Sir Edmund Hillary was the first man to reach the top of Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world. Does another Hillary – Clinton, that is – have what it takes to become the first woman to reach the highest office in the United States? One of the more politically astute people in Hollywood, Oscar winner Ben Affleck, poses some questions in an effort to find out.
Senator Hillary Clinton: How are you? Ben Affleck: Good. How are you doing? Clinton: Well, I’m doing great! I just wanted to congratulate you again on your beautiful baby. Affleck: Thank you so much. That’s so nice of you to say. Clinton: It’s the best thing in the world, isn’t it? Affleck: It is. It really is the best thing in the whole world. It changes everything, as you well know. I’m very lucky. Clinton: Well, I’ve been talking a lot in my campaign about [how] the Masai [in Africa], when they meet each other on a trail as they’re herding their livestock, instead of saying, “How are you?” they say, “How are the children?” It’s one of my favorite stories, and I talk a lot about it on the campaign because I say, “Look, every election is about the future, and the future is about our kids, and whether we are going to give them the kind of country that they deserve to have is really the question of this election.” Anyway, congratulations. Welcome to fatherhood and all that good stuff. [Laughs] Affleck: [Laughs] Thank you very much. I’ve never interviewed anyone before, and to get a chance to interview someone who could be the next president is really starting your career… I don’t know where my career as an interviewer goes from here. Clinton: [Laughs] Well, I’ve seen you on some of those interview shows. You’re pretty good, Ben. You know, if you ever got it in your mind to do that, you’d wipe up. [Laughs]| Affleck: [Laughs] I’ve got to retire from here. I was trying to write my questions, and you should like my questions because they’re so long that really you have three seconds to talk. I can’t get the preambles down. Clinton: Oh, I know. But there’s a lot to talk about. This is an important election. Affleck: Before I dropped out of college, I majored in Middle Eastern studies, so a lot of this stuff is [about] foreign affairs. Clinton: Good. Affleck: I’m going to Tanzania with [the One Campaign volunteers], so I wanted to start by asking what your plans are to address extreme poverty and AIDS in Africa. Some people feel that that’s a national security issue. Clinton: I’m such a strong supporter of the One campaign, and I see the representatives of it in every crowd that I speak to. And I’m thrilled because we’ve got to do more to raise the visibility of these issues. I have a five-point plan about what I think we need to do to deal with extreme poverty in Africa and elsewhere, but with particular focus on Africa. First, I have legislation that I’ve introduced for the last several years – and it’s now bipartisan, thank goodness – for the United States to lead the world in helping children go to school. It’s called the Education for All Act, and the One campaign has endorsed it. Because if we don’t support countries in doing away with school fees and providing teacher training and curriculum materials, we’re never going to break the cycle of illiteracy and ignorance. Number two: We’ve got to have a more efficient healthcare delivery system in order to deal with HIV, AIDS, malaria [and] tuberculosis. There’s good work going on. I’m very proud of the work that my husband’s foundation is doing through the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative. And I give the president credit for working to get us at least on the boards when it comes to PETFAR [President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief], and what we need to be doing as a nation. But the real problem is we don’t yet have effective health-delivery systems, which is why I want to support work like [physician and Partners in Health founder] Paul Farmer is doing in Rwanda, and that governments like Botswana are doing, and what Bill [Clinton] is doing in Lesotho and other places. So that it’s not just [that] we get the lower prices for the drugs, or for the mosquito netting, but we work with these governments to set up systems that are going to continue when we go and to give people a better option to have access to healthcare. Number three: We’ve really got to do as much as we can to get the level of violence and conflict to decrease. That’s why, for a long time, I’ve been calling for a no-fly zone in Sudan. And there’re other actions that I would take in working with the governments in Congo and Nigeria to deal with some of their internal conflicts. And if we don’t show that we’re willing to support the African Union and peacekeeping, whether it’s through the U.N. or NATO, people are not going to make investments and, at the end of the day, some kind of investment strategy is essential if you’re going to help the African economies begin to put people to work. Fourthly, I would say we’ve got to do more to support the good leaders who now exist in Africa on a very big level. I’m a huge supporter of the president of Liberia. