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Senate Finance Committee leaders Republican Orrin Hatch and Democrat Ron Wyden are expected to introduce a "fast-track" trade promotion authority bill as early as this week that would give the president authority to negotiate the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and then present it to Congress for a yes-or-no vote, with no amendments allowed. On Wednesday, more than 1,000 labor union members rallied on Capitol Hill to call on Democrats to oppose "fast-track" authority. We speak with two people closely following the proposed legislation: Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, and Rep. Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida.
Image Credit: Teamsters
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to the pending vote in Congress on the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership, a global trade deal currently being negotiated between the United States and 11 Latin American and Asian countries. Senate Finance Committee leaders Republican Orrin Hatch and Democrat Ron Wyden are expected to introduce a fast-track trade promotion authority bill as early as this week that would give the president authority to negotiate the TPP trade deal and then present it to Congress for a yes-or-no vote, with no amendments allowed. The bill would need 60 votes to pass the full Senate. Republicans control 54 votes, and almost all are expected to vote for the measure.
On Wednesday, more than a thousand labor union members rallied outside the U.S. Capitol to call on Democrats to oppose fast-track authority. They were joined by several members of Congress. This is Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: What this is about is not just trade. It is about whether this United States Congress begins to work for the middle class and working families of this country or whether it is totally owned by billionaires and their lobbyists.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Independent Senator Bernie Sanders. We’ll let you know if he actually officially announces that he’s running for president.
For more on the brewing battle in Congress over the Trans-Pacific Partnership and fast-track authority in Congress, we’re joined by two guests. Lori Wallach is with us, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. And Congressmember Alan Grayson is with us, a Democrat from Florida.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Lori Wallach, let’s just begin with you. We have been following the whole issue of both fast track and TPP, but for those who are not familiar with it—perhaps that’s why bills like this go the way they go—explain briefly why the Trans-Pacific Partnership is so significant.
LORI WALLACH: The Trans-Pacific Partnership would make it easier for corporations to offshore our jobs. It’s based on the NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Korea Free Trade Agreement. It has the same provisions that give companies who offshore, who relocate their investments, special privileges and protections that make it cheaper and safer to move our jobs to low-wage countries. And TPP includes a lot of low-wage countries, which means our wages will get pushed down, when Americans are made to compete, for instance, with workers in Vietnam who are making less than 60 cents an hour.
In addition, TPP would open to 9,000 more corporations the right to drag the U.S. government into investor-state corporate tribunals. Those are the extrajudicial tribunals where panels of three corporate attorneys would be empowered to rule on a claim brought directly against the U.S. government by a foreign corporation claiming they should get compensation from our tax dollars for any domestic law they think violates their rights under the agreement, and they should get paid for their lost future profits for having to meet our laws.
In addition, provisions of the TPP—because most of it’s not about trade; 29 chapters, only five about trade—chapters would undermine Internet freedom. The copyright chapter has pieces of SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, in it. The patent chapter would increase medicine prices. It gives big pharmaceutical companies extra monopolies. The financial services chapter would roll back financial regulation. The procurement chapter would undermine "Buy America," "Buy Local" preferences. Basically—the services chapter would undermine energy regulation and undermine the policies that we need to combat the climate crisis. Basically, the entire agenda that is necessary for a decent life and livelihood and health of America, and the people in the 11 other countries, is being rolled back in the name of a trade agreement that really is just a corporate Trojan horse tool negotiated for six years in secrecy.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Congressman Alan Grayson, could you explain your opposition to fast-track authority and what you’re calling on your colleagues in Congress to do?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: Well, I agree with everything that Lori just said, but I think there’s also a bigger picture to consider. Our free trade, our so-called free trade, policies have been a disaster for the United States since NAFTA was enacted. Before NAFTA was enacted and went into effect 20 years ago, we never had any year in our history when we had a trade deficit of $135 billion or more. Every single year since then, for 20 years in a row, our trade deficit has been over $135 billion. Our last 14 trade deficits have been the 14 largest trade deficits not only in our history, but in the history of the entire world. And the result of that is that we’ve gone from $2 trillion in surplus with our trade to $11 trillion in debt. And we’ve lost five million manufacturing jobs and roughly 15 million other jobs in the last 20 years. So we’ve lost twice: We’ve lost the jobs, and we’ve also gone deeper and deeper into debt. So what’s happening is not that we’re buying goods and services from foreigners and they’re buying an equal amount of goods and services from us—that’s the way free trade is supposed to work. What’s actually happening is that we’re buying our goods and services from foreigners, and they are taking the money that we give to them for that and buying our assets.
That has all sorts of consequences for our economy. First we lose those jobs. Secondly, it makes American income and wealth more and more unequal. The reason why we have the fourth most unequal distribution of wealth in the world is because of fake trade. The reason why we have a bizarre, at this point unprecedented, quantitative easing policy, where the government uses the cash in our pockets to buy up assets and drive those asset prices up further and further, is because of fake trade. The reason why we have a federal deficit is because we have a trade deficit. And what happens is, the TPP, fast track, the Transatlantic version of TPP, these dramatically increase the amount of countries with whom we have this relationship—they quadruple them—and they put us on a fast track to hell, where America is nothing but cheap labor and debt slavery.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to President Obama speaking in February after he began the major push for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: This is bipartisan legislation that would protect American workers and promote American businesses, with strong new trade deals from Asia to Europe that aren’t just free, but are fair. It would level the playing field for American workers. It would hold all countries to the same high labor and environmental standards to which we hold ourselves.
