06/04/10 – Alan Grayson – The Scott Horton Show

Welcome back to the show, this is Antiwar Radio.
Our first guest on the show today is Representative Alan Grayson.
He represents the 8th District of Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Welcome to the show.
Yes, thanks.
That was an interesting Dylan song there.
I found it instructive.
Yeah, well, I'm a big fan of that one, and well, it's a fair place to start the interview, I guess.
Let me tell you this, Rep.
Grayson, no offense here, but I'm kind of having a bad day, so you and me are going to fight.
But I'd like to start off with something that I think is...
Well, I have to tell you, I'm a lover, not a fighter.
Okay, well, I guess we'll see how it goes then.
So let's start off with this, the War is Making You Poor Act.
We're certainly in agreement on this.
Please tell the people what this is about.
Sure.
We think that the defense budget that's proposed for next year, the base defense budget, which is $549 billion, is enough for any amount of wars the President might want to have.
One war, two wars, three wars, four wars, however many wars we end up in being involved in, the base budget for the Defense Department is enough.
It's enough because, among other things, it's almost as much as the entire rest of the world spends on defense and the military, and much of that is spent by our allies.
People in countries in Europe are spending the great bulk of what the rest of the world spends.
The base defense budget is more than five times what the Chinese spend.
It's more than ten times what the Russians spend.
And it's a lot of money, even if you are engaged in one more or two wars, or who knows how many wars we might be engaged in next year.
So the War is Making You Poor Act, H.R.
5353, says that's enough.
And the additional amount that the President has asked for, $159 billion just for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is too much.
You have to draw the line somewhere.
So the bill requires that any wars be conducted on the basis of the base budget, rather than the additional $159 billion that the President has asked for, and that most of that money be spent to eliminate taxes on roughly one-third of the population, everybody who makes $35,000 or less.
Under this bill, everybody's first $35,000 of income, whether you make that much or less or more, is tax-free.
You are excluded from the federal income tax system entirely, which means that roughly 30 million people who are taxpayers would no longer have to pay any taxes at all, and everyone else would pay less, or at least no more than what they're paying now.
So the bulk of the money is spent on giving people a break and showing them what a peace dividend actually looks like, something that we haven't had the ability to enjoy, even though the Cold War has been over now for 20 years.
If in fact we ended the grip the military-industrial complex has on this country and on our economy and on our government, then in fact there would be no need to tax one-third of the population at all.
And these are the people who are poorest and need the money the most.
Now it turns out that that costs only $144 billion to eliminate taxes on one-third of the country, reduce taxes on everybody.
That costs only $144 billion.
So remarkably enough, this bill gives the President a nudge in favor of peace, takes on the military-industrial complex, eliminates taxes on one-third of the population, or reduces taxes on millions more, and in addition to that, reduces the deficit.
Yeah, well, and it sounds like, too, when you're talking about for people who make $35,000 or less, these are the kinds of people who more and more seem to have no choice of employment other than joining the military.
So if they're the ones who get a tax break and they don't have to go and die in a war for nothing, then that's double-plus good, right?
I think everybody but the military-industrial complex itself is having a lot of trouble explaining what might be wrong with this bill.
Yeah, well, I mean, this ought to take off.
Geez, I can't find the flaw in it.
You're telling me that the war appropriation just for the Afghan war for next year or for the rest of this year is $160 billion, and you're telling me you cut income taxes, eliminate income taxes for all people making $35,000 or less, and that would only quote-unquote cost the government, sorry, money, not yours, but that would so-called cost the government $144 billion less?
Eliminate taxes on everyone's first $35,000 of income.
Oh, on everyone's first $35,000?
Everyone's first $35,000 of income.
That costs only $144 billion.
Well, if we can't end the war with this, then forget it.
I don't know what's going to happen.
I mean, I can't believe there aren't rallies in every town, in every county, in every city right now demanding this bill be passed.
What are we waiting for?
Good question.
I think people need to learn about it first.
When they do, they're intrigued and fascinated, and they understand that it's finally a way to bring home the real cost of the war.
The cost of the war, among other things, is that huge numbers of people have the yoke of taxation on their necks.
That doesn't have to be there.
It simply doesn't have to be there.
And 25,000 people and more have come to our website, thewarsmakingyoupoor.com, and signed up our petition to urge their congressmen to pass this bill.
Right on.
All right, now, I told you we're going to fight.
Let's fight.
I'm trying.
I'm not saying I'm, you know, very good at it, but I'm trying to be an Enlightenment kind of guy over here.
