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This section contains statements and speeches by Ms. Streisand.
Archives
The
Lies are Finally Catching Up
Posted
on July 30, 2003
Recently, I decided to go back through my website and reread some
of the statements I have written and links to articles I have posted.
2003 has been such a tumultuous year already ... Now we have the publicized
revelations that the Bush administration exaggerated evidence of Iraq’s
weapons of mass destruction and falsely implied that there were strong
connections between al Qaeda and Iraq. Looking back, however, it is
clear that these facts were known even before the war... but the media
did not emphasize the story until it was already too late.
For example, on March 26th
we quoted from a New York Times article of March 23rd that stated
that analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency have “felt
pressured to make their intelligence reports on Iraq confirm to Bush
Administration policies,” including pressure to “emphasize
links between Saddam Hussein’s government and al Qaeda.”
In
that same statement, it said, “This revelation comes on the
heels of a recent disclosure that President Bush’s public assertion
that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium was based in part on forged
documents – documents about which C.I.A. officials were always
suspicious. Bush has yet to retract his public statement, nor does
he seem to feel the need to defend his use of faulty information.”
What nobody seems to be mentioning right now is that we knew that
Bush’s 16-word statement in the State of the Union address was
false before the war even started ... but Bush was allowed to get
away with it as the momentum towards war grew.
Now that Saddam’s regime has been toppled and we have yet to
find any evidence of weapons of mass destruction, the Democrats and
the media have finally begun to fully investigate and publicize these
false claims and to ask the tough questions. Now that we have destroyed
Iraq, now that we are stuck rebuilding a country and spending tens
of billions of taxpayer money and now that we must break it to soldiers
who were told “the road home goes through Baghdad” that
they cannot go home, that they must stay in Iraq and continue fighting
a guerilla war ... now we are questioning what brought us there in
the first place.
That questioning should lead us directly to National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice, one of the closest people to the president. She
has changed her story about the forged uranium documents so many times
it ought to be a joke ... except it’s not funny. On July 8th,
Rice said, “no one in our circles knew there were doubts and
suspicions that this might be a forgery” and on July 11th, Rice
said the CIA “cleared the speech in its entirety” and
that if “Tenet, the CIA director, had any misgivings, he never
shared them with the White House.” Just several days later,
on July 23rd, Rice’s top aide, Stephen Hadley, said he received
two memos from the CIA and a phone call from Tenet warning him that
evidence that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium in Africa was not
reliable. One memo was also directed to Rice, who claimed not to have
fully read these important intelligence documents.
And now, with the September 11th report finally declassified, we are
beginning to get a clearer picture about the Bush administration’s
failure to heed the warnings of the impending terrorist attack. According
to the 9/11 commission report, “intelligence reports from December
1998 until the attacks said followers of bin Laden were planning to
strike U.S. targets and hijack U.S. planes” (Reuters, 7/24/03).
ABC News recently reported, “White House officials acknowledged
that U.S. intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before
the Sept. 11 attacks that bin Laden’s terrorist network might
try to hijack American planes.” Specifically, on August 6th
President Bush received an 11 ½ page report on al Qaeda that
cited the possibility of plane hijackings.
The 9/11 report concludes that although the intelligence community
did not have the “time, place and specific nature” of
the 9/11 attacks, it had “amassed a great deal of valuable intelligence
regarding Osama bin Laden and his terrorist activities” and
that this information could have been used to “discern the bigger
picture successfully” and potentially prevent the attacks. For
more, please read the following statement I wrote in the Fall of 2002
about the Bush administration’s homeland security failures:
November, 2002 Homeland Security Failures
While we are all rooting for President Bush to win the War on
Terrorism, it is important that we know the facts about the homeland
and national security debate. The assertion that Democrats are not
committed to homeland and national security is ludicrous and is a
perfect example of the ability of the Republican spin machine to distort
the issues. In fact, a little history is in order:
- Before September 11th, Bush and his advisors did not pay
enough attention to the possibility of a large-scale terrorist
attack. Bush’s National Security Advisor Condoleezza
Rice has said she could have never predicted such an attack, despite
warnings of the French, Israeli and American intelligence communities.
