This weekend, hundred of grassroots activists and dozens of organizations are gathering for the “Grassroots America Defends the Bill of Rights” conference near Washington, D.C. Among the groups participating are the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Library Association, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Council on American Islamic Relations, the National Lawyers Guild and People for the American Way. [Web page for the conference: www.grassroots-america.org] Interviews are available with legal analysts and grassroots activists at the conference including: KIT GAGE Gage is director of the First Amendment Foundation, a key organizer of the conference. She said today: “This…

PHYLLIS BENNIS ennis is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of Before & After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11 Crisis. She said today: “As the Bush administration vetoes a resolution supported by most of the U.N. Security Council criticizing Israel’s theft of Palestinian land in the guise of construction of the wall cutting through Palestinian territory, it is simultaneously pushing a resolution designed to give the appearance of international legitimacy to its occupation of Iraq…. The U.S. should transfer on-the-ground responsibility to a temporary United Nations authority mandated to oversee a rapid transition to…

NANCY SNOW Snow is author of Propaganda, Inc. and assistant professor of communications at California State University at Fullerton. She said today: “What made Arnold the insta-media darling that decided this election? Psychological warfare. His political bombshell on ‘The Tonight Show’ was not unlike the cerebral style Arnold displayed in the 1977 documentary ‘Pumping Iron,’ which made him a household name and launched his movie career. The bodybuilder showed his prowess for brains as much as brawn in psyching out competitors like Lou ‘The Hulk’ Ferrigno in his successful bid for a sixth straight Mr. Olympia title. One reviewer called…

RUTH WILSON GILMORE Gilmore is a professor of geography and African American studies at the University of California at Berkeley. She said today: “Some fundamental contradictions deepened on Election Day. More California voters cast ballots against the so-called ‘racial privacy’ act [Proposition 54] than in favor of the successful recall. Here we have an activist electorate persuaded by the health and education-related arguments that sank Prop. 54. The new governor promises to cut ‘fat’ from a budget stretched tightly across these spending areas. Yet, the prison budget has about a billion dollars that can be excised by someone with the…

DOUG HELLER Consumer advocate with the Santa Monica-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, Heller said today: “Internal Enron e-mails we have obtained confirm that Schwarzenegger was among a small group of executives who met with then-Enron head Ken Lay at the posh Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel in May of 2001. The meeting with Enron occurred ten days after rolling blackouts darkened California; Schwarzenegger has previously said that he does not remember such a meeting. You don’t meet with America’s most well-known corporate crook in the middle of California’s biggest financial disaster and not remember. Schwarzenegger should come clean about…

SONALI KOLHATKAR Co-director of Afghan Women’s Mission, Kolhatkar said today: “On the second anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan this October 7, the status of the first target in the ‘War on Terror’ is nothing for Bush and friends to write home about. To date, none of the warlords has ever been held accountable for terrorizing the Afghan population…. The lessons learned have not been how best to stabilize a country to pave the way for democracy, but rather on how best to create havoc through purposeful negligence and criminal government actors — with the prime losers being ordinary…

PHILIP AGEE A former CIA officer, Agee wrote the book Inside the Company: CIA Diary, which named CIA officers and prompted the government to enact the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Agee now runs a travel services business in Havana. He said today: “The outing of Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife as an undercover CIA officer is the kind of dirty politics we’ve come to expect from this White House. The ambassador poked a hole in the pack of lies Bush used to justify the invasion of Iraq. And so now there appears to be a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection…

GRAY BRECHIN Brechin is the author of Farewell, Promised Land: Waking From the California Dream. He said today: “As the state’s public services and infrastructure have precipitously deteriorated, an ever-angrier electorate has sought sound-bite answers orchestrated by invisible public relations firms.” More Information RUTH WILSON GILMORE Gilmore is a professor of geography and African American studies at the University of California at Berkeley. She said today: “The recall is smoke-and-mirrors: No matter who emerges victorious, federalism and the Golden State’s incoherent responses to it — term limits, structurally inadequate tax bases, skewed budget priorities — will continue to shape our…

ADELE WELTY, [via David Potorti] Welty is a member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. She lost her son, Timmy, a firefighter who was one of the first to arrive at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. She said today: “I support Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s bill, which would roll back certain sections of the Patriot Act that I believe pose a serious threat to the exercise of our constitutional rights — particularly our right to due process and our right to petition the government in cases where we believe the government’s actions are contrary to the best…

“You know, I just came in from Baghdad, and there are now over 100 newspapers in the free press in Iraq in a free Iraq, where people are able to say whatever they wish. People are debating, people are discussing — something they have not done for decades.” — Donald Rumsfeld, in response to protesters, Sept. 10. VICTORIA CUNNINGHAM Cunningham is national coordinator for Code Pink. She was among a group of protesters who interrupted Donald Rumsfeld at a Sept. 10 speech in Washington. She said today: “Rumsfeld made an attempt to divert attention from the substance of protests calling…