06-12-2016, 06:36 PM
HARRY BELAFONTE: In a few weeks from now, if there is a platform on which I will be privileged to stand and speak, my opening remarks will probably be something like "Welcome to the Fourth Reich." I was talking with a comrade recently. He was a victim of the Third Reich. He was a victim of the great Holocaust and what happened to the Jewish people during the reign of Hitler. And all my life I have committed myself to making sure that here, this country, not for the wont of effort, but I and so many others would be forever committed to the idea that America will remain an open and a free and a democratic society. With each cycle, those thoughts become a bit dimmed. Now, I think, more than ever, we are in need of Democracy Now!
I'm just at the threshold of my 90th year, and I had oftenwho said that? I never thought I'd live this long, but to be able to share an evening with Danny Glover, and certainly with Noam Chomsky, for whom I have great affection and deep respect, that I can kind of dance out of here feeling like, well, I did it all. But, in a way, each time it was done, we kind of figured it was the last time we would have to do it. During a lifetime of Paul Robeson, Eleanor Roosevelt, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, those who mentored me and guided me and inspired me, that I should have lived long enough to be able to stand here and once again say thanks to all my colleagues, to all of my comrades, to all of the people who have sacrificed so greatly to make this nation wholewe are looking upon a curious time. But I think it's a time that should be used as an opportunity to know that we have to make a much bigger difference than we've made up to now. We should not let the current state of affairs dull the fact that all that we have done was worthless. Nothing could be further from the truth.
HARRY BELAFONTE: And as a passing thoughtnot so passing, but I'll take this opportunity to publiclyonce again, for the last few months, passionate appeal has been made to President Barack Obama to use the power of the executive office to free my friend and our leader, Leonard Peltier, with the understanding that if he fails before now and the end of the year to step to the plate and do the right thing, it will be a long time before we get a chance to think about Leonard being freed. But I think we just have to keep on keeping on.
HARRY BELAFONTE: And as a passing thoughtnot so passing, but I'll take this opportunity to publiclyonce again, for the last few months, passionate appeal has been made to President Barack Obama to use the power of the executive office to free my friend and our leader, Leonard Peltier, with the understanding that if he fails before now and the end of the year to step to the plate and do the right thing, it will be a long time before we get a chance to think about Leonard being freed. But I think we just have to keep on keeping on.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass