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"The Danger of a Failed Iran Deal": Could GOP Rejection of Nuke Pact Lead to War?
The Iran nuclear deal is coming under fresh scrutiny from Republican lawmakers following a new report by the Associated Press about a secret arrangement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency to allow Iran to use its own inspectors to investigate the Parchin military site. Supporters of the Iran deal have downplayed the report, pointing out that Iranian inspectors will work under close supervision of the IAEA. The new AP report comes about halfway through the 60-day period that Congress has to scrutinize the Iran nuclear deal. Both houses of Congress plan to vote next month on a measure to disapprove, or block, the deal. So far, just two Senate Democrats have broken with their party to oppose the agreement: Senators Chuck Schumer and Robert Menendez. We speak to Gary Sick of Columbia University. He served on the National Security Council under Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis. He recently wrote an article for Politico called "The Danger of a Failed Iran Deal."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The Iran nuclear deal is coming under fresh scrutiny from Republican lawmakers following a new report by the Associated Press about a secret arrangement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. According to the report, Iran will be allowed to use its own inspectors to investigate the Parchin military site. Republicans have latched onto the report to further denounce the deal, saying Iran cannot be trusted to police itself. Republican presidential candidate Senator Lindsey Graham discussed the AP story during an interview with The Des Moines Register.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: AP is reporting that under the side deal between the International Atomic Energy association and Iran, that the Iranians will inspect their own military facilities. That is making this bad deal a joke. I’ve been told that, by others, the administration has not denied that arrangement. It would be absolutely irresponsible to allow the Iranians to go onto their military sites and tell us what they’ve done in the past without independent verification. I think this is a game changer.
AMY GOODMAN: Supporters of the agreement have dismissed reports of any secretive agreement, pointing out that Iranian inspectors will work under close supervision of the IAEA. On Wednesday, State Department spokesperson John Kirby defended the deal and expressed confidence in the IAEA’s monitoring capabilities.
JOHN KIRBY: We’re confident in the agency’s technical plans for investigating the possible military dimensions of Iran’s former program, issues that in some cases date back more than a decade. Just as importantly, the IAEA is comfortable with arrangements, which are unique to the agency’s investigation of Iran’s historical activities. When it comes to monitoring Iran’s behavior going forward, the IAEA has separately developed the most robust inspection regime ever peacefully negotiated to ensure Iran’s current program remains exclusively peaceful.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The new AP report comes about halfway through the 60-day period that Congress has to scrutinize the Iran nuclear deal. Both houses of Congress plan to vote next month on a measure to disapprove, or block, the deal. So far, just two Senate Democrats have broken with their party to oppose the agreement. On Tuesday, New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez announced he would vote against the deal.
SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ: I have looked into my own soul, and my devotion to principle may once again lead me to an unpopular course. But if Iran is to acquire a nuclear bomb, it will not have my name on it. It is for these reasons that I will vote to disapprove the agreement and, if called upon, would vote to override a veto.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Robert Menendez is a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His announcement comes two weeks after New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said he will also oppose the deal. Republicans need at least four more Democrats to pass a resolution of disapproval next month and a total of 13 to override a veto. So far, 23 of the Senate’s 44 Democrats have announced their support for the agreement.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, on Tuesday, 70 nuclear nonproliferation experts with the nonpartisan Arms Control Association issued a statement in support of the deal, calling it, quote, "a strong, long-term, and verifiable agreement that will be a net-plus for international nuclear nonproliferation efforts."
For more, we’re joined by Gary Sick of Columbia University. He served on the National Security Council under Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis. He recently wrote an article for Politico headlined "The Danger of a Failed Iran Deal."
Professor Gary Sick, welcome to Democracy Now!
GARY SICK: Pleasure to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. What is the danger of a failed Iran deal?
GARY SICK: Basically, we’ve had two years of negotiation, which have been remarkably successful and produced something that is complicated but nevertheless solves the problem. If that is turned down by the U.S. Congress, basically the United States is on its own. The rest of the world doesn’t have to go along with this. We are basically saying we throw that out. The chance of renegotiating it is very close to zero. And as the situation evolves, there’s a very real chance of conflict.
That basically would take us back not only where we were two years ago, which was when Mr. Netanyahu was standing up waving the picture of a bomb at the United Nations and talking about immediate, you know, some kind of intervention, but actually worse than that, because in the meantime we would have lost the support of most of the international community. And it was their support for the sanctions that made the sanctions work. So, we would have lost pretty much everything along the way, and we would have, in effect, the Cuba solution—that the United States would be the only country in the world imposing sanctions on Iran. Our businesses would not be permitted to do business there, but the rest of the world would. And it’s very unlikely that anybody else would stick with us on that process.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, just to clarify something: Although in the United States it’s seen as the U.S.-Iran deal, of course it isn’t. Explain who else is involved and what it would mean if the U.S. pulled out of that. They would still have the deal with Iran?
GARY SICK: Well, yes. They could. But basically, everybody that signed it, which was all the permanent members of the Security Council, under the auspices of the European Union—and that included Russia and China—they have all signed on to this. And there’s no real doubt that they’re going to go ahead and put it into effect. If the United States withdraws, technically, the deal is broken; technically, the deal is off. But they’re not required to do anything in particular, other than sort of business as usual. So, the deal would come to an end. We would be seen as responsible for it. The sanctions would unravel, almost certainly—and rather quickly, I suspect. And we got nothing out of it at all, and a very serious threat that we would get back to a position where all we could do then is threaten military action to kind of enforce our views. So, you know, it really is a lose-lose situation by any standards at all.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, how significant do you think it is that these two senators, Schumer and Menendez, have broken with Obama on the deal?
GARY SICK: Well, it’s not a terrible surprise. I mean, both of them had pretty well signaled where they stood on this issue, and Menendez had actually objected to it long before the negotiations even started, and, after the negotiations were going on, tried to make it stop. So, you know, that isn’t a huge surprise. Still, it’s hard for me to see how any senator looking seriously at the alternatives that are available would make that choice. And I think it’s really unfortunate. I would much rather focus on Senator Gillibrand, who had the courage to stand up and do what I think needed to be done, and, with the same constituency, with the same issues—
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what did she do?
GARY SICK: She basically said she was going to support the president on this. And I think that’s exactly where Schumer should be. And Menendez is another case. I mean, he’s been—you know, I’m not from New Jersey, but he’s—you know, this is a guy who’s under indictment currently and is facing a whole raft of problems and who has been ideologically opposed to this thing from the very start.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about some of the major criticisms of the deal.
