Democracy Now! Daily Digest: A Daily
Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González – Tuesday, 26
November 2013
Stories:
As Wal-Mart Workers Plan Record Black
Friday Protests, Study Says Retail Giant Can Afford Higher Pay
As Black Friday approaches, Wal-Mart
workers and activists are planning another round of protests and strikes at the
nation’s largest employer on the biggest shopping day of the year. The Black
Friday protests come at a time of heightened scrutiny for the company. It made
headlines last week when a photo surfaced online of a sign made by workers at
one of its stores in Ohio. The sign was taped to a table and read: "Please
Donate Food Items Here, so Associates in Need Can Enjoy Thanksgiving
Dinner." Wal-Mart says the food drive shows the company tries to help its
workers. But critics say it reveals the low wages Wal-Mart pays them. The
National Labor Relations Board also ruled last week that Wal-Mart violated the
rights of striking workers. We are joined by Catherine Ruetschlin, a policy
analyst at Demos who co-authored the new report, "A Higher Wage is
Possible: How Wal-Mart Can Invest in Its Workforce Without Costing Customers a
Dime.” We also speak with Barbara Collins, a former Wal-Mart employee fired
after last year’s Black Friday strike. Collins speaks to us from Bentonville,
Arkansas, where Wal-Mart’s headquarters is located. She has been protesting
there since Friday as part of a group of eight fired workers who are demanding
their jobs back after the NLRB’s ruling that their firing was unfair.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not
be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As a busiest shopping
season of the year gets underway, we look at what could be the biggest day of
action yet against the retail giant Wal-Mart. The Black Friday protest, come at
a time of turmoil for the company. On Monday, the company announced its CEO,
Mike Duke, was retiring and would be replaced by Doug McMillon, who started out
as a teenage worker in a Wal-Mart warehouse. Last week the company, which is
the largest private employer in the United States and the world, made headlines
when a photo surfaced online of a sign made by workers at one of its stores in Ohio.
The sign was taped to a table and read "Please donate food items here so
Associates in Need can enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner."
AMY GOODMAN: Wal-Mart says the food drive
shows the company tries to help its workers. But critics say it reveals the low
wages Wal-Mart pays them. Now the food drive photo is being featured in a TV ad
by the campaign OUR Wal-Mart, short for the Organization United for Respect at
Wal-Mart. It calls on workers to go on strike and join more than 1,500 protests
scheduled on Black Friday.
ACTOR: There’s more to Wal-Mart than you
think.
SPEAKER: Please donate so Associates can
enjoy Thanksgiving dinner?
NEWS HOST: They’re one of the most
successful companies, I mean, money-wise, what they bring in and the family
that owns it.
CHRIS HAYES: They need a food drive for
their own employees was something they did not have to do in the first place.
WAL-MART WORKER: All of your sales floor
Associates and cashiers are struggling to make a living.
ACTOR: That is the real Wal-Mart.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: This comes as the
National Labor Relations Board ruled last week that Wal-Mart violated the
rights of striking workers. In a statement, the NLRB said Wal-Mart,
"unlawfully threatened, disciplined and, or terminated employees for
having engaged in legally protected strikes and protests. The incidents include
last year’s Black Friday protest that saw workers lead rallies at more than
1000 Wal-Mart stores and another strike at stores across the country this past
June. The NLRB says it will pursue charges unless Wal-Mart can reach an
agreement with the workers in the coming weeks. Wal-Mart spokesperson, Jerry
Lundberg, says the company will "pursue our options to defend the company
because we believe our actions were legal and justified."
AMY GOODMAN: For more we’re joined by
former Wal-Mart worker Barbara Collins who was employed for eight years at a
store in Placerville, California. A year ago on black Friday, she joined OUR
Wal-Mart and led her coworkers on strike. She was later fired for her organized
efforts. She’s joining us from Bentonville, Arkansas where Wal-Mart’s
headquarters is located. She’s been protesting there since Friday as part of a
group of 8 fired workers who are demanding their jobs back after the NLRB’s
ruling that their firing was unfair. We are joined here in New York by
Catherine Ruetschlin, a policy analyst ad Demos. She co-authored their new
report, "A Higher Wage is Possible: How Walmart can invest in its
workforce without costing customers a dime." Last year she wrote a related
report "Retails Hidden Potential: How Raising Wages Would Benefit Workers
the Industry and the Overall Economy." We welcome you both to Democracy
Now! Let’s first go to Barbara in Bentonville, Arkansas. Talk about the NLRB
ruling and what exactly happened to you last year.
BARBARA COLLINS: Yes, hi everyone. I just
need to clarify something. I was terminated in June. So, I participated on the
Black Friday strike last year and then I also participated with the two week
long strike in June. In June is when I was terminated for speaking out. The
NLRB ruling is just overwhelming. We are really excited that they found that
we’re telling the truth, that they broke the law, and we want to be reinstated.
So, we are here in Bentonville and it is very cold. We have been out in front
of the home office every day, Friday, Saturday and then yesterday and will be
out there today.
AMY GOODMAN: Protesting.
BARBARA COLLINS: Yes. Asking them to
respect the law and to reinstate us.
AMY GOODMAN: Catherine Ruetschlin, talk
about what OUR Wal-Mart, the organizing that’s going on all over the country,
has now put out in its ad. This appeal by Wal-Mart to its employees, to help
other employees who maybe don’t have enough money for food on Thanksgiving.
Talk about the significance.
CATHERINE RUETSCHLIN: Sure. The
revelation of that food drive in Canton, Ohio is a really important moment for
people outside of the retail sector looking in, to really see what it means for
these workers to stand up to one of the most powerful companies in the world
and ask to be treated with dignity and respect. It is not just at the holidays
that workers are struggling. When you are in a poverty level wage, putting food
on the table is always a tough task. We found talking to Wal-Mart workers over
and over again that their wages give them just enough to meet their basic needs
and at the end of every month, they’re making critical trade-off decisions.