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has taken a big jump of faith in trying to get that country pulled out of the chaos that she found it in. Affleck: Yeah, they’ve come a long way. Clinton: They have come a long way. But if we’re not there, and we’re not getting more donors, and if we’re not sending more technical assistance, it’s impossible for her to get the electricity on, and to get economic opportunity flowing again. I’m really proud. Because Bill runs this thing called the Clinton Global Initiative, and last year a group of African-American business leaders who were very persuaded by her presentation pulled together about $30 million to help her do what needed doing. Well, we need to make that a real effort. Finally, we’ve got to work on the trade-aid equation, because at the end of the day we’ve got to support these economies so that they produce more, and it’s very hard for them to do that if they don’t get a lot of good breaks from the developing world. So there’s a lot that I want to do in order to deal with extreme poverty. Affleck: Others have suggested that President Bush conflated al-Qaida in Iraq with the al-Qaida of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Do you agree, or do you think they’re one and the same, and we should regard them as such? Clinton: This is a classic case of misdirection by the Bush administration. It certainly was not the case. There was no active presence in any organized way in Iraq of al-Qaida. Suddam Hussein saw al-Qaida – and bin Laden, in particular – as a real competitor. Now there is an al-Qaida presence. The al-Qaida in Iraq [is] independent, but it’s linked with bin Laden. So we’ve got to take it seriously now, but it’s really misleading for President Bush to act as though it was there before, and we’re just dealing with what it was, when in fact we helped to create it and gave it an opening. I’m encouraged that there seems to be a reaction against al-Qaida in Iraq by some of the Sunni tribal sheiks. They’re now taking action because the al-Qaida in Iraq, foreign fighters and insurgents took rather bloody and very violent action against the Sunnis, and so we’re beginning to create a coalition against al-Qaida in Iraq. But we wouldn’t have had to do any of this if President Bush hadn’t been so intent upon waging a preemptive war, and then, once he waged it, doing it in such an unfortunate, incompetent manner. Affleck: Now the president keeps telling us that if the troops withdraw from Iraq, terrorists will follow them home. They tell us there are four million refugees who have been uprooted from Iraq already. It’s not as if the terrorists have a navy that needs a military battle before they can sail for our shores; it’s already possible for a terrorist in Iraq to come here. Is there really an increase in danger of terrorists following us home if we withdraw our troops? Clinton: That’s another one of the scare tactics that the president uses. We were attacked before we ever went into Iraq. Other countries have been attacked by al-Qaida, or al-Qaida-linked terrorists, in the years since we invaded Iraq. We’re going to be living with the threat of global terrorism, and we’ve got to get smart about how we deal with it. That’s why I’ve outlined a very specific three-step plan I would pursue as president to end the war, and it starts with bringing our troops home as quickly as it’s responsible to do so. Because we’ve got to put the Iraqi government on notice that we’re not going to be there to protect and defend them unless they are willing to take action on behalf of themselves, which thus far they’ve been reluctant to do. So I just fundamentally disagree with President Bush’s analysis and his continuing beating of the drum of fear as the substitute for reason and understanding of the very difficult options we face. Affleck: Senator, if you’ll permit me to state the obvious briefly – sometimes the Bush administration demands it – if you parse the president’s phrase “war on terror,” it literally makes no sense. Terrorism is not an enemy; it’s a tactic of warfare. Enemies are people or organizations. It’s like waging a war on jealousy or ambushes. When the Democrats use the president’s Orwellian political phrases, aren’t they helping the Republicans frame the issues to their advantage? And therefore shouldn’t we all try to stop using this language? Clinton: That’s a good point, Ben. Really, it’s a long-term struggle against forces that use terror as a tactic to intimidate and disrupt societies that they could never take over by any direct military action, and to gain support and adherence around the world to a philosophy and an attitude against modernity, and women’s roles and many other aspects of life today. The shorthand that is used is one that is certainly not very analytic, but I understand how it’s gotten into the parlance because the country was shocked as a result of the attacks of 9/11, and trying to find a language for something that had never happened to us before. And it’s unfortunate that the president we had at the time was willing to take advantage of the legitimate concerns and questions that the American people had, and to use fear as a tactic for political gain. So there can be a transition away from that. What I’m trying to do is say, “Yes, we have a real struggle against people who use terror. We have –” Affleck: But isn’t that the war against al-Qaida?
