. >> guest: i have been arrested dozens of times over the course of the work that i do. many of those arrests have been before 9/11 and i was involved more around economic work, trying to fight things like sweat shops or corporate abuses, but i've been arrested dozens of times. i've spent time in jail. i've had a lot of fines. i've done many shares of community service. and unfortunately i would say that sometimes this comes with the territory. it's not like we're trying to get arrested. there are times when people do want to get arrested. for example, there have been a number of times where we have done protests at the white house, where people will stand and link arm to arm and not move from the white house, and we know that if you don't keep moving at the white house, and you're over 25 people, that's arrestable and we have had hundreds of people getting arrested for just standing there in front of the white house. those are planned things. those are times when people are voluntarily getting arrested, and i appreciate and have participated and organized in a number of those kind of arrests. but when we're speaking out in the hearings, especially before or after the hearing is actually started, we don't plan to get arrested. we don't want to get arrested, and we don't think we should be arrested. >> host: do the capitol hill police know you when you come in? do they plan for that? >> guest: as soon as we walk in the building there's actually a big smile on their faces because they have come to like us a lot. we have a friendship with the capitol police. they give us big hugs when we come inside. sometimes we're standing on line to get in a hearing and one of the police will come in and give us a high five or a hug. they know us and they like us because they know we are nonviolent, absolutely nonviolent. they know we wouldn't touch anyone. we wouldn't hurt anybody. and they know that we're passionate about these issues, and they appreciate that. just as i appreciate people who might be on the totally opposite side of an issue that eye. on but they are passionate about the issues. we have something in common. we believe in getting involved in government activities, whether it's domestic issues or international issues. the capitol police were trying to have a party now for one of the lieutenants who recently retired because we enjoyed over the years having conversations with him about these issues. they often times don't agree with us on a lot of the things but, again, they appreciate our passion, our involvement, and over the years i think have come to understand that we feel this responsibilityies a citizen is to steer our government on a better path. many of the capitol police have been in the military or their sons or daughters are in the military. they at this point don't want to see them sent off abroad on what they now consider a fool's mission. so, really, over the years they have come to recognize that we have been right on these issues. we shouldn't have invaded iraq. we shouldn't have always looked at these problems overseas as one that military can solve. and so i think not only do they appreciate us as individuals, i think they have moved close examiner closer to our positions. >> host: may 23, 2013. let's watch. >> we went on to -- [shouting] >> we went on -- [shouting] >> 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 activity? >> we're addressing that, ma'am. >> apologize to the thousand of muslims you have killed? will you -- innocent victims? that will make us safer here at home. i love our country. i love the world. those are making our -- [shouting] -- guantanamo. making us look like -- abide by the rule of law. >> the voice of that woman is worth paying attention to. [applause] >> 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. >> guest: i love my country. i love the rule of law. i think that is important for your viewers to understand. i don't do these things because i want to. my heart was pounding with almost coming out of my chest, peter and, there was a voice in me saying, don't do this, he's the president of the united states, and there was another voice saying, you just got back from yemen, you met with people whose mothers were children, children were killed, who were absolutely independent people, and your government is lying spouse saying we don't kill innocent people. you met with people who are asking the u.s. government to explain why their loved ones were killed. to apologize for killing them. to compensate them for their loss just as a gesture to show they are sorry. and so these two voices were wrestling in my head, and i chose the voice of the victims, and i feel that so important, peter, because president obama's drone warfare has been almost victimless in the eyes of the american people. when have you seen the mainstream media -- yes, the hellfire missiles basically incinerate the victims so it's hard to show their bodies, but can't we talk to their loved ones? can't we talk to their mothers, their fathers, their wives, their husbands? and so american people have not been able to get the kind of empathy that i have from going to these places and meeting these families, and so i feel my government has been lying to me about the number of innocent people killed. my government has been using illegal practices of just dropping missiles on people willy-nilly because we think they might be bad people, without ever having to prove it. without ever having to account for the innocent people killed. and there was my chance to address the president and i addressed it. and i think that for the muslim world, it's important to see a nonmuslim, and i'm also jewish and that's very important to say -- to say that their lives are as precious as our lives. my children and i have two and a granddaughter who i just adore -- are so precious to me that i don't want other people's children or grandchildren killed. and so i have to stand up and say to my government, stop lying. stop using extra judicial killing. capture people. give them a -- accuse them of something, give them a trial, and treat every life as if it were your own child's life. >> host: you're watching booktv on c-span2. this is our "in depth" program. opposite a month we invite an author on to talk about his or her body of work. this month it's author and activist, me deah -- medea ben gentleman mine, a cofound ordinaries consecutive pink and also an author in 1989, bridging the globe gap. a handbook to linking citizens of the first and third worlds. don't be afraid, gringo, came out in 1989 as well. no free lunch, food and revolution in cuba today. another 1989 book. the peace corps and more, 1991. an afro brazillian woman's story of politics and love, 1997. cuba, talking about a revolution, also in 1997. the greening of the revolution. she is the coeditor of that book, 2002. how to stop the next war now, coeditor, 2005, and finely, drone warfare, killing by remote control, came out in 2013. medea benjamin, you wrote a lot andletin america. whatit ills about the u.s. and latin american relationship. >> guest: it's about the u.s. trying to tell latin america how to run its own internal affairs. it's this old monroe doctrine, the idea it's our backyard, and we can make and break governments at our will. and it's funny because i feel that my politics came from my first experiences of traveling to latin america. i was a pretty naive young woman, going to guatemala, wanting to learn about the beautiful indigenous culture, and what i learned about was my own history. i learned about the dulles brows and they were imposing u.s. policy on guatemala. i learned about the overthrow of the democratically elected government, and united fruit taking away lands from indigenous people and turning them into people who couldn't feed themselves anymore. i learn about chile and the overthrow of the democratically elected sal -- salvador acken day. and i ward told to learn about my own country, my own history, and work to change your government's policies so you allow to us elect the governments we want, and don't interfere in our internal affairs, and that became a lesson to me. and one that has stuck with my my entire life, which is that we should not try to dictate how other countries and other peoples behave, and i think it's a lesson that more of our leaders have to learn because they try to socially engineer other countries, and it, one, is not fair, and, two, doesn't work. >> host: we're going to put the numbers on the screen. if you want to talk. east and central time zone 202-748-8200. 202-7 48-8201 in mountain and pacific time zone. and if you can't get through on the phone lines, you detective through via social media. twitter,@booktv is our twitter handle. you can send an e-mail to booktv@c-span organize organize, and finally make a comment on our facebook page. when did you become medea? >> guest: i was born susan ben gentleman minimum. i was born in a suburban house hold in long island, new york, and i was growing up in the '60s, a time of great turmoil. i look back at my youth and i realize that i was tremendously affected by several things. one was the war in vietnam, and i started a peace group in my high school. another was race issues that i had lived in a white suburb where black families started moving in, and it brought out some really ugly racism among my neighbors, and i sided with the black families, and the other was this issue of materialism, because i'm thinking now of martin luther king talking about the triple evils of racism, militarism, and materialism, and i noticed in my own neighborhood and family this always striving to get more material goods. to keep up with the joneses, and is rejected those three things as a young person. when i went off to college, it was in the middle of the vietnam war, and i decided that i would not stay in school because i wanted to be out learning about the real world and not stuck in some ivory tower, but in my little time in the ivory tower, my first semester at tufts university, i started reading the greek plays, and it was one of the courses i was taking, and i decided as i was going to change my identity and leave school i should also change my name because i never liked susan. always many susys in my classes, and i was little susie, and so every month i would choose a different name from the greek plays and tell my friend they had to call me a different name. when it came to medea, i thought it was pretty name. i had read the play about medea being this powerful woman with magical powers that use them in a very bad way and killing her own children. then i read another analysis saying she didn't do that. actually it was blamed on her because she was a powerful woman with magical powers. anyway i said i like the name medea, and i like the idea of a strong woman, and using her strength for positive things. and so i stuck with the name medea. >> host: were your parents activists? >> guest: they were not activists at all. my parents, if anything, were not interested in politics. they were very typical keep up with the joneses kind of family, and it's hard for me to say whether they -- democrat or republican. i think they voted republican most of the time and were quite conservative in their values. i also say they were racist in the way they looked at the world and were afraid of the black families coming into our community, afraid of property values, so i butted heads with them on quite a number of issues. but certainly i didn't get my politics from my parents. >> host: has cuba been a positive influence as far as its politics and its system? >> guest: i would say i have a love-hate relationship with cuba. i was -- peter, i got into all of this, i mentioned, from the antiwar but also from wanting to live in a world where all children had food on their plates and roof over their head. as a humanist, really. and so i went to school and studied nutrition. i went out in the world, working as a new tryingsist with mall nourished kids around the world, and i was so distraught, whether it was latin america or africa or asia, seeing so hasn't myungry children when i knew that with ten cents, a mixture of -- they could be rehydrated instead they were diagnose from diarrhea. i said this world is crazy that doesn't do anything to stop these poor children from dying. and then i met cubans who were working in africa, and they had left their families, they weren't getting paid. they volunteered as doctors, as nurses, as teachers, to live in the poorest parts of africa, and treat poor people. and they also were just fun people to hang out with because they were really dedicated to trying to help people who were impoverished. they really formed relationship with the local people. and also they loved to dance and they loved to sing and they loved to party and they loved to have a good time. and when i started hearing cuban music and dancing, cuban salsa, thought this is just wonderful. and -- but more important to me was they said that in cuba there were no malnourished kids. the cuban government was so dedicated to children that i should go and see for myself. which i did. and i went to cuba and i ended up getting married in cuba, having my child in cuba, and it's true. the cuban government is dedicated to the children. the children are so well taken care of in cuba. but i'm an outspoken person. i've been since the time i was a child and i found that i really cared about free speech and i really cared about freedom of assembly, and i started butting heads with the powers that be in my work place, and whether it was coming up against a government sponsored union that i would fight with to try to get more changes in the workplace, or whether it was speaking out against government policies, i ended up getting in trouble in cuba, and in fact, so much trouble that i was given a military escort to the plane and i was deported with my husband and child. the years went by. i was not even allowed back into cuba, and after many years, i was asked to write a piece about cuba, and the magazine that asked me to do it actually negotiated to get me the right to go back into cuba because the didn't on the board of the magazine