Now, I’m the first to admit that past trade deals haven’t always lived up to the hype. And that’s why we’ve successfully gone after countries that break the rules at our workers’ expense. But that doesn’t mean we should close ourselves off from new opportunities and sit on the sidelines while other countries write our future for us.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s President Obama speaking in February. President Obama is, obviously, president of the United States, leading Democrat. Congressman Grayson, he represents your party, as well. Why the difference? Who are the blocs now that are united? We’re not just talking it’s Democrats here and Republicans here. What set of Republicans and Democrats agree on this?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: Well, it’s a mystery to me. You know, I was in the room when the president gave that statement and made that speech. He gave a 45-minute speech. On those three sentences, that was the only time during that entire speech when the Republicans rose up and applauded him and the Democrats did not. And I think that’s very revealing. There are very, very few Democratic votes in the House of Representatives, because we represent ordinary working people. The groups that are lobbying the hardest for this are the multinational corporations and their K Street lobbyists. They’re the ones who desperately want to see this passed, for the reasons that Lori Wallach just mentioned and enumerated. Ordinary Democrats represent constituencies who have been hurt hard, really hurt very hard, by the loss of those five million manufacturing jobs and 15 million other jobs. Go to any Democratic district in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. And the fact is that there is very little support, if any significant support, within the Democratic House Caucus for fast track or for TPP. We do have a few corporate Democrats. Frankly, we do have a couple of sell-out Democrats, who have sold out to the corporate lobbyists. But the bulk of the Democratic Party well understands, along with the labor movement and ordinary people, that these policies have been disastrous for us. And it is a lie to say that they will improve the economy. In fact, they will continue the downward trend of the economy, until foreigners own everything.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Lori Wallach, I want to ask you about a comment that you made about President Obama’s shift on this, since he voted in 2005 against the Central American Free Trade Agreement and subsequently explained his decision in the Chicago Tribune, what you referred to—his op-ed, that is—as his "Hamlet essay." Could you say why you called it that and what you think accounts for this transition of his on free trade?
LORI WALLACH: Well, I called it his Hamlet essay because it was on the one hand, on the other hand, to be or not to be. And he basically voted against the Central American NAFTA expansion, CAFTA, Central America Free Trade Agreement, probably mainly for political reasons. He would have been one of the very few Democrats who was for it. But the op-ed that he wrote in the Chicago Tribune basically laid out how much he wanted to be for the agreement. And I’m not sure it’s so much a transition as he went from not feeling very strongly about these issues, but being surrounded by a lot of advisers who thought it was a great idea—NAFTA, CAFTA—the sort of few last unrequited NAFTA lovers in the Democratic Party. And unfortunately, those are precisely the people he brought in, as president, to be his international economic advisers. So, the Larry Summers, Mike Froman, who is the current trade ambassador, these guys, some of them, like Froman, a Wall Street revolving-door guy, some of them authors of NAFTA, so maybe a little cognitive dissonance about what it did—those guys have marinated him in NAFTA juice, and it’s come, basically, to seep into his pores. And he now has become a guy who basically, but for maybe the Democratic Congress saving him—the Democrats in Congress—would basically ruin his own legacy by passing a trade agreement that would undermine everything he’s achieved and everything he says he stands for. The good news, as Congressman Grayson said, is that there are only a handful of Democrats who are left who are either undecided or prepared to support fast track.
And so, for folks across the country, this is a vote that could happen by the end of April. We’re talking quick. Every day that this debate gets aired, more and more people come out against. So, every person should find out where their member in the House of Representatives stands on fast track, and just ask them directly. Call the office over the weekend, your member of Congress’s home. Look in the blue pages. Get the local address. Just stop by. A lot of them have office hours. And just ask, "Will you commit to me, your constituent, that you’re going to hold onto your constitutional trade powers, not vote for fast track, which throws that away—it’s a process that literally is a delegation of Congress’s authority to stand up for us—and make sure we don’t see more jobs offshored with trade agreements?" That is what we all have to do, and we have to do it now.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Lori, can you talk about the investment chapter of TPP, that was leaked by WikiLeaks, which highlights the intent of U.S.-led negotiators to create a tribunal where corporations can sue governments if their laws interfere with a company’s claimed future profits?
LORI WALLACH: So, this is the chapter that both creates the incentives that basically promote countries to offshore. Ironically, the Cato Institute is against this chapter because, from their perspective, it’s an unfair market distortion giving a subsidy in favor of offshoring. They have no problem with offshoring; they just think the market should decide, we shouldn’t use our trade agreements to promote job offshoring. So, the flipside of that is, and one of the special privileges the corporations would get is, they get elevated literally to nationhood. They get the same status as a nation state to privately enforce the terms of a public treaty. It’s called investor-state dispute resolution. And if you want to learn a lot about it, go to www.isdscorporateattacks.org, isdscorporateattacks.org. It’s a new website that has all of these cases where corporations are empowered to drag a sovereign government to a tribunal of three private-sector trade attorneys, who rotate between being the attorneys for the corporations suing the governments and being the "judges." No conflict-of-interest rules. And these three private corporate attorneys can order a government to pay our tax dollars, in unlimited amounts, to a foreign corporation because they think that our domestic environmental, land-use, zoning, health, labor laws violate their new corporate rights in an agreement like TPP.
And the thing is, we’ve got a passel of those kind of agreements already. Folks remember, under NAFTA, we’ve had some horrible cases. Four hundred million dollars has already been paid out to corporations, even under NAFTA, where the system is narrower than what’s proposed for TPP. But there are very few companies from the countries we’ve had the past agreements with, because it’s mainly been developing countries. So there are 9,000 existing companies in all 50 agreements we have with this system. Just with TPP alone, we have another 9,000, mainly companies from Japan, so countries with—companies with sophistication and wherewithal. Plus, if we did the European agreement, we’d quadruple our liability, so that it’s only a matter of time before our laws get sacked. Warning to everyone: Go look at the Sierra Club website. Recent case like this under NAFTA called the Bilcon case, Sierra Club has a great exposé on it. The actual one of the tribunalists, one of the corporate lawyers, steps back and says, "If we keep doing things like this—I have to break with the rest of you. If we keep doing this, this investor-state system is going to chill all our environmental laws." That’s what one of the tribunalists said.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Grayson, do you have to rely on WikiLeaks to get information about what’s actually in the TPP agreement?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: Well, one of the sad and disturbing elements of this whole process has been the artificial secrecy that’s been imposed by the administration and by the trade representative on these dealings. I can’t think of any other occasion, when I’ve served in Congress, when I’ve seen the element of deception loom so large here. The public is better informed of Iraqi attacks on ISIS, which you’d think would be classified, than it is informed on a trade deal that’s going to determine our economic future for the next 20 years. What’s happened is that, right at the beginning, the trade representative took the absurd position that everything that was being negotiated was classified, even though it was directly in the hands of the foreign governments with whom he was negotiating. Remember, normally, we have a classified system to keep information away from our enemies, or at least other governments. In this case, it was the other governments that had the information, and it was Congress and the American people who were being denied the information. And they took that position for five years, even though 100 members of Congress wrote a letter to the trade representative saying, "Cut this out."
