Second installment in a series of films taken from a interview with mark konard owner of Global Importune, a non-profit dedicated to the reslease of political prisoners worldwide.
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mister norm
@misternormmedia
__________________________________
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transcript:
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;25;02
00;00;25;02 – 00;00;30;03
Unknown
Hello. My name is Mark Conrad, and I’m the executive director of global.
00;00;30;05 – 00;00;53;28
Unknown
I’ve been been married three times. I skipped over my first I was actually married in 1979. So for for four years. No, no, 75 to 79. I was actually married at that time. And but I did mention that the reason I mentioned is now is because then when I was working at the unemployment office in the 1980s, I was living with a woman for seven and a half years.
00;00;53;28 – 00;00;59;08
Unknown
So was I considered that my second marriage, actually. So I was a stepfather at that time.
00;00;59;11 – 00;01;23;09
Unknown
Was still involved in the peace movement, but not as much as before, where we’re going to demonstrations and working a lot. So I was doing things like letter writing to to letter city editor, for instance, and doing support work with organizations, peace and social justice organizations at that time.
00;01;23;15 – 00;01;49;17
Unknown
by 1989, the United States was involved in an illegal war in Nicaragua, funding the contours at that time, which was against congressional approval. And so the there was a big issue of things were happening in Nicaragua. And I decided that at that time that I would go and find out about the issues and why things were happening.
00;01;49;17 – 00;01;53;17
Unknown
So at that time I went with an excursion,
00;01;53;25 – 00;01;54;21
Unknown
It was
00;01;54;24 – 00;02;06;28
Unknown
encouraged by the United States government for an American citizen to go to Nicaragua at that time, because they were our de facto enemy, because the United States didn’t consider them a friendly nation.
00;02;06;28 – 00;02;21;21
Unknown
So whereas I wanted to see what the Contras were doing, and the Sandinista was a legitimate government at that time, and that the United States was trying to overthrow by using the contours.
00;02;21;24 – 00;02;29;13
Unknown
I went to Nicaragua, spent two weeks there with a number of people talking with people, trying to understand what was happening.
00;02;29;16 – 00;02;30;08
Unknown
And my
00;02;30;11 – 00;02;47;15
Unknown
mission, my objective, in a sense, was to actually go. And as well as my same thing with when I was in Northern Ireland, I would go to places like this and talk to people and then find out and try to bring as much information back and tell other people. So as opposed to going through the American filter
00;02;47;15 – 00;02;58;28
Unknown
there was a war also going on in, in El Salvador, and the United States was backing the wrong side as usual.
00;02;59;00 – 00;03;16;27
Unknown
What was happening in the United States in 1989 was a lot of people were coming from the south, meaning Mexico and El Salvador specifically, where there was a war there trying to escape the war. Some of them were political refugees. And what was happening was that a lot of American churches
00;03;16;27 – 00;03;21;14
Unknown
they would offer sanctuary to refugees that the United States government didn’t want.
00;03;21;15 – 00;03;35;02
Unknown
So what would the government. The United States government was doing was they were taking these people and they were arresting him, and they were sending them back to El Salvador, which where they would definitely be possibly tortured, among other things. So
00;03;35;09 – 00;03;38;20
Unknown
And the reason I was mentioning this is one of my favorite stories.
00;03;38;20 – 00;03;43;23
Unknown
People actually say, well, how I met my wife, actually, Allison.
00;03;43;25 – 00;04;04;24
Unknown
I’d say that I met her. This is how two atheists meet in a church in 1989. As I said, the this was a sanctuary church. It was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was Foom Cog, which stands for the First United Methodist Church of Germantown, which is where we met.
00;04;04;25 – 00;04;14;29
Unknown
It was January the 20th, 1989. The reason I remember it is because that was the first day of the George, the first George Bush presidency.
00;04;15;03 – 00;04;24;01
Unknown
so there was a fundraiser at this particular church, and I had had gone to this church with a friend of mine who I had met
00;04;24;01 – 00;04;42;01
Unknown
at a demonstration. My friend Debbie and Debbie Bentz had taken me to phone call because she was a member. And my and Allison Conrad at that time, I think it was her first year teaching at the Temple University’s Fox School of Business.
00;04;42;01 – 00;05;01;22
Unknown
So she had actually just graduated from Stanford University and moved to Philadelphia at that time. And she was, as I said, she was teaching at the Fox School of Business and one of her friends, a professor, there actually was a member of Phone Call, the First United Methodist Church. And they brought her there.
00;05;01;28 – 00;05;21;09
Unknown
all these people knew each other. It was just like the Unitarian Fellowship of London. And since we’re it’s a community where everyone knows each other. So I was the only stranger there that I, that I was aware of. And, and Allison was the only stranger I think is aware of as well.
00;05;21;11 – 00;05;28;16
Unknown
there was a table where they had a whole bunch of merchandise that there were selling for the the fundraiser with everything.
00;05;28;16 – 00;05;34;17
Unknown
And on this book on the table, there was a number of books, and one of the books
00;05;34;19 – 00;05;37;01
Unknown
It’s a book called Fire in My Bones.