was a lawyer, who to this day is a lawyer who works for the cuban government. and he got me back inside. i have been going back and forth to cuba. i love the fact that health care in cuba is free and accessible to all. i love the fact that education is free and accessible to i'm love the fact they care about the children. but i do care about and want to live in a society where people are able to express themselves freely. >> host: in your book, cuba, talking bat revolution, you write about juan antonio blanco. who is that? >> guest: he is an intellectual that i met in cuba that was one of those really interesting people who was very revolutionary, had butted heads with fidel castro and the government because he took independent stands on a lot of things. for example, one over noter things the cuban government did was nationalize the entire economy. everything from the little restaurants, from the selling of peanuts on the corner, everything became a government activity, which was disastrous, and people spoke out against that. so i did an interview with him that i thought was fascinating and we turned it into a book. it's a book called "talking about revolution." and it's from the point of view of a revolutionary who is a -- has a critical eye on his own government, but has the values of the revolution. >> host: of all your books-what's your favorite? >> guest: i would say my favorite is "don't be afraid gringo." it's about a woman who i met when i traveled to central america during the '80s. the time of the u.s. involvement in these terrible wars in central america where the u.s. was trying to overthrow the sandinistas, the u.s. was fighting in el salvador, used in bloody wars in central america, and the country that wasn't getting enough coverage back in the u.s. was honduras. so i decided to go to honduras and speak to people about the encroaching military involvement. in fact the u.s. was now putting up bases inside honduras to use as a launching pad for the wars in the rest of central america, and i was interviewing lots of different people from different walks of life, and i came across this one woman, and i did an interview with him, and i fell in love with this woman, and i thought, i'm going to go back and do more interviews with her, and we did more interviews and more, and then turned it into a book, and i love the book because we ended up doing it from her point of view. and telling the story of a woman who was a poor peasant woman, who grew up with her six children, being malnourished, struggling to speed them, trying to get a little patch of land to grow food, then realizing she wanted to organize to help her neighbors get access to land. i went out with her on what are called these land recoveries where they go out in the middle of the night, take over a piece of lan that a wealthy landowner had left lying fallow, and the land own we're wake up to find 300 families now on that land, starting to dig and plant seeds, and i was just amazed at their organizationing capacity, at their standing up to powerful landlords who had guns and militias, al via had been captured and tortured, imprisoned in the u.s. base, and yet with off ol' -- all of that she was fun. we laughed incessantly. we became like sisters. we had such good a time together. and the book was a wonderful introduction to a lot of people about the problems in central america, and why the u.s. military involvement was not a good thing. and then we brought her to the united states year after year to talk to audiences, and my favorite was once -- i don't know how we managed to do it. we had a friend on the idea. we took her to speak to the graduating class in the u.s. defense college, the war college in california, and these graduates were going to be going to central america, and she was speaking before them, and this woman just charmed the hell out of them in the beginning. she got up and said, left me tell you what the life of a peasant is like. we get up at 4:00 in the morning, start making the tortillas, we send our husbands into the field and get our children off to school and we go in field and come home and clean and work and we're exhaustled by nighttimes and husbands come back and they want us to work again in bed. and everybody in the audience starts laughing and she is charming them. and i remember at one point she looks out in the audience, and jumps off the stage, and -- she doesn't speak english, and it turns out that one of the soldiers had fallen asleep. she goss,. [clapping] clap of 50 pushups right here, right now. so they were in his stair ricks, so the won them over and the talked about the soldiers coming in her community and arresting the peasants and torturing them, and in the end, they didn't want to go to central america anymore. they wanted to hug and kiss her and get their pictures taken with her. the become became very subversive. read by people in the military. people in the peace corps. it was the number one underground book that beam going -- people going to central america in the peace corps were reading and i think it had a big effect in turning people's mind around 0. >> host: because of the kind of work you do do you get regular league advise? >> guest: well, i certainly get legal advice and have a lot of lawyers who are friends, but i don't often listen to the legal advice. if i did, i would never have done that first interruption of donald rums phil because the lawyer said could i get a year in jail, thousands of dollar's fines, and we did it anyway. i have talked to lots of lawyers and i always weigh their opinion carefully, but usually don't take the advice. >> host: medea benjamin, you mixed you respect people on the other side who are passionate about the issue. let's look at video from july 23rd of this year. >> so one of the things you said is if iran is trying to get nuclear weapons -- the nice thing is i think in debates, proof matters and one entity, one person who -- about with whom there is no ambiguity in term owes whether iran wants weapons the ayatollah which men any. and president rouhani. both who say they're developing nuclear weapons there's no doubt -- >> absolutely false. absolutely false. [shouting] >> i don't think that dirks. >> ma'am, ma'am, i do not -- i did not interrupt you. i did not interrupt you so i would ask you to show me the same courtesy. if you look at, number one, would note, you did not respond to the irrefutable point that this deal will send over $100 billion to iran and those billions of dollars will be used to murder americans by jihaddists. you didn't responsibility to that. >> host: what was that about? >> guest: we went to a gathering. we heard and just ran over there that ted cruz was going to be speaking to a group of concerned women, was called against the iran nuclear deal, and we have been great enthusiasts of this iran nuclear deal because it keeps us out of another war. and ran over there and ted cruz was talking, and so i got up front, and was able to have a dialogue with ted cruz for about 25 minutes. it wasn't a fair debate, i would say, because he had all his people and he had control of the mics. but it was a good example of i think very smart on his part of inviting us to come up and to talk about these issues. but now that you brought up this clip here, do want to say that while i've been a great critic of president president obama foe strikes and not closing down guantanamo, especially len he first came in and had control of the house and senate, and many other issues, i am very enthusiastic about the iran nuclear deal. i'm very enthusiastic about the normalization of relations with cuba. i'm very enthusiastic that finally he started to use diplomacy, and i think it's a very dangerous time when the congress is being lobbied now by big money groups like aipac, to convince congress to vote against this deal. this is a deal that is in the best interests of the united states, of iran. i would also say in the best interests of israel and the world, because we need to be working cooperatively with iran. not only to make sure it does not have nuclear weapons, which it says it does not want. ted cruz lied when he said that the ayatollah and rouhani said they want nuclear weapons. but also because he need to work with iran and saudi arabia and all the countries in the region to deal with the issues of isil to deal with the issues of extremism, if we're going to find diplomatic solutions to the tremendous problems in the middle east, it has to be by talking to all the parties there. >> host: one more piece of video before we go to phone calls. so if you're on the line, hang on for just one more second. the same day, july 23, 2015. here's codepink. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] >> come to order. >> host: you kicked out of a hearing for applauding? >> guest: we applauded before the gavel went down. i had been arrested protesting john kerry and so have my colleagues with codepink but this is a time where we are so proud of him. we think that he and the iranians and the other countries that are involved in this have done a tremendous job to come up with this deal, and we wanted to show our appreciation. we're even going to his house to bring flowers there. we think it's important when government people do something good that we show appreciation. >> host: medea benjamin is our guest. its your town to talk to her. we begin with a phone call from rome in philadelphia. you're on booktv. >> caller: thank you very much. i appreciate booktv and c-span choosing medea benjamin and i want to say i'm learning so much, and meds deah, has been a huge inspiration to me. she is one of the persons highly responsible for getting me interested because she spoke so much truth in the protests and finding out why she protested. she is a huge inspiration to me. i have two basic questions, but again, thank you, c-span, for seeing the importance and the tradition of kwame influencing bryan lamb to start c-span, i think think her comments have necessary debate that makes america as beautiful as it is. my question is could medea benjamin talk about the influence of eduardo galliano who passed in april of this year and also she said that cuba normalizing the relationship with the united states, she sees as a positive thing, but i have a concern that what happened to the ussr in 1989 will happen to cuba with the socialist character with cuba will die. could you speak to that and galliano's influence on her maybe? >> guest: eduardo galliano, for those of your viewers who don't know him, run to the library and get the book. "own veins of lat -- open veins of latin america" is one example of a writer who is a beautiful literary writer but gets into the soul of latin america and also the way the u.s. has historically tried to subvert the wildfires latin american people. so, eduardo galliano has had a tremendous influence on me as i was growing up and reading his books. roane talked about the character of the socialist revolution in cuba. i mention my love-hate relationship with cuba. i think one of the exciting things about cuba is that it's different and we need societies that try different things because goodness knows we have so many problems in our capitalist society of entire sectors of our population who don't benefit from this economy. the tremendous inequalities, the climate crisis, and trying different ways of living in society is a good thing. in the case of being concerned about what it means to normalize relations, i think it's an example of trusting the cubans to decide what they want to let in from the u.s. and what they don't. for example, i think that cubans have for economic reasons decided that tourism is going to be a big sector of their economy and would like to see a lot more american tourists being able to travel there. well, obama has opened up embassies, he still -- the u.s. has still not lifted the travel ban. so that you can only go to cuba if you fit within 12 categories that include educational travel, religious travel, humanitarian, but if you want to go on the beach, like any canada yap, and go lie on a beautiful beach in -- outside havana, that is illegal. so cubans would like to see that travel ban lift. think the american people should protest that our government is telling us where we can and can't go. and that is one thing that should be lifted. in terms of lifting the trade restrictions that still exist, think it would benefit the cubans tremendously to be able to buy some of the foods they don't produce and are now buying from countries thousands of miles away, from new zealand they're getting chickens, rice from vietnam. and to be able to get it from 90 miles away from the united states. so, there are things that would definitely be mute -- mutually beneficial. one of the exciting things cuba is experting with is cooperatives. the government realizes the state run, chopped down economy, has not worked and that they want to divest the state of a lot of these different businesses, and in stead of concerning them into private businesses, they're trying to turn them into worker co-ops, and i think it's very exciting. we visit a lot of them when we go to cuba, and litten offers or viewers who are interested, check out our web site, code pink.org for upcoming trips to cuba. i think at comment with a strong worker co-op sector could be very exciting and could be a model in cuba and for other countries, including our own. >> host: stewart is calling in from new york city, hi, stewart. >> caller: hey, petitioner. thank you very much and thank you to your guest i just want to echo what a terrific program you have, and peter, you're facility at asking questions and getting information conveyed is extraordinary. i have two questions. for your guest. the first, it's been almost 14 years since 9/11. what do you attribute the lack of organized terrorism in this country to over the interim? and then the second question, hypothetical -- sorry -- if, say, a weapon of mass destruction were used in the united states, let's assume we weren't able to stop it, what changes in the rules of law might we want to consider? thank you. >> guest: i'm not sure i understand the first