Determining whether they’re going to get medicine or pay their school fees or
put food on the table or keep their electricity on. So, what workers like
Barbara who are out there really had a chance to show the average American who
interacts with retail all the time and maybe has seen that these protests have
been increasing in their intensity but hasn’t really been able to sort of relate
to what that actually means.
NERMEEN SHAIKH You have also pointed out
that Wal-Mart is aware they pay about 825,000 workers more or less poverty
wages. So, how is this justified? Have you spoken people at Wal-Mart and gotten
a sense of how they can justify this?
CATHERINE RUETSCHLIN: It’s true.
Wal-Mart’s CEO — Wal-Mart CEO Bill Simon, back in September, in a presentation
to Goldman Sachs was actually responding to the workers demands and calling
out, as they called out Wal-Mart for fair wage, and saying, hey look, we have
425,000 workers who earn the wage that you’re asking for. But, Wal-Mart is the
largest employer — the largest private employer in the U.S. That leaves 825,000
low-wage employees. Now, that is a workforce of temporary workers, part-time
workers, workers who wish they could get a full-time hours but can’t get them
out Wal-Mart. And the business model that Wal-Mart chooses to operate is really
this low road kind of devaluation of their labor force, where they see their
workers as equally replaceable and disposable as opposed to an alternative,
high-road model where they can invest in that labor force and see greater
productivity, sales and a really committed staff.
NERMEEN SHAIKH You have said also that
Wal-Mart could very easily raise its wages without raising prices. First of
all, how is that possible? And second of all, are there other — comparable
companies in the U.S. that have done that?
CATHERINE RUETSCHLIN: It’s true. Wal-Mart
earned $17 billion in profits last year. Now, how they choose to allocate those
profits is a business choice. What Wal-Mart did with a pretty substantial
portion of it last year was go into the stock market and repurchase their own
shares. What that did was consolidate ownership, it gave the Walton family
heirs a greater than 50% stake in the comedy for the first time, and it bumps
up earnings-per-share. But, that is kind of a short-term Wall Street maneuver
that over time doesn’t actually represent a productive investment in the firm.
A lot of analysts say that as the effects of that kind of one time buyback wear
off, the firm doesn’t see any real long-term benefits. If they, instead, took
the $7.6 billion that they used to buy back their own shares and used it to
invest in their workforce, they could actually give a raise amounting to almost
six dollars an hour for all 825,000 of those low-wage workers.
AMY GOODMAN: Amidst criticism of the
workers low wages, Wal-Mart has been touting its campaign to promote more than
25,000 of its roughly 1.3 million U.S. employees by the end of January. The
workers are featured in clips on the company’s YouTube channel, like this one.
GREGORY PORTIS: Hi, how are you doing? I
am the produce manager here at Wal-Mart. I started with the company four months
ago. I’ve been promoted to the department manager three weeks after I started.
This time of the year is a really busy time of the year due to Thanksgiving and
Christmas. We have a lot of customers that are in the store, so we try to meet
all their needs and getting them everything that they want, to make sure that
they can take care of their families.
AMY GOODMAN: Wal-Mart Spokesperson Kory
Lundberg said the company already has hundreds of thousands of associates who
earn at least $25,000 per year. Catherine Reutschlin, your response?
CATHERINE RUETSCHLIN: Wal-Mart, by their
own admission, is just making the same promotions that they would have made
anyway. This isn’t an improvement in their labor standards at all. In fact,
what it is, is a lot of workers who have been part time before and just kind of
waiting on the fringes for the opportunity to put in more hours are being kind
of touted with a grand fanfare that this is a great promotion. But, it doesn’t
change the fundamental labor practices at Wal-Mart where they operate on a
model of low investment in their workforce and high turnover. In fact,
approximately 500,000 Wal-Mart workers quit every year.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Barbara Collins, could
you say specifically how much you were earning at Wal-Mart, and what message do
you have for Wal-Mart’s new CEO Doug McMillon?
BARBARA COLLINS: Before I was terminated,
I was making $12.05 an hour, and I was classified as a full-time associate, but
that didn’t mean that I always got 40 hours a week. There was times that I was
only scheduled eight hours for a week, 16 hours for a week. So, it would be —
so, workers, just because they’re classified as full-time, they need to give
the full time hours, and act responsible and start respecting the workers. With
the new CEO, I’m really hope he listens to OUR Wal-Mart. We are only asking for
a better Wal-Mart, and to have them act responsible when they come into the
communities and follow through with their promises.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Barbara Collins, you made
$12.05 after working at Wal-Mart for how long and did you have any other
benefits like health care?
BARBARA COLLINS: I was there for almost 8
years, and I had to make the decision to drop my health care for me and my
children because of my scheduling, no matter what, they were going to take out
$36 every paycheck for health care. With it being eight hours a week or 16,
maybe 32, I still had to have to pay rent, electricity, put food on the table
for me and my two children. So, it was a really hard decision, and I had to
cancel it.
AMY GOODMAN: Catherine Reutschlin, if you
could talk about that, the issue of health care, and also you have the owners
of Wal-Mart very much involved in the political process, actively campaigning
against business regulation. As well as being very much in sort of the camp of
the sort of antigovernment approach and support for people. And yet they depend
on welfare and government support for their workers.
BARBARA COLLINS: That’s right. A recent
report showed that every single Wal-Mart in the country cost taxpayers between
$900,000-$1 million in support for poverty alleviation programs like critical
health care for workers and their families. The Walton’s see this as a huge
subsidy to their company, but they could be making a better business decision.