To read more of Ben Affleck’s interview with Senator Hillary Clinton, pick up a copy of the latest edition of Fade In magazine. www.hillaryclinton.com
IRON JOHN
From Salvador and Born on the Fourth of July to JFK and Nixon, Oliver Stone’s films have made clear he has few rivals when it comes to filmmakers with an overtly political bent. Not surprisingly, the impassioned, at times polemical Oscar winner has been studying the current crop of presidential hopefuls with more than passing interest. Here, the veteran of both the Vietnam and Hollywood trenches brings his unique perspective to a candid conversation with 2008 Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, covering everything from the erosion of citizens’ rights to the prospect of a preemptive invasion of Iran.
John Edwards: I’ve enjoyed your work for a long time. Oliver Stone: I’m not sure about that. I heard your favorite movie is [The] Shawshank Redemption. Edwards: I do like it, yeah. [Laughs] Stone: That is a good choice. How many times have you seen it? Edwards: Probably five or ten. Stone: So I’ve read a lot about you to [prepare] for this interview, and I have to say, it was all good stuff. I was very impressed. You are a very serious man – like another one of my heroes, Al Gore. You are devoted to the public good. Edwards: Well, thank you. Thank you for that. Stone: You’re on the record as saying you still support the Patriot Act. Edwards: Yeah. There’re still things wrong with it, but there are parts of it that I support. We have to be really [clear for] the readers. The Patriot Act has nothing to do with Guantanamo, torture [or] illegal spying on Americans. People tend to lump everything into the Patriot Act. There were things in the Patriot Act that needed to be done. The problem is, they were lumped together with things that should not have been done: checking library records, for example, [or] the so-called sneak-and-peek searches, where they can come into your house, search your house and not even tell you they’ve been there, [laughs] which is the most amazing thing! So all those things are wrong, and need to be changed. But there are some things in the Patriot Act that make sense. Stone: Such as what? Edwards: Sharing of information among government agencies. Even when you go through the process of actually getting a court warrant, doing the things that are supposed to be done to find out information, the existing law before the Patriot Act was written at a time when we didn’t have the technology that we have today. There was no such thing as voicemail, for example. So there was no way to get that information if you had very solid information that a terrorist attack was about to occur. But that doesn’t justify the bad stuff. Stone: Why, after five years, do I, as a reasonable American citizen, feel more scared of my own government than I am of the terrorists? I walk into an airport, and I feel like a suspect. They handle people roughly. They have you put your hands up in the air, they search old women, they search me. In my private life, I’m terrified – increasingly terrified – of a government that can do anything at any moment. It’s the random nature of the given moment. They can arrest me, they can frame me, they can imprison me, they can convict me, and they can even torture me. They can read my mail. They can examine my financial records. They can listen to my phone calls. They can search my Internet history. They can accuse me of conspiracies. They can seize my assets. They can character-assassinate me through the media. In essence, they could completely destroy my life. I ask you: How did it get this way, and who gave the government the power over us like this? Edwards: I had that experience a few days ago, speaking at an event, in saying, “If we’re going to establish America as a force for good, there’re some bad things we have to end and some good things we have to do.” And I started to list them: End the war in Iraq. Close Guantanamo. Close secret prisons. Declare we won’t torture, or we won’t condone torture. [Stop] spying on the American people. I went through that list, and I said out loud to the crowd, “Can you believe that a serious candidate for the presidency of the United States has to say these things?” It’s unimaginable that we’ve gotten to this place. All of that has to change. It has to change not only for the world, and the world’s perception of us, [but also] it has to change for our perception of ourselves. I gave a speech several years ago where I talked about hatred, and the language of hate getting a toehold, and once it gets a toehold, slowly it seeps in, and it becomes acceptable. And when it becomes acceptable, then it’s OK. The danger of the things that we’ve just talked about, ranging from holding people without a hearing to the spying that you just spoke about – [which is] completely illegal, by the way – [and] the president of the United States behaving as if he thinks he’s above the law. Torture. Can you believe Americans would ever even