question. did you, pete center. >> host: do you want to rephrase that first question? >> caller: yes. >> host: what are you going for with the first question? >> caller: i look, for example, 14 years oak almost, a couple thousand people were killed by islamic terrorists. that kind of organized effort has not occurred in the intervening period, and i'm curious what your guest attributes that lack of success on the part of the terrorists to, and i hope my second question was straightforward but i can respond to that as well. >> host: what is your answer to the first question, stewart? >> caller: i think there's a balance between the amount of information we gather and the observation we have on people's behavior. i think we have to balance that up against rights of privacy, and the potential for government intrusiveness, by think it's a practical constraint that requires judgment, awareness, and alertness, and i welcome the discussion if don't presume to have definitive answers. >> host: thank you, sir. >> guest: yes, thank you for that. i understand now. i agree with you've that it's a balance. i think we're far from having found that balance. i think the terrible intrusion on our privacy in terms of the mass surveillance has been uncomfort thanks to edward snowden, but our government lied to us telling us they weren't doing that. and i don't think mass surveillance is a way to protect us. i think that, yes, that we need to be defended at home, and the government should be checking on people that they think would have a reason to harm us, but that's one of the reasons i think that our military should be here at home defending us instead of going in and invading other countries overseas. but i don't think that we have ever allowed ourself as a nation to look at ways that we can prevent people from wanting to harm us. for example, one of the reasons that osama bin laden said he hated the united states was that we had bases in the saudi lands in the holy lands and mecca. we should be closing down those bases. and not just bases there, there's many other countries that don't want our military bases that have been fighting to get those military bases out of their countries. and we should close down those bases. there are many people who hate the united states because we have been supporting dictators in their countries. i have traveled to many of these places, like egypt, where the u.s. is supporting a very repressive regime in fact as we are doing this program, john kerry, who i applauded very recently, is now sitting down with general sissy who has made life miserable for the egyptian people and according to human rights watch and amnesty international the human rights situation is worse than during the terrible days of hosni mubarak and yet john kerris there making nice and the u.s. has released over a billion dollars in military aid to that country. the i.s. has also been one-sided in its support for israel, giving israel over $3 billion a year in our tax dollars to the israeli military that has been used for repressing the palestinian people. so a number of u.s. policies that make is disliked around the world... we do applaud what we do like the use of diplomacy, but we want to move towards a broader look at what kind of world we want to live in and we've been talking about and researching and i would like to do more writing about the con that to the peace economy. what would a peace economy look like to move us away from a country so entrenched in the military industrial complex that general eisenhower warned us about in the 1950s and move back into a peace economy. what would it look like to have an economy based on locally produced goods, more participatory budgets where people are really involved in shaping how we spend our money, what would it look like to have the kind of diplomacy we want to see on the international level be taught in our schools against things laid olene be a core part of what children learn from the time they enter into public schools. all these different ways we could move ourselves as individuals away from the war economy and move ourselves as a nation into an economy that protects the environment to include the issues of getting off the fossil fuel treadmill and an economy based on green sustainable and renewable sources of energy. all of the pieces coming together to inspire people both individually trying to think of what they do with their lives as well as what kind of policies we want to see nationally and globally. moving into the big picture of what does the peace economy look like. >> host: when did you start writing? >> guest: i started raining when i was hired by an organization called food first, also institute or food and development policy. when i left cuba i was one of the few american living there and as nutritionist by training and the institute hired me to co-author a book on the good and bad things cuba had done to address the food issue and i realized i really like to and i enjoyed telling stories and relaying the conversations that i would have with people or hear people having amongst themselves that i liked being a vehicle for translating ideas i heard especially when i lived overseas. a lot of my books they're taking those voices or lessons, a book i wrote on brazil about the first black poor women to become a senator in brazil. my experiences in cuba become incorporated in the book are talking about revolution. i enjoyed the conversation i find fascinating. conversations i would've never had in the united states. in the united states i am considered radical, sometimes fringe. but overseas i'm kind of a centrist. centrists may be liberal because the center of gravity and other places is so different. i like invading voices to americans who usually don't get a chance to hear that appear in >> host: next call for medea benjamin comes from daniel in west palm beach. >> caller: how you doing. number one, thank you for taking my call. i'm so glad i hooked up with "in depth" today. i was never familiar with ms. benjamin and i always thought they were a bunch of crazies. how wrong was i. maybe i was the one that was crazy. i'm like 999% in her mind. when she speaks it's almost the things i want to say. at another question. just one point as far as work goes. wars are about one thing and one thing only and that is monday. unfortunately the people who benefit are moore's never sacrificed anything am the only time they hurt is when the war and peered my heart goes out to the men and women and the innocent. anyway, god bless you guys and ms. benjamin, keep up the good work. thank you. >> danielle, my heart goes out to you because what you said resonates with me as bessie butler once said war is a racket and there are people who make a lot of money for more. zero it makes a lot of money, northrop grumman makes a lot of money for more, all the contractor is at the pentagon make a lot of money for more. lobbyists make a lot of money for more. it is in their interest to keep the wars going and if the people who volunteer to protect our country lucas hentoff on wars we shouldn't be in who are the big ones of this. we the taxpayers are forced to spend trillions of dollars said of investing it in high-speed rail systems and good transportation and good infrastructure in this country and all the things we need to rebuild our country here at home. so we have been taken for a ride by those who benefit from more and we the people have to rise up and speak out about that. i was talking earlier about iran who is lining up to squash the deal. people who benefit from more and also billionaires who have a lot of money to invest in our fair try to put fear into people that iran is about to attack us. this kind of fear mongering is bad for us. is bad for policymakers and yet we see a handful of billionaires is trying to persuade the american people that we should go down the path to another war in iran, a country of 80 million people. i agree very much with you again now. so glad you called in and as the next military person i think it is important we get together and force our government should not listen to those who profit from more to listen to the majority of americans who do not and if it. >> host: we don't want to make this too much of a love in so lots of points of view. some of the comments coming in. can does? job it still says waste of time. and he says she is a leftist nut and one more comment says medea benjamin, please do not forget your calling my radio program is on august 3rd here in florida. she wanted to remind you about that. raymond in kalamazoo, michigan. >> caller: hi, how are you? god bless you both. peter, you are my hero, too. and the young lady is my new found hero and i just want to say thank you, god bless you for your show. i wanted to know how can one become a member of your organization, ms. benjamin and an active member peer where activists in new, michigan. we have protested against police brutality, racial profiling, delights of the public safety are so sneaky and so fake and they put up because of all the goings-on in baltimore and more recently in cincinnati with a young man being shot in the face in the car and so on. they hold these neighborhood police meetings to show they are on the side of the community which they are not. we protested in washington d.c. against the invasion of iran, rather iraq where bush gave a 48 hour to saddam hussein that he better get up out of dodge. i'm an african-american who was told at the history of kalamazoo , kalamazoo. i was told we would only one stand up against police brutality in and racial profiling and that sort of thing here in kalamazoo. >> host: raymond, a lot on the table. let's hear from our guests, medea benjamin. tesco first of all, i'm glad you asked her to join because some people think it's only women. we welcome and encourage men to join us and you can go online and sign up and you are a member. we send out weekly alerts giving people ideas of things they can do. i'm glad you brought up the issue of police brutality because that is an issue we care about very much. repost it, for example, mothers who lost their children to police violence to have meaning that the justice department congress and the white house. i remember sitting around with dan and asking them have any of the police officers who shot their children, have they been in the military and one by one the women raised their hand and said the police man was in iraq, afghanistan and many police came back from overseas tours of duty with ptf d., trigger-happy and that accounts for a lot of the killings happening by the police and the other saying is the military contractors. we just talked about war being a racket. the defense department is giving away hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military grade equipment to police departments. these are things no police department should have. tanks we see in our streets, grenade launchers, silent tears, assault weapons and we have to fight back. we don't want police to have military equipment and we don't want police who are trigger-happy. we worked together on the issue of showing the militarization oversees and on our street unfortunately connected and when we talk about moving towards a peace economy, a peaceful way of the world would have to look towards how we change the way police are treating citizens in their own communities. >> host: book you contributed to his highlight of empire responses to occupation. what were your travels in iraq late? >> we went to go to iraq. we have always felt it's important to go to the places where government is involved semiconductor from first-hand experiences. our first trip was in february 2003 at the time without the u.s. is going to have a. imagine getting together a group of women in saying we may be there when the bombing started but we are so committed to going that we are going to go. what we found is our stereotypes going away. i write in the introduction in the book i did with my cofounder about an experience on the first try at when we flew to jordan, rented a car, drove across the desert extremely nervous so what happened when i got to chat point to enter iraq. here we were under saddam hussein about to invade them and the customs guard takes our passport, look at the other one, stamps them, looks at mind and says benjamin, is not jewish and i thought the iraqis hate the jewish. i just had these flashes through my mind and the guy disappeared and left their standing, thinking what's going to happen to me. he comes back huffing and puffing and says i ran home to get my note book. i've been studying hebrew and i wonder if you could correct my grammar. i was like my goodness, first of all i felt that time i didn't beat hebrew. he said my government might go to war with israel and i want to communicate with those i am told are my enemies. when we went to war he said they learned farsi and i don't consider any people my enemy. that is the person going into iraq under saddam hussein and then we get to bag dad, the first woman i meet is a woman who speaks perfect english, never been out of iraq in her life, and her question to me was to wear the black women american pilot that are your favorite? i like alice walker, nikki giovanni and she goes on telling me this is a one-man and directed product of the iraqi university system. she said i studied u.s. literature at the university. you go to iraq and realize the women are very sophisticated. judges, lawyers, architects, business women. they are on way are fighting against saddam hussein. they don't want us to bring it to them. that's not how it works. traveling to iraq was a tremendous eye-opener just as it has been a tremendous eye-opener to travel to yemen to meet with the terms of the drums strike and gaza where i'd been seven times meeting with hamas, people who i am told i'm crazy. i'm sure wish my government would meet with hamas because it's a lot better to talk than it is to fight. i have been constantly educated grow every time i'm able to go overseas to meet with people who think differently than i do. i learned from them and they learn from me. >> host: alice walker did the forward to stop the next war -- "stop the next war." who is jodie evans? >> guest: jodie evans is the cofounder of cure pink. she is constantly all over the world. she came back from brazil, for example. they look at how we can build a global movement for peace and justice. we work for a mostly volunteer is not a typical ngo or have a lot of staff. jodi and i ourselves volunteer at the recommendation and many of the people who work with code pink are volunteers. many of us are retired or people who have our work on the side and do this as volunteers. that's one of the beautiful things that code pink and i feel blessed being able to work with jodie evans because she's an extraordinary and extraordinary visionary. i've had the pleasure of traveling to alice walker. they been to gaza for international women's day and we went to see the results of the destruction and we went to honor the women. in fact, we called our friends and gaza said what can we bring? do you need medicine question are they said for international women's day, bring things for women that make them feel like women. bring them produce cars, nice silks and shampoos are so they got a basket for women and spent international women's day with united nations go into 15 different organizations and gaza distributing dutiful task at stopes inspires and beautiful candies to women throughout the strip but it suffers so much. >> host: next call for medea benjamin comes from tom in washington d.c. >> caller: thank you for having me. thank you to booktv and c-span for having a great program. i would like to reiterate what your previous guest said just thank medea benjamin. i'm sitting here with tears in my eyes thinking about you women in the gaza strip giving up his gift baskets. i have a couple questions. one of my questions as you consider yourself an act list or writer? i read you online the publication another place is and i am a budding act do this to myself and i would like to ask you, why isn't there more of a peace movement in the united states? do you think the educational work in protest you done about drones has had an impact in our country and around the world? you're just bringing up gaza and hamas and other organizations and what are called extremist groups or groups like this and muslim groups. i'm wondering how you would deal with a says -- a safe and hamas and other groups. i'll take your ribs are offline. i want to thank you. i'm proud to speak with you. >> host: if you would start with the activist author. what's the balance? >> guest: activist number one. i spend a lot of time writing. i write articles two times a week i have an article in many places like "huffington post" come in dreams truth out and is a very nice group of work with called the other words that takes a column and send them out to smaller newspapers around the united states which is a great way to reach many different kinds of people. writing is important that this is my number one love because i want to change things. the caller asks has the activism had any impact. when we started doing the work, the government wasn't admitting it even had a drone program. it was sane at the covert program we just don't talk about it. we force the government to talk about it. we force them to ait they were civilian casualties. we managed to get calmed nation for the innocent drone of the thames. we have forced our government to stop in the way of his using a double tops when they send in one round of missiles and then another round right-of-way which were coming in to help the people killed in the first round. stop them from doing the tree in a killing if they knew would kill a significant number of civilians in the process. there have been changes in the policy. we would like to see an end but we have at least modified behavior. the caller said why caller said why isn't there more of a peace movement? it's a very good question and there's some self-criticism and reflection that many people who got on the streets to talk about and stop the war in iraq when obama came and they said we now have a peace president. many of them are democrats too sad they will do a good job and others were so good from fighting the bush administration. they wanted to believe obama would solve problems for us. it was the time of a tremendous economic crisis. people will boost their homes, students tremendous debt. so they had to focus on economic issues, keeping families together who didn't have time to protest wars. for whatever reason the piece moved and almost dissolved. it's a shadow of its former self. because of back, we allowed the obama administration to have the drone program to invade and overthrow the government of libya which created such a disaster now to do other military invasions that have not helped. the lesson is to people that it doesn't matter who was in the white house. what matters is having a movement that is independent of both local parties that's double protest democrats and republicans and really is a movement tied to other issues, green economy, militarization at home, money and politics, corruption about that recognizes you have to tie these things together and we want to hold our government accountable no matter who's in office. i think -- >> host: you covered at this, the peace movement and i think his last common was about taking the gift basket to gaza. >> guest: i think how you would deal with these terrorist groups. hamas i could use as an example. i am secular feminist jewish. i certainly do not like what hamas stands for at all. and yet any chance i get to talk to hamas or muslim brotherhood brotherhood people i do it. when obama came into office, we had a chance to talk to people in the set to them obama is coming to cairo. he's going to address the arab world to buy don't you send a message to him opening arms and saying let's talk. we took the letter from hamas from a man, othman yousef, spent the whole night writing a letter to take to cairo to deliver to obama. i have a copy of the letter ended quite extraordinary. it says they want you to come here and see for yourself are ground zero and with the israeli invasion did here. we want you to start discussions we are willing to talk to anybody, i.e. israel based on no precondition and we want discussions based on international law and we couldn't even get the obama administration to respond at all to that. there's an example of reaching out and trying to promote discussions and our government refusing to do that. how would you do it today? i mentioned earlier we have to involve iran, saudi arabia, turkey, countries in the region. we have to get back to the peace table. let me ask one other thing because code pink worked with women around the world when the first talks happened in geneva around trying to find solution to the war in syria family were for peace and freedom when the oldest women's peace group bringing forward to try to get an observer status and a few at the table for the peace talks. these were women involved in peaceful protests against assad and trying to find ways to do with the conflict through nonviolent means. we could not convince john kerry or anybody that women should have their seat at the table. the only people with a seat at the table were the guys with the guns. if you don't have peacemakers at the table, you will not have peace. so we've been pushing the u.s. and the world abide by the resolution at the united nations called 1325 that says women must be involved and are all rebels of peacemaking and would like to see our government treat that more seriously. >> host: from our twitter feed, vicky says the u.s. shouldn't interfere in other countries internal affairs? what about human trafficking and genocide. >> guest: we should work through the united nations, international bodies. we should not take it on myself. we have a lot right here in the united states. caller talked about police brutality and the incredible proliferation of guns in people being killed every day. human trafficking inside the country we have to deal with. we should clean up a lot of the problems we have at home and work with international organizations hoping to find international organizations and work on this very, very difficult issues like human trafficking. >> host: john is calling in from oregon. you've oregon. you can hold in a while. thanks for your patience. you are in booktv with medea benjamin. >> caller: thank you so much. i know might hold of and listening. when i hang up i will continue listening. i wish to echo the opening comment of the first caller and comments of the retired military caller and that leaves only that i am both humbled and honored to have this opportunity. i was watching c-span and when the second plane hit the tower, my first up is okay time for the women to start running the country because the men have done nothing but cause trouble. i'm not talking like hillary clinton or nancy pelosi or anything like that. elizabeth warren should stay where she sat. she could be more effective in her post. if hillary is the democratic nominee i will reluctantly vote for her because the alternative will be more death and destruction on a greater scale. if it is a standard administration, however, ms. benjamin, à la pipe resin that sanders to nominate u.s. secretary of state for department of interior and so it's not an all-female cap. one quick comment for c-span and one for ms. benjamin. i would hope that c-span can do a series or bring the survivors in and do interviews with them and perhaps even bring johnson's biographer. i go through and bring out the entire truth surrounding the uss liberty and for ms. benjamin with the uss liberty and rachel corrie and all of the problems that israel has caused the government of israel, not the people of israel, ms. benjamin, do you think you will ever be possible to hold the government of israel to account without being labeled an anti-semite? again, honored and humbled at the opportunity. thank you very much. >> guest: thank you so much for calling in. women rising up i am totally there with you. that is what we've been trying to do. i want to give you an example of something i was involved recently, which is a woman on a korean american women who had a dream about women rising up to do some thing about the unresolved con like in the korean peninsula and woke up and said i'm going to organize a group of women and we will walk across the demilitarized zone and that's precisely what we did. we organized 30 women including nobel peace prize winners, women from the above in different countries and we got the permission of north korea, south korea, u.s. government, u.n. command to walk across the demilitarized zones. it is an example of women rising up and bringing attention to an unresolved conflict of the armistice agreement back in 1953 that still has not been turned into a peace treaty and needs to happen. i am anxious to see women rising up globally to demand the guys put down the gun. i agree with you it is not just about any women. i consider hillary clinton to be a hawk. we met with hillary clinton about iraq pleaded with her to not vote for the iraq war. she knew better. she knew they were not weapons of mass destruction. she made a choice and a very bad choice. while secretary of state, what did she do to bring peace in the world? look at her record of what kerry has done around iran. she has done nothing. she did nothing to the peace process. in fact, she continued the u.s. policy of total allegiance to the israeli government. i wanted to move towards your other comment which was israel. as a jew i care very much about israel and the jewish people and i think the path of israel is on now is the most impossible for the jewish people and israeli people. i think as a jewish american i have a particular is its ability to qaeda make my governments have an evenhanded policy that recognizes we need to promote human rights of all people as palestinians as well as the jewish population. i think our giving of $3 billion a year to the israeli military to then be used to attack the poor people in the gaza strip is a war crime. israel committed war crimes in the international looking into that. the u.s. state to buy furnishings and allowing israelis to continue to do that. i also think the continued wilderness settlement has been shown by the international community to be illegal. the recent right wing settlers who burned the homes of palestinian, killing a 14 -month-old baby is just despicable and the u.s. has to stand up against the settlements as well. one thing that i see happening is the jewish community and the united states is changing and moving away from the israel lobby aipac that has a lot of money and a lot of clout losing the younger generation and we see now with the site around the nuke leer deal that the younger jewish population in the united states is for the deal and aipac is having to use massive amounts of money. in fact, they started an organization, but $20 million into it to try to sway the american public because the public including the jewish population does not want to see another war in the middle east. thank you for your call and i'm hoping my jewish americans will join groups like jewish voice for peace which is a wonderful organization that has policies that are actually good for jewish people around the world. >> host: medea benjamin, imagine you would like to work outside of government. he ran for office on the green ticket party for senate. eduardo males then have you considered being a presidential candidate for the pink party? >> guest: i actually prefer being on the outside because i think it is a position where you can constantly be moving forward no matter who is in office than i like the organizing and being part of the larger group. when i was running for office i felt uncomfortable with the me me me thing. you have your name on it t-shirt and pin and you always talk about my position and i like to work in a collective where it is our position. i think it would be great to have a women's party. it would be great to have the labour party and the multiparty system in the united states. the green party i have been supportive of, but unfortunately the domination of the two-party system doesn't give space to the libertarian party, green party to grow because there is such a duopoly. so i would like to see major changes in the way our electoral system works in the united states is instead of the winner take all have their representation in europe in so many democracies around the world. you get 5% of the bow, 5% of physicians in congress. that would really turn things around. that way the tea party can have its people in congress end quote and can have its people. >> host: we have an hour and 15 minutes left with our guest medea benjamin. we like to ask them what are their influences, whether they currently reading? stick with us and we will show you medea benjamin's responses. stick with us, we will be back live in just a few minutes. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> host: medea benjamin, one of the books you're reading this peter schrag dares clinton cash. why? >> i am reading that book because i have been looking at saudi arabia. and why is it that there is all this talk about iran and the bad regime, but if you want to look at a really bad regime, look at saudi arabia. a country that has been responsible for spreading extremist ideologies all over the world, the country that is the largest buyer of u.s. weapons, the country invading other countries and killing lots of innocent people in saudi arabia. look again and, thousands of innocent people killed now crush the uprising in bahrain where i have been tear gassed inside is crashing the beautiful nonviolent people's uprising. and almost the hijackers on 9/11. i could go on and on. i should say what about the internal repression of women in saudi arabia. they are not even allowed to drive, can't vote in national elections, aren't allowed to go out without a guardian. i forgot to say we've been doing a lot of work. we also take on individual cases like amnesty does of working on particular political prisoners in saudi arabia we've been working on the case that the blogger you might've heard of because of his blogging about things that he was considering might be to change in the saudi government. he was sentenced to 10 years in jail and 1000 lashes. i was very dead in the saudi's giving money to lots of institutions in the united states, like hush money or like buying their allegiance and one of the institutions that give two is the clinton foundation. clinton foundation gets a lot of money. that is why i started reading that book. i should also day the saudi money is going to places like the carter foundation. i love jimmy carter and they have this wonderful program for helping women around the world. why would the carter center be taking saudi money? they should refuse just like all of the universities. georgetown, american, they'll take saudi money. i would like to start a campaign making it a dirty thing to take saudi money and having these and think tank and other groups refusing to take saudi money. i went to lenders in with the clintons were getting for the money they got from saudi arabia. i think the book is a good example of the revolving door of the corruption in politics and the saudi money is a big part of that. >> host: (202)748-8200 in eastern central time zone. 748-8201 and the mountain and pacific time zones. medea benjamin's most recent vote is "drone warfare." next call comes from martin in pennsylvania. call cowhide, how are you doing? thank you for being here and thank you, medea for being here. first i want to encode ink against police brutality and the sop and the convention center in pittsburgh next sunday, august 9th everyone is welcome and i'm sure people will be glad you could make it. as an old 60s radical i want to say how difficult it is to organize besides the local police would now do with the fbi and nsa. could you comment on recent developments in the country that reflect a new consciousness and our nation regarding how people are forced to live and mass incarceration and killer cops. also, could you comment on the situation in texaco or on the 40 student teachers handed over by public officials, police and the ruling party of mexico. i appreciate your work and i know you will continue in your after. the thing i notice i said to a friend is what you do now, we used to do every day spontaneously appeared and it's so different now because there's a few people centered around that whereas the late 60s it was every where and every of tradition, every union, every work place and every occupation, people were rising and demanding justice and equality. >> host: martin, let's leave it there. thank you very much. >> host: martin, let me go with your last comment first because it is so indicative of why it's hard to work and i've around some of these issues and that is her in the 60s there was a draft. i became involved because my friends were being drafted and everyone in the united states had a stake in what was happening in vietnam. we were forced to get involved. the way the military has evolved these days is less than 1% of the population is actually directly involved in the military and that is why we cannot things like hidden wars where people don't even know they are happening and knickknacks that hard for people to recognize that there are wars going on. young people these days were brought up under wars. that is all they know. they feel it as part of the background noise that accompanies their lives, not attempting to have to get on the street in protest against. they don't see how it affects them but of course it does. imagine the trillions of dollars we spend on wars and have free college education for young people in the country that deserve a free college education. said the way the military has changed has made it were difficult. that being said, i am very inspired by the organizing going on by young people of color in their own communities to address the issues of police brutality. the black lives matter move meant as not lead by older civil rights people, outsiders want to help the oppressed. it is led by people from the community themselves and if the young people of color who have been out on the streets regularly, have had meetings in cleveland. 1500 people around the country together about how they'll address these issues in a more systematic way. we had code and have been working with mothers who have lost their children to police violence. just about every one of these mothers has their own organization or are involved in an organization. there's a lot of amazing organizing on that issue. a lot of young people are involved in the climate justice issue and we see the movement on campuses across the country. communities of color or they've had to bear the brunt of the effects of climate chaos in the immigrant community a lot of young people are risking their own status in the united state by coming out as undocumented people, challenging the system of mass deportation. so there is a lot of good organizing going on. what is important is to connect issues and keep them separate from party politics. was there anything else? >> guest: i think you've answered quite a few of his questions. kate e-mails than, i apologize for the mispronunciation. thank you for having the courage to speak to power. think about failed wars in the middle east as she grew up in a military family. i am a lawyer i would like to provide pro bono legal assistance to your group. how do i volunteer my services? >> guest: k., with other services. we don't always listen but we do need help when people get arrested. we need pro bono lawyers to help getting their charges dropped or dealing with charges. we need help with people to think creatively how they could wring some of these issues to court challenges. for example, we had the only act of court case coat and in the united take on behalf of an iraqi woman trying to sue the united states for what happened to her and her family because of the u.s. invasion. there's lots of creative things we would like to do and talk about so kate, send us an know. you can write to info sign code pink.org or send a or send it to read or write something on her face that page are anyway you would like to communicate. we're looking forward to talking to you. >> host: how are you funded? >> guest: we are very clean organization. our budget is less than $400,000. imagine the national and international impact of a group that is such a tiny budget and that is because most of the people are not paid. some detractors say you're only doing this because you get paid for it we turn around i ever when he was doing this not only not being paid, but they apply themselves to washington d.c. and most of them do not have money. they raised money, do crowd funding to come here. we have a house where we put people out. we have wonderful and terms that come from universities and stay with us for a semester. they're always bragging about the amazing time they are happening because they learn so many different issues and experience has i get to live in the house that they have their board covered here in washington d.c. the money we make us all from individuals. because we have several hundred thousand people on our list and we want to sign drawn to dems in yemen and we will get the money from our supporters and it's a wonderful thing, one of the great things about the internet or you are able to raise money online people who don't have the time or ability to go with us or come to washington can support people, particularly young people who need the financial help. >> host: you don't take a salary from code pink as well? >> guest: no, i don't. i worked for many years. even though one of the colorsync thank you, young lady, i am in my 60s so i consider myself retired. i did have a salary from any other organization i work with. i am in a privileged position of being able to work without a salary. >> host: do you have in washington? >> guest: i live in washington d.c. >> host: marie is in san diego. >> caller: hi, thank you so much for the program. i'm fortunate enough to hear ms. benjamin speak several years ago. i'm a proud volunteer with the community radio and was an organization or independent voice networking for social justice. i wanted to ask ms. benjamin about community radio. they've opened up the specter of subcommunities can reflect the grassroots level. it is proving something different than politicians and stories just to make such a difference. do you have any of ice and make a difference by providing the information you give us that we don't hear from media conglomerates. we can help people make informed decision and get the bigger picture that you have mentioned previously to other callers. san diego loves booktv. thank you. >> guest: thank you for colin and bringing up the issue of the media. at such critical issue and we haven't talked about it. community radio is absolutely essential. i'm constantly doing community radios stations, interviews, love to have an opportunity to be on community radio because it combines my love of education and activism, people who listen to community radio are people who want to be educated to go out and do something about it in thank you to activist san diego at end of the wonderful work in the community as well. i think it's a terrible problem we have in the united states to the mainstream media is controlled by corporations. and i don't enjoy watching mainstream television. i find it to be so partisan that i have to look for my news elsewhere. i also go to places like al jazeera, art scene which is russia today, bbc. i read "the guardian" online, the newspaper. i have a lot of places i go to, both radio and the tv channels. i like a lot of online websites. i mentioned about them before like alternet or common dreams of the nation magazine is fantastic celebrating its 100th anniversary. it is important for people to seek out information in places that are part of the mainstream media that gave viewpoints that are outside the two-party duopoly in community radios one of the best places to get that information. .. whether it's immigration reform, police accountability, demilitarization, climate issues, it would be nice to have a space, an ongoing way for people involved in a lot of those activities to talk together. but i should also say dish know you just had ralph nader on, on booktv. i loved his book unstoppable, and the notion in that book is to get left and right coalitions together to deal with things. maybe we want those two individuals to come together and give their money to coalition efforts that would bring together people on the left and the right that wanted to see things like -- i know that grover nordquist would like to see the pentagon audited and into would ralph mader and so would codepink and the tea party. so interesting things could come out of those kinds of coalitions, and i like thinking outside the box on the kind of things we can do together that would actually get at the issues of too much money in politics, corrupt political system, the due only that doesn't allow for other voices, those kinds of things. >> host: bridging the global gap. a handbook to linking citizens of the first and third world. don't be aggrade gringo -- atrade greening go, no free lunch. the peace corps and more is another one of he books. desilva, came out in 1997. cuba, talking bat revolution, also in 1997. the greening of the revolution, which we have not talked about. and how to stop the next war now. came out in 2005. her most recent book, drone warfare, killing by remote control, 2013, and medea benjamin, your next book is about, again? >> guest: i'd like to do a book on the peace economy. i have a publisher who has been pushing me to do a kind of memoir back, but i've been fighting against that because i just -- it's hard to go back into the i, i, mode but there are a lot of stories i would like to tell and lessons i've learned so i'm toying with that idea as well. >> host: hugh, venezuela, hi. >> caller: thank you so much for c-span and peter for being an alternative to media that's controlled and also medea, thank you for being a light for the world. i was in cuba when castro -- used to vacation there for the second year returning, i was one of the last families to