And what that means to me is that every person, even the very lowest, weakest of all of us, is born with the same natural, inherent right to life and dignity that King George III had.
And I wonder whether you believe in that.
We are judged by the least of us.
We are judged by the least of us.
I've heard those words before.
Well, I wonder whether you think that children in Gaza are born with a natural right to their own life.
Are you referring to children who are born, or children who have, or what, you're referring to fetuses?
What are you referring to?
I'm referring to the American support, by the tune of billions of dollars, to the government of Israel that has Gaza under a permanent siege, that's starving the people to death deliberately.
Well, they call it putting them on a diet, which is a very nice Orwellian euphemism for deliberately starving them.
And as you well know, Rep.
Grayson, the majority of the people of the Gaza Strip are under 18, and in fact, 65% of them or so are under 14.
So are these people born with a natural right to their life, or aren't they?
Why are you asking me that question?
Because you represent Americans in the House of Representatives, which continues to appropriate money, which continues to stand behind Israel no matter what they do, and no matter who they do it to.
And it's costing the people of America, including 3,000 that died on 9-11.
Well, I'm not sure that I'm on, I'm really on the other side from what you're proposing.
I'm not sure why you think that we need to fight over this, but let's just explore this a little bit.
Well, do you vote to fund Israel every year or not?
Well, yes.
We give foreign aid to Israel, we give foreign aid to Egypt, we give foreign aid to Pakistan, we give huge amounts of foreign aid to other countries, and people debate whether that's a good idea or a bad idea.
We give roughly equal amounts to Israel and to Egypt.
Right.
We pay Egypt to pretend not to hate Israel and to cooperate with the blockade against the people of Gaza.
Well, I mean, if you are anti-war, then I think you should be in favor of ending wars at modest expense, regardless of how one accomplishes that.
I don't think, actually, I think that if in fact the money that we've given to Egypt has prevented endless perpetual war in the Middle East, it's probably a good thing to have done.
Yeah, well, right now, 60% of the kids in Gaza have anemia.
They are malnourished, and there is a blockade.
They call anything a dual-use item, and they're starving those people, Alan, and you know they are.
But again, I don't understand why you think I'm on the other side of what you're proposing.
I'm one person out of 435 members of the House, and there's 100 members of the Senate I have no influence over whatsoever.
You're talking about what amounts to a national policy, and you're somehow attributing it to me.
And I don't understand that.
Well, you're a member of Congress, and I've never seen or heard of you opposing any of these policies whatsoever.
I didn't hear you.
Well, what was your statement on the attack on the civilian flotilla in the Mediterranean Sea over the weekend, where an American citizen was shot four times in the head?
Was Benjamin Netanyahu defending himself from thugs and terrorists, like he claimed?
Or not?
Well, actually, you are literally the first person to ask.
We didn't make a statement, because nobody asked, and it didn't seem to be something we needed to, you know, toot our horn about.
Well, they killed an American citizen in international waters.
But I'll answer your question.
The answer to your question is that if the goal was to protect Israeli security, there were many ways to accomplish that goal that would not have resulted in the loss of life, and therefore the attack shouldn't have happened in the way that it happened.
For instance, they could have disabled the ships.
That would have been a very simple thing to do.
Israel has a navy.
They could have done that and accomplished their goal, which would have been to prevent these ships from getting into Gaza without being examined first.
There are other options as well.
I mean, we could talk about five or six other options.
How about a resolution by you demanding that Israel lift the siege of Gaza yesterday?
Well, when you say the siege of Gaza, if you're referring to the fact that Israel does not want more missiles to come into Gaza, because those missiles end up being directed to Israel and shot at Israel...
Oh, I thought we were talking about food and wheelchairs and toys for little children.
Oh, now we're talking about missiles, huh?
But no, you tell me, how can you stop, how can you be certain that you're stopping the missiles unless you stop everything and examine it?
How can you be certain of that?
Now, listen, there in fact have been attacks by Gazans against Israel, and in fact a million people are within missile range of Gaza inside Israel, and those attacks occurred for months on end.
Yeah, but that's equivalent to people throwing rocks over the walls of the Attica prison that they're locked in.
You can't call that an attack.
No, it's not.
I mean, every time those missiles took off, everyone in South Israel had to go into shelters in order to avoid being hit by those missiles.
I don't see any material difference there between that and anything else that you want to call a war.
Now, if you are anti-war, you have to be anti-missile attacks, and those missile attacks from Gaza into Israel created a security situation that required Israel to examine the things that are going into Gaza.
Yeah, well, anyway...
If in fact we're only cutting off wheelchairs and only cutting off food and only cutting off children's toys, then you would be right.