They are part of this organizing against government’s intervention in the
workplace, but they could take upon themselves in the absence of government
action to pay more wages, and they would see huge gains. They would see greater
productivity. They would see lower costs from turnover and training as workers
stick around and are more loyal to the firm. And over the last couple of
quarters, Wal-Mart has actually been complaining about unimpressive sales. They
blame this on a challenging retail environment. But, what they don’t realize is
that they are generating that challenging retail environment I’m not putting
enough money in the pockets of the people who shop there.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you both
for being here. Catherine Reutschlin, we will link to your report, "A
Higher Wage is Possible: How Walmart Can Invest in its Workplace Without
Costing Customers a Dime." Catherine Reutschlin is a policy analyst with
Demos. And we want to thank Barbara Collins, who worked more than eight years
at Wal-Mart in California and is one of the Organization United for Respect at
Wal-Mart’s top leaders, that’s OUR Wal-Mart. She led her co-workers out on the
strike last Black Friday, as well as other strikes, later fired for her
organizing. She’s joining us from Bentonville, Arkansas, where Wal-Mart’s
headquarters is located. She’s been protesting there since Friday as part of a
group of eight fired workers who are calling to get their jobs back after the
National Labor Relations Board ruled last week their firing was unfair. This is
Democracy Now! When we come back, another approach to dealing with corporate
power, we will be joined by the Reverend Billy. We will find out why he is
facing about a year in prison. Stay with us
---
"Hannah Arendt" Revisits Fiery
Debate over German-Jewish Theorist’s Coverage of Eichmann Trial
As head of the Gestapo office for Jewish
affairs, Adolf Eichmann organized transport systems which resulted in the
deportation of millions of Jews to extermination camps across Nazi-occupied
Eastern Europe. Eichmann helped draft the letter ordering the Final Solution —
the Nazi’s plan to exterminate the Jewish people in Nazi-occupied Europe. After
the war, Eichmann fled to Argentina, where he lived under a false identity
until he was kidnapped by the Israeli intelligence agency, the Mossad, on May
11, 1960. He was flown to Israel and brought to trial in Jerusalem in April
1961. After being found guilty he was executed by hanging in 1962. One writer
reporting on the trial was the German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist
Hannah Arendt, the author of "The Origins of Totalitarianism" and
"The Human Condition." Arendt’s coverage of the trial for the New
Yorker proved extremely controversial. She expressed shock that Eichmann was
not a monster, or evil, but "terribly and terrifyingly normal." Even
more controversial was her assertion that the Jews participated in their own
destruction through the collaboration of the Nazi-appointed Judenrat, or Jewish
Councils, with the Third Reich. Arendt’s coverage of the Eichmann trial is
chronicled in the 2013 film, "Hannah Arendt." We air clips of the
film and speak with the film’s star, Barbara Sukowa, who was awarded the Lola
Award for Best Actress, the German equivalent of the Oscars, for her role. We
are also joined by the film’s director, Margarethe von Trotta, one of Germany’s
leading directors, who has won multiple awards over her 40-year career.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not
be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: After the U.N. in climate
summit concluded in Warsaw, last week. Democracy Now! traveled Treblinka, an
extermination camp built by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War
II. The camp operated officially between July 1942 and October 1943 during
which time over 800,000 Jews were killed. Tens of thousands of Roma, disabled
people and others were also killed at the camp.
AMY GOODMAN: Our tour guide at Treblinka
was Zuzanna Radzik of the Forum for Dialogue Among Nations, a Polish nonprofit
group that works to eliminate anti-Semitism in Poland.
ZUZANNA RADZIK: This camp could actually
receive 10,000 to 12,000 people daily, so — a day. Those people didn’t live
there longer than an hour or two hours. Immediately from the trains, they went
to the gas chambers and then were buried or their bodies were moved to a
crematoria. The process was not very long.
AMY GOODMAN: The landscape of the
memorial was dotted by thousands of large rocks, many of them not of individuals,
but of whole communities with nearly a million killed, there would not have
been room. One of the individuals responsible for sending Jews to their death
in Poland and other countries in the Nazi occupied Europe was Adolph Eichmann.
As head of the Gestapo Office for Jewish Affairs, Eichmann organized transport
systems which resulted in the deportation of millions of Jews to extermination
camps across German occupied Eastern Europe. He helped draft the letter
ordering the final solution plan to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe.
After the war, Eichmann fled to Argentina where he lived under a false identity
until he was kidnapped Israeli intelligence agency the Mossad on May 11, 1960,
flown to Israel, brought to trial in Jerusalem in April 1961. After being found
guilty, he was executed by hanging in 1962.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: One writer reporting was
the Eichmann’s trial was the German Jewish philosopher and political theorist
Hannah Arendt, the author of "The Origins of Totalitarianism" and
"The Human Condition." Arendt’s coverage of the trial for The New
Yorker proved extremely controversial. She expressed shock that Eichmann was
not a monster or evil, but "terribly and terrifyingly normal." Even
more controversial was her assertion that the Jews participated in their own
destruction through the collaboration of the Nazi appointed Judenraete or
Jewish Councils with the Third Reich. She first coined the term the banality of
evil to apply to Eichmann following her reporting of her trial. Well, we spend
the rest of the hour on a recent film which profiles Arendt’s coverage of the
trial. The film is simply called "Hannah Arendt." This is part of the
trailer
ACTOR: They were recognized Jewish
leaders and this leadership cooperated with the Nazis. They’ll have our heads
for this.
ACTOR: [translated] This was the headline
in the daily news. "Hannah Arendt’s Defense of Eichmann."
ACTOR: [translated] These think your
articles are terrific, and these want you dead. Some of them are quite
colorful.
ACTOR AS HANNAH ARENDT: [translated] The
greatest evil in the world is the evil committed by nobodies.
ACTOR: [translated] Did you really have
no idea there would be such a furious reaction?
ACTOR AS HANNAH ARENDT: [translated]
Trying to understand is not the same as forgiveness.
ACTOR AS KURT BLUMENFELD: [translated]
This time you’ve gone too far. .
ACTOR AS HANNAH ARENDT: [translated] It
is this phenomenon I have called the banality of evil.