On August 6th, 2001, the CIA sent Bush a memo warning of possible
al Qaeda plane hijackings. So why was there no increase in airport
security, including reinforced bullet-proofed cockpits? At the
time of the presidential transition, Clinton’s National
Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, made it very clear to Ms. Rice
that her greatest concern should be Osama bin Laden and the al
Qaeda terrorism network. If that terrorism threat had remained
a high level of priority in all levels of government, could these
attacks have been prevented? We may never be able to answer that
question. The purpose is not to assign blame but simply to point
out that Republican leaders have not proved themselves to be more
effective protectors of Homeland Security, as they would have
the American people believe.
- Seven months before the terrorist attacks, the Bush administration
ignored a
detailed report co-authored by former Senators Gary Hart and Warren
Rudman, co-chairing the United States Commission on National Security,
that warned of possible terrorist attacks, including “a
weapon of mass destruction in a high-rise building.” The
report outlined a detailed blueprint for how to make America safer
that included, among other suggestions, a plan for the creation
of a National Homeland Security Agency. The Bush administration
disregarded the report, despite momentum from Congress to implement
the plan. On May 5, 2001, the White House announced it would instead
form its own committee, headed by Dick Cheney, to look into security
concerns and produce a report in October of that year.
- On September 10th, 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft
rejected the FBI’s request for a $58 million increase for
their counterterrorism budget to pay for 149 new counterterrorism
field agents, 200 intelligence analysts and 54 additional translators.
He did that despite the fact, discovered later by a Congressional
investigation, that the FBI had only one analyst monitoring al
Qaeda! In that same budget, Ashcroft proposed cutting $65 million
for state and local counterterrorism grants. In lists of priorities
issued from the Justice Department between May 10th and August
9th, 2001, and analyzed by The New York Times, counterterrorism
was never once mentioned as a priority. Like the other intelligence
agencies, the FBI had a severe shortage of Arabic translators
before September 11th – a clear indication that the Justice
Department did not take the terrorist threat seriously.
- When President Bush first proposed the idea of a homeland
security coordinator, the Democrats countered at that time with
a proposal calling for a full Department of Homeland Security.
In fact, Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman proposed a bill back
in October, 2001 to create a Department of Homeland Security that
would have given homeland security advisor Tom Ridge cabinet-level
status. At that time, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, in
a statement summarized in The New York Times, explained what a
“disruptive, politically impossible government reorganization
would be required if Congress gave Mr. Ridge cabinet status and
tried to create a new homeland security agency that would subsume
current departments.” Now the Republicans have the gall
to accuse the Democrats of delaying implementation of the very
idea that the Democrats proposed over a year ago and the Republicans
opposed at that time.
- Just a few months ago, Bush cancelled $5.1 billion approved
by the Congress for emergency homeland security spending. This
money would have gone to nuclear security improvements, port protection,
airport security, the Secret Service to combat electronic crimes,
law enforcement resources for state and local governments, FBI
counterterrorism efforts and information technology enhancement,
urban reserve and rescue teams, cybersecurity improvements to
protect our economy, food and water security, border security,
dam and reservoir security and the Customs Service to increase
inspections, among other areas of homeland security spending.
- The Republicans initially tried to block an investigation into
events leading up to September 11th and the preparation of government
agencies for that large- scale attack. This major event in American
history deserves clear and independent research so that we can
understand what happened in order to prevent such a disaster from
occurring again. This bill was passed only after enormous pressure
from the victims’ families.
What
this brief timeline shows us is how important it is right now, with
the Republicans controlling the White House, the Senate and the House
of Representatives, to have a strong, independent press to ask the
serious questions and do sophisticated analysis of the issues. We
know the Republicans will try to spin everything to their advantage
– but the American people deserve the truth.
Trickle-Down
Immorality (Don’t Accept the Lies)
Posted
on June 26, 2003
Has this new era of secrecy, lies, and deceit in the government and
corporations started to infect our states, our cities, our communities,
our core values and beliefs? We cannot let our politicians and corporate
CEOs get away with lying to us. The president steals such slogans
as “Leave No Child Behind” and then cuts funding for schools
serving low-income children. The president told us he was against
nation-building, then he invaded Iraq using what we now know was faulty
intelligence of exaggerated threats. And while in his 2002 State of
the Union speech the president vowed to expand the public service
program Americorps by 50%, he recently presided over major cuts to
the program. The
president is our leader, the figurehead of the country, a father
figure. Are the “children” supposed to follow his example?
Are we in an era of trickle-down immorality, like trickle-down economics?