Now, I’m the first member of Congress to actually see any part of the TPP, even though 600 corporate lobbyists are, quote, "advisers" to the trade representative and they get to see everything. And I insisted they take that information to my office, and in return they told me I couldn’t take it with me, I couldn’t take it home, I couldn’t make notes on it, I couldn’t have my staff present. And here’s the kicker: They didn’t want me to discuss it with the media, the public or even other members of Congress. So it’s a farce. And it’s meant specifically to keep the information away from the American people, because if the American people knew what was going on, they’d recognize that it’s a punch to the face of the middle class in America.
A day after a mailman from Florida landed a tiny personal aircraft called a gyrocopter on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol in a protest to demand campaign finance reform, we speak to Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida about money and politics. Grayson also reveals that he will "probably" run for U.S. Senate in 2016 for Marco Rubio’s seat, who has joined the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Grayson, I assume you heard the story of the gyrocopter that landed on the White House lawn [Capitol lawn]. This mailman named Doug Hughes, basically a flying bicycle, landed on the lawn. He expected to be blown out of the air. But he said he was doing this for campaign finance reform. He had a letter to every member of Congress. I want to ask you, how much does the money that is going to your fellow Democrats and Republicans determine their support for TPP?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: It’s decisive. I am the only member of the House of Representatives—there are 435 of us—
AMY GOODMAN: Rather, he landed on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol, so it was even closer to you.
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: That’s right. I’m the only member of the House of Representatives who raised most of his campaign funds in the last election from small contributions of less than $200. Thousands of people came to our website, CongressmanWithGuts.com, and made contributions. I am one—one—out of 435. On the other side of the building, over at the U.S. Senate, there’s only one member of the U.S. Senate who raised most of his campaign from some small contributions. That’s Bernie Sanders, who you heard earlier in this broadcast. That tells you something. In fact, to a large degree, in both parties, because of the absence of campaign finance reform, the place is bought and paid for. And the only question is: Do the members stay bought? That’s what the corporate lobbyists stay up late at night wondering about: Is that member going to stay bought?
Now, I was actually in the courtroom when this disastrous Citizens United decision was decided five years ago. Mitch McConnell was two seats to my left. We were the only public officials who were in the courtroom. Mitch McConnell was the happiest I have ever seen him that day. He was literally chortling when the decision was rendered. And I said on MSNBC that night five years ago that if we do nothing, you can kiss this country goodbye. Well, pucker up, because right now the millionaires and the billionaires and the multinational corporations are calling the shots with whatever they want in TPP, whatever they want in fast track—more generally, whatever they want. They get the bailouts. They get the tax breaks. They get the so-called deregulation. They get what they want here because they get what they pay for.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Grayson, very quickly, Bernie Sanders hasn’t yet officially announced that he’s running for president, but what about you? Senator Rubio has announced he is running for president. Will you be running for his seat in Florida?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: I’m giving it a lot of attention. The answer is probably yes, but I haven’t made up my mind yet once and for all. I hope to do that soon.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you for being with us, Congressman Alan Grayson, Democrat of Florida’s 9th Congressional District, and Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’re going to Cambridge, Massachusetts. What’s Harvard Heat Week? Stay with us.
Students at Harvard University have expanded their blockade of key administration offices while calling on the school to divest from fossil fuels. Harvard has the largest endowment of any university in the world, at $36.4 billion. The protest began on Sunday when students began blockading Massachusetts Hall, the school’s central administrative building. Several alumni of Harvard have also taken part in the blockade including Bill McKibben, the founder of the group 350.org, and former Colorado Senator Tim Wirth. We speak to sophomore Talia Rothstein, one of the coordinators of Divest Harvard, and Harvard science professor Naomi Oreskes.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Harvard, where students are continuing to blockade key administration offices while calling on the school to divest from fossil fuels. Harvard has the largest endowment of any university in the world, at $36.4 billion. The protest began on Sunday when students began blockading Massachusetts Hall, the school’s central administrative building. Several alumni of Harvard have also taken part in the blockade, including Bill McKibben, the founder of the group 350.org and former Colorado Senator Tim Wirth. The protests are being organized by the group Divest Harvard, which produced this video.
DIVEST HARVARD VIDEO: We are Divest Harvard. We’re students, faculty, alumni and members of the community, calling on Harvard to divest from fossil fuel companies in order to stigmatize the fossil fuel industry and open up space for political action on climate change. Fossil fuel divestment means taking your money out of investments in fossil fuels and instead putting it into more socially responsible companies. Our message is simple: If it’s wrong to wreck the planet and threaten millions of lives, then it’s wrong to profit from that destruction.
AMY GOODMAN: Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust, whose office is in the blockaded Mass Hall, has spoken against divestment. In 2013, she said the endowment should not be seen as a, quote, "instrument to impel social or political change." Harvard University did not respond to Democracy Now!'s request for a university representative to join us for today's discussion, but we are joined by two guests.
Talia Rothstein is one of the coordinators of Divest Harvard. She’s been participating in a blockade of Mass Hall. She’s a sophomore at Harvard College. And Naomi Oreskes is with us, history of science professor, affiliated professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. Her 2004 essay, "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change," was widely cited, including by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth. And she’s co-author of The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future and the book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! But I want to go right to Talia, to begin with. Thank you for coming off campus to engage in this interview, but tell us what’s happening on campus right now.
TALIA ROTHSTEIN: Sure. Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. This morning, we expanded our blockade. We’ve been—as you said, we’ve been holding down a blockade of Massachusetts Hall, which is the main administrative building, since Sunday evening. But this morning, students and alumni also blockaded University Hall, starting at 6:00 a.m., and we’re holding it throughout the day, and culminating by surrounding University Hall this evening, holding hands.