GARY SICK: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Number one, it gives Iran 24 days before outside inspections begin. Two, there’s a lifting of the ban on conventional and ballistic weapons. Three, Iran’s economy may improve once the sanctions are lifted, so there’s this risk Iran will funnel money towards terrorist groups. Different senators are raising this issue, saying terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. Talk about this.
GARY SICK: Well, OK. The first thing, that the 24 days is really a—this is an exaggeration. In fact, the inspections may begin instantly. But if there is resistance—in other words, let’s say the United States suspects that there’s something going on in a particular site, and we provide evidence that something is going on, and others agree with us. The Iranians then are left in the position of resisting that and pushing it to the limit in terms of letting anybody actually go ahead and do the inspections, which of course is suspect in itself. But they’ve only got 24 days maximum. And so, the chance that you can be building a nuclear weapon or doing something in that—and then get rid of it completely in that 24 days is very limited. And the reality is that in most cases, if there was real evidence presented, the inspections would probably go ahead within a day or so.
So, this is sort of worst-case scenario. And even worst-case scenario, you’ve got to remember, today we have no such rule. It’s not 24 days; it’s indefinite. So, we can go to Iran right now and say we suspect something, and it could be years before they actually let anybody go on and look. So, is this worse than where we were before? You know, that is a—you know, again, looked at in terms of a perfect, where we get everything we would like, no, this is not a perfect agreement. But if you look at it in terms of where the world really is, this is a tremendous improvement over where we’ve been up until now. And I think we have to look at it that way.
The second—your point was—
AMY GOODMAN: Well, talking about the lifting the ban on conventional and ballistic weapons.
GARY SICK: Yeah, well, the ban on conventional and ballistic missiles was imposed by the Security Council as part of a package when Iran was not performing its duties, as far as the international inspectors were concerned. So this was—this was, in effect—it’s like the sanctions. It was put in to bring Iran to the table and to make them negotiate. From Iran’s point of view, those should have been lifted instantly; when the Security Council voted in favor of this agreement, all of those limits should be off. Instead, Kerry and company went back and negotiated a five-to-eight-year extension of that, which was accepted by the international community. So we’re five to eight years better off than we would have been under even the terms of the agreement as it was originally foreseen. So, again, is this perfect? No. But, you know—
AMY GOODMAN: Sparking a nuclear arms race with Saudi Arabia?
GARY SICK: You know, you look at—in the Middle East, there’s really only one country that has nuclear weapons, and that’s Israel. They’ve had those for a long, long time, and all of the countries in the Middle East know it and have felt threatened by Israel. Did they build a nuclear weapon? No, they sometimes talked about it, but when push came to shove, whether it was worth it to them to actually go through the process of starting a nuclear program, which was going to get them in trouble with the United States and their other allies, they decided not to. In this case, you take away Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon, and that sparks them then to build a nuclear weapon of their own? You know, it’s hard to see the logic of that or why they would. And, actually, you know, the Saudis, although they mutter in private, in reality, twice, they have come out formally in favor of this agreement, say that this could in fact improve their security. So, you know, I find it very unlikely that they’re going to go out and immediately start building a nuclear weapon.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, if Congress were to approve the deal, could a new Republican president go back on that decision? And could you talk specifically about the parallels between this situation and your own involvement in the negotiations with the Iran hostages in the last days of the Carter presidency?
GARY SICK: Yeah, I went through this process, and we did in fact negotiate with the Iranians, through the Algerians, to get the hostages released, and that resulted in the Algiers Accord. President Reagan, who had been elected but who had not yet taken office, was actually candidate Reagan up until the moment when this agreement was done, because it was not complete until the last day of the Carter presidency. And Reagan said this was done under coercion, this was—we were forced to do this, therefore we don’t have to obey it, we don’t have to actually go through. And then he became President Reagan instead of candidate Reagan, and he looked at the deal, and he saw what the effect would be if he undid it—one, in terms of his own credibility and the U.S. credibility, but also in terms of all the good things that were in that agreement, which were numerous and included a lot of things for the banks, and others benefited from it. And he quietly changed his mind and began, you know, to enforce it, and enforced it rather completely, in fact, while he was president. And it has been enforced ever since.
Does that mean that a Republican president—well, I think it would depend on which Republican president it was. It’s not to say that somebody couldn’t do that, but any president who says, "I’m going to go back on the word of the U.S. government in the future, because I don’t happen to like it ideologically," is, in effect, saying, "You can’t trust us." And any president looks at that and thinks about what the long-term consequences of that are. And if you’re the president—if you’re the candidate, it feels one way, but if you’re actually the president, it looks a different way. So, you know, we’ll see.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this month, President Obama pointed out many of the same people who supported the war in Iraq are opposing diplomacy with Iran. He also suggested Republican opponents of the deal share much in common with Iranian hard-liners.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Just because Iranian hard-liners chant "Death to America" does not mean that that’s what all Iranians believe. In fact, it’s those—in fact, it’s those hard-liners who are most comfortable with the status quo. It’s those hard-liners chanting "Death to America" who have been most opposed to the deal. They’re making common cause with the Republican caucus.
AMY GOODMAN: So that’s President Obama comparing hard-liners in Iran with the Republican caucus. I’m wondering, Professor Sick, your thoughts about this. And also, you know, you know Iran quite well, though many, many years ago, principal White House aide during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis. And you wrote the book, October Surprise: America’s Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan. Reagan, in an election year, of course, he is raised constantly by the Republican presidential candidates, who would like to be seen by him. So, if you can talk about his relationship right through Iran-Contra, selling weapons to Iran to illegally fund the Contras, which Congress had a ban on?
GARY SICK: Well, this is, of course, a lot of ancient history. And the reality is, if you look at when Reagan came into office, when he was looking at Iran, the first thing was he said he didn’t like this agreement that we had negotiated and then changed his mind on that. Then, over the period of the next few years, both Israel and the United States were selling arms to Iran at the same time that we were telling the rest of the world not to. And in the end, that turned into an enormous scandal. And if it hadn’t been in Reagan’s sort of the end of his term, there was a real chance that he could have been impeached over the activities of his National Security Council people.
AMY GOODMAN: Perhaps it was because they are the ones who revealed this, as opposed to an exposé by the press. They controlled the message, the Reagan administration.