The country sees their leader not telling the truth. These actions
send a message that you don’t have to mean what you say, that
you don’t have to care about other people, that you can do
whatever you have to do or say whatever you have to say to get ahead.
Is that the message we want to impart to our children? Is that the
culture we want to live in?
For
over 40 years, I have read lies about myself and have had people
take advantage of my position ... but I have never before sued anybody.
Sometimes people send me unauthorized books that have been written
about me. I usually read the first page and if they can’t
get the first page right, I don’t read on. They usually don’t
do their own research or verify facts – they just perpetuate
the old lies. I remember one book said that I walked onto a soundstage
and fired everyone on the left side of the room, and other nonsensical
stories like that. All lies, but I didn’t sue because of the
publicity, the headache, the expenses, the time... but I guess now
I’ve reached a different place in my life. It just gets to
a point where you have to draw a line in the sand and say, like
the character Howard Beale in the movie Network, “I’m
as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
One
man’s hobby is to fly around spying on people ... my hobby
is gardening, caring for my roses, watching things grow! When I
get upset, I go out and trim bushes. I have to constantly try to
remember to celebrate the miracle of life. It is that miracle that
we must all work every day to protect. We live in a country where
all people are supposed to have equal rights, but it is also a country
where we all have to be vigilant to protect those rights.
I
know that having lies told about me or having my name published
on a website is but a very small problem compared to the struggles
that so many people go through every day. I do not pretend to compare
my problems with the inequalities that exist on a larger scale,
but I do think that standing up against injustice in our own lives
is part of becoming active participants in our communities and our
country. There is too much injustice in the world on too many levels
affecting too many people to take it sitting down. So stand up and
fight!!
Let’s
Unite!
Posted
on June 18, 2003
I have reflected a great deal over the years about the need for dialogue
and unity among various minority and progressive communities. The
presidential primary process is underway, and this is the time when
the candidates within the Democratic party work to differentiate themselves
from one other. It is important, however, to keep in mind that the
end goal for all of us is to elect a Democratic president who will
work to provide a decent education for the most underprivileged children,
pass tax cuts for the lower and middle classes rather than the wealthy,
protect the environment and a woman’s reproductive choice ...
Afterall, why should wealthy people such as myself receive a tax cut?
I will be the first to admit that I don’t need it. What we all
need is a healthy government that can provide the services (such as
education, health care, national and homeland security) that we all
depend on. We must unify and work together in order to accomplish
this. Republicans
have held onto their power because they have been able to consolidate
many different conservative movements into a single agenda. The
Democratic Party’s broad vision has allowed for more individuality
amongst progressive movements, but we all must work together for
the next election. There is power in our numbers.
I
see people trying to divide the unity of Blacks and Jews, in particular.
We can’t allow this to happen, because we have too much in
common to be divided. With a shared history of oppression and slavery,
as well as a common ingrained culture of social justice, Blacks
and Jews, over the years and still today, have been natural allies.
In
fact, Blacks and Jews have a long and important history of working
together. African-Americans and Jews came together to form the NAACP,
the Urban League and to improve education in the South. African-American
battalions helped liberate the concentration camps during World
War II. One-third of the Civil Rights Movement supporters were Jewish.
In Mississippi in 1964, three young men, one African-American and
two Jewish, were killed by white extremists on their way to investigate
the burning of a black church.
More
recently, Blacks and Jews worked together in Florida after the 2000
election when both groups were disenfranchised after their votes
were disregarded – Blacks because they were wrongly purged
from voter lists and Jews in Palm Beach County who had mistakenly
voted for Buchanan due to a poorly designed ballot. It was wonderful
to watch Jews and African-Americans come together at rallies during
that important time in our history.
In
my mind, no one image better illustrates the power that is possible
when African-Americans and Jews work together than the famous picture
of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. walking through the streets of Selma,
Alabama, arm in arm with his friend and fellow civil rights activist,
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Rabbi Heschel and Dr. King together
spoke of a moral responsibility that transcends race and religion.
They taught us that we must stand together to defeat racism and
anti-Semitism.
Now
is the time in history when Blacks and Jews, along with Latinos,
Asians, Women, Gays and all “others” have the potential
to work together. Together we can eradicate not only racism, sexism,
anti-Semitism and homophobia, but also the poverty, corruption in
government, destruction to our environment, corporate control, undermining
of our civil liberties and a woman’s right to choose, and
ongoing warfare that threaten us all. Now is the time to unite.
