Medea Benjamin has been arrested dozens of times. About 60, by their own count, and mostly by the Capitol police. For a left-wing activist who sets out to interrupt legislative hearings to denounce wars and corruption, the outcome is not strange.
Still, even with all the arrests and militancy that began in the 1960s, she guarantees: with Donald Trump, everything changed. “I’m 73 years old and I don’t remember living in such dangerous times.”
Co-founder of the Code Pink organization, she visited Brazil to participate in Flipei and spoke exclusively to Brazil in fact.
“The job of every American is to expose the war machine that hurts its own national interest,” said Benjamin as he explained, in his own words, the injustices of US wars and the Trump administration’s unprecedented repression against the left.
She also denounced what she called the poisoning of politics by the Israeli lobby and said she feared the mid-term elections in the US, scheduled for November 3rd.
Check out the main excerpts from the interview:
Brasil de Fato: What is Code Pink and what is its origin?
Medea Benjamin: I founded Code Pink with Jodie Evans, focused on fighting for climate change. It wasn’t long before the US was attacked on September 11, 2001. We were women discussing climate change, but then we started talking about the US invasion of Afghanistan and how they were talking about invading Iraq. And we talked about what we were going to do about it. There was a color code that George Bush had instituted: yellow, orange, red, following the possibilities of a terrorist attack. We laughed at it because it was very stupid, it didn’t say what to do, just say a color. So we decided to bring hot pink, pink. We think in the short term, organizing marches to stop the war in Iraq. It was an anti-war movement that we thought would be short-lived. We organized big marches, but Bush invaded Iraq anyway, so we thought we couldn’t just stop. That’s why we’ve continued ever since, always with this idea that the US is part of a very large war machine. And the job of citizens is to expose this war machine, because it is contrary to the national interest of our own country.
Bush already had a conservative and warmongering government, but things are very different now, compared to Trump. What has changed, in your opinion, since then??
First, we have to say that both the Democratic and Republican Parties are parties of war. I just arrived from Ireland and there I heard a very good expression that said that Democrats and Republicans are “two cheeks from the same ass”. This is to say that, even with Barack Obama, with whom we were very excited, he ended up being called the chief deporter, due to the number of people deported, as well as the “drone president”, due to the number of drones he used in the wars in Pakistan and Yemen.
He was also the first to impose sanctions against Venezuela.
Exactly. This proves that the Democrats were up to no good. But Trump is a completely different story. Let’s remember that he won both elections saying that wars are stupid and that he would be a president of peace. In fact, data shows that, in the swing states that gave Trump victory in both elections, rural populations voted massively for him because they were anti-war, as the majority of their children were or are mobilized.
So at first we thought, “We don’t like Trump for a lot of reasons, but maybe he’s good at war.” He also said that NATO was obsolete and that might sound positive. But when he started, especially this second term, it was insane. We see things that we on the left didn’t expect, but also people on the right didn’t expect.
Do you think Trump was lying when he promised peace? Was it just a campaign promise? Or have things changed on the global stage?
I think the war machine is more powerful than the presidency as an individual figure.
By “war machine“, what should we understand? Which institutions or people?
The entire complex: military and military industry, security, think tanks, the media, the pressure of capital. All of it. A lot of pressure from Israel too. What’s impressive: this tiny country has its tentacles everywhere. An ability to infiltrate so perfectly, whether in the USA or even here in Latin America. In the US, you scratch the surface and find Israeli influence, especially in elections. Let’s look at the so-called electoral “PACS”, which completely undermine the possibility of having truly democratic elections.
And how does this lobby work in practice? Recently, in Michigan, a candidate who claims to be progressive and pro-Palestine defeated the candidate supported by the Israeli lobby in the Democratic primary for the Senate. Is it still possible to face it?
The difference in financing is absolutely huge. The pro-Israel candidate received around 32 million dollars for her campaign from the Israeli lobby and almost 30 million from other large groups. So you turn a campaign into an almost incessant search for money, including for the other candidate. This destroys everything.
Does Codepink believe that it is possible, even with this scenario, to compete for genuine spaces of power through elections in the US?
We have no choice. It’s like in Brazil: you have to use every tool you have, including the electoral tool, even though you know that’s not what will save you. There has to be pressure from the outside. But, in electoral terms, we have had big victories recently: in New York, in Arizona, in Michigan. Once these people are elected and enter the system, they will still be a minority. Even if Democrats take back the House and Senate, progressives will still be in the minority. But it’s still good to have more and more of them. This also changes those in power, making it toxic to accept money from PACs and Israel lobbies. So we have to continue occupying places inside, but putting pressure on the outside.