AMY GOODMAN: The trailer to the film
"Hannah Arendt." Democracy Now! spoke to the lead actor and director
of the film earlier this year when the film was released in New York.
Margarethe von Trotta is the director of "Hannah Arendt." She is one
of Germany’s leading film directors, has won multiple awards over her 40-year
career. The actress, Barbara Sukowa, who plays Hannah Arendt in the film, she
was awarded the Lola award for best actress, the German equivalent of the
Oscars for her role. We started by asking Margarethe von Trotta why it was so
significant for Hannah Arendt to decide to cover Eichmann’s trial.
MARGARETHE VON TROTTA: She wrote it
because she offered herself to The New Yorker to go there and she wrote to
them, I was not in Nuremberg. I did not see one of these monsters, one of these
Nazis in flesh, in the face and I want to go there to look at somebody, to see
him and to make it my own mind. Then she meets him there and he’s so different
from what she expected, and that was in the beginning it was difficult for her
to understand. And one of her most important sentences "I want to
understand." She wanted to understand why he’s so different, why he is not
a monster, why he’s not a Saddam.
AMY GOODMAN: But, her husband saying to
her there, I know what this is going to turn you back to, the pain that you
knew. What is this pain that she knew personally?
MARGARETHE VON TROTTA: That is a pain
that they both had when they heard about the Holocaust and heard about what
happened in Poland and everywhere in the camps. They were both totally
destroyed for months. So, he knew when he goes back and there are coming out
all the testimonies, with all their stories, that she would go back into this
depression. He feared for her. But, she wanted it. But, she was critical with
the Hausner, with the prosecutor. That he had all these — and that the
testimonies had to retell all her story and they’re some of them, they’re
fainting and they’re really — you can see how much it cost them to tell the
stories.
AMY GOODMAN: One of the devices in the
film was to actually use the archival footage of Eichmann in trial. Because
that amazingly was all videoed. Before we go to a clip that shows both your
dramatic film but with the actual archival footage of Eichmann, so you have no
one playing Eichmann, he is, in a sense, playing himself, talk about that
decision.
MARGARETHE VON TROTTA: I saw, a long time
before I knew that I would make a film about Hannah Arendt, I saw "The
Specialist," an Israeli documentary that is only one hour and a half only
the trial. He followed the line of Hannah Arendt, and he said it in the
beginning. So, when we started to write the script, with Pam Katz, I’d
immediately told her, we have to look it up again. We have to go with this
material. And so, we already — during we wrote — we already chose some of the
clips, let’s say, some of it. And then when I started to make the film, I saw
much more material and I chose also other material that was not in "The
Specialist." But, for me, it was from the beginning, totally clear that I
had to use this because to put an actor in, the spectator only would have
looked at him, oh he’s so brilliant, he’s fantastic, how we did it. So, they
will admire the actor and not see the mediocrity of the man. So, that was my
point, to see the mediocrity, to go with Hannah Arendt to look at him and to
get the same thought out of him.
BARBARA SUKOWA: That was also a reason
that we didn’t go for an impersonation of Hannah Arendt, because we didn’t want
people to look at an acting job and say, now she looks like Hannah Arendt. We
did not do a lot of prosthetics or anything. We just wanted people to
concentrate and focus on what she is saying and what she is thinking. And not
think about acting.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The film that you
referred to, Margarethe, "The Specialist," the documentary by the
Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan, as you said, it is only two hours long, but
apparently the footage of Eichmann, up to 350 hours of the trial itself?
MARGARETHE VON TROTTA: At Youtube you can
see 270, but there is still more, yes. But, I did not see that at all. But, I
said to my assistant who saw it all, I want to have some of these scenes in,
and so he looked for.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, let’s just go to a
clip of the Eichmann trial. This is the trial being watched by reporters on a
television screen, which is how Arendt witnessed it. This is part of Eichmann’s
testimony.
ADOLPH EICHMANN: [translated] I read here
that during the transport, 15 people died. I can only say that these records,
were not the responsibility department for 4B4.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Eichmann
testifying as you show it in your film, "Hannah Arendt." In another
scene from the trial, Eichmann is asked explicitly about the final solution.
PROSECUTOR: Was it proven to you that the
Jews had to be exterminated?
ADOLPH EICHMANN: I didn’t exterminate
them.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Margarethe Von Trotta,
can you talk about those scenes?
MARGARETHE VON TROTTA: Somebody now who
read the [Indiscernible] papers. They were coming out now in Germany but also
before. That was a judge, a fanatic Nazi who went to Argentina, who knew where
he was hiding, Eichmann, and did they did a long interview. And there he spoke
about himself as if he was a real fanatic Nazi and he wanted to kill all the Jews,
even after the war and so. He gave himself such an importance that that was not
true. My interpretation is that he was hiding so long that then coming up
somebody who he could show what a kind of man he was, and then in the trial, he
put down his light — how do you say, he put down his importance and perhaps he
was more important than he made believe in the trial. But I think it was in
between. But this main point for "Hannah Arendt" is that she says he
was not stupid. He was thoughtless. He did not think. And that you can really,
in some of the clips I show, you can really see it. And when you speak German,
you can even feel it more because he is unable to say one sentence in the right
way.
AMY GOODMAN: As the trial in Jerusalem is
underway, Arendt meets with friends at a restaurant and reveals what she
perceives of Eichmann’s character. Her old political mentor and friend, Kurt
Blumenfeld, fiercely disagrees with her.
ACTOR AS HANNAH ARENDT: [translated] He
swears he never personally harmed a Jew.
ACTOR AS KURT BLUMENFELD: [translated] So
he claims.
ACTOR AS HANNAH ARENDT: [translated] But
isn’t it interesting that a man who did everything a murderous system asked of
him, who even seems eager to give precise details of his fine works, that this
man insists he personally has nothing against Jews?
ACTOR: [translated] He’s lying!