GARY SICK: Well, yes. But, I mean, it really turned into—once it broke in the press, I mean, that’s when—that’s when it got very serious. But up until that time—but Reagan had talked about—and if you listen to what he actually said to explain what was going on with the Iran-Contra affair, he said it was a strategic opening to Iran, that this is what we were looking for, was to in fact find a way to deal with Iran in a more reasonable way, thinking that this would in fact be to our benefit as a nation. So, I can’t argue with that. I mean, frankly, I thought the concept was not bad at all. The way it was done, sort of the covert arms shipments when we said we were not going to be shipping arms, with—and dealing with a group of people that we didn’t know who they were and trusting intermediaries who really were shoddy types who were fabricators, that was not the way that—and the fact that it was run out of the White House instead of being run out of the State Department or the CIA or someplace else—all of these things were bad, as far as I was concerned. But the idea of a strategic opening to Iran, I think that was sensible. In fact, that’s sort of what we’re beginning to see here. But I say only "beginning," because anything like a strategic opening to Iran remains to be seen. This agreement, the nuclear agreement, is about the nuclear issue. It isn’t about opening up to Iran. But we do—we’ve had two years now of steady negotiations with Iran at the highest level, and that has broken the ice in an interesting way.
AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of history—you know, you wrote the October Surprise—do you still believe that Reagan had something to do with holding on—working a deal with Iran to hold onto the hostages so that Jimmy Carter would fall?
GARY SICK: Well, you know, this was looked at by two congressional committees, and they concluded—and I agree with them—there’s no smoking gun. We have a lot of circumstantial evidence. I continue to believe that the circumstantial evidence is very, very powerful. But the committees decided they are not going to, in effect, come down on the side of treason, if you like, without some hard evidence. So, we don’t have—
AMY GOODMAN: Treason against, well, President Reagan.
GARY SICK: We don’t have a picture of Bill Casey sitting around with the Iranians doing a deal. We don’t have any paper that says this is what they agreed. So, it is circumstantial evidence that has been put together. I wrote my book basically pulling together as much of that circumstantial evidence as possible. I think it’s still quite convincing. But it isn’t the sort of—it isn’t absolute proof. And until we have a deathbed confession or something else happens, it remains a matter to be argued about.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I want to turn back to Wednesday’s State Department press conference. In this clip, a reporter questions John Kirby about the new AP report suggesting Iran will be allowed to use its own experts to inspect its nuclear sites.
REPORTER: We can’t find previous examples that are similar to this, especially for a country alleged to have tried to develop nuclear weapons. How did that go from routine to now unique to—
JOHN KIRBY: Well, I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t amend the secretary’s comments about this all—about this at all. I mean, unless you’ve seen every single arrangement that the IAEA has with every other country in which it has a program for monitoring nuclear activity, I don’t know—
REPORTER: We quote Olli Heinonen, who is the number two at the agency, and he recalls no such arrangement. So, he—I mean, by that nature, it’s even unprecedented. So, it seems a bit weird to call it routine under such circumstances.
JOHN KIRBY: No, it’s not. It’s routine that the IAEA has these arrangements with individual countries. Those arrangements are, as we’ve said, confidential between the nation itself and the IAEA. That’s what’s routine here. And this is and remains, as I think the secretary has described it as, a technical arrangement between those two parties. And it’s—regardless of the details, it’s not unlike, in terms of framework, the kinds of arrangements they have with other nations that have nuclear capacity.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was John Kirby speaking Wednesday. So, Professor Sick, could you comment on this AP report and the concerns that have been raised about this Parchin site?
GARY SICK: I think it’s very important to look at this head on, because, first of all, we’re talking here about inspections dealing with issues that took place more than a decade ago, back in 2003 or earlier. That’s what we’re talking about here, is how those condition—how those are conducted. We’re also talking about inspections that are actually being conducted on sensitive military sites in Iran. The Iranians have reason to—because we’ve seen this in the past—to be a little nervous when other people, who might even be hostile to them, go in and begin taking samples and putting it in their pocket, taking it home, and suddenly they find they’re accused of something that they don’t agree with. So having IAEA inspectors watching, overseeing Iranian people doing the swipes, to them, is a form of protection against that sort of thing happening. And, you know, I don’t think that’s outrageous at all. I mean, it’s not as if they’re going in—we’re not, in effect, saying to Iran, "OK, you go inspect yourself and come back and tell us what you found." I mean, that isn’t it at all. But the fact that the Iranians themselves could actually be collecting the evidence that would be used by the IAEA, with the IAEA standing there watching them do it, is not so outrageous. I mean, I don’t think that’s anything unusual at all.
And, in fact, this is—but as he said—and what is used against it, in this case, is that it was a confidential agreement. But the agreement is between the IAEA and Iran. It’s not between the United States and Iran. And a lot of countries that are being inspected don’t like to publicize all of everything that they’re doing, because, in many cases, it’s embarrassing to them. So, this is a way of dealing with that, that the IAEA has worked out over the years.
As Jimmy Carter Discusses Cancer Diagnosis, Former Aide Praises Him as Honest, Noble Man
Former President Jimmy Carter revealed today cancer had spread to his brain and that he would begin radiation treatment later in the day. He made the comment during his first public remarks about his cancer. We ask Gary Sick about his former boss. Sick served on the National Security Council under Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. He was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, on a different issue, you worked with Jimmy Carter. You worked under President Jimmy Carter. Today he’ll be holding a news conference—
GARY SICK: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —announcing his diagnosis with cancer.
GARY SICK: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: Your thoughts, Gary Sick?
GARY SICK: Well, you know, Jimmy Carter, he was a man that I must say I look back at my work with him and knowing him and all—how many people can say in a job at that level, at the White House level, that you spent five years in constant crisis, and the president never asked you to do something that in any way violated your values, your—the way you feel about your own country? He was a noble man—is a noble man, actually. And the fact that he, you know, even while he has been diagnosed with cancer, he’s been out building more houses for Habitat for Humanity, says something about the guy. I mean, he’s a real person, and he actually believes what he says. Sometimes that got him in real trouble, that—people expect their politicians to lie and cheat and sneak around and be devious, and basically, Jimmy Carter didn’t do that. And it may have hurt him, actually. He would have been better off in some cases if he had behaved that way. But it’s just not his style. So, the fact that he’s out in the open, he’s discussing this publicly, is, again, very characteristic of him. And I simply wish him the very best.
AMY GOODMAN: Gary Sick, thanks so much for being with us. Professor Gary Sick, scholar at Columbia University, served on the National Security Council under Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis. We’ll link to his article at Politico, "The Danger of a Failed Iran Deal."
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, leading Islamic scholars sign a major declaration on climate change. Stay with us.
