Questions And Answers With Green Party Congressional Candidate, Carol Brouillet

Questions by Jon Gold.

Carol Brouillet is someone I've always heard about, but unfortunately, because I live on the "right coast", and she lives on the "left coast", our paths have never crossed. Finally, in Chicago, that was rectified. I got the chance to see her speak on Saturday Morning, and it was really a treat. She and I also watched some of "Who Killed John O'Neill" together, and that was a lot of fun. Thank you Carol for taking the time from your busy schedule to do this, and thank you for what you do.

1. How did you become associated with Bill Moyer?

In 1993, there was a conference in Santa Cruz entitled "Non-Violence in a Violent World" that I attended. At the time, I was working on changing the monetary system, and in Santa Cruz, I met Jeff Smith, working on land reform, and Bill Moyer, who was doing the Social Movement Empowerment Project. Later, I heard about a workshop Bill was giving called "Building Equality in Relationships" and thought, "Oooh! That's what I want- more equality." I dragged my husband to the workshop- which was outstanding. It was actually, "enlightenment in disguise" and transformed my life, my relationship with my husband, and our relationship with our kids.

Bill had been working with men convicted of being violent towards their wives and families. He recognized that there was a similar pattern between these men and the violence exercised by governments towards people. I can't remember the exact percentages, but about 3% of the violence was physical, about 40% verbal, and the rest psychological. Women sometimes said that even when the physical violence that their husbands directed towards them was stopped, that the verbal and psychological violence was sometimes worse. Bill taught us that these men unconsciously tried to control people through violence, and other coercive means because those people threatened their view of themselves or their view of the world. They believed that they were "defending" themselves. Most people do this "unconsciously." He taught us to observe ourselves, and recognize that burst of energy we feel when people challenge us or our worldview. He termed it a moment of "fatal peril" and taught us to take a deep breath, ground ourselves, and remind ourselves that our "happiness and well being" was not contingent upon someone else sharing our view of ourselves or the world, but to think of what we heard from them as "important information" that another being was offering to share about "their view of the world." This would permit us to engage in a healthy dialogue and to not fall into the "unconscious dominator mode" so prevalent in modern society.

Since my husband and I have very different political beliefs and worldviews, the workshop helped us to live together harmoniously without forcing our beliefs upon one another. It also helped us to raise our kids in a "cooperative" household, where everyone's needs are considered, and we adapt to trying to find win/win solutions to the everyday decisions that effect all of us, rather than a tyranny, dictated by the adults.

Over the years, I have asked Bill to speak, and do workshops at the conferences that I have organized. When his book came out, I helped to organize opportunities for him to speak, and give workshops. He had so much insight to offer to help individuals transform themselves, as well as insights into how social movements work, and the larger picture of nurturing the evolution of humanity.

2. Are there any other books of his you would recommend?

Sadly, I believe Doing Democracy, The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements, was his first book, he should have written more, except he succumbed to liver cancer in the fall of 2002. His co-author, Mary Lou Finley is working on a sequel to Doing Democracy, but I don't think it has been published, yet.

3. What first made you question the official story of 9/11?

I remember vividly the day it happened and the surreal quality of seeing events unfold upon television, and the silencing of the air traffic. What scared me more than the events was the spin of the media, the drums for war. I had been planning a trip to DC to protest the IMF, the World Bank, the Bush policies, and those protests were cancelled. Half of my "affinity group" (which had been discussing whether we should get the gas masks with or without sequins prior to 9-11) couldn't go to DC because the DC airport was closed. I decided to go, and soon learned that the impending war on Afghanistan had nothing to do with "catching terrorists."

I started getting lots of e-mail and the most damning stuff, I thought, was Jared Israel's articles on the failure of the planes to scramble, and Bush's odd behavior during the attacks, and the Secret Service's failure to whisk him away to safety. Michel Chossudovsky's articles on "Who is Osama bin Laden?" and his article on Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan's I.S.I.'s having $100,000 sent to Mohammed Atta, and his visit to DC from September 3rd through the 13th, where he met with top US officials was the "smoking gun" to me. That's when I asked for a meeting with my Senators' staffs and began compiling questions. On January 8th, 2002 I organized a rally, march, and meeting at Senator Feinstein's San Francisco office, and we demanded a congressional investigation of 9/11.

4. Who were your major influences within the movement?

Michel Chossudovsky, Michael Ruppert, Blaine Machan, Barrie Zwicker, Ken Jenkins, Joyce Lynn, Nafeez Ahmed, Paul Thompson...There are so many people who have made a huge difference. I really think we need a leaderful movement. We can't overlook the fact that the 9/11 Truth Movement is a facet of a much larger movement for Global Justice.

5. How did you come up with the concept for the Deception Dollar?

Blaine Machan created the artwork for the Deception Dollar, as well as some other great images, lots of satirical movie posters, plus the Reichstag Fire/Hitler & World Trade Center/Bush image. I was tabling in the streets and passing out flyers at the anti-war rallies and asked Blaine, if I could use his images for my flyers, because it made them much easier to give away. I suggested that he do a back side for the Deception Dollar to pass out at the anti-war rallies. He figured out how to include the various websites.

The first 10,000 bills cost me $600- which was all the money I had made from tabling Global Outlooks, and Nafeez's first book- The War on Freedom, How and Why America was Attacked, September 11, 2001. They were printed in green only, but they were so popular that we soon gave them all away. John Leonard, Nafeez's publisher, sponsored the second printing of 100,000 which were done in a duotone- green and black and were, again, so popular that we ran out of them before the next big anti-war march. By that time, we realized that people would actually buy them. I raised the extraordinary, huge, amount of $5000 to have 500,000 printed. The demand for them was so great that we realized the funds we raised, selling them by the case, could help finance the 9/11 Truth Movement. They kept the wonderful CooperativeResearch.org website alive during a critical period when they were really struggling financially.

End Part I