"IF
ONLY OUR HEARTS COULD EXPAND AS MUCH AS TECHNOLOGY"
Posted on June 13, 2003
Is technological growth outweighing
spiritual growth?
That question has posed itself recently
as the spiraling miracles of technology devise seemingly infinite
ways in which certain websites can strip away our last shreds of privacy
and confidentiality.
In 1984, Barbra Streisand was in the
Middle East and appeared on the Good Morning America show via inter-continental
satellite. A common practice now, that technology was in its early
stages, and Streisand commented at the end of the interview, "If only
our hearts could expand as much as technology, we'd be in a good place."
Confronted often by Internet and media
information that is frequently incorrect, in 1994, working on her
speech for Harvard's School of Government, Ms. Streisand had noted,
"I love information, but I'm afraid of the information age - too much
information and not enough spiritual growth to handle it. I'm still
afraid our technology is more advanced than our hearts. There's something
lacking now - this gap, this void between technology and compassion."
What's Next?
Posted on April 15, 2003
Well, it looks like we are about to win the war in Iraq ... no surprise
there. The U.S. military is so powerful that we can pretty much overpower
any country we want at this point - but does that mean we should?
The 117 American and 31 British soldiers dead so far and the countless
number of Iraqi deaths (and now we are told we may never know the
actual number of Iraqi civilians and military personnel killed) are
thousands of deaths too many.
And now the question is ...what's next? Will the Bush administration
install a puppet government in Iraq made up of just one of the many
opposition groups (the one group that happens to be close friends
with higher-ups in the Defense Department) instead of heeding our
British allies and the rest of the world by allowing the United
Nations to step in and set up a peaceful new government for Iraq?
Will American corporations with uncomfortably close White House
and Pentagon connections reap the spoils of war? Will the U.S. use
this victory as a blank check to go after every other government
we don't like?
The "thrill" of war and victory can become addicting ... but it
is time to start working towards peace. We can only hope that the
Iraqi people will soon have the peace, freedom and democracy that
the Bush administration has promised them ... and that our own country
resists resorting to violence, death and destruction to solve international
problems.
And as our government goes to work rebuilding Iraq, we can only
hope that they will not continue to abandon our own country. We
cannot forget about our failing economy, our own citizens without
healthcare, our children forced to attend failing schools, our veterans
who have served our country bravely and now face major cuts in their
benefits, and the many Americans laid off recently and forgotten
in the rush to war ... It is unbelievable to me that instead of
focusing on solutions, the Republican domestic agenda consists entirely
of tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations (which are still
being let off the hook for their tax shelters overseas), even as
they ask the American people to spend billions on the war and the
rebuilding process . When Americans turn off CNN and look around,
it's not hard to recognize that many of our fellow citizens are
hurting right now, and that this country needs to be rebuilt, even
as we work to rebuild Iraq. Let's make rebuilding America - our
schools, our health care system, our infrastructure - a priority.
All Children Deserve a Decent Education
Posted on April 4, 2003
President Bush's plans for Iraq include rebuilding Iraqi schools ...
but what about American schools?
Why can't we provide better education to our young people?
With all of the wealth in this country, why do we have schools in
low-income neighborhoods that are overcrowded, lack accredited teachers
and even lack basic supplies?
The entire basis for the "capitalist dream" - the idea that you can
come from nothing and achieve success if you just work hard enough
- depends on all children receiving a decent education and starting
from an equal playing field. But according to statistics from the
National Department of Education, our educational system is far from
fair. High-income high-school graduates are two times as likely as
middle-income graduates and four times as likely as low-income graduates
to receive an education that would qualify them for a four-year college.
One in five schools in this country is overcrowded, with overcrowding
more likely to occur in schools with over 50% minority population.
Some outspoken leaders have gone so far as to suggest that the educational
system for poor people and minorities is purposely kept inadequate
in order to maintain the power of the upper-class. This theory holds
that if all people were given an equal education, there would be more
upward mobility and the upper classes wouldn't be able to maintain
their lock on power. An undereducated population is also less likely
to question the mainstream media and the government, and more likely
to accept easy answers over a more complicated truth. Therefore, it
is in the best interest of those in power to not provide a decent
education for the lower classes.