have a debate about whether we torture? All that aside, if we don’t change them, and don’t change them immediately with the next administration, there’s the risk that these behaviors, which are completely contrary to what America is supposed to be, [will] become acceptable. And then who knows what the next thing is that may be acceptable? So Bush has undermined the very heart of what America is, and what America is supposed to be. There are a number of people who feel the way you do. Stone: What worries me is that none of the [Democratic] candidates – you, Obama, Clinton – have actually said, to the best of my knowledge, that if elected you would guarantee that you would make it your priority to return those rights that have been taken from us since 2001 – rights we don’t even know the degree to which they have been violated. I don’t know if you’ve made a statement to that effect. Edwards: I’ve never said it in that language. When you talk about closing Guantanamo, stopping the illegal spying on Americans, not condoning torture, etc., you’re saying that. You’re just saying it in different words. Let me say it very directly: America cannot,in its effort to provide security for the American people, give up the very things on which America is founded: our individual freedoms, our liberties, etc. Stone: This is a key question. Edwards: Right. Of course it is. Stone: Because it is in the name of security that we keep eroding those rights. Edwards: That’s correct. Be careful how you use the word “we.” Bush keeps doing it – yes. Stone: Well, even before Bush, the words “national security” evoked immediate respect in all the courts of the land and the legislatures. In many police cases it was used, going back to Nixon times, going back to Harry Truman times and even before that. The words “national security” were imposed, and more and more documents were classified. Going through the Vietnam War, which I experienced, we saw it. The words “national security” have really become an easy [term]. Edwards: You may know this or not, I don’t know, but singular among the presidential candidates that I’m aware of, I’m the candidate who has rejected what I call the bumper sticker of “the global war on terror.” And I’ve heard from many people that you can’t say that. Well, I can say it because I believe it. [Bush] has used that big frame to do two things: One is to justify every bad thing he’s done – from the war, to Guantanamo, to the spying, etc. And on top of that, he uses it to squash dissent. Because if you speak out against what he wants to do in any of these areas, it means that you are opposed to the global war on terror. That’s his whole way of framing everything. It’s the way they justify everything. Stone: True. He’s debased the language. There’s no question. But if you were to grab the language back and be as forceful as Bush is; if you could distinguish yourself from the other candidates by coming up with some phraseology that would say, “The rights go back to the people,” making it more of a Libertarian issue – that your rights have been taken from you by an increasingly authoritative state government, state apparatus – you could say that this thing is equivalent to the old Soviet Union. “We will give you your rights back.” Edwards: I don’t know if I agree with part of what you just said. It’s a huge jump to say that we’re like the old Soviet Union. But I do still think that the idea of a presidential candidate and a president committing to ensuring that our constitutional rights and liberties are protected, and that to the extent that they’ve been eroded, they will be given back, I’m very comfortable saying that. Stone: We’re not Russians, but all I will say is, I was in the Soviet Union in the 1980s doing a screenplay. I researched it. And I felt the people very closely, the dissidents – I was talking to them. The dissidents were very courageous people. They were thrown in hospitals, their records were falsified, they were constantly hounded, abused, searched, sent to prison – mostly psychiatric hospitals. That was the way the modern Soviets fought them, calling them sick. Edwards: When were you there? Stone: 1983-1984. It was at the height of the Brezhnev Cold War. So I have to say the feeling of uncertainty, the feeling as a Russian, that they could come at any moment, knock down your door – or, as you say, pre-snoop – come into your apartment, do whatever they wanted with you... You belong to the state. That is a feeling I’m having in America. I don’t belong to myself. Ultimately, I feel I belong to the state. The state can do with me what it wants. It can do any of those things that I mentioned before. It could be a false conspiracy. Maybe I talk to my friend here, and my friend has a friend, and the name gets confused, and so forth, the computer reads it, and all of a sudden I’m in their sights. Not because I did anything wrong, but because I knew somebody who knew somebody. I have the feeling that can happen to me very easily. Edwards: Can I give you my