get out on emergency flight. we were on the prettiest beach i've ever seen on my life so my -- and the people there just fantastic, so i hope our relations will normalize in a way that freedom can really be for everyone in world and that what i think you're working toward. i want to ask if you have ever heard of james perloff. you can put him on youtube and he documents what the elites have been doing for far too long, but we can reverse all that with today's technologies. the pen that was mightier then the sword. the internet is might 'er with the pen and the sword with video. so i hope your organization is capitalizing on the ultimate strategies that can be achieved that way, and i want to just give one quick little statement that i hope everyone listening will just put in their hearts and mind, that was said -- i don't know by whom but an indigenous woman who said to a man, there are two wars raging in a man's heart, one is fear, and the other is love. and the man asked the woman, which one wins? she said the one that you give the most attention to. god bless everyone. >> host: any comment? >> guest: well, thank you for that sentiment, and the last thing you mentioned, i so agree with. i think we're all good people at heart, and good people do bad things, and they feed the bad often times. our society often feeds the bad. and our job as peace-loving people, is to feed the good. and i do try and -- in the stories i tell through my writing, to feed that good, to give people inspiration and examples. one of the biggest problems we have today, even in this country, is people feeling powerless. feeling that they don't have agency over their lives and certainly not over bigger issues than themselves. and so when i give a story of a peasant woman in honduras, who will never in her life probably have a cell phone much less a computer, but is able to organize communities to take over land that allows them to then feed their families. that's tremendous inspiration. when i tell the story of ben diet to desilva, brazilian woman who lost who children to malnutrition and started organizing in her community, that's inspirational. when you see mothers who have lost their children to police violence and they start organizing so this doesn't happen to other mothers, that's inspirational. so i think we have to feed the good in people, and we have to feed the idea that we do have power and that our power comps from our own determination but also comes from working together, building community, and that's what i have spent a lot of my life doing, and look forward to do doing for years to come. >> host: if you cap get through on the phone lines youen come tact medea benjamin by social media. @book to tv is twitter, facebook.com/become tv. kelly, you're on booktv. >> caller: thank you. medea, thank you for all you do. like millions around the world, my husband and i strongly protested the unnecessary invasion of iraq. my sympathies went out to the brave she lan whoa what demon highed against the war in iraq after he son was killed. i support the deal with iran. many in congress say iran is a state sponsor of terror, and as you said earlier, 9/11 was carried out bit mostly saudis, and on the same day the bush administration gave saudi officials in the united states safe flight out of the united states. also, isis was fueled -- funded -- i'm sorry -- funded earlier by the saudis. now, netanyahu says that israel and the saudis are in agreement against the iran negotiations. i find that alignment very disturbing. >> guest: well, it's interesting that john kerry says that the saudi government is in favor of the deal, and we have not heard directly from the saudi government about this. what we know is that they want something from the u.s. in return, and that usually tends to be more weapons or the u.s. turning a blind eye to what the saudis are doing in other places around the world. the u.s. is actually helping the saudis in their bombing campaign in yemen that is killing thousands of innocent people and creating a tremendous humanitarian crisis in the entire country. i also wanted to thank you for bringing up the issue of cindy sheehan, woman who lost her child in iraq and camped out outside of george bush's ranch in texas, asking for a meeting with george bush, which she never got, by the way, but, yes, being red called in the media, but of course being an aggrieved mother who was absolutely right that her child should not have died and nobody's child should have died in a wrongful invasion of iraq, and it is unfortunate that so many people who have spoken out against war, and if you just look at the case of the iraq war, those of us, including yourself, who spoke out, were vilified in the press at that time. we had so much hate mail you couldn't believe it. we had bomb threats in our office. we had people sending us the most disgusting messages, and threatening us over the phone. calling us traitors to the united states. well, we were right and they were wrong. unfortunately, they still have power today. they tends to be in our -- tend to be in our congress, pushing for a war with iraq or they're heads of -- for war with iran, of. they're heads of think tanks pushing to quash the nuclear deal. the same people that drove abuse the war in iraq are trying to drive is in a war riff iran. let's not let them do it, and i really appeal to the viewers of this program, i you want to see the u.s. living at peace with the world, get out during the recess period, go visit your congress person. if you can't visit them, at least pick up the phone and call their office. we have to make our voices heard because otherwise its the moneyed interest, those who have a stake in perpetual war, whose voices get heard. >> host: have you attended another armed services committee since mccain called you a low life scum? >> guest: yes, i did. i was at an armed services hearing this week where ashton carter was there, and john kerry was there, and john mccain said we didn't invite you, john kerry, to the hearing you. came on your open so we'll welcome you here, and it was fascinating, actually to be in that hearing to hear the people like john mccain grilling john kerry, ashton carter, martin dempsey, about why -- how terrible this deal with iran is, and i said it now three times on the program. i hope your listeners don't get teared of hearing it. he was wrong on iraq. he wanted to bomb iran. back in 2006, 2007. he met the jobe, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, iran. it wasn't funny then. it's not funny now. it distress me that people like him are in such powerful positions when they're responsible for the destruction of iraq, the deaths of thousands of our soldiers and, let's say it and say it clearly, the creation of isil. >> host: donald on our facebook page presents you with a choice in your opinion which would we more preferable, the u.s. using several bunker buster bombs to destroy iran's nuclear bomb missile program or new york city being entirely destroyed by a single nuclear tipped missile sent by iran's dictators. >> guest: well, it's a stupid choice. the second one is just not going to happen. iran, first of all, does not have, nor according to this deal, are they going to get a nuclear weapon, and even if iran had a nuclear weapon, they are not trying to bomb the united states. so, the question doesn't make any sense. really what we should be saying is, how do we move towards a nuclear-free world? that is the question that should be upper most on our minds when we look at this iran deal. yes, let's go with this iran deal, and then let's say, what about a nuclear-free middle east? that means israel's nuclear weapons. that israel even won't admit it has, much less sign the nonproliferation treaty or allow any kind of weapons inspectors into its nuclear facilities. let's talk about the u.s. not abiding by its obligations according to the nonproliferation treaty, which is we're supposed to get rid of our nuclear weapons and instead wore pouring money into modernizing our nuclear weapons. so there's a lot we should be doing globally to move towards a nuclear-free world but this deal with iran is one positive step in that direction. >> host: next call comes from susan in berkeley, california. >> caller: hi. this is susan. thank you so much for taking my call and i'm just -- it's an honor to speak with you, medea, and thank you for c-span. i'm a budding activist in my 50s and what i want to focus on in asking you is about your future looking. what you see in terms of a peace economy. and my background is psychology, and i'm very interested in the study of human nature, violence and human nature. i was -- your comment that good people doing bad things and you want to feed the good and not feed the bad. well, i'm wondering, while it's not maybe a forefront issue but all of these issues that connect with whether they're environmental, worker rights, food justice, and animal rights, and just wondering if as you look into our future of a world that you'd want to live in, does it include more of a plant-based diet? i just don't see how we can foster nonviolence and peace, given our present animal agriculture system. >> host: susan, before we get a response, you call yourself a budding activist in your 50s in. what have you been doing? >> i was a psychotherapist, working for the courts with domestic violence issues and sexual abuse issues. >> host: thank you, ma'am. >> guest: well, thank you for that wonderful call, and i love the budding activist in the 50s in. and i love the things you have brought up. my partner is a vegetarian, and so we tend to eat v vegetarian at home, and i'm trying to be much more of a plant-based diet and in fact codepink is supporting the meat-free month as part of our push for a peace economy. so, we totally agree with you on that. we also think it's better for us healthwise, better for the planet, better for us as peace-loving people. we really believe in a locally based economy, and especially around food, for people who have what has unfortunately become the luxury of eating locally. we know the food tastes better. when you travel overseas you recognize that most people overseas are leading locally based food and organic food. we have this corporate-based food economy where the food is not only ridden with pesticides but also not very tasteful. so, locally based food system, we support people growing their owner begannic gardens. we support csa where you can get a monthly basket of organic goo goods from your farmer and support your farmers. all of those are element wes consider part of a peace economy. and as somebody -- you are who has dealt with people from the psychological issue, i think you know how important its to connect what we eat, how much we exercise, how we live in our own physical bodies, to the way we behave mentally, and it all is very much connected. so we want people, and especially young people in the schools, like michelle obama, to have healthy diets, to have healthy lifestyles, and that is part of living in a community where people are dealing with each other in more positive ways. >> host: you said mr. barry was a vegetarian but you didn't say you were. >> guest: i was a vegetarian for many years when i was younger, but as i traveled overseas and lived in other countries issue found it very hard to maintain a vegetarian diet. for example, when i was pregnant and living in cuba and a vegetarian, i had several fainting spells and was anemic and finding it hard to get enough protein and so i started eating meat again. so, i eat very little meat but i'm not 100% vegetarian. i i don't eat red meat. i eat fish and chicken. >> host: global exchange, kevin, who are they. >> guest: kevin is a person i was married to. we started a group, global exchange, together. it was part of the whole philosophy in the book, bridging the global gap, which is that the american people -- because our country is so big, and because people are very focused on the u.s., we are number one kind of thing, the exceptionalism, most americans don't have passports, most americans don't travel outside the united states. so most americans don't have an opportunity to see the u.s. from a different vantage point, and so when we started global exchange, it was the idea, let's try to take people to other parts of the world, to see what -- how people live, and how they think of the united states. and as we started organizing trips to south africa, to central america, to vietnam, we also realized that people aren't seeing a lot of what is happening right here in the united states. so we started organizing trips to appalachia, trips to washington, dc to see how the lobby system worked and why it was so corrupting of our government. so, we -- role in change still exists. i'm still on the board. as is kevin. and we continue to do things like these trips. we also helped to bring the fair trade label to the united states. we had seen in europe how there were labels on tea and coffee and chocolate around fair trade and we didn't have that in the u.s. so we helped create that system here. so that people could choose to buy things where the coffee producers were getting a fair wage, or a fair price for their product. and we continue to think as part of this idea of a peace economy, that, yes, you buy local when you can but when you really want to have your chocolate or your tea or coffee or bananas, it should be through a fair trade system where there is some monitoring system set up that a lot of -- allows to us know that the producers are being paid fairly, the environment is being treated and with sustainable way and that is part of the rope we created global exchange. >> host: are your children activists. >> guest: my -- i have two girls. one is a lawyer that has been doing a lot of wonderful work as a lawyer, like immigration rights work, or working in the school system in new york state, to help students that have disabilities have access to the facilities they need. my younger daughter is just entering law school as well and they both have political views that are similar to mine, but they're not out there on the streets. they're not organizing protests. they're