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Sen. Bernie Sanders: From Greece to Puerto Rico, the Financial Rules Are Rigged to Favor the 1%
Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders recently convened a panel of ECONOMISTS in Washington to discuss the DEBT crisis in Greece and throughout the world. In his opening statement, Sanders talked about the debt crisis in Greece as well as in Puerto Rico. "It is time for creditors to sit down with the governments of Greece and Puerto Rico and WORK OUT a debt repayment plan that is fair to both sides," Sanders said. "The people of Greece and the children of Puerto Rico deserve nothing less."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn to Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, who recently convened a panel of economists in Washington to discuss the debt crisis in Greece as well as, well, throughout the world. Senator Sanders said austerity has worsened the situation in Greece. This is some of what he had to say.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: [What] we are here today to talk about is the very, very important issue regarding the ongoing debt crisis in Greece and the way that people and governments all over the world are struggling with too much debt. This is—we’re going to be focusing on Greece, but, in truth, this issue goes beyond Greece. And countries that are struggling not only with too much debt, too much inequality, and too little growth and income.
Today, as I think all of you know, there is a very, very serious economic situation unfolding in Greece. In many ways, Greece today resembles the United States of the 1930s in the midst of the worst DEPRESSION, economic downturn in the history of our country. The Greek economy has basically collapsed, and the people of Greece are trapped in a very, very deep depression.
I want TO BEGIN by expressing my solidarity with the people of Greece, where five years of cruel and counterproductive austerity policies, policies demanded by the European Central Bank, the European Commission and International Monetary Fund, have left the people of Greece facing a full-blown humanitarian crisis. In my view, there is no more obvious example of the failure of austerity policies than what is going on in Greece.
For more than five years, Greece has cut pensions. Greece has slashed its government workforce. Greece has made deep spending cuts that have eviscerated its social safety net. In other words, despite what we have been led to believe by many in the media, Greece has not gone on a SHOPPING SPREE. It has not overfunded its government. Rather, it has imposed massive spending cuts that have caused devastating pain to some of its most vulnerable people. It has done this because its creditors, led by Germany, have insisted that austerity is the only way to dig Greece out of its debt.
As a result, today, Greece has the highest levels of inequality and the worst unemployment rates in Europe. The official unemployment rate is 26 percent—26 percent. Youth unemployment in Greece today is more than 50 percent. More than 30 percent of the people in Greece are living in poverty. And the Greek economy is 25 percent smaller, has shrunk by 25 percent over the last five years. That is really quite incredible.
Instead of solving the problem, austerity, in my view, has made a bad situation much worse. Greece has seen its debt-to-GDP ratio shoot up from about 120 percent to about 175 percent today. And now to, quote-unquote, "fix" the problem, the troika wants Greece to borrow more money and make deeper cuts to wages, pensions and other social programs.
In January, as you all know, the people of Greece stood up and said, "Enough is enough." They elected a new government, known as Syriza. Their promise: to end the harsh austerity policies—that was their campaign pledge—by increasing their minimum wage, by increasing job production, by protecting the most vulnerable against pension cuts, and ensuring that the wealthiest people in Greece started paying their fair share of taxes, a very serious problem in that country. But instead of working with the new government to find a rational path forward, the troika demanded more austerity than ever.
On July 5th, the people of Greece spoke once again: In an overwhelming show of solidarity with their government, 61 percent of the people of Greece said no to more austerity for the poor, for the children, for the sick and for the elderly. Yet, instead of working with the Greek government on a sensible plan that would allow Greece to improve its economy and pay back its debt, Germany and the troika continued to push Greece to accept even greater austerity.
They want even deeper pension cuts; an increase in the regressive VAT tax from 13 percent to 23 percent; automatic budget cuts if the Greek economy underperforms; privatization of state assets, including the electricity grid; deregulation of the transportation, rail, pharmaceutical and other sectors in the economy; weakening of trade unions. In other words, the people of Greece are being told that their voices, which they cast in two elections, really do not matter, that their misery does not matter, that an entire generation of young people who are unemployed or underemployed does not matter, that the sick and the elderly do not matter, that democracy itself does not matter. And that, to my perspective, is unacceptable.
