Jewish anti-Israel activist and "9/11 truth" advocate disrupt Pelosi speech

CINDY SHEEHAN SUPPORTERS INTERRUPT SPEECH AT L.A.'s UNIVERSITY OF JUDAISM


Here, in their own words, are the stories of anti-Israel activist Marcy Winograd and "9/11 truth" advocate and 2006 Green Party state assembly candidate Peter Thottam disrupting a speech by Nancy Pelosi.

I've written about Winograd, a leader of L.A. Jews for Peace, before here. In that piece, I quoted Winograd to the effect that she does not support the existence of Israel and that she is reluctant to state this to the media because it may alienate voters. Ya think? She made this statement in a speech to the pro-Palestinian group Friends of Sabeel entitled "Call For One State", which is available here (cached here).  Here are two quotes:

Not only do I think a two-state solution is unrealistic, but also fundamentally wrong because it only reinforces heightened nationalism.   You cannot establish a democracy in a state founded on the institutionalized superiority or exclusivity of one of religion, ethnicity or culture.  I do not support the notion of an Islamic state or a Christian state any more than I support a Jewish state.  As a citizen of the United States, I do not want my tax dollars to support institutionalized racism. 

and...

You are a supporter of Israel’s right to exist, aren’t you? she said.

Well, I told the CNN reporter, I certainly support the right of all people to exist. No one should be persecuted for their religion and everyone deserves protection from religious persecution.

She gave up trying to get a straight answer out of me, but she covered our protest in front of the Holocaust Museum...

Here is a photo of Winograd (below left) and her fellow LA Jews for Peace members demonstrating outside the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.

Thottam, a hard-core "9/11 truth" conspiracy advocate ran for the California state assembly on the Green ticket in 2006. His website still lists him as a candidate for the assembly but does not state his party. Based on some of the content of his website, Thottam may have gone through the rabbit hole of the far left and come out in the nether region between far left and far right. Thottam's website prominantly features both photos of him with Howard Zinn and a link to the far-right anti-Semitic conspiracy website American Free Press, publisher of Michael Collins Piper (read here) and promoter of Christian Identity theology. Here's a quote from their mission statement:

The average American has no idea that super-rich predators with names like Rockefeller, Rothschild, Bronfman, Newhouse, Murdoch and Redstone are making vast profits and achieving immense power through their stranglehold on the American media (and, increasingly, on media around the globe.)

� These shadowy media controllers decide which politicians are “in” and which politicians are “out.” (They made Bill Clinton overnight. They also broke Richard Nixon overnight.)

� The Masters of the Media decide which issues can—or cannot—be debated. (Imagine a public de bate (sic) over the Federal Reserve system on Ted Coppell’s (sic) Nightline. It will never happen!)

� The Masters of the Media promote the perverse, anti-Christian Cultural Communist ideology that permeates publishing and broadcasting today.

Thottam's website has a lot of stuff about what he calls the "NWO" which is the term far right conspiracy buffs use for "New World Order" (read here):

3 IMPORTANT LINKS WITH NWO ANALYSIS & RELATED CONTENT:

#1: JFK's '63 assassination, Federal Reserve, ZION & Crown Corp. relationships; Misc. NWO & Related Links

While Thottam lets his political freak flag fly and makes no pretense of being a Democrat, Winograd actually has a leadership position in the Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles, a position from which she can recklessly hurt the Democrats. Should she be called a DINO of the left? She and the PDLA advocate much that I and other liberal Democrats support, then attach to that position poison pills that harm the Democratic Party and its nominees. To that end, she supports Cindy Sheehan's candidacy to unseat Rep. Pelosi. And she does it with such class. Notice how Winograd gloats in her piece about how scared Nancy Pelosi looked when Winograd leapt to her feet in the audience and began shouting at the stage. For Winograd, that's apparently a point of pride. Rep. Pelosi, who is undoubtedly the subject of constant threats, probably feared that she was about to be the victim of a physical attack, not a harangue. If activists like Code Pink, the "9/11 truth" crowd and Winograd wish to be considered non-violent advocates of peace, how can they take such pleasure in subjecting people to this sort of implicit threat? Let them get their jollies scaring people in some other way -- like telling the truth about their extremist positions instead of burying them in blizzards of good intentions.

Here, from Peter Thottam's website, are first person accounts and video. Here are first person accounts posted on the Impeach Bush For Peace website. Here's a link to a photo showing Code Pink's Linda Milazzo holding up a dust jacket of Pelosi's book on which she's written a pro-Cindy Sheehan slogan. DINOs of the left?

Here's a quote from Winograd's account:

Jumping up, a few seats back from the stage, Thottam shouted, Who gave you the right to destroy the Constitution and take Impeachment off the table? Our first, second, fourth, fifth and eight Constitutional amendments are being annihilated. 1 million Iraqis are dead. 5,000 Americans including Cindy Sheehan's son. We've spent over 1 trillion taxpayer dollars on a war that should never have been started. Our constitution is being destroyed, Nancy. Bring back our Constitution… Bring it back … Security moved in on Peter, took him away, arrested him and threw him in jail for the night.
Quote from Peter Thottam — Security Guard called the LAPD officers and made a citizen's arrest. Spent the night in jail. The police officers were sympathetic and agreed about the role of big money in Congress. They agreed that Pelosi and these reps are just tools.
Seconds after Peter's challenge, I shot up, two rows back from the stage, smack dab in the center of the audience, asking, Nancy, were you fully briefed on torture? Were you briefed on torture? Then came Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink, holding out a copy of the US Constitution, offering it to Pelosi, just in case she missed the repeated mentions of impeachment as a remedy for abuse of power. Security moved in on Jodie, too, whisking her out of the auditorium at American Jewish University, high atop Sepulveda, just past the fifty protestors (sic) who came to greet Pelosi with Impeachment is on Our Table and Out of Iraq Now! and No Attack on Iran! signs and banners.
During Pelosi's entire book talk, some of us — Sara Nichols, Jodie Evans, Linda Milazzo, Marcy Winograd, Tighe Barry – held up our Nancy books with messages we scrawled in big black letters on the inside cover — Protect Iran - Honor Your Oath - Impeach! - Hold Bolton and Rove in Contempt — Nancy, Torture? Torture? Torture? and more about specific articles of the Constitution which called for impeachment. Security personnel whispered, watched us — seemingly unsure of how to respond to this act of subtle, yet distracting resistance. (continued below)
At one point during her talk, Pelosi, visibly nervous, looked right at us, those of us sitting two rows back, front and center, and told us, almost apologetically, "I was an activist too, I am a progressive, I want the war to end, too. I want to get out of Iraq" and then — "We need to move our troops into Afghanistan, not Iraq."

In case any reader of this blog hasn't figured it out yet, I am a Democrat and a liberal one at that. I proclaim in strong terms my opposition to the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. Both have been and continue to be disastrous for this country and the world. But the answer is not to descend into the madness of 9/11 conspiracy theory. The answer is not to terrify innocent people with childish, sometimes malicious, theatrics. And it certainly helps no one except the Republicans for Thottam, Winograd and other Sheehan supporters and DINOs of the left to try to do locally what Nader supporters did nationally in 2000.