From dartvax!bu.edu!stanford.edu!agate!ucbvax!CABOT.DARTMOUTH.EDU!harelb Fri May 10 22:55:21 EDT 1991 Article: 12488 of alt.activism Path: dartvax!bu.edu!stanford.edu!agate!ucbvax!CABOT.DARTMOUTH.EDU!harelb From: harelb@CABOT.DARTMOUTH.EDU (Harel Barzilai) Newsgroups: alt.activism Subject: ARTICLE: October Suprise Update -- PART (II) Message-ID: <9105082137.AA15444@cabot.dartmouth.edu> Date: 8 May 91 21:37:37 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Lines: 139 "It doesn't have sex in it, but it has morality, human suffering, wrongdoing in high places and an issue people are going to be concerned about -- the future of our democracy. What we have here are men who were willing to sacrifice the liberty and health of their fellow Americans to win an election. This is a very basic moral issue. "There has to be signals sent to members of Congress who are coming up for re-election that they want to be on the right side of the issue. People are outraged. This is going to spread." ============================= T H E F I R S T S T O N E ============================= By Joel Bleifuss [In These Times, May 1-7, 1991, page 4] ================= c o n t i n u e d ================= According to former hostage Moorehead Kennedy, there are two legal grounds on which to bring suit. Kennedy, who graduated from Harvard Law School but chose a career with the foreign service, explains, "Number one, this is kidnapping, and an accessory or a co-conspirator to a kidnapping has the same guilt as one who has been involved since the beginning. Two, there is an old-fashioned tort called false imprisonment." Kennedy is hopeful that the hostages and their attorneys can all "pull to- gether on this." Besides Weinglass, two other lawyers may be possible counsels to the former hostages -- Los Angeles attorney Jim Davis, who represented 13 hostages in a 1981 suit that contested the U.S. government's negotiated settlement with Iran, and Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard Law School professor who represented Claus von Bulow and who now has been consulted by some hos- tages. ON ALL FRONTS: Kennedy is the director of the Moorehead Ken- nedy Institute, an educational organization that gives seminars on political ethics. He is also an Episcopal lay minister and the Re- publican Party's deputy district leader in Lower Manhattan, an area of the city that he claims is home to some yuppies who are closet Republicans. In addition to legal recourse by former hostages, Kennedy ad- vocates a probe by a non-partisan citizens' committee, as well as the formation of a hostages' committee. This committee, as he envisions it, would publicize the issue by raising money and put- ting ads in newspapers and on TV. Further, he says, pressure should be put on Congress. "There has to be signals sent to members of Congress who are coming up for re-election that they want to be on the right side of the issue. People are outraged. This is going to spread. It doesn't have sex in it, but it has morality, human suffering, wrongdoing in high places and an issue people are going to be concerned about -- the future of our democracy. What we have here are men who were willing to sacrifice the liberty and health of their fellow Americans to win an election. This is a very basic moral issue. "Some people are concerned that, with the pressures that the Bush administration are under, anybody who is critical is going to pay for it," he continues. "But this just shows the state of our democracy that people would express such an idea." "I have good old-fashioned Christian faith. I believe in original sin. I'm not surprised and it doesn't bother me when people do bad things. But I am Bothered when they end up in high places and nobody dares to criticize them,' says Kennedy "We've got to purge this." SERVANT OF POWER? One news organization that has recently covered the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign is the Washington Post. On April 21 it featured an opinion piece in its "Outlook" section by Mark Hosenball, the same journalist who in October 1988 deemed the 1980 arms-for-hostages story "a rumor that just won't die," one that was being spread by "aficionados of intrigue" and "rumor mongers." (See In These Times, Oct. 19,1988.) Picking up where he left off two and a half years ago, Hosenball wrote on April 21. "The allegations have knocked around in fash- ionable publications and among the chattering classes in New York, Washington and Hollywood for years, but last week they hit the big time. The New York Times article by former Carter admin- istration official Gary Sick, and the subsequent PBS [Frontline] broadcast gave a new lease on life .... to a story which has ob- sessed a small brigade of conspiracy theorists and journalistic gadflies for years ... a mischevous interpretation of highly cir- cumstantial evidence." As a result of these and other articles, a new verb has entered the Washington lexicon -- "Hosenballed." Can't they find a new person?" wonders Robert Parry, the former Newsweek journalist who reported the Frontline expose. It became sort of a pattern. Any journalist who would quote or investigate these charges is attacked by Hosenball. The effect of having Hosenball in the 'Outlook' section is to delegitimize the story. When reporters feel they are going to be ridiculed in Washington in this snotty, sophomoric way, they pull away from following leads. "As the psy-ops [psychological operations] people always tell you, the best way to neutralize your opponent is to make them an object of ridicule. The effect of such ridicule has kept this story from being seriously treated for years, and right now Hosenball is working overtime being sure it goes back to the fringes." Parry believes that someone miscalculated when they assigned Hosenball the story. "I think this is a rear-guard action," says Parry "There are now millions of Americans who think the elec- tion was interfered with and that they were denied the use of their franchise. And a democracy can't let that continue." ################################################################## In These Times 1912 Debs Avenue Mt. Morris, IL 61054 "For a free issue of the national weekly newspaper In These Times, [email me and I'll send you the electronic copy of their "please sent me a free issue" card or their tel number] ############################################################### # Harel Barzilai for Activists Mailing List (AML) # ################################################################ { For more info about ACTIV-L or PeaceNet's brochure send } { inquiries to harel@dartmouth.edu / mathrich@umcvmb.bitnet } To join AML, just send the 1-line message "SUB ACTIV-L " to: LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET; you should receive a confirmation message within 2 days. Alternate address: LISTSERV@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU Qs/problems: Rich Winkel, MATHRICH@UMCVMB.["MISSOURI.EDU" or "BITNET"]