Islamic Leaders Take on Climate Change, Criticizing "Relentless Pursuit of Economic Growth"
A group of leading Islamic scholars have issued a declaration calling on the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims to do their part to eliminate dangerous greenhouse gas emissions and turn toward renewable energy sources. The declaration urges world leaders meeting in Paris later this year to commit to a 100 percent zero-emissions strategy and to invest in decentralized renewable energy in order to reduce poverty and the catastrophic impacts of climate change. The declaration comes on the heels of the publication of Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment earlier this year, which also calls for sweeping action on climate change. Like the encyclical, this declaration, endorsed by more than 60 leading Islamic scholars, links climate change to the economic system, stating: "We recognize the corruption that humans have caused on the Earth due to our relentless pursuit of economic growth and consumption." We speak to Bangladeshi climate scientist Saleemul Huq, one of the contributors and signatories to the Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to a sweeping climate change declaration issued by the world’s leading Islamic scholars, calling on the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims to do their part to eliminate dangerous greenhouse gas emissions and turn towards renewable energy sources. The declaration urges world leaders meeting in Paris later this year to commit to a 100 percent zero-emissions strategy and to invest in decentralized renewable energy in order to reduce poverty and the catastrophic impacts of climate change.
The declaration comes on the heels of the publication of Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment earlier this year, which also calls for sweeping action on climate change. Like the encyclical, this declaration, endorsed by more than 60 leading Islamic scholars, links climate change to the economic system, stating, quote, "We recognize the corruption that humans have caused on the Earth due to our relentless pursuit of economic growth and consumption." It places special emphasis on richer countries and communities, noting that the risks of climate change are, quote, "unevenly distributed, and are generally greater for the poor and disadvantaged communities of every country, at all levels of development."
AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the significance of this declaration, we go to London to speak with Saleemul Huq, one of the contributors and signatories to the Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change, a climate scientist at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London, and director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh.
Saleemul Huq, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about what prompted the declaration, who wrote it, and who were the major signatories on it.
SALEEMUL HUQ: I think the origin of this came some—a few months ago, when the Climate Action Network, a group of climate activists, got together with the Islamic Relief Worldwide, a humanitarian Islamic organization that does quite a lot of work with vulnerable communities around the world. And they agreed that this was something that they should take up, and got in touch with Islamic scholars and leading clergy around the world, and started drafting a potential declaration of this kind. And then they held a two-day symposium in Istanbul, which ended just a day or so ago, where they brought about 60 international scholars, Muslim scholars, leading clergy from different countries, and we—and then invited me as a climate scientist to join them, also a Muslim, as well. And we honed the final declaration, which came out and has been released.
And it’s aimed very much at the 1.6 billion Muslims around the world, bringing to their attention the verses of the Holy Qur’an, which enjoin Muslims everywhere to preserve the environment as stewards of the environment, and at the same time not cause harm to other people by their own pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and so, at a personal level, to reduce our emissions, and, at a global level, to join efforts by all faiths and all countries to bring down the fossil fuel use to zero as soon as possible.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, last month, Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley made headlines by suggesting that the rise of the so-called Islamic State came about in part because of the effects of climate change. He was speaking on Bloomberg TV. Let’s go to a clip.
MARTIN O’MALLEY: One of the things that preceded the failure of the nation-state of Syria and the rise of ISIS was the effect of climate change and the mega-drought that affected that region, wiped out farmers, drove people to cities, created a humanitarian crisis. It created the symptoms, or, rather, the conditions, of extreme poverty that has led now to the rise of ISIL and this extreme violence.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Saleemul Huq, your response? I mean, to what extent do you think the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, etc., Yemen, are exacerbated by climate change? Can the creation of ISIS really be attributed to the effects of a changing climate?
SALEEMUL HUQ: I think that—I don’t think there’s a direct attribution of the rise of ISIS as an organization to climate change, but there is no denying the underlying logic of the statement that we just heard, which is that there was a continuing drought for quite a few years in Syria that predates the conflict, the civil war, and the rise of ISIS, and caused migration and refugees going from the rural areas to urban areas. And that’s the kind of thing that climate change is likely to cause in future, and almost certainly will cause future conflicts.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr. Huq, what does the declaration call on some of the Muslim-majority oil-producing countries to do? They’re the ones with among the least incentives to cut down on fossil fuels, since they’re dependent on them for their economy.
SALEEMUL HUQ: Well, first of all, it enjoins all the Muslims in those countries, as individuals, to do what they can to reduce their own carbon footprints and also to help their fellow Muslims, who very often are amongst the most vulnerable people to the impacts of climate change, people like Muslims living in Pakistan, in Bangladesh, my country, and in parts of Africa. Many of these are Muslims who are suffering the consequences, and therefore those of us who are better off have a duty to help them, protect them and to stop causing the pollution that is causing the impacts on them, and at the same time hope to influence the leaders of these countries that it’s in their own best interest to move away from fossil fuels in the long run. And indeed, this is beginning to happen. If you look at the leaders of Abu Dhabi, for example, they are investing heavily in solar energy and in renewable energy, because they know that their oil is not going to last forever.
AMY GOODMAN: Saleemul Huq, we want to thank you for being with us, one of the contributors and signatories to the Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change, climate scientist at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London, director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’re going to be talking about a prisoner who was killed by a "Beat Up Squad" in prison. Who were these guards? And also, what happened to the prisoners at Dannemora once two prisoners escaped? Now, prison authorities have been arrested and let go at Dannemora, but prisoners were beaten up. We’ll get the latest. Stay with us.
The Beat Up Squad: NY Prison Guards Accused of Brutally Killing Prisoner & Covering Up Death
Four months ago, Samuel Harrell died at New York’s Fishkill Correctional Facility. At the time, officers claimed Harrell, an African-American prisoner with bipolar disorder, may have overdosed on synthetic marijuana, known as K2. But The New York Times recently obtained an autopsy report that determined Harrell’s death was a homicide caused by a "physical altercation with corrections officers." According to interviews conducted by The New York Times, Harrell died after as many as 20 corrections officers kicked, punched and dragged him down a flight of stairs while he was handcuffed. Some of the officers were known around the prison as the Beat Up Squad. Officers then called an ambulance and told the medical crew Harrell may have overdosed on synthetic marijuana, known as K2. Harrell died that night in a nearby hospital. We speak to Michael Schwirtz, reporter at The New York Times.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We end our show with a look at the case of Samuel Harrell, who died four months ago at New York’s Fishkill Correctional Facility. An autopsy report obtained by The New York Times determined that Harrell’s death was a homicide caused by a "physical altercation with corrections officers." Harrell, an African-American prisoner with bipolar disorder, died on April 21st after as many as 20 corrections officers kicked, punched and dragged him down a flight of stairs while he was handcuffed, according to interviews conducted by The New York Times. Some of the officers were known around the prison as the "Beat Up Squad." Officers then called an ambulance and told the medical crew Harrell may have overdosed on synthetic marijuana, known as K2. Harrell died that night in a nearby hospital. The autopsy showed that Harrell had no illicit drugs in his system.
AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the case of Samuel Harrell and a series of other allegations of abuse at the hands of correctional officers in New York prisons, we’re joined now by New York Times reporter Michael Schwirtz. He co-wrote the article, "Prison Guard 'Beat Up Squad' Is Blamed in New York Inmate’s Death." Michael won a George Polk Award for journalism this year for justice reporting for exposing the abuse of inmates by guards at correction and detention facilities. The New York Times reports led to resignations and dismissals at Rikers Island, the New York City jail complex, and to a Justice Department lawsuit seeking federal oversight of city jails.
Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us, Michael.
MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the Beat Up Squad and just exactly who this prisoner was.
MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ: So, Samuel Harrell was a 30-year-old man. He had been in and out of prisons since 2002 on drug charges—drug selling and possession. He had no violence in his records. He had something of a disciplinary history, but, again, no violence. He had been diagnosed as bipolar in 2010, and his family members say he would sometimes behave erratically. He would think the television was speaking to him. He would think pictures, family pictures, photographs, were speaking to him.
And on the evening of April 21st, he was, by the accounts we’ve heard, also behaving erratically. He had been depressed for some time, announced to correction officers at the Fishkill Correction Facility that he was going home, had packed his bags and had headed towards the exit, and at some point got into a confrontation with correction officers, that led to him being handcuffed, and, according to about 20 inmate accounts that we have, was beaten, possibly dragged or thrown down the stairs, and then ultimately ended up dying.
As you mentioned, in this time, correction officers called paramedics, told them that he was possibly having an overdose from a synthetic marijuana called K2, and the autopsy report found that there was none of that or any other illicit drugs in his system. And so, right now, we’re waiting for any further moves in the investigation. The state police, which is investigating it, has said it would turn over its findings to the local DA shortly, and it will go from there.
AMY GOODMAN: How did you learn of this story?
MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ: We received a tip about the death about two days after it occurred from one of our sources, actually at Rikers Island, who had connections at Fishkill, and dug and dug, and we eventually hooked up with a law firm that was representing his family, which was able to obtain these sworn affidavits from inmates. Many of them agreed to share them with us on condition of anonymity, but three of them chose to have their names published, one of whom was already released at the time.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: You also mention in your piece that many of the prisoner inmates or the inmates who testified have since been punished.
MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ: Up to as many as nine have been put in solitary confinement. Whether that is linked to their witnessing and speaking out about the death is unclear. Others said that they were threatened with violence, threatened that they would be next if they said anything about—about this Beat Up—
NERMEEN SHAIKH: They said anything to whom? To any particular—
MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ: If they said anything to investigators, to—as we understand it, there were internal Department of Correction investigators who went in and interviewed some of these inmates. But some of these inmates also said they received threats from other correction officers about not talking.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And is that typical, in your experience of reporting, about witnesses?
MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ: We’ve heard these—we’ve heard these similar accusations in the past in state prisons. We wrote recently about abuse claimed by inmates at the Clinton Correctional Facility after this escape in Dannemora in June, that they received similar threats, and, worse, that some of them were beaten up in an effort to extract information.
After NY Prison Escape, Other Inmates Faced Beatings, Solitary Confinement, Threats of Waterboarding
When two prisoners escaped the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, in June, the story dominated national headlines. Little attention was paid to what was going on inside the prison during the search. Though it was prison employees who were implicated in helping the two men escape, The New York Times recently revealed a campaign of retribution was waged against other prisoners. Some were beaten while handcuffed, choked and slammed against cell bars and walls. One prisoner was threatened with waterboarding. We speak to Michael Schwirtz, reporter at The New York Times.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: So let’s talk about your reporting on the Clinton Correctional Facility, the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, after these two prisoners escaped in June, which people all over the country were following, days and days of trying to find them. You wrote the piece headlined "After 2 Killers Fled, New York Prisoners Say, Beatings Were Next." Describe who you talked to and what happened to the prisoners. Meanwhile, it’s the prison employees who were—who have been indicted, who have been forced to leave, and prison authorities, as well. But the prisoners were beaten?
MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ: Again, we have a number of accounts from inmates who—both in written form, we spoke to some over the phone, and we visited four of these inmates in different prisons in the state. They’ve been scattered since. But basically, what they’re telling us, that obviously, in the hours and days after these two convicted murderers escaped, the situation inside the Clinton prison was very chaotic. We spoke in particular to an inmate who was in the cell next to Richard Matt, one of these individuals who escaped, and he told us that he had been interviewed a number of times during the day, that first day after the escape, but, that evening, was interviewed again. Officers came to his cell, handcuffed him, as was typical during the interrogations earlier in the day, but after that, he was taken to a broom closet, he says, seated down, and the officers there proceeded to beat him. One officer, he said, put a bag over his head and threatened to waterboard him. And after he claimed not to know anything about the escape, he was beaten more severely and then returned to his cell, according to his—
AMY GOODMAN: And explain what we’re talking about. This cell is part of a block called the "honor block."
MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And the honor block, of course, is where Richard Matt and David Sweat, the two escaped prisoners, were also imprisoned.
MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ: Yes, as part of the honor block. If I’m not mistaken, there are up to about 180 inmates on the honor block, which has since been shut down at Clinton Correctional Facility. These are inmates who have had very minor disciplinary infractions during their time in prison. So these are the best behaved inmates at the prison. Patrick Alexander, who was the neighbor of Richard Matt, had not had a significant disciplinary infraction for much of his time in prison. He had been in prison since 2003 on a murder charge.
AMY GOODMAN: So when they’re moved to other prisons, they are put in serious conditions now. So they’ve been seriously punished, in addition to beaten.
MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ: Yes. A number of these inmates—we’re told about 60—were moved out of Clinton. Many of them were put for as much as three weeks into solitary confinement, though not charged with anything and not having gone through the typical disciplinary hearing that most inmates go through when they’re put into solitary confinement. They were put into solitary confinement. They were denied access to stamps and paper to write letters. They couldn’t use the phone. And so they were basically cut off from the outside world for as much as three weeks, and then scattered to different prisons around the state.