much more in the background or participating rather than in the front. >> host: how recognizable are you on the street, on an airplane, by name? >> guest: not really. there's people who will come up and say, know you from somewhere, and they'll keep looking at me and then say, oh, yes, aren't you the activist? or i was just in congress the other day, and somebody came up and said, aren't you medea benjamin? and he was somebody who had flown in to lobby for the aipac lobby group against the iran deal, and i thought, uh-oh, maybe he is going to hit me because i have been hit many times. hit in the face, pushed, shoved. i suffer a lot of physically often times by larger men who don't like my political views. so i suddenly got very defensive, and he said, no, i just want to tell you that while i disagree with about 190% of what you -- 90% of what you say and do i appreciate how much you care about these issues. and i was just very relieved about that. so, sometimes people recognize me but most of the time they don't know why they recognize me. >> host: you have been hit or pushed or shoved by larger men. >> guest: oh, on a regular basis. it is unfortunate. during the days of the iraq war, there would be protests and counterprotests, and we would always be peaceful, and we would be attacked by course protesters that would physically attack us, including me, as a very petite, 5'0", 100-pound small woman. and they would hit us, they would spit on us. when we are outside the annual lobby meeting of aipac, the -- what calls itself a pro israel lobby. i think it's actually bad for israel. almost every year i would get hit. usually by an elderly gentleman that would come over and just shove me. and then i've been beaten up in other countries. when i went to egypt over a year ago, i was held at the airport, detained for 17 hours, and in the morning, pulled out of the detention cell i was in, thrown to the ground, stomped on, my hand poked so vie left-handily to be nut handcuffs and my arm pulled out of its socket and was dislocated that would not let me go to a hospital to have it reset and threw me on a plane and deported in the turkey in that condition, and i've been suffering ever since. it's over a year now. from dislocate shoulder and still in physical therapy. so, yes, i've been hit and beat up quite a lot over the years. >> host: this e-mail from a viewer. how do you decide where to buy consumer goods? do you by a shirt made in china, india, sold by whole foods and how do you view whole foods and they're stated commitment to whole trade, sustainability, improved working conditions, environment. >> well, one of the things my kids never liked about growing up is i wouldn't buy new clothes. almost all our clothes were from second hand stores and there's so many wonderful second hand stores around and i love shopping in second hand stores, and i love the whole idea of things being recycled. that why i like so much of the way through the internet we can find things that people are throwing away, and i think this kind of recycling of goodded -- good is a very positive thing itch like to bring people to my house because ty is an artist and we have a wonderfully colorful house, and beautiful office and just about everything in the house is recycled. we just went yesterday and got four chairs that somebody down the block was getting rid of and we're going to sand them down and paint them and they'll be gorgeous, because we love colors and love taking old things and making them pretty. so, i believe in a lot more of that. food, ty is growing food in our backyard and we're eating a lot of salads we have grown locally. so we're also starting to do trade things like outside of our codepink house we put up a free library, and it says, take a book, give a book, and so we're in residential area in brockland and people are constantly going by and taking books and putting things in, and now not just books. they're putting things in they want to get rid of, and we're putting things in, and it's a wonderful kind of sharing, and i think that kind of -- building up those kinds of ways of sharing what we have also is part of building community. >> host: and c-span has been inside the codepink house. we interviewed the gyrocopter pilot wholand on the capitol grounds. >> guest: i forgot. i wasn't home. >> host: could not come down here to our studio, had to be at the codepink house where he stays when he is in town, and so you can see the inside of the house via that interview. charlie in new york, thank you for holding. >> caller: hi. i want to thank you for having her on. she is a beautiful woman. she is fighting for humanity. she fights for everybody. and that's one thing that strikes her, and -- that is striking about her compared to other shows that you have when you have like black nationalism or feminism, where they fight for their own group. here's a woman who is fighting for everybody. i wish i could hear more of this, with other people. she is -- when it comes to being hit by people, political opponents, why doesn't she get some bodyguards? >> guest: well, we actually do a lot of training about how to stay safe and one of our best protect is singing. you played that clip of ted cruz. so we came up to that group of women, and we were there with our signs saying iran peace deal, we were being real quiet. an older woman came up to me and took my sign and grabbed it out of my hand and ripped it up, and i said, ma'am, that's not nice. that's my property. and some said, get out of here, and your stupid jerk. and i took another sign, she grabbed the other sign and she ripped it up. so i thought, what die do? and i started singing, peace, salom, shalom. and it's a song by a wonderful group, emma's revolution, and the other codepink people started joining in, and it just so diffused the situation. so we do that a lot. we sing a lot and find that it is actually our best protection. >> host: lambert, sacramento. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. i would like to say to medea that as a black man in america, i find you very fascinating. i'm based in the capitol of california, and i've met you and cindy sheehan, and i'm a social entrepreneur. and i won't say my business over the air but i will send you something to identify that. i find it troubling that you have been abused like that by people, considering your size, but i want to say that the '60s, which i was heavily influenced by, it's refreshing to see someone that still has the spirit, still does not want to join the system, still wants to put the light on it, and as a self-proclaimed jewish person, find it fascinating that you put the light on aipac, okay? and that's a brilliant thing bus they're doing some terrible things over. >> just wanted to ask you one question. do you think president obama handled netanyahu correctly regarding the iran deal and when he was allowed to come speak to congress, and i'll take your response off the air, and i just wanted to say, god bless you. >> guest: well, first let me say i love social entrepreneurs. i think that some people who consider themselves left or progressive think that business is bad. we need business. we need to create jobs for people. and i love people who want to create businesses and jobs who are socially responsible, who understand the triple bottom line, it's not just about profits. it's about people and the planet. so, thank you for your work, and i'm looking forward to getting whatever it is in the mail. in terms of netanyahu and president obama, i think that it is good that president obama has said, for example, that he is against the building of the settlements. i think it is good that he is not listening to netanyahu as far as this iran deal goes. and i really thank those members of congress who refuse to go to hear netanyahu when he was addressing the u.s. congress as if it was his own country. so, i'm glad there is some light now between the u.s. government, the obama administration, and the israeli government. on the other hand, when israel is killing thousands of palestinians. in the last invasion of gaza, killed 551 children. imagine if the palestinians had killed 551 israeli jews? all hell would have broken out. and given that the -- what the israelis are doing on a regular basis, in terms of violating international laws, the building of the settlements, the apartheid system that exists there, i think that the president and the congress should be cutting off the u.s. taxpayer money going to israel. unfortunately, in this system, aipac still has so much power that that's actually a nonstarter. in fact if anybody took that position, they would be so attacked by aipac. aipac would make sure that there was a primary challenge against that person, and make sure that they did everything they could to take that person out of congress. so, we still have a long way to go to have the administration and our congress take a position that is a fair, nonbiased one, towards israel, that i feel would actually be in the best interests of the israeli people, perhaps not the line that aipac wants but certainly would be better for israel in the long run. >> host: who is your favorite conservative or right-winger? >> guest: i guess i would say my stepmother. i'm not sure she is listening. i was debating whether to tell her about it. the more she hears about is it, the more she hears my positions, the more things she doesn't like. but we love each other. she has been very good to my father, who bassed away. she is very good to my children, my granddaughter. and she is somebody who really has done a lot to bring our family together, and we laugh hysterically of our differences. i walk in her house and fox news is on all the time. she lives near bill o'reilly. she loves bill o'reilly and that's been positive bus i've been on bill o'reilly's show a couple of times, and she is always telling me, call bill, get on to his show. so, thanksgiving dinners as you can imagine, and family occasions, we have a lot of interesting political discussions, but she makes me realize that there's a lot of republicans and fox news lovers and people who hold values very different from mine, who are lovely people, who are wonderful people, who are loving family members, and i'm glad i have her and other very conservative people in my family to constantly remind me of that. >> host: next call from has san in carmel valley, california. hi, hassan. >> caller: hi. it's an honor to see you and talk to you. you said you traveled in different countries, you mentioned the saudi women. what about the iranian women who have been under the repression for the last 30-some years, like you said, 80 million people, 40 million of them are women. it seems that the left and the progressive appease governments like iranian government or taliban or -- when it comes to the religious beliefs. why don't you just come and say, you are for the rights of all women, regardless of the religion of the government they're under. so, that's -- like, christopher hitchens said, if they would apply the flaggerrism rules today muhammad would probably end up in minimum because he copied all the jewish rules and then just created a new religion. so, these governments are suppressing their own population under the jude judaism. and the left is miss thing point. i wonder how you address supporting the iranian men and wimp actually during the election, when i was in -- actually stole the election, he was -- his opponent, who was having a debate, his opponent, who actually ended up in house arrest. the official winner but he ended up in a house arrest, still is, he took out a letter from an israeli official and he said, he read the letter, i don't know the name of the official right now -- and he said, since the beginning -- since the birth of israel, no person has ever helped us more than mahmoud ahmadinejad and he is right. there is a symbiotic realization between the clergy in iran and the clergy in israel. and the iranian regime uses the iranian population as collateral damage. >> host: all right. hasan, thank you very much. a response for that call? >> guest: thank you for bringing that up so i can say very clearly that i support the rights of women anywhere in the world, everywhere in the world no matter what regular anytime they are living under, and i think it's also important you brought that up so i can state clearly i do not support the government of iran. i do not support the oppression of women anywhere. i resent personally when i go to iran or when i go to afghanistan or anywhere i go, that i have to be subject to local laws that define and constrict what i'm able to do. on the other hand, i do want to say to listeners who might not know that in iran, while women do have to wade head covering, women are involved in all aspects of society, and there are very, very well-educated women who have their own businesses, who are lawyers and doctors and the majority of the university students are women. but that said, also am against religious governments. i think there should be a separation between government and religion. so i don't support any kind of religious government. and then you asked how can we support the women in other countries? and the way we do that at codepink is to be looking to them and asking them, how can we support you? and when we talk to women overseas they say support the more liberal elements of our society. recognize, rue -- rouhani is a more liberal regime than those with ahmadinejad. when the governments talk to each other it strengthens the more liberal elements in society. if the u.s. government would talk to hamas or the muslim brotherhood, that would alienate the more ridged members of the hamas and strengthen the more moderate elements. the way we help women is by talking to them, by listening to them, by helping them in their own organizing that they're doing. many organizations that codepink supports are women overseas. and by stopping our government from intervening militarily because that only strengthens hardliners on all sides. >> host: you talked quite a bit about your travels. this is from september 5, 2004. you'll see what it's about in just a minute. but