honest assessment of it? There have been serious and substantial erosions of freedoms and liberties under the Bush administration. We’ve talked about a lot of them already, but it’s extreme to say this is like the old Soviet Union. That’s not something I would say. Stone: Our prisons are full. We have more prisoners now than the Soviet Union did in those days. Edwards: That is another issue. We’re not going to build enough prisons to solve the problems we have with crime in this country, which is something we need to recognize. [We need to] build an infrastructure for people that have gotten into some trouble to be able to transition into a productive life. I totally believe that. Stone: The word “Homeland” I find terrifying; it was a Hitler term, you know. Do you feel the Department of Homeland Security is justified? When it was initiated, I immediately thought of the bureaucracy, that it was going to cost another $50 billion dollars a year. It was a huge undertaking. Do you think we need it? Edwards: That’s a complicated question. It made some sense to consolidate some of the efforts like port security, checking the packages that were coming in, as an example…to consolidate some of these efforts in the same place, and to do it more efficiently. On the other hand, there have been huge problems with the Department of Homeland Security, and a lot of the work that they’ve done has created questions for America. Stone: It’s a vast, vast bureaucracy that doesn’t seem to be working in terms of coordination. Because I’m told that the major agencies don’t really cooperate with them – the FBI and the CIA, who keep to their own ways.
To read more of Oliver Stone’s interview with John Edwards, pick up a copy of the latest edition of Fade In magazine. www.johnedwards.com
BILL OF RIGHTS
Ocar-winning actor and United Nations Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas gets in-depth with another U.N. veteran: former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson. Elected governor of New Mexico in 2002, Richardson previously served as secretary of energy during the Clinton administration, and as a member of the House of Representatives from 1983 through 1997. Here he discusses his positions on the issues and prospects for the presidency.
Michael Douglas: Campaigning can be grueling. What’s the most difficult part? And in talking to the voters, what’s surprised you the most from them? Governor Bill Richardson: The most difficult part in a presidential campaign for somebody like me is the excessive dependence on fundraising. One out of two days I spend on raising funds, either calling donors or going to fundraisers. That, I feel, is very debilitating in this process to run for president. It should be that we’re all candidates engaged in debates and talking to voters rather than raising funds. The most exciting part of the campaign, however, has been interacting with voters on a grassroots basis who are extremely well informed on the issues. I had felt when I got in the race that I would have to raise the level of discussion on the issues, but when it comes to discussing immigration, Iraq, healthcare, education [and] foreign policy, voters – especially in the early states like Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina – are extremely informed. Secondly, the race has already been decided by the punsters and smarty-pants set in Washington, and [that] is getting a very negative reaction [from] regular voters in Iowa and New Hampshire and the early primary states. So it gives hope for candidates like me, who are basing their campaign on change and experience instead of who has the most money and who has the biggest political pedigree and who is the biggest rock star. Douglas: Speaking of campaign funding, the American public has had to sit back and witness how all these companies who’ve made these large contributions have pretty much bought what does and doesn’t get done pertaining to their interests. How are we going to get away from this problem and give the government back to the people? Richardson: The most effective way is to have public financing of campaigns. It does work. We do it in New Mexico for judges, and we do it for public-service commissioners. So that would be step number one. Step number two would be very severe restrictions on how lobbyists raise money, like eliminate what is called “bundling,” [which is] one lobbyist raising a bunch of contributions on their own. Third would be banning all kinds of gifts, including meals from lobbyists. And then, lastly, I would try to have a core of citizen activists that I would try to bring into the political process that would be a counterweight to all the lobbies and special-interest-run government. In other words, I would ask the American people to participate in a huge lobbying effort to make us energy independent, to get us out of the war in Iraq [and] to have national service also. Also, if we eliminate the earmarks in the congressional appropriations – those are the special