I believe that this plan is simply unsustainable. In my view, austerity has failed, and continuing with austerity means the Greek economy will continue to fail its people. Unemployment, poverty and inequality will increase from already obscene levels.
And maybe, just maybe, some people are beginning to wake up to this reality. In a confidential report that was made public earlier this month, officials from the IMF warned that the IMF could not take part in any new bailout for Greece unless the Greek government was offered a substantial debt relief package as part of any new deal. In light of this report, it is time for the troika to provide the Greek government with the flexibility it needs to create jobs, raise wages and improve its economy. Without a substantial improvement in its economy, Greece will never escape its debt crisis.
And let us not forget a little bit about history. Let us not forget what happened after World War I, when the Allies imposed oppressive austerity on Germany—on Germany—as part of the Versailles Treaty. And I think all of you who know anything about history understand what happened. And that is, the Germany economy collapsed, unemployed skyrocketed, people were pushing their money around in wheelbarrows to buy a loaf of bread. And the result of all of that massive discontent was that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party won an election and took power. And you all know the results of that.
What many people do not know about Greece today is that the party that finished third in the Greek—recent Greek election is called Golden Dawn. This is a party which some people call a neo-Nazi party, but other people believe that it is nothing "neo" about it. It is a Nazi party, which came in third place in the recent election. In my view, we should learn from history. And we should understand that when democracy fails, when people vote for something and cannot get what the government promised because of outside forces, this leads to massive discontent, it leads to contempt for democracy, and it opens the path for right-wing extremist parties, like Golden Dawn.
Finally, let us remember that one of the main reasons why Greece was unable to take on so much debt was because it had help from Goldman Sachs, who helped disguise the nature of the Greek debt. Today, when we talk about debt, we should appreciate that something similar is happening right now in Puerto Rico, where the government there is struggling with unsustainable debt, and a group of hedge fund billionaires are demanding austerity in Puerto Rico. They are demanding the firing of teachers, the closing of schools, so that they can reap huge profits off the suffering and misery of the children and the people of Puerto Rico. It is time for creditors to sit down with the governments of Greece and Puerto Rico and work out a debt repayment plan that is fair to both sides. The people of Greece and the children of Puerto Rico deserve nothing less.
Over 70 years ago, the major economic leaders of 44 countries gathered at a hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to establish international economic and financial rules. As a result of that conference, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were established. I think it is clear to anyone who has taken a look at this situation that the rules regarding our international financial system today are rigged in favor of the wealthy and the powerful at the expense of everyone else. Today, 85 of the wealthiest people in this world own more wealth than the bottom half of the world’s population, over 3 billion people. By next year, Oxfam has estimated that the top 1 percent of the world’s population will own more wealth than the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population. In my view, we have got to begin—and I hope this forum today is a start in that process—a serious discussion about how we change our international financial rules to expand—expand economic opportunity and reduce income and wealth inequality, not only in Greece and in Puerto Rico, but throughout the world. The global economy is simply unsustainable when so few have so much and so many have so little.
AMY GOODMAN: Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders speaking in July at a hearing he convened at the Hart Senate Office Building on the Greek debt crisis. On Thursday, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced his resignation, paving the way for new elections, in which Tsipras will run.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, July is the hottest month on record. This year, so far, has been the hottest year in history. We’re going to talk about the links between climate change and the California drought. Stay with us.