ACTOR AS HANNAH ARENDT: [translated]
False, he’s not.
ACTOR: He claims he didn’t know where the
trains were going. Do you believe that to?
ACTOR AS HANNAH ARENDT: [translated]
Knowing that was irrelevant for him. He transported people to their deaths but
didn’t feel responsible for it. Once the trains were in motion his work was
done.
ACTOR AS KURT BLUMENFELD: [translated] So
we can say he’s free of guilt? Despite what happened to the people he
transported?
ACTOR AS HANNAH ARENDT: [translated] Yes,
that’s how he sees it. He’s a bureaucrat.
ACTOR AS KURT BLUMENFELD: [translated]
Your quest for truth is admirable but this time you’ve gone too far.
ACTOR AS HANNAH ARENDT: [translated] But,
Kurt, you can’t deny the huge difference between the unspeakable horror of the
deeds and the mediocrity of the man.
AMY GOODMAN: That is Hannah Arendt
fiercely debating Kurt Blumenfeld. Margarethe Von Trotta, talk about the heart,
because this is the heart of what Hannah Arendt is arguing in the banality of
evil. Explain.
MARGARETHE VON TROTTA: Yeah, because she
went there expecting a monster like everybody else because she couldn’t
understand or she could not expect it’s only a normal bureaucrat. So, she had
to wait to get to her idea about him. She did not have it immediately. But then
in this scene, she was already there for certain time, so she could look at him
and observe him already. So, she came up with this idea of the only
bureaucratic. And Kurt Blumenfeld who was [Indiscernible] in this scene in the
end, he’s so angry with her that she turns away. Even when he is on his
deathbed, he even doesn’t want to see her anymore. So, we have both opinions in
the film. You can choose where you want to stand and where you want to be, with
Blumenfeld or with her, or also Hans Jonas her old friend, a student with her
with Martin Heidegger the philosopher — he also turns away.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: One of the criticisms of
the film has been that it gives the impression that there were no Jewish
intellectuals who agreed with Hannah Arendt at the time of her writing these
articles in The New Yorker with the subsequent publication of the book, whereas
people point out that there were, you know, Bruno Bettelheim, for example, as
well as Raul Hilberg, there were Jewish intellectuals who agreed. Was their a
decision that you made to represent only the voices of opposition for dramatic
purposes, or can you just talk about that?
MARGARETHE VON TROTTA: There were very
few who did understand her and who defended her, very few. We chose Mary
McCarthy because she was a friend of her during the whole life in America and
also during the period we show. So, we put in all the defending theme in her
part. And others are portraits and others enable and ho and so.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain, once she wrote
the pieces in The New Yorker, the fire The New Yorker came under and that she
came under, because she like many German Jewish intellectuals had come to be in
New York at the New School, they founded the New School, and she might even
have lost her job there. There were so much pressure for her to resign.
MARGARETHE VON TROTTA: Yeah, and she
feared all of the sudden she will go to exile again. That was also a point she
was suffering about, because when you had to go away from your country for once
and then she went to Paris and when the Germans invaded France, they put these
people who came to France to be protected, they put them in interment camps.
All of a sudden there again she had to flee. So, it was from both countries she
was exiled or she had to flee. Then she came to America. For her, it was paradise.
Like she said in the film, she was so happy with her — even if she didn’t speak
a word of English when she came here, no? And then after this controversy, she
had the feeling that also in this country, who became her home, she was not
well seen and she became again a stranger. That was very, very painful for her.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Let’s go to a clip from
the film where Hannah Arendt is put under extraordinary pressure after the
articles have appeared in The New Yorker and she is even asked to leave the university
in the U.S. where she is lecturing at the time.
ACTOR: [translated] We’ve discussed it at
length and arrived at unanimous decision.
ACTOR: [translated] We respectfully
advise you to relinquish your teaching obligations.
ACTOR AS HANNAH ARENDT: [translated]
Under no circumstances will I give up my class.
ACTOR: [translated] You may not have
enough students were willing to study with you.
ACTOR AS HANNAH ARENDT: [translated]
Perhaps you’ve not been in communication with your own students, but I am entirely
oversubscribed at the moment. And because of the extraordinary support of the
students, I have decided to accept the invitation and I will speak publicly
hysterical reaction to my report.
ACTOR: [translated] That is Hannah
Arendt, all arrogance and no feeling.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Barbara Sukowa, could you
talk about that particular scene? And she goes on after that to give an
absolutely spectacular speech, which one reviewer has said is the greatest
articulation of the importance of thinking that will ever be presented in a
film.
BARBARA SUKOWA: Really? Well, I had a
good script writer.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: It is a seven-minute long
speech. Can you talk about how you prepared for it and how it is you delivered
it? It is very powerful.
BARBARA SUKOWA: Well, as Margarethe said
before, what goes through all her writings is the sentence "I want to
understand." She wants those students to understand, too. I thought it was
really important that I as an actor really have to understand what she is
saying because otherwise the audience will understand it. So, we worked on that
scene quite a bit. We changed a little lines. We really tried to make it in a
way that people understood it. And there had to find a balance between an
emotional approach because she was emotional at this point. She was very
afraid. She always was very afraid when she had to go in front of the public
and to talk. She had like almost stage fright. And also be very clear on the
thinking. So, it cannot be — as an actor, you cannot only go the — you can’t be
just like a cold thinker in that moment. You have to also bring in her emotion.
So, we tried to find that balance so that those people would understand.
For me, the reason why I did also this
film with Margarethe because of the topic of the Holocaust is one that has been
a big topic of my life because the generation that raised me, my teachers, my
parents, they were all part of that generation.
AMY GOODMAN: Where were you born?
BARBARA SUKOWA: I was born in Bremen.
AMY GOODMAN: Germany.
BARBARA SUKOWA: When Hannah Arendt says,
if you see that man, in the scene before, that you showed, and the difference,
the horrors that happened, it was something that she could not bring together.