But in fact, all they're doing is they're simply making sure that the things going into Gaza cannot be used for more missile attacks on Israel.
And I think that's a reasonable...
I think we would do exactly the same thing if we were in similar circumstances.
Well, that would be fine, too, if history was two years old or something.
But in fact, what happened was, the government of Israel has been occupying Gaza for 40 years, and in 2005...
It does not occupy Gaza now.
In 2005, they withdrew the last of the Jewish settlers, who basically were serving as human shields, protecting the people of Gaza.
Little did they realize.
And as soon as Sharon pulled the last of the settlers out of there, they turned the whole place into escape from New York, prison by the sea.
The whole thing is a prison.
And you say that people shooting rockets outward from inside that prison, that that is some kind of aggressive attack against Israel.
Who's occupying who here?
You know?
Neither one is occupying the other one.
There's a defined border, and Israel has put efforts in place in order to make sure that missile attacks from Gaza don't begin again.
And again, if you're against war, you have to be against missile attacks.
There's no reason to distinguish between one form of force and another form of force, particularly when a million people are involved.
Well, of course there is.
The difference is between aggression and defense and proportion.
And I know that, you know, that back in 2008, it was Israel that broke the ceasefire, not the not Hamas.
There were a couple of people who fought who fired off some rockets and Hamas immediately killed them and said, no way we have a ceasefire going on here.
And Israel took advantage of the situation to do missile strikes, opposed to missile strikes.
Right.
Rep.
Grayson.
They did missile strikes inside Gaza.
They broke the ceasefire, provoked a little bit of retaliation, then use the retaliation from their aggression to be the excuse for Operation Cast Lead that killed 1,300 people.
And you're telling me nobody's occupying anybody.
Thousands of missiles were launched from Gaza over an extended period of time.
After the ceasefire was broken by Israel.
Well, look, you can always point the figure at the other side.
But the fact is, if the missiles hadn't been launched, then there would be no reason for Israel to even have an embargo.
And by the way, we had the same embargo against Cuba when the Russians were trying to install nuclear missiles in Cuba that will be directed against the United States.
Are you saying we should have taken no action against Cuba when Russia when Russia was going to install nuclear missiles 90 miles off of our coast?
Well, yeah, that's a pretty that's a pretty analogy.
That's a that's a that's a pretty apt analogy to what's going on in the Gaza Strip, I guess.
Huh.
With I guess that makes Hamas the global Soviet, the fourth international.
How many nuclear weapons do they have?
Israel has more than 600 nuclear weapons, don't they, including hydrogen bombs, don't they?
Representative Grayson.
I think you're being ridiculous at this point.
I'm being ridiculous.
You're comparing the starving people of Gaza to the Soviet Union.
And I'm being ridiculous.
OK, let's go back to the original point you need to make.
Is there anything else you want to talk about?
Yeah, I still want an answer to my original question of whether you think that if a Palestinian is born Palestinian, he has a natural right to life or not.
Yes.
Do you have any more questions?
So Arabs are individuals.
They do have rights like all humans.
What would make you think that I felt otherwise?
Do I seem like a racist to you?
You just about broke your spine just now bending over backwards to portray Gaza as the Soviet Union and Israel as defending itself when everyone on the whole planet Earth, sir, knows that Israel is occupying and laying siege to Palestine, not the other way around.
You know what it is?
Have you ever heard of the phrase analogy?
Yeah, well, but have you ever heard of the question of whether an analogy is apt or not?
And you go ahead and make whatever analogy you want.
But if it's meaningless, then it's meaningless.
I don't know why you're shouting at me.
I mean, honestly, I'm the one who's been elected by the people, not you.
Maybe you should show more respect.
Which people were you elected by?
One hundred and seventy one thousand people live in central Florida.
And are they of the opinion that the siege of Gaza should go on forever?
And is that why that's your opinion?
I'm wondering whether this interview should go on forever because you're becoming very repetitive at this point.
Not just repetitive, but rude.
Well, you're a government official, so I warned you.
But anyway, so I didn't.
So let me ask you.
Let me ask you this.
Here's here's another question that you didn't answer before.
There was an American citizen shot four times in the head the other day by the IDF.
Do you have a statement about that?
Do you care that an American citizen was murdered on the high seas by the Israeli government?
Do you have an opinion about that?
As I said before, I hope I don't have to become repetitive in response to your repetition.
OK, so they could have disabled the ship.
But so, in other words, no big deal.
Like Joe Biden said, right, they should have disabled the ship instead of leading to the loss of life.
I do respect life greatly.
Life is precious.