Greek PM Tsipras Resigns, Calls for New Election as Left Wing of Syriza Splits to Form New Party
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced his resignation on Thursday, paving the way for new elections in which he will run. The move came after Tsipras lost the support of many members of his own Syriza party, which opposed his backing of the demands of international creditors for yet more austerity and economic reform in exchange for a new $96 billion bailout. Many analysts predict Tsipras will retain his post as prime minister after the election, but the conservative government has announced plans to try to form a new coalition government ahead of the elections. Meanwhile, 25 members of the left wing of Syriza have announced they are breaking away to form a separate party called Popular Unity. We speak to Costas Panayotakis, author of "Remaking Scarcity: From Capitalist Inefficiency to Economic Democracy."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced his resignation Thursday, paving the way for new elections. The move came after Tsipras lost the support of many members of his own Syriza party, which opposed his backing of the demands of international creditors for yet more austerity and economic reform in exchange for a new $96 billion bailout. Tspiras said an early election will give Greek voters a chance to have a say on the new bailout.
PRIME MINISTER ALEXIS TSIPRAS: [translated] I would like to submit the government’s resignation, and I would like to express my belief that the constitutional PROCESSES need to be set in motion immediately so that we can go as soon as possible, and with all due civility, to elections so that the Greek people can decide in which way the country should be led safely and quickly out of the crisis.
AMY GOODMAN: Many analysts predict Tsipras will retain his post as prime minister after the election, but the conservative government has announced plans to try to form a new coalition government ahead of the elections. Meanwhile, 25 members of the left wing of the Syriza party have announced they are breaking away to form a separate party called Popular Unity.
To talk more about the situation in Greece, we’re joined once again by Costas Panayotakis, author of Remaking Scarcity: From Capitalist Inefficiency to Economic Democracy. He’s professor of sociology at NYC COLLEGE of Technology at CUNY.
Welcome to Democracy Now! What is Tsipras doing here? He has resigned and going to run in a snap election.
COSTAS PANAYOTAKIS: Yeah. He has transformed Syriza from the main anti-austerity force in Greece to what he hopes will be the dominant party of the austerity camp. And his claim is that he wants to, even though he’s following the policies and he does not agree with them and he’s been forced to do it, that he’ll do it with a sort of—in a way that is a little more socially humane and just. And he doesn’t have a mandate for this about-turn, because there was a recent referendum in July where over 60 percent of the Greek population voted against austerity. So I think he’s also hoping to get a mandate so he can CONTINUE these policies. And a large part of his party did not support this about-turn, and that’s why we have this split, which is a split that the Europeans had hoped for all along, because they always saw Tsipras as more amenable to their policies and as more pragmatic, and they disliked the left wing of the party that is still trying to resist that.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But now some of the analysts are saying, or quite a few of them, that he’s actually expected to get an even larger support for his policies in a new vote and that he chose to go the route of a referendum rather than—or new elections rather than for a vote of confidence within the Parliament itself, where he thought he had less of a chance.
COSTAS PANAYOTAKIS: Yeah, I think what he’s hoping—I mean, the polls in July showed that Syriza is far ahead. I mean, you know, the opposition is in disarray. And by speeding up the election, because there was also discussion that it might happen in October or November—by speeding it up, he also gives less chance to his internal opposition to organize themselves and to form a party that would have a good chance of doing well. So there are certainly certain political calculations that he made. And he clearly hopes that he will do well and win, and it’s possible that this is indeed the case.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And is the sense that the Greek people, even though he did this about-face, still blame the European Union and Germany more for their troubles than they do Tsipras for caving in on some of these concessions?
COSTAS PANAYOTAKIS: Well, I think the anti-European and anti-German feeling has grown a lot in Greece and throughout Europe, in fact, because of this insistence on austerity policies. And there is a lot of discontent with the previous political parties, who are held as—understandably, as the main culprits for the current situation. And Tsipras is—Tsipras is still popular, according to polls, but this is partly because, you know, the full burden, the full impact of this new wave of austerity measures has not hit ordinary Greeks. So his popularity is likely to suffer in the future, and that’s probably one of his calculations.
AMY GOODMAN: Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party touts itself as the only party not selling out to—the Greek people to austerity. Do they stand to benefit from these upcoming elections? Are they getting stronger?