let's show this video. >> well, i was just in iraq in july, and unfortunately i don't get to go back until october because the security situation for both iraqi ands foreigners is very tense. you leave your house in the morning to go and have a meeting, and there's a car bomb. so there's tremendous traffic, and there's tremendous difficulties in trying to work. many iraqis are very, very nervous. they don't want to send their children to school. they don't want to go into their work places because of ongoing violence and car bombs, and the situation is very, very, very tense. >> guest: wow. i've never seen that clip. marla was like a daughter to me. she showed up in our offices that global exchange when she was 16. and said, put me to work. she ended up living with us. she got married. her and her husband lived with us. she was just a precious, amazing, wonderful, compassionate, young woman. she ended up being blown up by a car bomb in iraq. to this day i think of her all the time. my heart goes out to her mom and dad who are good friends, to her twin brother so her -- to her family. to this day we still miss her and love her. at an age of 25, she left an amazing legacy, including having gotten passed through congress a multimillion dollar fund for innocent victims of u.s. military. we worked together for many years in afghanistan. she worked with us to get the testimonies of people whose loved ones have been, quote, accidentally killed by u.s. bombs. and we were demanding that they be compensated, and thanks to marla's tenacious work, they were. >> host: thomas, pennsylvania. hi, thomas. >> caller: hello. thank you for taking my call. medea. i have a two-part question for you. currently right now hillary clinton is the front runner on the democratic party for the presidential campaign. i was wondering if you felt she aligns with codepink? your opinion, and the second question is, if you are comfortable with any of the republican candidates for presidency? i'll risen to your call on the tv. thanks. >> guest: i feel that hillary clinton is a hawk. i would love to have a woman president. that would be wonderful. it's funny, as we -- so many americans think the muslim countries are so backward, there's so many muslim countries that have women as presidents. i was in indonesia many, many years ago, when they elected a woman president. benazir bhutto, a president in pakistan. the u.s. lags far behind and we haven't had a woman president, and it's certainly past time that we should have. but my views don't align with hillary clinton's on major issues. i think she is very tied to wall street. when she tries to talk like a populist, it seems like she is reading from a teleprompter and it's not coming from her heart because she is so tied in with wall street. and she is somebody who could have challenged the military industrial complex in her role as a senator and in her role as secretary of state, and she didn't do that. she was really like an appendage to the pentagon as a secretary of state. so, i don't support hillary clinton as much as i would love to have a woman president. i love joe stein, who is a green party president. she has tremendous, wonderful views, medical doctor, she is a very accomplished woman, but then we go back to this terrible system of ours that doesn't -- that discounts people who aren't part of the two-party system. there's not any republican of the -- what it is -- 19 or 20 now -- that are in the lineup that i would like. at one point i liked rand paul's foreign policy, but he has moved far from the policies of his father, ron paul, who had a very good policy of nonintervention overseas and rand paul, at one point, was very much against the u.s. military interventions. he even at one point had said he would be for stopping u.s. funding of the israeli military. he has gone back from that position and many others as he tries to position himself in this lineup of so many republican candidates. i like bernie sanders. i wish he would talk more about foreign policy issues. he has come out supporting the iran deal but you barely hear him talking about it, and he could do so much good right now while he is out there on the campaign trail of telling people to call their senators and congress people and tell them to support this deal help doesn't do that at all. he is actually -- actually his policies towards israel and palestine are not very good. he has not, in his campaign, walked about things he has talk about as a senator, like the bloated pentagon budget, and all of the social program. s that he supports, where is that money going to come from? it should come from the bloated military. close 800 overseas bases and you'd have many, many hundreds of billions of dollars to use for all kinds of social programs. so, i wish he would talk more about foreign policy. and i certainly do love elizabeth warren. she is not running for president, but i think that her policies have already had an impact in the way thatber denny sanders has been received and to get hillary clinton to at least talk like a populist. >> host: ten minutes left with our guest. medea benjamin, in this month's "in depth." lynn cheny is our guest in september. mark in ocala, florida. hi, mark. >> caller: hey, peter, and hey medea. i want to thank you both for working on sunday. i'm a union carpenter so we pay attention to stuff like that. medea, i am also an 11 year veteran of the marine core 's and i'd like to thank you on behalf of the other callers and all veterans that feel like i do, that your courage as an american has a lot of physical courage to it, and in addition to other types of courage, and as a brave male, i want to thank you for your brave physical courage. i would also like to thank you for your successful work of getting the truth out to americans and when the call screener asked, what question i would ask you, i have a thousand things i could talk to you about but in my experiences on a permanent note, voted for president carter and i served in the united states state department as marine security guard in central america in the '70s and there is was also edkated. when i saw the difference between the haves and have-notes it was astounding to me as a kid who goo up in the midwest, 0 whose father came out of the projects because of organized labor's ability to help all americans and so those are my values that as a young marine i thought when enjoined the corps at 18 and at 19 a secret clearance and was advanced nco, promoted marine, and everybody felt like -- and a lot of americans kind of did at that time, and then along came another administration and as a marine, on -- saw the tremendous difference between president carter and the reagan administration. i would just ask, i had a question -- die have a question for you and then i want to comment to the person who made a comment about iran's weapons my question is i you could please not leave the show today without re-mentioning the potential for war with iran and how catastrophic that would be for the american armed forces. it's not just a few jets flying over. they have a very legitimate military army air force, navy and marines, just like we do, and my observation to the young man who made the comment, through social meta, just got off the internet for the global institute for peace, the robbans hardly have a missile that will go over a thousand miles without a capacity to put a nuclear warhead on it and if the person check their map, we're 6500 miles away. but met da, i'm looking just as an enlisted marine, i'm looking at easily 25,000 americans would be killed in a very short period of time if we put boots on the ground. >> host: mark in ocala, florida, we'll leave it there and get a response. >> guest: first, i'm just delighted during this three hours to get so many military people calling in, because i think there's a misconception among a lot of people that i in codepink are against the military, when the fact of the matter is our closest allies in this worker people in the military. we work very closely with veterans for peace, iraq veterans against the war, military families speak out, my favorite colleague is a retired colonel, ann wright so we work very closely with military people because who but the military are going to recognize how disastrous, not only have the last 13 years of war been, but as you say, the potential of a war with iraq, that is -- has a developed military is a country of 80 million people and is a major force in the region, and could certainly lead to really even another world war. so, it is so important that we make sure this nuclear deal goes through, and that we work towards peace with iran so that we can work towards peace in the entire region. so i thank you for your call. and i thank you for having come to the same conclusions that we have, that we have to not only try to stop wars we're already engaged in but what we can really do now is prevent another one. >> host: laura in troy, michigan. hi, laura. >> hi. medea, i want to applaud you for your courage. i think what you're doing is a wonderful thing. not only for our country but for the world. bringing attention to things that really need to be said and done. i just recently came back from a trip to russia and the ukraine, and also we stopped off in estonia. i was absolutely appalled at the difference in what is going on there and what we hear in our country. poroshenko, the president of the ukraine now, has appointed a former president of georgia, were he to go home he would be put in prison for his misdeeds, and i'm -- also, went to estonia, and i met a young man who worked in norway but his family lives in estonia, and they are of russian background, although they lived there about 40 years. in the stores, they do not have any of the signs or anything in russian. even though in this particular town there are 40 percent of the people there that are russian. this young man i guess became an activist because he started having signs put up saying, we want russian, and estonia cut a train track that allowed people to go to st. petersburg to visit their family and friends. i'm so disappointed in our country, getting involved in things that we have no business being involved in. >> host: all right, laura, thank you. medea, ukraine. well, you see that somebody who gets a chance to go to the region comes back with a very, very different view. when i traveled to europe and i've met with people who have been involved in peace issues, they say that nato is so aggressive that in the deal that was made with gorbachev, nato promised it warrant move its-for-s closer to border with the former soviet union, and it has done that in poland in in the former czech republic, now moving even closer, and that is seen as very aggressive by russia. so i think it is -- goes back to this whole idea of we have to see things from other people's points of view, and when you see how russians in that region have been oppressed, how the -- there are neonazis who have been involved in this movement, and fortunately we have had congress recently pass a legislation saying the u.s. would not give weapons in support to neonazis. so it is important to recognize that we, too, can do a lot to move back from the brink in terms of hostilities with russia by bringing nato back where it's supposed to be, and also we should open the conversation of do we need nato? why do we have nato? it's a relic of the cold war, and many of us think it's time to disband nato. >> host: susan in revere, massachusetts. you may be the last word. hi. >> caller: i have waited a long time. i'm so grateful to be able to just commend miss benjamin for all she does for democracy. i'm an unlikely complimenter. i'm actually come from a very conservative family. i was raises at the alter of william f. buck here and milton free morning et cetera. but i was vehemently opposed to the iraq invasion. i knew exactly what kind of debacle it would be. i studied history as an undergraduate, and i could have predicted the chaos that would ensue from that ill-fated -- offended me deeply. the whole freedom fries frenzy really insulted me. i do descend from colonial -- my father was a world war ii veteran. i i wish you would align yourself with grover norquist and the visible of the pentagon budget ump just cannot believe the lack of transparency and the other issue that you would support -- and i know you do but i wish it were a top priority -- is the participation in this -- low voter participation in this country and you would find alliances on the conservative side. our voting rates rarely exceed 30%, and i just -- the stranglehold of the lobbyists culture, of wall street, d. >> host: suit san, apologize. if we want to get a response, we have to -- almost out of time. >> guest: those are area where the left and right have to come together. the corruption of money in politics getting big money out off politics i'm all for term limits. i'd like to see a left, right, center, whatever, coalition, because we all have this horrible view of our government. the view of congress of throw the bums out is something that crosses all ideologies. i say, let's get together and change the regulations that allow the democrats and republicans to jerry where planter their own districts to keep themselves in office to a lifetime and let's get some fresh blood and fresh idea in our government. >> host: the coach brothers are active in judicial reform, prison reform. >> guest: yes, and also they do a lot of negative things to put the corporations above the needs of the environment and the workers. so i'm not sure i'd put them forward as the greatest example but i think there's a lot we can do left and right together. >> host: meds deah benjamin's most recent books are: stop the next war now. and drone warfare, killing by remote control. and for the past three hours, she has been booktv's guest on i "in depth," thank you for being with us. >> guest: thank you so much for a wonderful three hours, peter. >> lynn cheney next month. >> host: glen beck, your book, it is about islam. why do you open with thomas jefferson and the library of congress? ...

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