AMY GOODMAN: And why are you doing this?
TALIA ROTHSTEIN: So, our campaign started a few years ago to try to open up conversation with Harvard about the impact of its investments in the fossil fuel industry. We’ve been repeatedly refused open dialogue of the kind we feel this issue deserves, and ostracized by the Harvard administration. They refuse to engage on this issue. For a few years, we attempted to create a space for dialogue and inevitably had to resort to civil disobedience to put as much public pressure on the Harvard administration as possible.
So, last spring, we blockaded the office of the president, as well, and a student was arrested after a day and a half. A few months ago, we occupied Massachusetts Hall for 24 hours and again received no significant consideration on the issue. And so, this week, called Harvard Heat Week, we’re assembling all the constituents of the movement—students, faculty, alumni, community members—to show the broad base of support, the range of diverse voices that support this movement, and to make sure that the Harvard administration can no longer ignore this issue of climate justice.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Professor Naomi Oreskes, could you talk about what you think the significance is of these actions at Harvard this week and what the argument is for Harvard University to divest from fossil fuels?
NAOMI ORESKES: I think the significance of these events is that there’s a disconnect between what we say we know and believe about climate change and how we’re acting. So, many people on campus, including our president and some of our most distinguished campus leaders, have said many times publicly that they know that climate change is real, that they accept the scientific evidence and that they feel a great sense of urgency about the issue, and yet that isn’t followed up by any action even remotely commensurate with that sense of urgency. So, for me, it’s this disconnect, a kind of incoherence between what we say we—what we say we know about climate change, and yet our failure to really act in the kinds of ways that would be commensurate with what we need to do.
In terms of the argument for divestment, for me, there’s two key things. It’s not so much for me about stigmatizing the fossil fuel industry. I think they’ve already stigmatized themselves. So, in our book, Merchants of Doubt, and in the film that we’ve just made about it, we document a long, really terrible history, going back to the 1980s and before, actually going back to the 1950s, of industry trying to deny and discredit scientific information relating to all kinds of issues, not just climate change, but tobacco, acid rain, the ozone hole. And what we show is that the fossil fuel industry has played a major role in these campaigns to discredit scientific information. So, at Harvard, like many great universities, we do research, we do scholarship. We are committed. Our purpose, our mission is teaching, research, learning, scholarship. And yet these industries have worked, directly, consciously, deliberately, to undermine the very work that we do at these institutions. So, for me, that’s a key part of the argument. How can we be investing in corporations that are trying to undermine the very thing that we do?
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Oreskes, you were on a panel. How is the university responding? We couldn’t get them to come on the show, but they flew in Charlie Rose—is that right?—to moderate a panel that you were on, as well as representatives of Harvard University’s administration position.
NAOMI ORESKES: The panel was wonderful in many ways. Charlie Rose is a very gracious man, a wonderful person, wonderful interviewer. We had excellent, outstanding people on the panel, like Chris Field, the head of Working Group II of the IPCC, and John Holdren, the president’s science adviser. So it was a wonderful panel.
But, in my opinion, there were two things missing. One, there was no student voice. That seemed like a pretty conspicuous omission. And two, as I mentioned already, there was no real discussion of what the solution looks like. And to say, "Well, we should just continue doing more research and education," flies in the face of what we know, as I just said, about the ways in which the fossil fuel industry and other allies, including utilities, even at times the automobile manufacturers, have really colluded to undermine our own work. And that, that reality, that acknowledgment, there was no discussion of what we should be doing in response to that. For me, divestment is a logical conclusion from my own scholarship, from my own research. But my view is, if you don’t support divestment, then you ought to be proposing some kind of concrete, substantive alternative. And that, to me, was missing from the conversation.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Talia Rothstein, could you talk about—even though the administration hasn’t come out and said anything explicitly to you about the protests that have been going on this week, you’ve noted that campus police, etc., have given you very few problems in these protests, unprecedented compared to similar protests in the past. Could you talk about that?
TALIA ROTHSTEIN: Sure. So I think the administration has recognized at this point that we have a strong and ever-growing coalition of support behind us. And that’s been more readily apparent this week during Harvard Heat Week than it has at any of our other protests. And I think it shows something pretty significant, that the administration top decision makers at Harvard really fear serious engagement with this issue and talking about the impacts of their investments in the fossil fuel industry, to the extent that they would rather have us shut down buildings, disrupt administrative proceedings, create sort of a huge media storm around this issue, rather than seriously engage with us. And I think we have a great relationship with the Harvard University police. They’re just getting their orders from above. And they really—the decision makers at Harvard have chosen to leave us alone and really hide from this issue and from our voices this week.
AMY GOODMAN: Talia, earlier this month, Harvard President Drew Faust announced the creation of the Harvard University Climate Change Solutions Fund, the fund intended to promote research that accelerates the transition to renewable sources of energy. Your thoughts?
TALIA ROTHSTEIN: Yeah, I think, sort of as Professor Oreskes alluded to just now, Harvard is doing great research and really should be commended for its efforts to reduce emissions on its campus and to create opportunities for students to really talk about the solutions to climate change. But there’s sort of an integral piece that we’re missing, which is that the fossil fuel industry is not only at the heart of climate change, but also—and not only exploits already marginalized communities by propagating climate change, but also really has a chokehold over our political system in its funding of climate deniers and in its propagation of a massive campaign to spread doubt about climate change. So, until Harvard is able to fully reckon with that, with that problem, and align its investments with the values of its institution—you know, the motto of Harvard is Veritas, truth. And it’s really astounding that at a university which sort of seeks to train the next generation of leaders, we aren’t thinking critically about the impacts of where the money of Harvard’s endowment is going and how that is actually impacting the future.
AMY GOODMAN: Talia Rothstein, we want to thank you for being with us, sophomore at Harvard, one of the coordinators of Divest Harvard, and Professor Naomi Oreskes, who teaches history of science, affiliate professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. Her books include The Collapse of Western Civilization and Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.