projects, special deals that senators and congressmen do for lobbyists, and to get reelected – that would also be a major step forward in reforming the campaign and political process. Douglas: Many D.C. insiders say that governors are more qualified to be commander in chief than senators, which makes you more qualified for the Democratic nomination due to your executive experience. You made New Mexico a clean-energy state, and you dropped unemployment to its lowest level in thirty years. What other qualifications do you have as a governor that make you more qualified to lead the country? Richardson: On issues relating to healthcare, I insured every child under five. I balanced the budget five times and the state has a perk surplus. I’ve cut taxes for every New Mexican and we’re now the fifth-fastest-growing economy in the country – including in the area of movies, where we’re number one with our tax incentives and rebates. So we have a pro-growth economic policy that I would bring to the presidency. In other words, governors balance budgets, we take care directly of people’s problems, we’re seen as innovators, and in the absence of policy leadership from the Congress and the president, the main incubators of change in this country, and of policy – renewable energy, education, healthcare – are states and governors. Douglas: Part of your resume includes service as ambassador to the United Nations. How can we help to improve the effect of the United Nations worldwide, and how can we get the U.S. public to better understand how the United Nations can benefit them? Richardson: If I were president, I would make a major policy shift and say that the United Nations is important to U.S. foreign-policy interests, and what I would focus on is making the United Nations more representative of the world. I would not make it an inside group consisting of the five permanent members of the Security Council: France, Britain, Russia, China and the United States. [Instead], I’d expand a U.N. Security Council to include representatives from the Third World: Africa, Asia, Latin America, also Germany and Japan, major donors not represented in the main entities of power at the United Nations. Secondly, I would use the United Nations to accomplish international poverty-reduction goals, AIDS, refugees, debt relief and renewable energy – shifting the world from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Douglas: On the issue of energy, how large of a role do you see nuclear power playing in the future, and can we develop nuclear plants using low-grade uranium that cannot be enriched to weapons-grade quality? Richardson: I’m not a big fan of nuclear power. I believe that nuclear power has a role in reducing global warming because it does not emit many greenhouse grass emissions. However, there are two serious problems relating to waste disposal we have not resolved. They’re issues relating also to the public’s concern about safety; plus, the Bush administration and the Congress have given nuclear power too many subsidies. I believe nuclear power should compete with other sources of energy. My view is that the future of our energy independence is not with nuclear or coal or oil, but with renewable energy such as solar, wind, biomass, biofuels, distributed generation and ethanol. Douglas: You’re an outspoken supporter of the Second Amendment – the right to bear arms – but have encouraged stronger background checks in purchasing firearms. What else would you do as president to ensure better gun control without infringing on the Second Amendment? Richardson: I would focus primarily on instant background checks, including at gun shows. What is needed is funding for states to be able to implement those background checks more rapidly. We have to be sure we keep weapons out of the hands of those who are mentally unstable or have a criminal background. I just don’t believe that taking guns away from most individuals that are law-abiding is the answer. A better answer is instant background checks, but also attacking the root causes of violence: poverty and lack of opportunity. Douglas: The massacre at Virginia Tech reignited the continuing debate about Hollywood’s influence on youth violence. Where do your views lie on this issue? Should Hollywood be held accountable for its depiction of violence, or are others to blame as well, like news media or parents themselves?
To read more of Michael Douglas' interview with Govenor Bill Richardson, pick up a copy of the latest edition of Fade In magazine. www.richardsonforpresident.com
HILL CLIMB
First, I have legislation that I’ve introduced for the last several years – and it’s now bipartisan, thank goodness – for the United States to lead the world in helping children go to school. It’s called the Education for All Act, and the One campaign has endorsed it. Because if we don’t support countries in doing away with school fees and providing teacher training and curriculum materials, we’re never going to break the cycle of illiteracy and ignorance.