How is that mediocre man there and there are these incredible horrors. The same
for us. It was, how are there are these nice people that we know? How could
they witness his incredible horrors? Are they lying? Are they not lying? What
did they really know? So, this was, for me, also, a reason why I was very
attracted to that topic again and to Hannah Arendt. I really do think that the
question whether Eichmann is really mediocre or not, there’s been a lot of
research out since Hannah Arendt wrote the book — I mean, JYad Va’Shem was only
just founded at that time. Now they have big archives.
AMY GOODMAN: The memorial in Israel.
BARBARA SUKOWA: But, the thing is, that
he is a prototype. It doesn’t matter whether he personally — whether she was
right on him. Other people might see a demon in him. But these people existed,
these bureaucrat. The thing is that he never regretted. He felt justified with
what he did. He said, "I obeyed the law of my country and a lot my country
was Hitler’s law." I think that is interesting for us, today. How much do
you obey a law? You have to think about the law.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Actress Barbara Sukowa,
is the star of "Hannah Arendt." We were also joined by the film’s
director Margarethe von Trotta. The film has just been released on DVD.
AMY GOODMAN: Tune in Thursday and Friday
for our holiday shows our tribute to Yip Harburg, black-listed lyricist who the
rainbow in "The Wizard of Oz." He also wrote the words to
"Brother Can You Spare a Dime," and so much more. Then our discussion
about "Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery and the Troubled History of America’s
Universities" with Craig Steven Wilder and Katrina Brown.
---
Reverend Billy Faces Year in Prison for
Protesting JPMorgan Chase’s Financing of Fossil Fuels
For more than a decade, Reverend Billy,
along with his Church of Stop Shopping, has preached fiery sermons against
recreational consumerism — and more recently, against climate disaster. You can
often find them greeting the crush of shoppers at Macy’s in New York City on
Black Friday. That may not be the case this year. That is because in September,
Rev. Billy was arrested after staging a 15-minute musical protest at a JPMorgan
Chase bank in Manhattan to highlight the bank’s environmental record and the
extinction of a Central American golden toad. He now faces a year in prison for
misdemeanor charges of riot in the second degree, menacing in the third degree,
unlawful assembly and two counts of disorderly conduct. Despite this, he and
The Stop Shopping Choir are performing in New York City every Sunday through
December 22. Rev. Billy is also featured in the film "What Would Jesus
Buy?" and in the book of the same name.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not
be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As a Northeast braces for
major holiday storm, we turn to a story about a prominent New York performance
artist and activist who faces a possible jail sentence for preaching about
climate change and the fossil fuel industry. For more than a decade, Bill Talen
Reverend Billy has preached fiery sermons against recreational consumerism and
more recently, against climate disaster. You can also find Reverend Billy and
his Church of Stop Shopping greeting the crush of shoppers at Macy’s here in
New York on Black Friday. That may not be the case this year. That is because
in September, Reverend Billy was arrested after staging a 15 minute musical
protest at a JPMorgan chase bank in Manhattan. This is part of a video made a
similar protest in June in a JPMorgan Chase bank lobby.
REVEREND BILLY: We are in the midst of a
mass extinction at this time. I ask you to think of your own children. I am a
father of a three-year-old and I’m worried about the kind of world that my
daughter will inherit. Please, protect life, protect the earth. Take your money
out of JPMorgan Chase or work inside the bank to change the value system of
this bank. It is the largest bank in the United States by assets, but it is
also the top bank in the world for financing industrial projects which poisoned
the atmosphere with CO2 emissions. Who caused hurricane Sandy? Chase Bank did
if anybody did. Rise up against the corporations that are poisoning the
atmosphere. It is up to you and to me. Only we can do it. Somebody give me
changellujah.
STOP SHOPPING CHOIR: Changellujah!
REVEREND BILLY: Somebody give me an
earthellujah.
STOP SHOPPING CHOIR: Earthellujah!
REVEREND BILLY: Somebody give me a
lifellujah!
STOP SHOPPING CHOIR: Lifellujah!
AMY GOODMAN: For our radio listeners, you
can see in the video protesters are wearing yellow frog masks. Well, for
protesting JPMorgan Chase Reverend Billy now faces a year in prison for
misdemeanor charges or riot in the second degree, menacing in the third degree,
unlawful assembly and two counts of disorderly conduct. Despite this, he and
the Stop Shopping Choir are performing at Joe’s Pub here in New York every
Sunday through December 22. Reverend Billy is also featured in the film
"What Would Jesus Buy?" and the book of the same name. His most
recent boot is, "The End of the World." He is joining us here in our
New York studio. It’s great to have you back, Billy.
REVEREND BILLY: Glad to be here, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about that action that
you are engaged in.
REVEREND BILLY: It was a different action
for us. Going back across the years, all of our performances inside banks, UBS,
Deutsche Bank, World Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Bank of America, and many Chase
Banks, this one was unusual in that we, on purpose, chose an uptown Manhattan
bank that we knew to be frequented by people from Wall Street wealthy people.
It’s called a wealth management bank. It had a design where the escalator shot
up to the third floor so our 14 singing toad actors could go right into the center
of what we call white people land where all of these people were having hushed
conversations about their stock portfolios.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, explain the significance
of the golden toad.
REVEREND BILLY: The golden toad was
driven into extinction 30 years ago in Central America in the mountains. Cloud
forest ponds were its habitat. It is a beautiful, a luminescent forest creature
called the allelujah toad toad by the indigenous people there. And the United
Nations and — there is a consensus among natural scientist that this is one of
the first prominent species to be killed by climate change.