COSTAS PANAYOTAKIS: Well, that’s what they claim. They claim that they will do very well because they—supposedly, they are the only ones who haven’t betrayed the Greek people. I mean, it remains to be seen. Their last showing in January was pretty strong, given the fact that they are under charges being a criminal organization, and they have been—they’ve been exposed for the crimes and the violence they used against activists and immigrants. And there is the immigration issue, of course, is also a big issue in Greece right now. And there has been lots of attack by the opposition, not just Golden Dawn, even the conservatives and even the center-left party, who are basically saying that Syriza is leaving the borders open and all these immigrants are coming because they liberalized immigration law. So, I think this is very concerning, because it’s not just the Golden Dawn that is being very populist about the immigration issue; it’s like solidly mainstream parties that are not doing anyone a service.
AMY GOODMAN: This new party?
COSTAS PANAYOTAKIS: No, this—
AMY GOODMAN: No, the new party, the Syriza breakaway party, that is now calling itself Popular Unity, where does it fit into this picture, and will it gain in popularity?
COSTAS PANAYOTAKIS: Well, we’ll see. I mean, we have nothing to compare it to, and they haven’t had much time to, you know, prepare. But they are hoping—they are basically—their claim is that the 60 percent that voted against austerity has to be represented in the election, and that’s what they are hoping to do. How many of those 60 percent of Greeks will support them, I mean, will have to be—it remains to be seen.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Meanwhile, the sell-off of national assets of Greece is already occurring, right? This week, there were 15 regional airports in Greece sold to—guess what—a German company?
COSTAS PANAYOTAKIS: Right. And actually, you know, the whole point is that it’s supposed to be privatizations, and the German company is a company owned by—it’s a German state company. It’s kind of paradoxical in this kind of sense. And the same thing happened in the past with privatizations, like the Greek telecommunication company which was bought by Deutsche Telekom, which is also a state company.
AMY GOODMAN: So, as in Germany is buying Greece.
COSTAS PANAYOTAKIS: I guess, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Costas Panayotakis, we want to thank you for being with us, author of Remaking Scarcity: From Capitalist Inefficiency to Economic Democracy, professor of sociology at New York City College of Technology at CUNY, the City University of New York.
Global Warming Worsens California Drought as July Becomes Hottest Month on Record
Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report Thursday showing that July was Earth’s hottest month on record. Nine of the 10 hottest months since record keeping began in 1880 have occurred since 2005. Climatologists also expect 2015 to be the hottest year on record. This news comes as scientists from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory released a report that shows that global warming has worsened the California drought, now entering its fourth year. This new study is the first to estimate the extent to which rising temperatures are affecting the loss of moisture from plants and soil, and suggests that within a few decades continually increasing temperatures and resulting moisture losses will push California into a permanent drought by 2060. We discuss the report and the impact of the findings with the study’s lead author, Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
Image Credit: Reuters
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, released a report Thursday showing that July was Earth’s hottest month on record. Nine of the 10 hottest months since record keeping began in 1880 have occurred since 2005. Climatologists also expect 2015 to be the hottest year on record. This news comes as scientists from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory released a report which shows that global warming has worsened the California drought, now entering its fourth year.
AMY GOODMAN: This new study is the first to estimate the extent to which rising temperatures are affecting the loss of moisture from plants and soil, and suggests that within a few decades continually increasing temperatures and resulting moisture losses will push California into a permanent drought by 2060. Joining us now to discuss the report and the impact of the findings is the study’s lead author, Park Williams. He’s a bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us.
PARK WILLIAMS: Thank you very much.
AMY GOODMAN: So, lay out the main findings of your report.
PARK WILLIAMS: Sure. So I think we all know that as you warm the air, then the warmer air is able to more easily extract water from soils. We know this because a puddle on the sidewalk on a hot day will evaporate more quickly than a puddle on a cold day. And so, as we warm the atmosphere over a century, as we’ve done, that atmosphere is more able to pull water out of soils. And then, when natural climate variability causes a drought, as is happening right now in California, the drought is probably going to be worse.