AMY GOODMAN: Lost their belongings, as well, pictures—
MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ: A lot of them lost their belongings, said they lost their belongings, personal effects. One inmate described losing his wedding ring, described losing the sonogram of his son. Others lost their writings, their legal papers. This Patrick Alexander who we spoke with lost—he said he had kind of meticulously kept his letters from 2003 from his mother and his aunt; he lost those. And so, there are a lot of complaints—
AMY GOODMAN: So the men who don’t escape are the ones who were punished.
MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ: That seems to be the case. This is according to—according to them. I should point out that inmates can be problematic, problematic witnesses, problematic and biased. We have attempted, both for the story about Clinton and for the story about Fishkill, to get some sort of an account from the Correction Department and from officers who could have been involved, and that information hasn’t been forthcoming.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I’d like to go back to Samuel Harrell. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Could you talk generally about the treatment of prisoners who are mentally unwell and how it compares to the general population?
MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ: You know, I know very little about the treatment of inmates with mental illness in state prisons. I know a little bit more about it at Rikers Island, since I spent a year working on it there. I do know—studies have shown that inmates with mental illness suffer the most violence in prison. They also perpetrate a lot, a great deal of the violence. They’re the most disruptive. They end up more frequently in solitary confinement, though there are now rules in place that are supposed to prevent inmates with mental illness going into solitary confinement. They’re not always followed. So, in general, have a much harder time of the prison experience than somebody who is not suffering from some sort of a mental illness.
AMY GOODMAN: What has been the response of the state authorities to all these investigations? I mean, in the case of Dannemora, you have Governor Cuomo walking the block. Patrick Alexander, he spoke to him.
MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ: Very little response, I think, somewhat surprisingly, to us. They—the Correction Department, in both cases, put out statements, almost identical statements for both articles, saying that they’re working with the authorities to investigate and that anybody who is found guilty of wrongdoing would be punished. But beyond that, there have been very little details, very little accounts about what occurred.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to leave it there, but we’ll continue to follow this story. Michael Schwirtz, award-winning reporter over at The New York Times, and we’ll link to his articles.
Headlines:
St. Louis: 9 Arrested as Protests Erupt After Police Shoot Black Teen
At least nine people have been arrested as protests erupted in St. Louis, Missouri, after police shot and killed another African-American teenager Wednesday. St. Louis police say they shot 18-year-old Mansur Ball-Bey after he pointed a gun at officers as he fled from a house where police were executing a search warrant. The shooting came 10 days after the first anniversary of the police killing of Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, which sparked protests nationwide. As protesters gathered to condemn the latest killing, police fired smoke canisters and tear gas, and accused demonstrators of throwing glass bottles and bricks. Images and video overnight showed a car and a building on fire. Activists and clergy condemned the police response as overly aggressive. Reverend Renita Lamkin told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "There has to be a better way, but the better way is not to terrorize an already terrorized community."
3 Firefighters Killed, Troops Called in, as Wildfires Rage Across West
In Washington state, three firefighters have been killed and four others injured as wildfires continue to rage across the Western United States. The firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service were reportedly killed after fire overtook their vehicle following an accident near the towns of Twisp and Winthrop. All residents of both towns have been ordered to evacuate. Meanwhile, the Idaho-based National Interagency Fire Center has called in 200 active-duty military troops to fight wildfires, marking the first time the agency has mobilized the military for firefighting in nearly a decade.
Report: Global Warming Has Worsened CA Drought by up to 27%
This comes as a new study confirms global warming has measurably worsened the record drought in California, which is fueling wildfires there. The study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters confirms rising temperatures are sucking water out of plants and soil, worsening the drought by as much as 27 percent.
Egypt: ISIL-Linked Group Detonates Car Bomb Outside Cairo Courthouse
In Egypt, a militant group linked to ISIL has claimed responsibility for a car bombing outside a courthouse in a Cairo suburb that wounded 29 people Thursday morning. The group, known as the Sinai Province, says the bombing was retribution for the execution of six of its members in May. The executed members had been convicted of carrying out an attack that killed two army officers in 2014. The attack Thursday comes after the group said last week it had executed a Croatian hostage.
North and South Korea Exchange Fire as Tensions Rise
In South Korea, residents have been ordered to evacuate an area of its border with North Korea, after the countries exchanged fire Thursday. South Korea’s defense minister says the crossfire began when North Korea fired at a military unit, prompting retaliation from the south. He says North Korea then launched a projectile at the town of Yeoncheon, which lies northwest of Seoul, where loudspeakers were broadcasting anti-North propaganda.
Yemen: U.N. Condemns U.S.-Backed Airstrikes on Port City of Hudaydah
In news from Yemen, the United Nations has condemned the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led airstrikes on the port city of Hudaydah. U.N. aid chief Stephen O’Brien called the strikes a violation of international law and warned they would worsen the humanitarian crisis. The port city has been a key area in the delivery of humanitarian aid, although the Saudi-led blockade has slowed the delivery of food and medical supplies. O’Brien spoke Wednesday.
Stephen O’Brien: "I was shocked by what I saw. The civilian population is bearing the brunt of the conflict. A shocking four out of five Yemenis require humanitarian assistance, and nearly 1.5 million people are internally displaced. More than 1,000 children have been killed or injured, and the number of young people recruited or used as fighters is increasing."
Germany Approves $95B Greek Bailout as Greece Privatizes 14 Airports
The German Parliament has voted to approve a $95 billion bailout package for Greece. The agreement has already been approved by the Greek Parliament, although nearly a third of lawmakers from the left-leaning Syriza party voted against the bill. The bailout requires the Greek government to impose harsh austerity measures and to privatize some of the country’s assets. Earlier this week, in one such privatization deal, the government agreed to sell the rights to operate 14 regional airports to a German company.
Israel: Supreme Court Suspends Detention of Palestinian Hunger Striker
In news from Israel, the Supreme Court has suspended the indefinite detention of a Palestinian prisoner who has been on a two-month hunger strike that has caused brain damage. The court said Mohammed Allan does not pose a security threat at this time, given his deteriorated condition. A medical examiner determined Wednesday Allan suffered brain damage from the hunger strike, although it is not clear whether the damage will be permanent. Allan’s lawyer said the decision to release Allan should have come earlier.
Sawsan Zahar: "This should have been done already two days ago, when we were here in the first hearing in front of the Supreme Court and asked for his immediate release, because, first of all, he didn’t impose any security threat because of his medical situation, and, second of all, second of all, in order to enable him to get the treatment and save his life and prevent the brain damage that now we are looking at."
Last month, Israel’s Parliament authorized the force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strike. It also authorized prison sentences of up to 20 years for people throwing stones. The United Nations says these measures threaten to worsen an "already-precarious human rights situation."