AMY GOODMAN: Democracy Now! was just
broadcasting from Warsaw all last week at the United Nations Climate Change
Summit. One of the most powerful leaders there is Christiana Figueres, Head of
the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC. She is from Costa
Rica. She recently told KQED the disappearance of the Golden toad from Costa
Rica had a lasting impression on her. She said, "I was about 12 or 13 and
my parents took me to a rainforest in Costa Rica where there was an endemic
golden frog that was a beautiful species. By the time I was married and had
children, the species of frog had disappeared because of the increasing
temperatures [caused by climate change]. The fact that I have seen the
disappearance of a species in my lifetime has left me marked. I now realize the
planet I’m leaving to my children is visibly diminished from the planet I
inherited." Your thoughts, Reverend Billy?
REVEREND BILLY: I am listening to you and
I am hoping that there is a way that we can be marked by the extinction of the
world, the extinction wave is real and the financing of the extinction wave by
people who profit from it is real. But, don’t — we are so consumerized.
Something is wrong with us, we don’t have any fight or flight. We’re not
responding. The natural scientists have a consensus, they are telling us we are
in grave danger. When other life dies, we die as well. I think we are taught
by, I don’t know, the Industrial Revolution, enlightenment, capitalism, we are
taught that the human species can exist alone, but Dr. E.O. Wilson, kind of the
leader of the extinction experts in the world, a biology teacher up at Harvard,
they all say, that, that is not possible. If the biosphere becomes damaged on a
certain level, we suffer damage, too.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: How is it that JPMorgan
Chase, the bank that you targeted, how is it that they’re involved in climate
change, exacerbating climate change?
REVEREND BILLY: Our research has it that
JPMorgan chase is the top financier of climate change in the world. Its
investments put more CO2 and nitrous oxide and methane into the atmosphere than
any other single investor. Of course they are traditionally a fossil fuel bank.
They come to us from standard oil. There’ve also been a fossil fuel bank. The
trouble is they continue to be. But, now like all the corporations, pour
hundreds of millions of dollars into green-washing advertising and we are led
to believe that they have a neutral carbon footprint and we’re subject to their
propaganda.
AMY GOODMAN: This year Rainforest Action
Network, the Sierra Club, Bank Track, released their fourth annual coal report
card which evaluates the largest U.S. banks and their financing coal, the largest
contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. The report found "U.S.
banks financed a combined $20.8 billion for the worst-of-the-worst companies in
the coal industry in 2012. Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase had
the most exposure to coal among the U.S. banks in 2012, financing $3 billion,
$2.75 billion, and $2.17 billion respectively in loan and underwriting
transactions with companies that engage in mountaintop removal, coal mining or
electrical utilities that are expanding or extending the lives of their
coal-fired power plant fleets." The report gave JPMorgan a D+ for policies
on mountain top removal, and a D for financing of coal-fired power plants.
Reverend Billy, in the last minute we have with you, if you could share with us
a pre-Thanksgiving sermon in this period where, well, it will soon be decided
whether or not you go to jail.
REVEREND BILLY: I just want to ask, this
thing that we share here at this table, the people in the studio audience, the
people watching us right now, we share this amazing, unexplained thing called
life. I just want to pray to life. Lifelluja. May we respect the life in
others. May we respect life in the species, the plants, the animals that we
share this beautiful planet with, may we respect the lives of the workers who
are serving us with this strange convenience, these products that we are
addicted to, this Black Friday weekend. We can’t afford to force life into an
other category anymore. We’re all life together. Earthelluja.
AMY GOODMAN: Reverend Billy, I want thank
you for being with us. Your final thoughts, 15 seconds — quick question, would
Jesus go to jail?
REVEREND BILLY: Well, Jesus taught us — I
mean there are lots of things about Jesus that we can’t listen to right? But,
one thing he did teach us is, if you can’t afford a press person, get arrested
quickly.
AMY GOODMAN: Reverend Billy, I want to
thank you very much for being with us.
REVEREND BILLY: Amen.
AMY GOODMAN: Reverend Billy, performance
artist, arrested September after staging a 15 minute musical protest at Chase
Manhattan.
-------
HEADLINES:
U.N. Sets Syria Peace Talks for January
The United Nations has set a January date
for peace talks between the Syrian government and rebel opposition.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the gathering on Monday.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:
"The Geneva conference on Syria will take place on Wednesday, January 22,
2014. At long last and for the first time, the Syrian government and opposition
will meet at the negotiating table instead of the battlefield."
Despite the announcement, the opposition
Syrian National Council says it will maintain its precondition for negotiations
that excludes President Basher al-Assad from any political transition. It is
also unclear if Syria’s key ally, Iran, will be invited to the talks. Speaking
earlier today, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran is
prepared to attend if invited.
---
Obama on Iran Deal: "We Cannot Rule
Out Peaceful Solutions"
President Obama struck back at critics of
the Iran nuclear deal Monday with a speech in San Francisco. Top Republicans
and the Israeli government have denounced the agreement since it was reached
Saturday night. Obama said opponents of the deal champion "tough talk and
bluster."
President Obama: "If Iran seizes
this opportunity and chooses to join the global community, then we can begin to
chip away at the mistrust that’s existed for many, many years between our two
countries. None of that’s going to be easy; huge challenges remain but we
cannot close the door to diplomacy, we cannot rule out peaceful solutions to
the world’s problems. We cannot commit ourselves to an endless cycle of
conflict and tough talk and bluster may be the easy thing to do politically,
but it’s not the right thing for our security."
Despite Obama’s stance, Senate Democrats
said Monday they have not ruled out taking up new sanctions against Iran when
Congress reconvenes next month. Iran has warned that any new sanctions would
scuttle the Geneva agreement.
---
Obama Admin Warns Karzai on Delaying
U.S.-Afghan Pact
The Obama administration has warned
Afghan President Hamid Karzai over his plan to delay signing of a security pact
that would preserve a long-term U.S. occupation. In Kabul, National Security
Adviser Susan Rice personally delivered an ultimatum Monday that U.S. troops
could fully withdraw in 2014 if Karzai does not add his signature before the
end of the year. A council of elders approved the U.S.-Afghan pact, but now
Karzai is seeking to continue negotiations. According to a spokesperson, Karzai
wants an end to U.S. raids on Afghan homes as well as the release of all
prisoners from Guantánamo Bay.