Everybody's life.
And I'm against war.
So if if Iran had killed an American citizen in an attempt to prevent that American citizen from bringing food and medicine to starving children, what would you say about that?
The same thing?
I would regret the loss of life.
That's avoidable.
Life is precious.
Parents have children.
Brothers have sisters.
Life is precious and it needs to be respected.
All right.
Now, have you ever read The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright?
No.
OK, well, you should know it's considered, I think, widely considered to be one of the very definitive accounts of the 9-11 plot and the terrorist attack against the United States.
And in that book, he talks about Mohammed Attah, the lead hijacker, the ringleader working with Ramzi bin al-Shaib, who pulled that attack off.
And what he says in there is that in 1996, during Operation Grapes of Wrath in Lebanon, Mohammed Attah said, that's it.
And he filled out his last will and testament and decided he was joining up the war against the United States of America because of what Israel was doing in Lebanon.
And I'm sure you're familiar with Osama bin Laden's declaration of war from 1996, which about a third of it goes on about the Kwana massacre, the Kana massacre, which took place during that Operation Grapes of Wrath in southern Lebanon.
His fatwa came out about three or four months after that, after he was safely in Afghanistan.
And what he said in there was, how come your blood is blood, but our blood is water?
How come it's OK that you can kill us, but we can't kill you back?
We'll show you, he said.
And so, it would seem to me that American support for Israel has a lot to do with why 3,000 people died on September 11th, because our government gives the Israeli government carte blanche to do whatever they want.
And I'm sure you saw, I'm sure you saw...
What a ridiculous this interview has become.
I am one of the leaders of the pro-peace forces in Congress.
You depict yourself as being anti-war.
You spent the last 15 minutes haranguing me about your particular view of a particular international incident in a very disrespectful way.
Maybe the reason why we have wars, or one of the reasons why we have wars, is because people who believe peace and love peace, the way that I do, end up being abused by people like you.
You think that's what it is, huh?
I think that's a big part of it.
You know, the other side doesn't fight with itself the way that you are fighting with me right now.
Unity is power.
If we had more unity, then maybe we'd have more power, and we'd be able to do things like end wars instead of having someone like me being shattered up by someone like you.
Well, the reason that I bring up the September 11th plot and the motivation of the people who did it is because the policy, as I know you at least more or less agree with me about this, the policy ever since then has been more war, more occupation, more invasion, in an attempt to so-called get the bad guys.
Even the Obama team now is talking about the dangers of blowback and how their policy is counterproductive and radicalizing more people, and I just thought it'd be nice if maybe one person besides Ron Paul and all of D.C. would be willing to admit that history began before September 11th, and it was American intervention, including support for Israel, that got us attacked in the first place.
Because see, if there was recognition of that fact, then we could get to the question of whether we have the right policy at all, in terms of how to solve a problem.
I have mocked President Bush, mocked him, for saying that the reason for the September 11th attack was that they hate us because we're free.
So I don't think I need any history lessons about that.
I've lived through it, I've given a lot of thought to it, and one of the reasons why I am pro-peace is because I think that all these problems can be avoided.
Okay, well, so the next time the aid comes up to pay off Israel's military, then you're going to vote against it?
Not necessarily.
I think it's clear that we do have some disagreement here, I just don't understand why you were so rude about it.
Well, you know, I think 3,000 people dying is a pretty high price to pay for blind support for a foreign state, especially one that just this week murdered an American citizen in international waters, and literally got a, what's the big deal, from the Vice President of the United States, and silence from the President, the leader of your party.
What you need to come up with is productive alternatives, you need to explain how Israel can be free of missile attacks, and free of threats to its own security in ways that don't involve an embargo.
Yeah, well, what if they just ended the occupation?
Gaza is no longer occupied, we both know that.
Well, look, surrounding a place and turning it into a prison doesn't make it a free state.
I mean, the place is under siege, as we've already agreed.
It's hardly some sovereign, independent state, or what have you.
Right?
If, as I said before, if there were no missiles coming out of Lebanon, if there were no missiles coming out of Gaza, if there were no threats to Israeli security, then none of this would be necessary.
I'm looking at this only through one side, rather than through both sides.
Do you agree with Joe Biden that basically, what's the big deal here?
We just need to go on with our same Israel's right, no matter what policy?
I disagree with what the Vice President said, I don't think he should have said it.
Alright, fair enough.
Sorry for being such a jerk, but I gave you fair warning.
That's what you get for being a politician.
Okay, like I said, if we're on the same side of the argument, we need to stick together.
That's the only way to get things done.
Chaos Radio, 959.