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Life & Times Transcript
10/19/07 Announcer>> Tonight on Life and Times -- What happens when parades and politics mix? Lucas Kamp>> Having a float honoring China in the parades does improve its image and it gives it, as it were, a stamp of approval to a government that is rather repressive. Announcer>> And then, it was a day of music and celebration, but it was also a day that some call one of the most important in the civil rights movement. A look back at Wattstax. It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times. Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Hena Cuevas>> For more than a hundred years, Pasadena has hosted the world-famous Tournament of Roses. But this year, there's a controversy surrounding a float celebrating the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. Some are even asking the city and the Tournament to reconsider allowing the float. They say that it's simply a propaganda tool by the government of China and that Pasadena and its world-famous parade are being used. It's a time-honored New Years Day tradition, the Tournament of Roses parade where floats, bands and a football game put Pasadena in front of millions of viewers worldwide. Next year's theme will be "Celebrations Around the World" and, for the first time in parade history, China is participating. Last May, the Tournament unveiled this design for a float celebrating the Summer Olympics in Beijing. But some, like Shizhong Chen, don't think that's a good idea. Shizhong Chen>> Right away to me, it is a Beijing-authorized float glorifying a Communist regime in the name of the Olympics. Hena Cuevas>> Chen is the President of the Conscience Foundation which promotes human rights in China. He and other advocacy groups oppose the float. They say that China's Communist government is repressive and continues to violate basic human rights. Shizhong Chen>> The Beijing Olympics is the only Olympics that was awarded to host on that host promise to improve human rights. That promise was made in 2001. Since then, the human rights in China has not improved. Hena Cuevas>> He's referring to the alleged persecution of Falun Gong members in China. Falun Gong is a spiritual movement that involves exercise, meditation and efforts to channel energy. The Chinese government calls it a threat to political and social stability, so it banned the practice in 1999. There are charges of false imprisonment, torture and beatings. That's why Chen says that China hasn't lived up to the promise it made seven years ago to get the Olympics. Shizhong Chen>> We cannot allow that kind of propaganda to rule on our land. Hena Cuevas>> So Chen and other Falun Gong defenders brought their concerns to the Tournament urging it to reconsider its decision. They also approached the float sponsors, the Avery Dennison Corporation and the Roundtable of Southern California Chinese-American Organizations. It includes a dozen companies such as Citi Smith Barney, Cathay Bank and the Hong Kong Association of Southern California. Last July, they took their case to City Hall. Shizhong Chen>> "Already in the Chinese media, this has been utilized fully by the Communist propaganda machine." Hena Cuevas>> At that City Council meeting, Chen was joined by the international human rights groups, Reporters Without Borders. >> "It is time to add your voice to the international pressure being brought to bear and clearly proclaim to the Chinese authorities that you will not allow the Rose Parade and the city of Pasadena to be associated with the Beijing Olympics." Hena Cuevas>> And Amnesty International. Lucas Kamp is with the Pasadena chapter. Lucas Kamp>> I mean, rights on the whole have deteriorated in China. Repression has increased. The death penalty is widely used in China. China regularly puts more people to death than all the other countries in the world. Hena Cuevas>> Kamp says that Amnesty doesn't have a position on the float nor the Olympics. However, the organization is closely following the political situation in China. Lucas Kamp>> We aren't against the Olympics and we aren't against China. Having a float honoring China in the parade does improve its image and it gives, as it were, a stamp of approval to a government that is rather repressive. Hena Cuevas>> Both of the sponsors of the float, Avery Dennison as well as the Roundtable of Southern California, turned down our request for an on-camera interview. The Tournament of Roses Association indicated they couldn't go on camera to discuss this particular float. However, they did issue a statement indicating "the float was never intended as a political statement, but instead as a celebration of the Olympic spirit." Avery Dennison's statement reads, "Our sponsorship of the Rose Parade float does not represent support, approval or opposition to the policies of any government." Shizhong Chen>> I think they're naïve. In their mind, it may not be. However, it is loaded with political propaganda coming from Beijing. Hena Cuevas>> This isn't the first time the Tournament has faced controversy. In 1992, some opposed having a descendant of Christopher Columbus serve as Grand Marshal. As a compromise, the Tournament chose Native American Congressman, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, to serve as Co-Marshal. Lucas Kamp>> In fact, one of the things that our group is trying to bring about is to change the design of the float and to concentrate on the Olympics and not to make it an object commemorating the Chinese government. Hena Cuevas>> That's the compromise Chen is willing to make. Is there any particular design of float that you would be satisfied with? Shizhong Chen>> If the design is completely clear of propaganda factors, that may be okay. I'm not sure how much control we have over that. Hena Cuevas>> But does the City Council have the authority to dictate what the Tournament does? >> "We approve the route and the way the route is signed and traffic control, but what is within the parade is not something that the council has any authority over." Hena Cuevas>> You understand that