Whether or not poor education for the lower classes is a conscious
decision, it is certainly the result of the policies that the Republicans
are implementing. As I wrote about months ago, the Bush administration
has continued to cut education funding from Bush's own "No Child Left
Behind Act," specifically funding targeted to low-income schools.
Furthermore, the policies that have led to budget problems at the
state level have now translated into enormous cuts in education spending
by states struggling to balance their budgets.
Barbra's Thoughts
Posted on March 26, 2003
“The first casualty when war comes, is truth.” Senator Hiram Johnson
1917
Bush and his Administration appear to operate under two related principles:
(1) regardless of fact, if we say it enough times, the American people
will believe us and (2) if we say something, you just have to trust
us that it’s true, forget proof and logic.
Unfortunately, with regard to the first principle he is right. He
found this to be the case with his domestic policy and it seems to
be true in foreign affairs as well. Take his repeated assertion of
a connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11. Despite the
fact that he and others have yet to offer any proof, a recent poll
of Americans, shows that about half believe there is a connection
between Saddam and 9-11. Why wait for an accurate intelligence report?
All Bush had to do was repeat Saddam Hussein and 9-11 in the same
sentence over and over again – and then wait while the media reported
his statements without analysis, and millions of Americans accepted
it without question.
Who cares about the facts and truth? We should.
On March 23, the New York Times reported that analysts at the Central
Intelligence Agency have “felt pressured to make their intelligence
reports on Iraq confirm to Bush Administration policies,” including
pressure to “emphasize links between Saddam Hussein’s government and
al Qaeda.”
This revelation comes on the heels of a recent disclosure that President
Bush’s public assertion that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium was
based in part on forged documents – documents about which C.I.A. officials
were always suspicious. Bush has yet to retract his public statement,
nor does he seem to feel the need to defend his use of faulty information.
I am shocked that the American people do not ask more questions given
the numbers of lies we have been fed by Bush and his team. And while
one can find a story here and there in the press challenging his statements,
more often than not the media only reports what the Bush Administration
wants us to hear. So they cover Secretary Powell’s claims to the
U.N that Iraq was using aluminum tubes for nuclear weapon development
(despite the U.N atomic weapons inspector’s conclusion that this was
not the case). Yet they ignore Senators Byrd and Kennedy’s speeches
against the war as well as the remarks made by former Vermont Governor
and current presidential candidate Howard Dean.
Where are the articles and news stories asking Bush how his current
offensive stacks up with his earlier statements that this is going
to be a short war and that he doesn’t believe in nation building and
would have a “humble” approach to foreign policy? Who in the mainstream
media is doing the investigative report on how American companies
with ties to the Bush Administration have already been given contracts
to rebuild Iraq? (Is this all about an arrogant and imperialistic
foreign policy that is designed to gain access to Iraqi oil and reward
ones friends and business associates?) Following the devastation
of Iraq, how can we now be in the political situation where we are
going to rebuild Iraq’s schools and infrastructure, but won’t spend
enough money to fix America’s schools that are in terrible disrepair
and in dire need of teachers, books and supplies? Who’s asking why
at a time when there are so many Americans who are hungry, who live
without health insurance, who are unemployed, who see their veteran’s
benefits being cut – why given these domestic realities, does the
President launch a costly war with one hand and propose tax cuts with
the other?
If we can’t trust our Administration to tell the truth and our media
to report the truth, then it’s up to us to demand the truth – again
and again. I know so many people are working two jobs to make their
rent and have little energy or inclination left to question what they
hear. But people need to wake up. If we don’t, this world will be
anything but safer for our children and our children’s children.
We have to be vigilant and not buy what they are telling us just because
they say it again and again. For the Bush administration, truth seems
to be irrelevant. It can’t and shouldn’t be for us.
ARCHIVE
My
Thoughts On Freedom Of Speech
(March 24, 2003)
My
Right to Dissent
(Feb.
26, 2003)
My
Thoughts Today
(Feb.
20, 2003)
Bush
Leaves Children Behind
(Jan.
13 , 2003)
Thank
You, Antiwar Protesters
(Jan. 22, 2003)
My
Thoughts Today: Judges and the Environment
(Dec. 10 , 2002)
How incredible
is it that only twenty-five hours were spent in the Congress
debating WAR!!
Rush to Judgement
By Robert L. Borosage
(Oct.
11, 2002)
Barbra
Streisand's Remarks At The Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Fourth Annual
Awards Dinner
(Dec. 11, 2001)
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