U.N. Reports New Allegations of Sexual Abuse by Peacekeepers in CAR
In news from the Central African Republic, the United Nations has reported new allegations about sexual abuse by peacekeeping forces. Soldiers are accused of raping three women. One of them is a minor. The case follows accusations earlier this month by Amnesty International that peacekeeping forces were responsible for the rape a 12-year-old girl and the death of a child and his father. French soldiers deployed as peacekeepers have also been accused of trading sex with young boys for food and money at a displaced persons’ camp. The director of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic resigned under pressure earlier this month. A United Nations spokesperson announced the latest accusations on Wednesday.
Vannina Maestracci: "A new series of disturbing allegations of misconduct have recently come to light. The events allegedly took place in recent weeks. These new allegations concern a report that three young females were raped by three members of a MINUSCA military contingent. The allegations were reported to the mission’s human rights division on the 12th of August by the families of the three women."
South Africa: Justice Minister Intervenes to Keep Pistorius Behind Bars
In news from South Africa, the justice minister has stepped in to block the release of Olympic and Paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius, who was due to be released after 10 months following his conviction of manslaughter for killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. In a rare move, Justice Minister Michael Masutha said the parole board’s decision was premature, and ordered an examination of the case. Prosecutors have also appealed a court’s decision last year not to convict Pistorius of murder.
Medical Experts Warn New Female Libido Pill Carries Serious Risks
In the United States, public health advocates are raising concerns about the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the first prescription drug to increase women’s sexual desire. Flibanserin is made by Sprout Pharmaceuticals, whose executives have previously run afoul of the FDA for their misleading and inaccurate marketing of an earlier product. The medication’s approval was aggressively pushed by an advocacy group called Even the Score, which was funded by the drugmaker and other pharmaceutical companies. Some health advocates have raised concerns about potentially serious risks, including low blood pressure and fainting. In a statement, Dr. Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen said, "Unfortunately, we haven’t heard the last of this drug. Expect future news to include stories of women who are harmed needlessly by flibanserin and the eventual agency call for the manufacturer to pull it from pharmacy shelves."
U.S. Court: SEC Cannot Force Companies to Disclose "Conflict Minerals"
An appeals court has ruled the Securities and Exchange Commission cannot force companies to disclose whether minerals in their products come from the war-torn country the Democratic Republic of Congo because the mandatory labeling would violate the companies’ freedom of speech. Human rights groups have long pushed for mandatory labeling of so-called "conflict minerals" in order to allow consumers and investors to avoid fueling the bloody conflict through the purchase of their products. The mandatory labeling became law as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. But this week, a court ruled in favor of corporate trade groups seeking to overturn the measure.
Ecuador: Indigenous Peoples Opposed to Oil Drilling Drive Out Soldiers
In news from Ecuador, hundreds of indigenous protesters have forced police and soldiers to retreat from the Amazon town of Macas in an ongoing conflict over oil and gas drilling in the region. The indigenous Shuar and Achuar peoples have been organizing to block oil extraction on their lands. They say President Rafael Correa has refused to consult them in the decision over drilling. On Wednesday, about 200 protesters wielding spears sent police and soldiers fleeing from the town.
Lawsuit Accuses Costco of Selling Shrimp Harvested by Slave Labor
In California, law firms have filed a class action lawsuit against Costco and its Thai seafood supplier, arguing that the company has knowingly sold shrimp whose harvesting relies on rampant human trafficking and forced labor. Men who have escaped from boats in this supply chain have testified to beatings, torture, execution-style killings and grueling 20-hour shifts. The suit seeks to block Costco from selling these shrimp unless they are labeled as the produce of slavery.
Clinton Confirms Emails on Private Server were Classified
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign has confirmed emails on the private server she used while she was secretary of state contain material that is now classified. Clinton has repeatedly said she did not receive material marked classified. Her campaign says the material was classified retroactively, making Clinton the "passive recipient of unwitting information that subsequently became deemed as classified." Meanwhile, a newly publicized letter from Clinton’s attorney confirms her emails and all other data on her computer server were wiped clean before it was handed over to federal officials.
Jimmy Carter to Discuss His Cancer at News Conference Today
Former President Jimmy Carter is due to discuss his health at a news conference in Atlanta, Georgia, today. The move comes eight days after Carter announced liver surgery had unveiled cancer that had spread to other parts of his body.
Somerville, MA Officials Hang "Black Lives Matter" Banner at City Hall
City officials in Somerville, Massachusetts, have hung a banner with the words "Black Lives Matter" on the front of City Hall. According to The Boston Globe, Mayor Joe Curtatone worked with Black Lives Matter Cambridge to create the banner. The mayor said the move was "a very clear statement we are making to the community that we recognize that structural racism exists in our society; it exists in our public and private institutions."
Louis Stokes, Ohio’s First African-American Congressman, Dies at 90
And Louis Stokes, the first African-American congressmember from Ohio and a leading advocate for the poor, has died at the age of 90. Stokes served in the House of Representatives for three decades. He led a special investigation into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. which concluded they may have involved conspiracies. Stokes was also a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus. He died of lung and brain cancer Tuesday at home in Ohio.
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COLUMN
"Passing the Torch: From Julian Bond to Black Lives Matter" by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
Protesters gather last December for a march to a New York police station to demand justice for Akai Gurley, who was killed by Officer Peter Liang. (a katz / Shutterstock)
Civil-rights pioneer Julian Bond died this week at the age of 75. In 1960, as a student at the historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta, Bond led nonviolent protests against racially segregated facilities like restaurants, movie theaters and parks. He co-founded SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and spent years organizing and registering African-Americans to vote in the Deep South. In 1965, he was elected to the Georgia state Legislature, where legislators blocked him from being sworn in because of his opposition to the war in Vietnam. It took a U.S. Supreme Court decision to get him seated.
Julian Bond was a lifelong activist. He spoke out early for marriage equality and got arrested in front of the White House while protesting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. He supported the Black Lives Matter movement as well.
Black Lives Matter was founded after a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman in the murder of Trayvon Martin. The movement mushroomed in the wake of the police killing of Michael Brown one year ago in Ferguson, Missouri, and has grown to more than 20 chapters nationally. Black Lives Matter is making waves on the presidential campaign trail, as activists disrupt events and demand that the candidates address the issues at the core of their movement. At one recent Hillary Clinton campaign event in Keene, New Hampshire, four Black Lives Matter activists were denied entry to the venue.