But we’ve never actually put a number on that—how much worse, or how much of the California drought or of any drought is due to global warming. And what my colleagues and I did is put the number on that for the first time. We find that in the absence of global warming, the drought in California would have been somewhere between 8 and 27 percent less severe.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But how were you able to reach that conclusion?
PARK WILLIAMS: Well, we reached it using observed climate data. So we use monthly precipitation data, and then all of the—we use monthly data from all the variables that go into calculating evaporation. So that’s four variables: temperature, humidity, wind speed and solar radiation. And it turns out that in terms of the year-to-year variability and in terms of trends in evaporation, temperature is the most important of those four. And so, we then use very standard soil moisture modeling methods, where we basically treat California as this large network of buckets. And we use the climate data to, with precipitation, fill up the buckets, kind of like income fills up a bank account, and then we use the evaporation data to extract water from the bucket, like withdrawals from a bank account. And over time, we’re able to track how much water is in the buckets, and the changes represent changes in drought severity in California.
AMY GOODMAN: NOAA sponsored a study last year that blamed the rain deficit on what’s basically a weather-related phenomenon—what, a high-pressure ridge over the Northeast Pacific—that probably had nothing to do with global warming. Does your report contradict this?
PARK WILLIAMS: No, it doesn’t, and I’m really glad that you’re giving me an opportunity to talk about this. One of the—actually, the lead author of the NOAA study you just talked about is the second author of this study that I’ve published. And they’re two very different studies. And so, I was just talking about inputs into the water balance and withdrawals from the water balance. That study by NOAA was all about the inputs. That study found that the drought is ultimately caused by a lack of precipitation, and that lack of precipitation is ultimately caused by this really persistent, high-pressure ridge of the atmosphere that has been sitting over the Northeast Pacific Ocean and blocking storms from hitting California now for four years in a row. It’s a really abnormal event. And they find no connection with the global warming process and that ridge, or that high-pressure region.
We look at the other side of the water balance equation, the withdrawal side. And evaporation has been increasing because of warming. And so, even though climate change has not affected the precipitation—precipitation is just wildly variable in California from year to year, and so is evaporation, but underlying both of those variable things that occur naturally is this elephant in the room that’s continued to grow larger every year. And it is now—when it gets dry naturally, it is now more dry because of climate change.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the economic impact on California? We’re seeing all these reports of the battles over water, obviously, exacerbated by—depending on income levels of the people experiencing it, and land sinking because of the water being drawn out from underground wells or aquifers.
PARK WILLIAMS: Well, yeah, California is seeing a lot of consequences of this drought. And all droughts have consequences. And the—presumably, it’s the kind of weakest links in the network that start showing signs of vulnerability first. And so, we have poor communities that are suffering. In some of these communities, water is no longer accessible. They relied on well water. But now the water table is too low to access water, and so water has to be shipped in some places. Land is sinking in the Southern and Central Valley, and the reason is because water has been extracted from the ground at an unsustainable pace.
AMY GOODMAN: Sinking two inches every month now in San Joaquin Valley?
PARK WILLIAMS: It’s really remarkable. And these are—from my understanding, this is part of an aquifer that was established following the last glacial period. And while it is possible to put new water into some places underground, it is no longer possible in these places where the ground has compacted, because we’ve extracted the water too quickly.
AMY GOODMAN: You also are a specialist on how climate change affects forests worldwide. Rolling Stone wrote about you in a piece.