That does it for our show. We have a job opening, social media producer. Go to our website at democracynow.org.
And next Thursday, April 23rd, at 7:00 p.m., I’ll be speaking at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Go to our website for more information.
Low-wage workers in the United States have staged their largest action to date to demand a $15-an-hour minimum wage, with some 60,000 workers walking off the job in more than 200 cities. The "Fight for $15" campaign brought together fast-food workers, home-care aides, child-care providers, Wal-Mart clerks, adjunct professors, airport workers and other low-wage workers. Organizers say the action was held on Tax Day to highlight the taxpayer funds needed to support underpaid workers. A new study says low wages are forcing working families to rely on more than $150 billion in public assistance. We speak with Steven Greenhouse, former labor and workplace reporter for The New York Times, who has been covering the "Fight for $15" movement.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Low-wage workers in the United States have staged their largest action to date to demand a $15-an-hour minimum wage, with some 60,000 workers walking off the job in over 200 cities. Protesters in the Fight for $15 campaign include fast-food workers, home-care aides, child-care providers, Wal-Mart clerks, adjunct professors, airport workers and other low-wage workers. The Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, helped organize the campaign.
In Chicago, demonstrators held signs saying, "We are worth more!" while in New York dozens of protesters temporarily halted business at a McDonald’s by staging a die-in, lying on the ground in front of the franchise. Several New York protesters carried signs saying, "We work hard" and "We see wage slavery." Protesters included Jemere Calhoun, who works at two McDonald’s restaurants.
JEMERE CALHOUN: We’re fighting for $15 and a union. We’re fighting for a $15 minimum wage, because we feel that that’s what we need, and that’s what we deserve, and it’s only humane. We’re fighting for a union, because without a union, I mean, you know, it’s tough to enforce these rules that these companies ignore or just simply just don’t care about. You know, we need benefits. We need healthcare. We need sick days. We need maternity leaves. These things are really important to families.
AMY GOODMAN: Organizers say the action was held on Tax Day to highlight the public assistance needed to support underpaid workers. A new study says low wages are forcing working families to rely on more than $150 billion in public assistance. According to the University of California Center for Labor Research and Education, more than half of combined state and federal spending on public assistance goes to working families. President Obama has been pushing to raise the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 to $10.10. On the state level, Colorado, Maine, California, Oregon and Washington are all considering increasing their minimum wage to $12 an hour. Meanwhile, the Center for Economic and [Policy] Research says the minimum wage would be more than $18 an hour if it had risen as fast as productivity since 1968.
For more, we’re joined by Steven Greenhouse, former labor and workplace reporter for The New York Times. He has been covering the Fight for $15 movement extensively. On Wednesday, he co-wrote a piece for The Guardian called "Fight for $15 swells into largest protest by low-wage workers in US history." He’s also author of The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Steven Greenhouse.
STEVEN GREENHOUSE: Nice to be here, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the significance of what’s being described as the largest low-wage protest in U.S. history.
STEVEN GREENHOUSE: So this began in November 2012 as a one-day affair in New York with 200 strikers at like 30 restaurants. It was a small acorn. And, you know, lo and behold, it’s really grown into a fairly mighty oak—you know, over 200 cities, support actions in over 30 countries, 60,000 workers.
And it’s really put several things into the national discussion—one, the whole issue of low-wage workers and the difficulties it takes to live on $7.25 or $8.00 an hour. And second, it’s really kind of changed—also changed the conversation from not about whether we’re just concerned about a minimum wage, but really establish a living wage. And it’s really brought into question, you know, whether even the $10.10 an hour that President Obama is pushing begins to be adequate.
And we’ve even seen some companies—McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Target—raise their wages. And a lot of people say that’s the result partly of these pressure campaigns, also because of a tightening labor market. But at the same time they’re saying they’d like to see Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Target go up to $15, which is a big leap.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what are some of the groups that have been involved in making the movement so large?
STEVEN GREENHOUSE: So, like here in New York, there’s a group, New York Communities for Change, which is a group representing many African Americans, Hispanics, poor people, and they’ve worked very closely with the Service Employees International Union. In this protest yesterday, what was new is they started working very closely with civil rights groups around the country, with Black Lives Matter. And labor unions, in general, are very involved. The Service Employees union has spent millions of dollars really getting this going, hiring organizers, and it’s really created a movement that, you know, people around the country are saying there’s something new here. This is not just, you know, workers at a few restaurants. It’s really this movement of fast-food workers, Wal-Mart workers, janitors, home-care aides. And politicians are really starting to pay lots of attention.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about this convergence of the different movements, as you’re describing—Black Lives Matter, the immigrants’ rights movement, Occupy before it. Go back to 1968, right? Dr. Martin Luther King died trying to organize the Poor People’s Campaign. Talk about this trajectory.
STEVEN GREENHOUSE: So, I went to Atlanta a few weeks ago to do a story for the Times about how they were very deliberately trying to combine this movement of the fast-food workers, the Fight for $15 movement, with the civil rights movement to show that it’s not just, you know, trying to raise pay a few dollars an hour, but it’s an economic justice and social justice movement. And the meeting was held in the reverend—you know, Reverend King’s former church, Ebenezer Baptist Church, and it was very moving. And a lot of the language they’re using or rhetoric they’re using really comes out of the civil rights movement, that—you know, "I am a man," "We want dignity," "$7.25 isn’t enough to support our families." And it’s really snowballing.
And one big change I’ve seen since I started covering this in November 2012 is just many, many people—you know, we often think of low-wage workers are like scared to stick their heads above the parapet because they’re going to fired or they’re going to get in trouble, and many of them are immigrants worried that bad things will happen to them. People are usually emboldened. You know, now when I go interview a lot of these workers, they’re happy to give me their names. And usually when you interview workers, they’re very scared to.
AMY GOODMAN: A hundred fifty billion dollars, public assistance, that goes to working families? Explain the significance of this, something that I think people across the country identify with, that regular working people and poor working people are supporting these large corporations like Wal-Mart and McDonald’s by having to pay public assistance to their workers.
STEVEN GREENHOUSE: There’s this notion that everyone who receives public assistance is a chisler, isn’t working, isn’t sitting on their hands, isn’t going to look for a job. But this study out of Berkeley found that three-quarters of the money, nationwide—three-quarters of the money nationwide spent on public assistance, whether food stamps, Medicaid, goes to people with—goes to families who have at least one person working. And the study found that this is an indirect subsidy to companies like Wendy’s and Burger King and McDonald’s and Taco Bell and Wal-Mart and Target, which often pay $7.25, $8, $9 an hour. And it’s very, very hard to raise yourself, no less two or three kids, if you’re earning that much. And, you know, I think one of the points of the study is that it really raises the question: Should taxpayers be subsidizing the Wal-Marts and McDonald’s? And Wal-Mart and McDonald’s respond that, "Well, thanks to—thanks in part to our lower low wages, we’re able to give consumers low-cost products."
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And they also make the argument, of course, that if they paid higher wages, they would employ less people.
STEVEN GREENHOUSE: Yes. I mean, you know, as many of your guests have said on this show, many, many economic studies show that a modest increase in the minimum wage will have very little effect on jobs. You know, jumping—there really haven’t been studies about the—
AMY GOODMAN: Or they’ll charge more—or they’ll charge more for burgers.
STEVEN GREENHOUSE: Or they’ll charge some—well, if you raise pay to $15 an hour, they’re going to charge more for burgers. That’s—I mean, yeah, but even liberal economists like Jared Bernstein say that, you know, there haven’t been studies about the job effects of going from a $7.25 federal minimum wage to $15. You know, that could really speed up automation. We could see some McDonald’s cashiers replaced with kiosks and—
AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of McDonald’s, McDonald’s just announced that they’re going to increase the minimum wage—but explain the little twist here—to the nonfranchise workers. Franchises employ 90 percent of McDonald’s workers. It won’t go to them?
STEVEN GREENHOUSE: Right. See, McDonald’s on April 1st trumpeted this, quote-unquote, "big announcement" that it’s raising wages to about $9 an hour—you know, raising wages by about 89 cents, on average around 10 percent, for its workers, from around $8 an hour to around $9 an hour, roughly. But that’s only for the workers at company-owned restaurants, which—and that’s only about 11 percent of all the workers at McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. The other 89 percent work for franchisee, franchise-run restaurants. So, one of the weird things is McDonald’s said, "Look, we’re doing this great thing to help workers," but many workers in the franchise restaurants got really pissed off, and I think it really jazzed them up. And as a result, a lot more participated in yesterday’s protest than people were expecting.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: How likely do you think it is, to the extent that you can speculate, that $15 is a realistic goal? And also, if you could talk a little bit about what the impact of this movement is likely to be on the 2016 presidential race?
STEVEN GREENHOUSE: So, when this started—you know, this movement started in November 2012—I think many, many, many people said, "$15, that’s just a crazy, crazily ambitious number." But then we’ve seen, you know, SeaTac approve $15, and Seattle has approved a $15 minimum wage, and Washington state talks about perhaps going to a $15 statewide minimum wage. And San Francisco has a $15 minimum wage. And Chicago, with a centrist mayor, has adopted a $13 minimum wage. So the discussion about what’s a achievable wage has really changed. But $15 is a very ambitious goal, in my view. You know, typical wages in fast food now are about $8.80, $9 an hour, and we’re really talking about a two-thirds increase. That’s a lot. And my sense is if the movement could get $12 or $13, they’d be pretty darn happy. They still—you know, it’s hard to know whether $15 is really, really the goal, or it’s kind of a bargaining position to aim for $12 or $13.
And the explosion in the streets yesterday, I think, is putting pressure on the candidates, Democrat and Republican, to take a stand on the minimum wage. Certainly, Hillary, as the lone Democratic candidate, will be pushed to embrace, somehow support the campaign, maybe support a minimum wage of higher than $10.10 an hour. The Republicans, you know, uniformly oppose a higher minimum wage. But I think, as this movement builds, it’s going to increase pressure on them. You know, so Marco Rubio said, "I don’t want wages of $10.10 an hour. I want people to be paid $30 an hour." That’s kind of dodging the issue. I think this movement is going to really press the Republicans to take a firm stand on what they want to do on the minimum wage.
AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds. I want to jump to what our next subject is, TPP. You just interviewed Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, and Trumka told you he’s no fan of the TPP. Explain.
STEVEN GREENHOUSE: So, he could talk about that for half an hour [inaudible]. So, he says the agreement is too secretive. It’s not going to do much to help labor rights. It says—he says it’ll be too much like NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, that it’s going to increase imports from overseas, it’s going to take away jobs from Americans, and that, he says, basically is part of a corporate agenda that’s going to help big corporations and not do much for American workers, perhaps hurt them.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Steven Greenhouse, we want to thank you for being with us, former labor and workplace reporter for The New York Times. He’s been covering the Fight for $15 movement extensively. On Wednesday, he co-wrote a piece in The Guardian, "Fight for $15 swells into largest protest by low-wage workers in US history." We’ll link to that article at democracynow.org. His book is called The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker. And next up, we will talk about the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with Lori Wallach and Florida Congressmember Alan Grayson. Stay with us.
Headlines:
60,000 Workers Join Historic Strikes for $15-an-Hour Minimum Wage
Low-wage workers in the United States have staged their largest action to date to demand a $15-an-hour minimum wage, with some 60,000 workers walking off the job in more than 200 cities. The actions brought together fast-food workers, home-care aides, child-care providers, Wal-Mart clerks, adjunct professors and airport workers to demand wage increases and the right to unionize. Organizers staged the action on Tax Day to highlight the cost to taxpayers of supporting workers who are underpaid. A new study says low wages are forcing working families to rely on more than $150 billion in public assistance. We will have more on the historic protests after headlines.
ISIL Claims New Villages in Western Iraq
In Iraq, the self-proclaimed Islamic State has gained new ground, claiming several villages near Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. The takeover of at least three new villages poses ISIL’s greatest threat to date against Ramadi, which lies about 70 miles west of the capital Baghdad.