the city and the City Council cannot mandate what the Tournament of Roses does. Shizhong Chen>> Right. They cannot have a binding force on the Tournament. However, the city's opinion is still influential. I'm sure that it will represent a public opinion and that will make the Tournament of Roses think twice maybe. Hena Cuevas>> Councilman Chris Holden who has served for more than twenty years says he was surprised to see so many people at the meeting. Chris Holden>> I think they were very frustrated. They were very concerned and I understand that they're bringing to us some real problems that exist in China and how people are treated. Hena Cuevas>> At the end of the meeting, the Council handed the matter over to its Human Relations Commission and advisory board. They were given ninety days to come up with a recommendation for what the city should do. Chris Holden>> We're allowing our Human Relations Commission an opportunity to explore, one, the issues that these groups were bringing to us so we would better understand them and, two, what are our options in terms of how best to respond. Hena Cuevas>> In a letter to the commission, the Tournament responded. "We strongly believe that trying to frame this float in our celebration of international festivals in terms of human rights is inappropriate. The 2008 theme is focused on celebrations around the world and we feel that the Olympics is the epitome of a global celebration and fits our theme perfectly." Chris Holden>> We as a council are in an interesting position right now to sort of decide, you know, how far do we want to go with this? Hena Cuevas>> After a series of public hearings, the Human Rights Commission gave its final recommendation on September 26. First, it urged the City Council to put out a statement addressing the issue of human rights abuses in China. It also suggested that the Council organize a meeting to take place within thirty days between the supporters and opponents of the float. Either way, Chen and the other human rights groups say they will be there on parade day. And regardless of what design eventually goes by, they say they've already achieved one goal -- to get Pasadena talking about human rights abuses half a world away. I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times. Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times". Val Zavala>> The United States has been fighting a war against terrorism ever since 9/11 and the question is, are we safer today than we were five years ago? Well, if you ask the head of Amnesty International USA, the answer is clearly no. Not only that, but America's reputation as a defender of human rights has degraded across the world. Larry Cox is Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. The human rights watchdog group has won the Nobel Prize. He spoke at Town Hall Los Angeles and says that the Bush administration's most egregious violation of human rights is happening at Guantanamo Bay. Larry Cox>> Guantanamo Bay has become, unfortunately, the face of America to much of the world. People see people being held for years, for up to five years, without charges, without detention. It was Archbishop Tutu of South Africa who said that he never thought he would live to see the day when the United States would make the same arguments that the Apartheid government made to justify detention without trial. Yet, that's what we're doing in Guantanamo. Yet we know that many of the people being held in Guantanamo are probably totally innocent of any charges. They're people who were picked up in Afghanistan. There was a bounty offered. You got a certain amount of money if you turned somebody over to us. We know that many of these people are innocent because we've let hundreds of them go free, unfortunately, only after having held them in horrible conditions for years and years. Val Zavala>> Now the United States Supreme Court stepped in and reined in the power of the White House regarding the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Did that not help correct the impression? Larry Cox>> Well, it gave us an opportunity to correct it, but unfortunately, the Congress then stepped in and blew the opportunity. Basically, the Military Commission Act of 2006 ratified the same practices that the president had been demanding that it ratify. That has been, you know, way even worse because now it's the whole United States Congress and therefore all of us, all of who are citizens, are being told that we have the responsibility for these violations. Val Zavala>> But you've also looked at the execution of Saddam Hussein and you have human rights issues there as well that may not be so obvious to Americans. What's your perception there? Larry Cox>> By executing him the way that we did, we actually did something that I thought was impossible. We managed to turn one of the cruelest tyrants in human history into something of a martyr to make it look like he was somehow heroic and that we were barbaric. That's because the death penalty, no matter how you use it, is such an ugly thing when you have to look at it. The whole world looked at his execution and saw that it wasn't dignified. It wasn't noble. It was ugly and sordid and that made Saddam Hussein look good. So on every front, it was a huge setback. Val Zavala>> Why do you say "we"? Because many people say, well, that was an international court and the execution was conducted by Iraqis. Larry Cox>> Yes, but there's no doubt that the United States had a tremendous amount of influence and the United States was in favor of seeing Saddam Hussein brought to justice in this way. We didn't speak out against it. We didn't say that this was wrong. We didn't say that it was wrong to do it the way it was done. In the end, at the end of the day, we said, well, this wasn't as dignified as we would like. The truth is that the deliberate killing of a human being is almost never dignified, cannot be dignified. So I say "we" in the broadest sense of the word. Val Zavala>> Now a lot of Americans will shrug their shoulders and say, well, that's just the price of fighting terrorism. But maybe we don't