Reactions to AlJazeera appearance
On June 22, 2004 at 5 PM EST I was on a live show on Al-Jazeera Television with a panel discussing US elections. I was the Green Party representative on the panel. The discussionmoved from genral issues of how Bush and Kerry are doing to focus (in at least half the program) on the role and potential for third party growth in the US. Obviously we focused on teh Green Party as the one with the best platform and most potential. I was in New Haven and with satellite uplink (through Yale arrangement with Aljazeera) and speaking in Arabic. The audience in the live portion included tens of millions across the world (including here in the US with 6 million Arabic speaking people, and over half a million with access to Al-Jazeera in the US). I had the Green Party new logo (downloaded from website) projected behind me at all the time (include website gp.org). The show was rebroadcast after a few hours and thus was available to people around the world regardless of time difference. The Arab-American guy initially introduced as a Republican said while he voted for Bush in 2000, but that he and many Arab Americans have come to regret this and that they are not republican. That this time they will have to rethink. There was by the end of the show a general consensus that Republicans and Democrats were branches of the same party/problem rather than two different parties.
A few of the comments I received:
I saw you this morning on the Aljazira show. It was nice to link the
name with the numerous e-mail we regularly receive from you. In fact I
even did not know that there is a Green Party in the USA. With my best wishes
Randa Siniora, General Director, Al-Haq, Ramallah
Salaam. I watched the panel last night and you were great. It started
after midnight our time in Palestine but I watched as much as I could,
I was so happy to see you and see they are doing well. Salaam.
George Rishmawi, Coordinator, Travel and Encounter Program, Holy Land Trust
Just to say I saw you on al Jazira this morning, very good as usual, and I'm glad you're with "the Greens."
Lisa
I came home at 5:30 and thus only saw the second half of the show where you talked about Arab and Muslim American vote. I was interested as to why any Muslims or Arab-American would vote for Bush. The gentlemen from Michigan did not really exlain why he voted that way. Pat
great job you did on al-jazeera. i checked the website and saw that today greens accredited a black caucus. is there an arab caucus? i would like to help.
Ali |