---
Pakistani Lawmakers Protest U.S. Drone
Strikes
Protests are continuing in Pakistan
against the U.S. drone war. On Monday, dozens of lawmakers marched on the U.S.
consulate in KPK province to deliver a petition calling for an end to drone
strikes.
Sirajul Haq, KPK Minister of Finance:
"Drone attacks are a violation of the U.N. charter. Today, these members
of the National Assembly, Cabinet members and members of the Provincial
Assembly have gathered here on behalf of hundreds of thousands of residents of
KPK Province, and indeed on behalf of millions of Pakistani people. We have
handed a memorandum demanding an immediate end to drone attacks on our sacred
soil."
Sit-ins were also held Monday in parts of
the KPK to block NATO supply routes used for the Afghan War.
---
Report: CIA Will Retain Control over
Drone Strikes
The Washington Post has confirmed earlier
reports the CIA will continue to oversee the U.S. drone war, despite stated
plans to hand over control to the military. An emerging White House plan would
see the CIA handle the bulk of drone operations and involve someone in a U.S.
military uniform in the final stages.
---
12 Killed in Yemen Drone Strike
At least 12 people have been killed in an
air strike in Yemen. The Yemeni government says the victims were suspected
al-Qaeda militants in southern Abyan province. It is unclear if the attack was
carried out by the Yemeni government or the United States.
---
Iraq Bombings Kill 17
In Iraq, at least 17 people were killed
and 37 wounded on Monday when a pair of bombs struck a Baghdad café. Iraq is
suffering its worst spate of violence in five years. More than 150 people have
died in nationwide violence over the past week.
---
Israel Announces New Settlement
Construction in West Bank
Israel has announced yet another round of
settlement construction in the occupied West Bank. On Monday, the Israeli
government confirmed plans for building more than 800 new homes on Palestinian
land. Palestinian political leader Hanan Ashrawi said Israel is seeking to
punish Palestinians for the international nuclear deal with Iran.
Hanan Ashrawi: "It is a challenge to
the whole world, the international law, the international community and
especially the United States. It comes in the context of the American and
Iranian talks on the nuclear weapons and power in Iran, which means Israel is
looking for a price tag policy and to respond to the United States through the
violations against the Palestinian side in order to foil the attempt to have a
peace agreement in the region."
---
Ruling Party Wins Honduran Elections,
Challenger Claims Fraud
Election officials in Honduras say
right-wing ruling party candidate Juan Orlando Hernández has an insurmountable
lead over Xiomara Castro, the wife of ousted president Manuel Zelaya, in the
presidential race. With a third of votes yet to be counted, Hernández has 34
percent of the vote while Castro has 29 percent. But Castro and her supporters
have rejected the results, alleging fraud. Former President Zelaya said they
will peacefully challenge the results in the streets.
Manuel Zelaya: "If necessary we will
take to the streets to defend our rights as we have always done and it’s
necessary. Secondly, we are pacifists, we don’t use violence and the martyrs
and murdered are on the side of the resistance, not the power and we are
willing to continue with the process of reconciliation but that does not mean
to give up on justice. Never."
Hundreds of Castro supporters have
already been gathering to protest the results.
---
Obama Challenged on Deportations in
Immigration Speech
President Obama continued his public
campaign for an immigration reform bill Monday with a speech in San Francisco.
During his remarks, Obama engaged with an audience member who interrupted him
to call for an end to deportations. What made it unusual was this young man was
one of the people who was chosen to stand behind Obama, so he was almost on
mic. Obama turned around to address him directly.
Protester: "You have the power to
stop deportations for all."
President Obama: "Actually. I don’t.
And that’s why we’re here ... The easy way out is to try to yell and pretend
like I can do something by violating our laws. And what I’m proposing is the
harder path, which is to use our democratic processes to achieve the same goal
that you want to achieve — but it won’t be as easy as just shouting. It
requires us lobbying and getting it done."
Obama’s comments come days after House
Speaker John Boehner ruled out a House vote on immigration reform before the
end of the year. In one of several actions nationwide, activists are now in the
third week of a "Fast for Families" encampment on the National Mall.
Participants are on a hunger strike in a bid to pressure Congress to pass
reform.
---
School Superintendent, 3 Others Charged
for Steubenville Rape Cover-Up
Four school officials have been charged
in connection with the cover-up of a rape of a 16-year-old girl by two high
school football players in Steubenville, Ohio, last year. The case sparked a
national controversy following the emergence of images and social media
postings from the night of the assault, including one picture of the defendants
holding the victim over a basement floor. On Monday, the superintendent of
Steubenville schools was charged with evidence tampering, obstruction of
justice, and falsification. Two coaches and a school principal were also
charged. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said holding the suspects
accountable would help bring closure.
Mike DeWine: "This community has
suffered a great deal. This community has suffered so much. I personally feel
for the good citizens of this community and what they have endured. I know they
desperately need to be able to put this matter behind them. What we must take
away from these incidents is this: All of us, all of us, no matter where we
live, owe it to each other to be better neighbors, better classmates, better
friends, better parents, better citizens."
Another school official was indicted with
evidence tampering last month.
---
Company Says Morning-After Pill Doesn’t
Work for Those Over 176 Lbs.
The European manufacturer of an emergency
contraceptive pill identical to its U.S. counterpart says the product does not
work for women who weigh over 176 pounds. HRA Pharma says its drug begins to
lose effectiveness at preventing pregnancy in women who weigh more than 165
pounds. The drug is identical the popular Plan B One-Step and other emergency
contraceptives sold in the United States, where the average woman weighs 166
pounds — potentially too much to take the drug effectively. The European firm
is adding a warning to its packaging. U.S. regulators are now evaluating
whether to require similar labels.
-------
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