“We went to New Hampshire with the intention of confronting Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately, when we got there, we were told that we couldn’t come inside,” Daunasia Yancey, founder of the Black Lives Matter chapter in Boston, told us on the “Democracy Now!” news hour. CNN reporter Dan Merica had tweeted about their exclusion, which he was told was due to the room being at capacity. After that, Yancey explained: “Someone came out and invited us into an overflow room, where we could actually watch the forum. And then, one of her staffers came in and said, ‘We could offer you a couple of minutes with her.’ And we said, ‘Absolutely,’ so that we could ask her the questions that we had.”
To say the least, candidates running for president are hard to reach, unless you are a large campaign donor. The candidates’ public appearances are closely stage-managed. At campaign events in key primary states, however, where the candidates stump day in and day out, they sometimes have no choice but to speak with prospective voters. Black Lives Matter activists have been using these moments to challenge business as usual, bringing the issues of racism and inequality to a broad audience.
Yancey asked Clinton: “You and your family have been personally and politically responsible for policies that have caused health and human services disasters in impoverished communities of color through the domestic and international war on drugs that you championed as first lady, senator and secretary of state. And so I just want to know how you feel about your role in that violence and how you plan to reverse it?” Julius Jones, from the Black Lives Matter movement in Worcester, Massachusetts, also questioned Clinton: “How do you actually feel that’s different than you did before? What were the mistakes? And how can those mistakes that you made be lessons for all of America for a moment of reflection on how we treat black people in this country?”
Clinton responded: “I don’t believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate.”
Black Lives Matter has confronted other candidates at their speaking events, including Democrats Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, and Republican Jeb Bush. The campaign disruptions will continue, organizers say. Their website states: “We have put our sweat equity and love for Black people into creating a political project: taking the hashtag off of social media and into the streets. The call for Black lives to matter is a rallying cry for ALL Black lives striving for liberation.”
Back in 2013, standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Julian Bond spoke at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. His words there, spoken two months after George Zimmerman’s acquittal, bear remembering as the movement for justice grows in ways we can’t predict:
“We march because Trayvon Martin has joined Emmett Till in the pantheon of young black martyrs. We march because the United States Supreme Court has eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, for which we fought and died. We march because every economic indicator shows gaping white-black disparities. We march for freedom from white supremacy. But still we have work to do. None of it is easy, but we have never wished our way to freedom; instead, we have always worked our way.”
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,300 stations. She is the co-author, with Denis Moynihan, of “The Silenced Majority,” a New York Times best-seller.
(c) 2015 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features SyndicateWEB EXCLUSIVE
On Vietnam & the Power of Protest: Watch One of Julian Bond's Final Speeches
WORK WITH DN!
Social Media Editor
207 West 25th Street, 11th Floor
Protesters gather last December for a march to a New York police station to demand justice for Akai Gurley, who was killed by Officer Peter Liang. (a katz / Shutterstock)
Civil-rights pioneer Julian Bond died this week at the age of 75. In 1960, as a student at the historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta, Bond led nonviolent protests against racially segregated facilities like restaurants, movie theaters and parks. He co-founded SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and spent years organizing and registering African-Americans to vote in the Deep South. In 1965, he was elected to the Georgia state Legislature, where legislators blocked him from being sworn in because of his opposition to the war in Vietnam. It took a U.S. Supreme Court decision to get him seated.
Julian Bond was a lifelong activist. He spoke out early for marriage equality and got arrested in front of the White House while protesting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. He supported the Black Lives Matter movement as well.
Black Lives Matter was founded after a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman in the murder of Trayvon Martin. The movement mushroomed in the wake of the police killing of Michael Brown one year ago in Ferguson, Missouri, and has grown to more than 20 chapters nationally. Black Lives Matter is making waves on the presidential campaign trail, as activists disrupt events and demand that the candidates address the issues at the core of their movement. At one recent Hillary Clinton campaign event in Keene, New Hampshire, four Black Lives Matter activists were denied entry to the venue.
“We went to New Hampshire with the intention of confronting Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately, when we got there, we were told that we couldn’t come inside,” Daunasia Yancey, founder of the Black Lives Matter chapter in Boston, told us on the “Democracy Now!” news hour. CNN reporter Dan Merica had tweeted about their exclusion, which he was told was due to the room being at capacity. After that, Yancey explained: “Someone came out and invited us into an overflow room, where we could actually watch the forum. And then, one of her staffers came in and said, ‘We could offer you a couple of minutes with her.’ And we said, ‘Absolutely,’ so that we could ask her the questions that we had.”
To say the least, candidates running for president are hard to reach, unless you are a large campaign donor. The candidates’ public appearances are closely stage-managed. At campaign events in key primary states, however, where the candidates stump day in and day out, they sometimes have no choice but to speak with prospective voters. Black Lives Matter activists have been using these moments to challenge business as usual, bringing the issues of racism and inequality to a broad audience.
Yancey asked Clinton: “You and your family have been personally and politically responsible for policies that have caused health and human services disasters in impoverished communities of color through the domestic and international war on drugs that you championed as first lady, senator and secretary of state. And so I just want to know how you feel about your role in that violence and how you plan to reverse it?” Julius Jones, from the Black Lives Matter movement in Worcester, Massachusetts, also questioned Clinton: “How do you actually feel that’s different than you did before? What were the mistakes? And how can those mistakes that you made be lessons for all of America for a moment of reflection on how we treat black people in this country?”
Clinton responded: “I don’t believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate.”
Black Lives Matter has confronted other candidates at their speaking events, including Democrats Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, and Republican Jeb Bush. The campaign disruptions will continue, organizers say. Their website states: “We have put our sweat equity and love for Black people into creating a political project: taking the hashtag off of social media and into the streets. The call for Black lives to matter is a rallying cry for ALL Black lives striving for liberation.”
Back in 2013, standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Julian Bond spoke at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. His words there, spoken two months after George Zimmerman’s acquittal, bear remembering as the movement for justice grows in ways we can’t predict:
“We march because Trayvon Martin has joined Emmett Till in the pantheon of young black martyrs. We march because the United States Supreme Court has eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, for which we fought and died. We march because every economic indicator shows gaping white-black disparities. We march for freedom from white supremacy. But still we have work to do. None of it is easy, but we have never wished our way to freedom; instead, we have always worked our way.”
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,300 stations. She is the co-author, with Denis Moynihan, of “The Silenced Majority,” a New York Times best-seller.
(c) 2015 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features SyndicateWEB EXCLUSIVE
On Vietnam & the Power of Protest: Watch One of Julian Bond's Final Speeches
WORK WITH DN!
Social Media Editor
207 West 25th Street, 11th Floor
New York, New York 10001 United States
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