PARK WILLIAMS: Yes, I am one of many who study that topic. And most of my work so far has been focused on the Southwest United States, which is still really relevant to California. What we found in that work is that wildfire is a direct—is a direct link to the climate system. I believe it’s part of the climate system. When you have drought, then as long as there’s fuels to burn—fuels being forests—then they will burn. And we’re seeing that in California now—we’re seeing it in Oregon and Washington, as well—because of intense drought. Now, again, this drought is caused by natural climate variability, and we’d be seeing a big fire here no matter what. But with this added impact of warming, the wildfire season is more active. And there is a secondary effect, that we have too many trees on the landscape right now. We’ve been fighting fires for a century, and that means some places haven’t had fire in a century, and there’s a lot of fuel now ready so that when a spark goes on the wrong day, we have wildfires that are far more energetic than they would be otherwise.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about the increasing involvement of faith leaders in the issue of climate change. Earlier this week, a group of Islamic scholars issued a call for a rapid end of the use of fossil fuels. And a couple of months ago, the pope released his groundbreaking encyclical on the environment. As a scientist, what’s your reaction to seeing now this increasing involvement of faith leaders, as a moral and religious issue the world coming to grips with climate change?
PARK WILLIAMS: Well, I think it’s encouraging. I think that the science of global warming is based purely in physics, not in faith or not in politics. And the science of how warming affects drought is also based purely in physics. And so, I’m really happy to see that leaders of any kind are letting people know, "Hey, this makes sense, and we should really be taking care of our planet." And physics tells us that we haven’t been.
AMY GOODMAN: How do we take care of the planet? How do we reverse climate change?
PARK WILLIAMS: Well, so, this most recent work is on California, and I think California actually has a unique role in the world. When they change policy to become more efficient with their carbon use by using less gasoline, for example, then the rest of the United States is soon to follow. And when the United States makes a change, then the rest of the world is soon to follow. And so, California really has a surprisingly large ripple effect, I believe. And so, one thing we need to do globally, of course, is use fossil fuels in a sustainable way. I don’t think that that should go against anybody’s political beliefs. Just sustainable living makes sense. And digging up a nonrenewable resource and continuing to burn it 'til it's gone doesn’t.
From the drought perspective, California can do a lot more locally by using water sustainably. And there’s been a lot of, as we said, unsustainable groundwater use in California. And currently, actions are being taken to try and start regulations for groundwater extraction in California. What California tends to do, though, is, once it gets wet again, because of natural climate variability, they tend to forget that they just had a really catastrophic drought that reminded them how vulnerable they are. When it gets wet in another year or two, it’s important that California does not drop these measures that it’s beginning to make towards groundwater regulation.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what are some of the other sustainable measures they could take? I mean, I’m always astounded when I—I learned a few years ago that the average golf course requires, during the hottest parts of the year, as much as 300,000-400,000 gallons of water a day.
PARK WILLIAMS: The numbers are astounding that golf courses and lawns use, although I would argue that in terms of sustainability for ground—or, I’m sorry, for water use in California or for anywhere, you really need to—the goal, I think, should be to create systems that are resilient to the worst droughts. And California, that’s very difficult to find that point, because California’s precipitation, its rainfall and snow, varies so wildly from year to year, it’s tough to remember exactly where the worst exists. But things like lawns and golf courses are actually pretty easy to—you just cut the pipe for the lawn and golf course, let it go dry, and nobody really cares. The things that are really tough, or the things that make drought effects really tough in California are things that are difficult to cut the line to. So, people in the agricultural communities, people’s livelihoods rely on agricultural, but some of our agricultural practices probably aren’t sustainable. And the fix is much more difficult.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Park Williams, we want to thank you very much for being with us, bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, lead author on a new report showing global warming has worsened the California drought by up to 27 percent. We’ll link to that report at democracynow.org. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.