have the same perception of these policies as the people in the Middle East do or those abroad? Larry Cox>> Well, my main concern and the main concern of Amnesty are those people who have been fighting for human rights in the Middle East, who are fighting both against terrorism carried out by private groups, but also terror carried out by their own governments. Those are the people that have really been undermined by what the United States is doing. They are the ones who are hurt because it now looks as if human rights is simply something that the United States, for example, uses when it's convenient and disregards when it's not convenient. It's done tremendous damage to the idea of human rights, which is that it should apply to every government including the United States of America. Incidentally, just to add one more thing, our concern is also that it's not an effective way to fight terror. In fact, the abuses that you mentioned at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have become almost like a recruitment poster for terrorists all over the world. If I were Osama bin Laden, I'd be extremely pleased to see the United States demonstrating to the world that it is no different from those who use terror in other ways. So we need to make a distinction between what terrorists do, which is terrible and horrific and should be fought, and the way that we act, which is based on a different set of values. That's what we've muddied up by carrying out the violation of human rights. Val Zavala>> Do you think it is possible, though, to really crack down, to weed out terrorists, wherever they may be without stepping on some of our more traditional rights to some extent? Larry Cox>> I think it's not only possible, but I think it's the only effective way to do it. I think once you go down the slippery slope of starting to violate human rights in the name of fighting terror, the distinction between what you're fighting and you begins to be blurred. That's exactly what the terrorists want. If you read the language of terrorists, they say they precisely want to demonstrate. They wanted to provoke the United States into revealing what they consider to be the true character of the United States, a country that doesn't really believe in human rights. So bringing terrorists to justice is very important, but to do that, you don't have to use the kinds of techniques we've used. In fact, Amnesty in its fight against the Military Commission Act of 2006 had the help of twenty interrogators with two hundred years of experience in interrogating some of the worst people on earth. They made the point that the best way to get information is not through torture and cruel and inhumane treatment. That almost never works. But the best way is to illicit support by appearing to be and being, in fact, more sympathetic and supportive and winnowing away people who begin to see that maybe the road they've gone down is the wrong road and they have an incentive to give you information. Not only is torture wrong and immoral from an interrogation standpoint, from a fighting terror standpoint, it's stupid and counter-productive. Val Zavala>> Larry Cox, with Amnesty International USA, thank you very much for your work and your thoughts. Larry Cox>> Thank you. Val Zavala>> Larry Cox was a guest of Town Hall Los Angeles. If you'd like information on future speakers and events, you can go to their website at townhall-la.org. Vicki Curry>> Everyone knows about Woodstock, but you may not know about another music festival that took place right here in Los Angeles. It was called Wattstax and some say that it was one of the most important events of the civil rights movement. It's being remembered on its thirty-fifth anniversary with an exhibition at the California African-American Museum. I spoke with the museum's Executive Director, Charmaine Jefferson. [Film Clip] Charmaine Jefferson>> It was more than just a music concert. It was our Woodstock of the black community. If you think back to the 1970s, this was a time of being able to speak about yourself openly and proudly. Vicki Curry>> This is Wattstax, a seven-hour concert festival that took place at the Los Angeles Coliseum in August 1972. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> The concert featured artists from the Stax record label and was organized by Tommy Jacquette, a community activist who had started the Watts Festival several years earlier. Charmaine Jefferson>> It was borne out of all of what had happened in the riots. It was borne out of a sense of people wanting to come together and celebrate their culture and rebuild community. After about I think it was seven or eight years, there was an effort to try to really make it bigger and that's how it ended up here in the Coliseum. Vicki Curry>> Jesse Jackson set the mood for the day with a poem. Jesse Jackson>> "I am somebody. I may be poor, but I am somebody." Charmaine Jefferson>> Jesse Jackson was a spoken word artist on the Stax label. Most people don't quite realize that. These were radical times. These were times when the spoken word talked about change and revolution. Got to be just old enough to remember what it was like when people went around and actually said "Black is beautiful" and really just had this energy about trying to have the rest of the world recognize just how beautiful and important and significant we were. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> And then the music began. The performances ranged from blues to gospel to the biggest dance hits of the day. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> The grand finale? Isaac Hayes singing the hit song from the movie, "Shaft". [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> The concert has lived on through a documentary that was released the following year. The film included interviews with residents of Watts. >> "We're tired of ganging, man. We're tired of all this bull-***, you know? We wants jobs and we wants everything just like they got." Vicki Curry>> And interludes with Richard Pryor whose first comedy album was with Stax Records. [Film Clip] Charmaine Jefferson>> Some of it is fun and funny and belligerent, but it put a nice little edge on the movie itself. It allows you to get a feeling for what the concert was and it gives you a chance to see what it was, to see the man on the street talking about being filmed in their neighborhood and their experience of the festival as well. Vicki Curry>> Looking back at Wattstax, the images and sounds recall both the popular culture and political culture of the African American community in 1972. Charmaine Jefferson>> There's the music and the gathering of people and the having a good time, but there was a celebration of self. It's hard to describe why it's so important for black people to have had opportunities to come together in the same venue that other people got to come together with and have a celebration of self. A great culture was going on in Watts and they brought that great culture to the middle of Los Angeles. That's why I think it's important to remember what took place thirty-five years ago. Vicki Curry>> The exhibition, "Wattstax", is on display at the California African-American Museum through October 28. [Film Clip] Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org. Val Zavala>> There's a rumor going around that a river runs through Los Angeles. Well, we can put that rumor to rest. Take a look. Here it is, the Los Angeles River. Now a lot of it is just a concrete channel, but in parts like this part near Glendale, nature seems to be making a comeback and some of it is downright scenic as we found out from talking with Friends of the Los Angeles River. Joe Linton>> My name is Joe Linton. I'm the Outreach Director for Friends of the Los Angeles River. So right now, we're in one of the nicest parts of the river. This is called Frogtown, or also known as Elysian Valley. It's just north of downtown Los Angeles. It's in a section called the Glendale Narrows. This is, you know, a soft bottom section. Actually, there's groundwater coming up from under in this area, so when the river was concreted, they left the bottom natural so you get a lot of turtles and ducks and herons and geese and there are coots and there are osprey, kind of fish hawks that are hunting. There are actually carp. There are people fishing in this section often, so this is really one of the nicest areas. This is about eight miles. It's a great place to walk. It's a great place to take a bike ride. The river runs fifty-two miles from Canoga Park in the west end of the San Fernando Valley through downtown Los Angeles all the way down to Long Beach. Most of that is concrete. I mean, the river did use to flood, so after two large floods in the 1930s, we poured a lot of concrete. We poured five billion dollars worth of concrete, but there are three sections of the river that have what are called soft bottoms or natural bottoms. There's what's called the Sepulveda Basin that's up in the valley where the 101 and the 405 Freeways come together, what's called Lake Balboa, Balboa Park, a very nice section with a wildlife preserve. In the middle of Los Angeles, as I said, from Griffith Park to Elysian Park, there's about an eight-mile stretch with soft bottoms that we're looking at right now. Then there's also the estuary in Long Beach which is downstream of Willow Street. There's about three miles where the ocean interacts with the river and, again, you get pelicans and ducks and fish and whatnot that you don't get in the more concrete parts. Friends of the Los Angeles River is offering a new event tour package thing that we're doing. We're doing day-long guided tours of the river. We gather at the Los Angeles River Center at ten a.m., take you to six different sites along the river, some of the nicest natural parts like this and a few of the really nasty concrete ones. So you can check out the areas that are starting to change and areas that are nice and also areas that are a lot of concrete, but are targeted for restoration especially where the city of Los Angeles is doing what's called the Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan is looking at some areas where they're actually looking and taking out concrete and naturalizing the river near very close to downtown Los Angeles. We're standing right now at the confluence of the Arroyo Seco and the Los Angeles River. Actually today, it's kind of a graffiti pit and an intersection of freeways and train tracks and infrastructure. But it's actually an historic site for Los Angeles. This is where, in 1769, Europeans first encountered the Los Angeles River and the Los Angeles area and wrote about it as a lush and pleasant spot in every respect. It's a pretty barren concrete area today, but it's actually one of the more popular spots on our tours. We walk people down the ramp and check it out and kind of see what it looks like today and learn about plans to do a confluence park in this area to celebrate the beginning of Los Angeles and the confluence of the two waterways where Los Angeles was founded. There are many kinds of new small parks called pocket parks with native trees and public art and benches, sort of little rest stops along a bike path, that's beginning to string along the river. So we're sort of seeing like we call the emerald necklace. It's sort of a string of parks. It's not all natural, but it's beginning to emerge, what we call a greenway from the mountains to the sea. I like to think of the river as a testament to the persistence of nature. As much as we've trashed it and neglected it and concreted it and, you know, tried to kill the Los Angeles River, when you see it, it still supports a great deal of wildlife, much more than other parts of our city. So it shows that nature persists, even as much as we try to, you know, not think that we have nature in Los Angeles. You can't ignore it when you're down at the Los Angeles River. Give us a call or come to the Friends of the Los Angeles River website at www.folar.org and let us know. Come down to the river and check it out and get involved. Val Zavala>> And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. 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