Iraqi PM Criticizes Saudi-Led Yemen Bombings; HRW Says Strikes Killed 31 Civilians
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has sharply criticized the Saudi-led bombing of Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, escalating tensions between two key U.S. allies. Speaking to reporters in Washington, D.C., Abadi said the Saudi operation had "no logic" and could trigger a wider regional conflict. Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States quickly hit back, defending the U.S.-supported offensive and denying reports of heavy civilian casualties. Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, has called for an investigation into airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition on a dairy in Yemen which it says killed at least 31 civilians at the end of March.
NBC News Changes Account of Richard Engel’s Kidnapping
NBC News has changed its story about the 2012 kidnapping of chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel in Syria after reporting by The New York Times called his account into question. Engel had said he was captured by Shiite forces loyal to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But after the Times found Engel was likely captured by Sunni militants affiliated with the opposition Free Syrian Army, Engel said the kidnappers were Sunni, but had "put on an elaborate ruse to convince us they were Shiite shabiha militiamen."
Ukraine: Journalist Shot Dead in Capital Kiev
In Ukraine, a prominent journalist has been shot dead in the capital Kiev. Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said Oles Buzina was attacked by masked gunmen. His death comes after a former lawmaker and ally of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych was found shot to death in Kiev on Wednesday.
400 Migrants Drown Off Libyan Coast
About 400 migrants have perished off the coast of Libya after the boat they were traveling in capsized. Rescuers managed to save 145 people, including at least one baby, but hundreds more appear to have drowned. In a statement, Amnesty International criticized European countries for their approach to the flood of migrants seeking to reach Europe, saying their "ongoing negligence towards the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean has contributed to a more than 50-fold increase in migrant and refugee deaths since the beginning of 2015."
Colombia Lifts Suspension of FARC Bombings After Attack
The Colombian government has moved to resume its bombing of FARC rebels following what Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos called a "deliberate attack" by the FARC. Santos said the attack, which killed 10 Colombian soldiers and one rebel, marked a breach of the FARC’s unilateral ceasefire.
President Juan Manuel Santos: "This is a reprehensible act that will not go without punishment and requires decisive action, and there will be consequences. We are going to pursue those responsible for this despicable act. I have ordered the armed forces to lift the suspension of the bombings on FARC camps until further notice."
Santos did not suspend historic peace talks between the FARC and Colombian government aimed at ending the 50-year conflict.
Florida Mailman Lands Gyrocopter on Capitol Lawn in Call for Campaign Finance Reform
A mailman from Florida has landed a tiny personal aircraft known as a gyrocopter on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol in a protest to demand campaign finance reform. Doug Hughes was carrying letters to every member of Congress calling for them to address corruption. He flew about an hour from Maryland into restricted airspace and onto the Capitol’s West Lawn, stunning authorities and bystanders. He was immediately arrested. Before taking off, Hughes had spoken about his plans to the Tampa Bay Times.
Doug Hughes: "I’m going to violate the no-fly zone nonviolently. I intend for nobody to get hurt. And I’m going to land on the Capitol Mall in front of the Capitol building. I’m going to have 535 letters strapped to the landing gear in boxes, and those letters are going to be addressed to every member of Congress. I don’t believe that the authorities are going to shoot down a 60-year-old mailman in a flying bicycle."
Hughes’ action comes after another apparent protest at the Capitol, which received far less attention. On Saturday, 22-year-old Leo Thornton shot himself to death outside the Capitol while bearing a protest sign that said, "Tax the 1 Percent."
EU Unveils Antitrust Charges Against Google
The European Union has unveiled antitrust charges against Google. EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said Google appears to be favoring its own products in web search results.
Margrethe Vestager: "Our investigation so far has shown that when a consumer enters a shopping-related query in Google’s search engine, Google’s comparison shopping product is systematically displayed prominent at the top of the search results. This display is irrespective of whether it is the most relevant response to the query."
EU regulators have also launched an antitrust investigation into Google’s Android smartphone software.
Protester Jumps on Table, Throws Confetti at European Central Bank President
A protester opposed to the austerity policies of the European Central Bank interrupted a news conference by the bank’s president, Mario Draghi, in Frankfurt Wednesday, jumping on a desk in front of Draghi and showering him with confetti made from a statement condemning the ECB’s neoliberal policies. Josephine Witt wore a T-shirt which read, "End the ECB dick-tatorship."
Clinton Shifts Stance to Embrace Same-Sex Marriage
In the United States, Hillary Clinton has shifted her stance on same-sex marriage just days after announcing her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton opposed same-sex marriage as a candidate in 2008, then came out in support of it in 2013, but suggested it should be handled by the states. On Wednesday, a Clinton spokesperson said in a statement Clinton supports marriage equality as a "constitutional right."
6 Arrested in Protest at BP Headquarters Ahead of Spill Anniversary
Six people have been arrested after occupying the lobby to BP’s headquarters in Houston, Texas, ahead of the fifth anniversary of the explosion and oil spill which devastated the Gulf of Mexico. On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 workers and triggering the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Among those arrested Wednesday were Cherri Foytlin from South Louisiana.
Cherri Foytlin: "I have seen with my own eyes the devastation that this spill has caused and continues to cause to this day This disaster is not over. We have oil that continues to run into our marshes and on our beaches. Our dolphins and turtle continue to wash in dead at higher rates than normal in the longest mortality events in the recorded history of the Gulf of Mexico. But what I’m mainly concerned about is the toxic dispersants they used during the spill, that has caused a grave health issue for the people in the Gulf. I’ve seen children who are sick. In the early days we had rashes and respiratory problems, but now it’s moved into cancers, very aggressive cancers. In parts of where I live in Louisiana, just south of us in Plaquemines Parish, they say they’re burying about a person a week."
Protesters say the action is one of several planned for the lead-up to the spill’s anniversary, including an action today outside BP’s annual shareholder meeting in London.