In Victory for Corporations, Court Rejects Rule on Labeling Goods Containing "Conflict Minerals"
Since 1998, more than 5 million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo in what has been described as the deadliest documented conflict in African history. Much of the fighting has been over precious minerals including tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold. Tantalum has become a precious commodity in the digital age — it’s found in CELLPHONES, DVD players, LAPTOPS and HARD DRIVES. Human rights groups have long pushed for mandatory labeling of so-called "conflict minerals" in order to allow consumers and investors to avoid fueling the bloody conflict through the purchase of their products. The mandatory disclosure policy became law as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. But this week a federal appeals court ruled the Securities and Exchange Commission cannot force companies to disclose whether minerals come from the Democratic Republic of Congo because the mandatory labeling would violate the companies’ freedom of speech. We speak to Zorka Milin, senior legal adviser with Global Witness.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Since 1998, more than 5 million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo in what has been described as the deadliest documented conflict in African history. Much of the fighting has been over precious minerals, including tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold. Tantalum has become a precious commodity in the digital age—it’s found in CELLPHONES, DVD players, laptops and hard drives.
Human rights groups have long pushed for mandatory labeling of so-called conflict minerals in ORDER to allow consumers and investors to avoid fueling the bloody conflict through the purchase of their products. The mandatory disclosure policy became law as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act.
AMY GOODMAN: But this week, a federal appeals court has ruled the SECURITIES and Exchange Commission cannot force companies to disclose whether minerals come from the Democratic Republic of Congo because the mandatory labeling would violate the companies’ freedom of speech.
For more, we go directly to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Zorka Milin, a senior legal adviser with Global Witness. The group works to improve transparency and ACCOUNTABILITY in extraction of natural resources.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Why don’t you start off, Zorka, by talking about what the judge has ruled and what exactly are the minerals you’re talking about?
ZORKA MILIN: Thank you, Amy. It’s great to be here on the show. And it’s very fitting, because what’s really at stake in this decision is democracy and transparency. And what we have is renegade judges who have turned the First Amendment on its head and allowed corporations to use it as a deregulatory tool. The decision from this week has sweeping implications for all kinds of important consumer disclosures, ranging from nutrition labeling on foods, country-of-origin labeling, health and safety warnings in products. So it is certainly a very momentous decision and is a CONTINUATION and intensification of this trend that we have seen, including with Citizens United, of corporations kind of weaponizing the First Amendment—a provision which was really intended to PROTECT the free speech rights of citizens, of individual citizens, and not corporations.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, what specifically was the provision of the Dodd-Frank Act that was at question here? And could you give a little bit more detail on that?
ZORKA MILIN: Sure. The provision is much broader than the phrase that was challenged here, which is just the use of the phrase, "not found to be conflict-free," which the companies did not want to use in their disclosures. And to be clear, it’s not an issue of labeling on a product; it’s a phrase that appears in a filing that’s made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The companies did not object to the rest of the law, which really is much broader. And the heart of that law requires companies to engage in due diligence to ensure that their supply chains and the minerals that they’re purchasing are not funding the terrible conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. So the rest of the law still stands, and companies still have to perform those kinds of due-diligence measures.
The phrase, "not found to be conflict-free," was intended to be a spur to companies to ensure that they
have the right processes in place. And it’s really shameful that rather than focusing their energies on that, companies have instead chosen to bring dubious constitutional challenges.
AMY GOODMAN: So, can you name a company and tell us exactly what’s happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo, why you want conflict minerals to be identified?
ZORKA MILIN: Well, it’s an interesting question: Can we name these companies? You know, the lawsuit itself was brought by a group of business lobby associations that include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable. So, effectively, individual companies are hiding behind these powerful business lobbying groups, and so it makes it difficult to really kind of name and shame individual companies that have been challenging this law. This is, unfortunately, a broader trend that’s not limited to this case, and is something that we see in other cases where business groups are challenging regulations that they don’t like.
When it comes to what we see on the ground, of course, it’s a very complicated conflict, and minerals are one of the factors, certainly a significant contributing factor, to the conflict. But there are numerous other complications with different armed groups and different actors. So it’s really difficult to kind of oversimplify the situation. That said, we firmly believe that this law can contribute to positive change on the ground.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, this was a decision in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is known as a very pro-business, conservative circuit of the federal judiciary. What’s the next step here?