00;05;37;06 – 00;05;59;13
Unknown
Now, the reason as this is important is because it’s interesting, is because I literally had just seen this guy on on the Phil Donahue Show maybe a week or two weeks before hand. And this guy, he was a black guy, and his job was to act as kind of a liaison between the black community and, and the FBI.
00;05;59;16 – 00;06;06;23
Unknown
Now, watching this guy. And the thing about it was this, this guy had no idea what it’s like to be black,
00;06;06;23 – 00;06;09;07
Unknown
he made a lot of money in the FBI was a buying this.
00;06;09;09 – 00;06;12;28
Unknown
two weeks beforehand, I had seen him on the Phil Donahue Program talk show.
00;06;13;05 – 00;06;30;07
Unknown
So I’m walking up to the table and I’m looking at the books, everything, and I’m just looking around. And as I said, I was very frustrated because of everybody was paired up and everything, and I was the only person. And so I was standing looking at the book, everything. And I’d go and I’d see it fire in my bones.
00;06;30;07 – 00;06;49;18
Unknown
I picked up the book and I go, God, I hate this guy out loud. And as a result of me saying that, I heard his voice go, oh really? Why? What do you mean? And it was. And Conrad so the first time she ever the first thing I ever said to her first interaction was me saying, God, I hate this guy with Alison.
00;06;49;20 – 00;07;08;15
Unknown
And so as a result of that, I began talking and talking about the book and I explaining why I hate this guy and how he had no idea about what black people’s lives are really like, and how he was selling this false sense to the members of the FBI to kind of get them oriented to the black community.
00;07;08;16 – 00;07;18;20
Unknown
And so we began talking, and next thing you know, she was also there by herself as well. Well, her friend had bought her. So I began, we had this long conversation
00;07;18;20 – 00;07;27;03
Unknown
evening comes at the end and we’re about to leave, and I just, I just thought, you know, it’s just somebody because I talk to people all the time.
00;07;27;03 – 00;07;46;01
Unknown
I didn’t think anything about it and everything. And so I said, well, okay, I’ll see you later. Well, it was nice talking to you. And she said, oh, can I give you my number? And I said, well, sure. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, because in my mind this was a professor at our university. I’m a guy who just has a high school education.
00;07;46;03 – 00;08;02;16
Unknown
I mean, what am I talking to you? Why would she be interested in me anyway? So she actively pursued me because me like an idiot. I’m like, oh, no, I know and everything. So that’s how I first met Allison Conrad. January 20th, 1989.
00;08;02;16 – 00;08;10;17
Unknown
So I called her the next day and we went out on January 21st to the for a first date.
00;08;10;20 – 00;08;14;23
Unknown
Now, the reason I say January 21st, 1989 also is because, well,
00;08;14;23 – 00;08;31;16
Unknown
we saw the movie beaches with Barbara Hershey and Bit Midler, and I took her out to movie and then took her out to dinner, and we went to a restaurant and it was crowded with a whole bunch of people. And the reason I’d say that particular day was it was Super Bowl Sunday,
00;08;31;18 – 00;08;32;16
Unknown
we had dinner and everything.
00;08;32;16 – 00;08;49;21
Unknown
The reason I mentioned that is, is that’s one of the things that she really liked about me, because the very fact that I took her out on Super Bowl Sunday and I wasn’t into sports and things. So the very fact that I wasn’t this ra ra Super Bowl Sunday and I cared about her as opposed to sports, that’s one of the things she was saying that endeared me to her.
00;08;49;21 – 00;09;00;11
Unknown
every year now we celebrate the anniversary of our first date and our first meeting as well. So we’ve been doing this for 37 years or so.
00;09;00;11 – 00;09;09;17
Unknown
By June 24th, 1989, I married Allison Conrad. She had a short period of time, I know, but I definitely knew him, like I said, and still 37 years later.
00;09;09;17 – 00;09;11;14
Unknown
And by that time
00;09;11;16 – 00;09;12;14
Unknown
was working
00;09;12;22 – 00;09;17;15
Unknown
and a broadcast information service
00;09;17;18 – 00;09;33;01
Unknown
There were a number of VCRs were taping news programs from all over the country. And basically what they would do is they would take those news programs. And if there was a mention in there, let’s say, of a Campbell soup
00;09;33;06 – 00;09;42;23
Unknown
that would take that information and then contact Campbell’s Soup and say, hey, there was a mention of your product in Wyoming, Wisconsin or something, or.
00;09;42;26 – 00;09;44;22
Unknown
Would you be interested in getting a copy of that?
00;09;44;24 – 00;09;55;02
Unknown
So my job was to basically sit in front of a TV and watch videotapes from news from all over the country on different issues,
00;09;55;02 – 00;10;15;14
Unknown
the interesting thing about that is I could sit and watch and see how a news program is talking about a specific things that happened. And I can see the slant, the difference, how it’s being portrayed in New York versus Tennessee versus Ohio versus Wyoming and things like that. And sometimes it’s just a very difference. And this is obviously before Fox News and things.
00;10;15;14 – 00;10;27;28
Unknown
But I got very good at actually seeing patterns in news programs and also learning about how government worked
00;10;27;28 – 00;10;39;12
Unknown
basically that’s what they did with the Broadcast Information Service and sold information about a particular product that happened to be mentioned on the news to the specific issues.
00;10;39;15 – 00;11;04;19