Chicago Pays $5 Million for Police Killing; Mayor Backs Reparations for Police Torture
The Chicago City Council has agreed to pay a $5 million settlement to the family of an African-American 17-year-old who was killed when a police officer shot him 16 times. Police say Laquan McDonald was armed with a knife when an officer killed him in October. But attorneys for the family say unreleased video from a police dashboard camera shows McDonald was walking away from police. The news comes as the City Council considers a $5.5 million reparations fund for victims of police torture. Under the rein of Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge from 1972 to 1991, up to 120 African-American men were tortured with tactics including electric shocks and suffocation. Newly re-elected Mayor Rahm Emanuel has backed a reparations proposal, which includes free city college tuition for victims and relatives, counseling services, a memorial to victims, inclusion of Burge’s actions in school curriculum, and a formal apology.
Report: Workers Told to Falsify Training Records of Oklahoma Reserve Deputy Who Shot Eric Harris
In Oklahoma, the Tulsa World newspaper reports supervisors at the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office were ordered to falsify the training records of a reserve deputy charged with manslaughter for the fatal shooting of unarmed African American Eric Harris. Robert Bates is a wealthy insurance executive who donated heavily to the Tulsa police department. At least three of Bates’ supervisors were reportedly transferred after refusing to falsify his training and certification records.
Texas: Immigrant Mothers Launch New Hunger Strike in Private Detention Center
In southern Texas, immigrant mothers held with their children in a private detention center have launched a new hunger strike and work stoppage to demand their release. The women are asylum seekers who say they have been denied bond despite having established a credible fear of violence if they return to Central America. Honduran migrant Kenia Galeano, who spent five months in detention with her two-year-old son before finally being released on bond, described how she was put in isolation as punishment after joining an earlier hunger strike.
Kenia Galeano: "We knew that we had to find a way to let people outside know what was happening inside Karnes, and so we started the hunger strike. There were three of us, three mothers, who were placed in isolation. Inside this room it was really cold. It was dark. And there was a bed in the bathroom; the toilet was right next to the bed, the toilet where we had to go to the bathroom. And my son was in there with me this entire time."
For more on the hunger strike and conditions at the Karnes detention center, click here.
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COLUMN
For the first time in more than half a century, the presidents of the United States and Cuba have had a formal meeting. Barack Obama met with Cuban President Raul Castro at the 7th Summit of the Americas, held this year in Panama City. Cuba’s participation has been blocked by the U.S. since the summit began in 1994. This historic moment occurs with some sadness, however: Eduardo Galeano, the great Uruguayan writer who did so much to explain the deeply unequal relations between Latin America and the U.S. and Europe, died as the summit ended.
Galeano’s best-known book is “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent.” It was published in 1971, and was among the first to explain the impact of colonial domination of the hemisphere, across the broad sweep of history. Galeano himself was swept away by events as well. He wrote the book “in 90 caffeinated nights,” he said, “to interlink histories that have been before told separately and in this codified language of historians or economists or sociologists. I tried to write it in such a way that it could be read and enjoyed by anyone.”
The book’s success made him a target, as U.S.-sponsored coups toppled democratic governments in the region. He was imprisoned in Uruguay, then, after release, began a life in exile. He settled in Argentina, where he founded and edited a cultural magazine called Crisis. After the U.S.-backed military coup there in 1976, Galeano’s name was added to the list of those condemned by the death squad. He fled again, this time to Spain, where he began his famous trilogy, “Memory of Fire," which rewrites North and South American history.
And now, a piece of that history is being rewritten, between the United States and Cuba. President Obama has sent a State Department report to Congress, which recommends that Cuba be removed from the official U.S. government list of nations that sponsor terrorism. The peace group CODEPINK applauded the move, saying in a statement, “The infamous U.S. terror list includes only three other nations: Iran, Sudan, and Syria and curiously omits North Korea.
Many people around the world found it hypocritical for the United States to single out Cuba while ignoring support for terrorism by U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and Israel, especially since Cuba is known for exporting doctors, musicians, teachers, artists, and dancers — not terrorists.”
I asked a former Cuban diplomat in Havana, Carlos Alzugaray Treto, for his reaction to the critics of Obama removing Cuba from the terrorism list, like Republican Senator, and now presidential candidate, Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American from Florida. Alzugaray said Rubio “should worry about having terrorists, a terrorist like Luis Posada Carriles, living in Miami. He has the terrorism not 90 miles from Florida; he has one in Miami. He doesn’t complain.” Luis Posada Carriles was a CIA operative who admitted to masterminding the bombing of a Cubana Airlines jet in 1976, killing all 73 people on board. Venezuela has long sought his extradition, but the U.S. government refuses to comply, leaving Carriles a free man living in Miami.
The U.S. embargo against Cuba, one of the most enduring and punishing relics of the Cold War, remains in place, however. This central pillar of a half-century of hostile U.S. policy toward Cuba is increasingly unpopular here. The U.S. business community is tired of losing out on opportunities that are enjoyed by investors from Canada, Europe, Japan and China. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce hailed President Obama’s moves to normalize relations. Businesses like Facebook and Airbnb are in Cuba and planning on expanding, as soon as it is legal to do so. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said recently, “Our Cuba policy, instead of isolating Cuba, was isolating the United States in our own backyard.” And President Obama, when announcing his intention to normalize relations with Cuba last December, admitted, “When what you’re doing doesn’t work for 50 years, it’s time to try something new.”
The Summit of the Americas has ended, and the trajectory of U.S./Cuban relations is on a new course. When Obama first attended the summit, in 2009, the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez handed him a copy of “Open Veins of Latin America.” If he hasn’t already, Obama should read the book. As British writer John Berger has said of Eduardo Galeano, “To publish Eduardo Galeano is to publish the enemy: the enemy of lies, indifference, above all of forgetfulness. Thanks to him, our crimes will be remembered. His tenderness is devastating, his truthfulness furious.”
R.I.P. Eduardo Galeano. There are probably few things that would make him happier than if the embargo were buried as well.
Click here for Democracy Now’s archive of our interviews with Eduardo Galeano, as well as video of a 2006 public conversation between Galeano and Arundhati Roy.
Subscribe to Amy Goodman’s podcast on SoundCloud and Stitcher Radio.
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