Now, Israel is not the only issue. There are other problems that attract people’s attention, and one thing that has attracted attention and generated important mobilizations is data centers for artificial intelligence. This is not something linked to either party, and you see people from rural areas, normal families, who are now mobilizing against this. It’s not like a company is coming in and promising to create jobs. These data centers don’t even do that. This kind of uprising is taking place. Another example is the uprising against ICE. So we think we should take advantage of these uprisings combined with participation in electoral processes as a place to not only elect good people, but to expose the corruption of those financed by the big lobby.
Could ICE violence be a turning point against the Trump administration? Something that generates an unavoidable feeling of rejection for the president?
It’s not enough, but it’s one of the most important points. There is very strong anti-migration sentiment in the US, but that doesn’t mean people support troops traveling in unmarked cars to arrest people. There is probably a great sense of dissatisfaction with the way this is done. But people are relentlessly convinced that migrants take what is theirs. The propaganda that Republicans and the Trump administration use, saying that migrants are animals, rapists, greatly influences the way people think migrants should be treated. We think they should be regularized, but many people buy this propaganda.
The Trump administration is employing an overt imperialist policy in foreign policy, claiming the Monroe Doctrine and using force. But not only that, there is also an offensive against leftist movements within the USA. Are we also experiencing a reissue of McCarthyism?
They are two different things. They will persecute the left in every way, whether calling protesters against police violence “domestic terrorists” or classifying environmentalist or anti-fascist groups with this designation. This allows them to be prosecuted in higher courts, with greater penalties. They are also going after organizations like ours through the Treasury Department, forcing us to provide excessive information about our funding and how we spend our resources, particularly with our Cuba solidarity campaign. There are subpoenas against newspapers like Breaktrought News and others. They also persecute many Palestinian groups, accusing them of having relations with Hamas and Hezbollah and threatening deportation if they participate in marches. Apart from workplace harassment. There are even laws in some states against the BSD campaign, boycott, sanctions and divestment against Israel. It is a time of enormous repression. People compare this period to the 1950s, to the era of anti-communism and McCarthyism, but I think today it’s broader than that.
Why?
Because repression occurs in different areas. It is designed so that people who disagree with the Trump administration are classified as threats to national security. We fear this will grow. We are also afraid that the November midterm legislative elections will not take place or will be highly contested in several states, that we will not have a functioning government. Not to mention what could happen in the next presidential elections. I’m 73 years old and I don’t remember living in such dangerous times.
Regarding the Monroe Doctrine, people in general do not place foreign policy as the priority in their lives. But now, with this endless war, it has become a big issue. I could even say that this idea of the US determining what can or cannot be done in other parts of the world is not very popular in the country. The feeling is “America first”, it’s not “Americas”, in the plural, it’s just the USA. And this does not come from solidarity, it comes from a characteristic type of nationalism. The war in Iran is one of the most unpopular. It’s affecting people’s lives with the price of gas, and Trump has put himself in a difficult place. This will definitely affect the elections. I wrote an article about how the US is a ‘paper tiger’. About how the US has the biggest war machine in the world and yet it can’t win wars. We didn’t win in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Iran, a country that spent a low amount on its military infrastructure and managed to defeat the US. This is unbelievable.
Trump is likely to lose the House and Senate in the November elections, according to polls. But is there any other possible political defeat for the government that comes from the polls?
If the elections proceed normally, the Democrats will certainly take back the House and perhaps the Senate. In US politics, generally, whoever is in power loses control of the House in the middle of the term, as there is dissatisfaction among the population, especially with the economy. Even though Trump says the economy is great and the stock market is great, there is a lot of dissatisfaction. But I think the biggest challenge is always connecting the economy with wars. Now it’s easier with what’s happening in Iran, but we continue to denounce: the US has a 1.5 trillion dollar war machine, how can it not have free universal healthcare? This exists in Brazil, I couldn’t believe it when I discovered it. The problem is that no one wants to be seen as someone who undermined national security. People in Congress don’t want to be seen as giving less money to the Pentagon or not supporting the troops. Therefore, in the next elections, we aim to elect as many progressives as we can and denounce Israel as much as possible. And, for the presidential elections, Democrats need to choose someone who has moral clarity, and not someone like Kamala Harris, who was a terrible candidate because she supports genocide.
Are there names?
Well, they talk about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, they talk about Ro Khanna, they also talk about Pete Buttigieg, Josh Shapiro, Gavin Newsome… There is a lot of talk around names. What I think is that we need to make sure the elections happen and support as many candidates as possible like Abul El-Sayed, who won the Michigan primary and continues to preach ‘money out of politics, money in your pocket, universal healthcare’. Things that resonate with people.
Source: www.brasildefato.com.br