ZORKA MILIN: Well, we don’t think that the decision can stand, and we think that the SEC will agree with us. The SEC was the defendant in this case, and so it is up to them to bring further appeals and to make sure that this incredible, misguided and damaging decision is overturned. And we certainly expect to see that, because the sweeping implications that I was describing earlier apply, perhaps especially, to the kinds of disclosures that the—the stock exchange disclosures that the Securities and Exchange Commission routinely requires from its issuers. So, we very much hope and expect to see further review and, you know, this terrible decision to be overturned.
AMY GOODMAN: Zorka, we have less than a minute, but with people increasingly walking around with smartphones, are conflict minerals a growing problem?
ZORKA MILIN: Well, I think that conflict minerals are not a necessary component of the electronics products that we all use. And it is possible to source minerals responsibly, including from the Democratic Republic of Congo. An analysis that our group did of some of the first filings under this law, which were made last year, shows that about 20 percent of companies have complied with the law fully, and so that shows that it’s possible. And we certainly hope that more and more companies will engage with the law in a more positive way and contribute to a responsible sourcing of minerals in the Congo for mines which are not controlled by the armed groups.
AMY GOODMAN: Zorka Milin, we want to thank you for being with us, senior legal adviser with Global Witness, a group that’s working to improve transparency and accountability in the extraction of natural resources.
In a Final Speech, Civil Rights Icon Julian Bond Declares: "We Must Practice Dissent"
In one of his final speeches, the late civil rights leader Julian Bond spoke at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on May 2, 2015, as part of the "Vietnam: Power of Protest" conference. He was introduced by the actor and activist Danny Glover. Julian Bond died on August 15 at the age of 75. Bond first gained prominence in 1960 when he organized a series of student sit-ins while attending Morehouse College. He went on to help found SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Julian Bond would go on to co-found the Southern Poverty Law Center. He served as the organization’s first president from 1971 to 1979. From 1998 to 2010, he was chairman of the NAACP.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As we wrap up our show today, well, we’re beginning this—we are ending this week where we began this week, and that’s remembering the late, great civil rights leader Julian Bond, who died on August 15th at the age of 75. In May, Julian Bond spoke at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial as part of the "Vietnam: Power of Protest" conference. Both Juan and I were at this event. Afterwards, people marched to the Martin Luther King Memorial. It was one of Julian Bond’s last public speeches. He was introduced by the actor and activist Danny Glover.
DANNY GLOVER: Julian Bond, at the age of 20, helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and then kept making history wherever he went. He was elected to the Georgia state House of Representatives in 1965, but members of the House refused to seat him because he opposed the war in Vietnam. In 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the House had denied his freedom of speech and had to seat him. From 1965 to 1975, he served in the House, Georgia House, and served six terms in the Georgia state Senate from 1975 to 1986. He recently served as chair of the NAACP. I have the honor, distinct honor, of welcoming Julian Bond.
JULIAN BOND: Thank you. Thank you a great deal. Thank you. Thank you for this kind welcome.
It’s fitting that we should have come to this place. Dr. King believed that peace and the civil rights movement are tied inextricably together, that the people who are working for civil rights are working for peace, and that the people working for peace are working for civil rights and justice. Accordingly, on April 4th, 1967, King delivered his famous speech against the Vietnam War. This was not without risk, because the mainstream press immediately denounced his speech, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and Life magazine. King was compelled to speak out, he said, because, one, the cost of war made its undertaking the enemy of the poor; two, because poor blacks were disproportionately fighting and dying; and, three, because the message of nonviolence is undermined when, in King’s words, the United States government is "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world." Georgia asked me if that was on this memorial. It’s not.
The organization of which I was a part in 1960, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, also felt compelled to speak out against the war, a year before King did so. In January 1966, Samuel Younge Jr., a Tuskegee Institute student and a colleague in SNCC, went to a civil rights demonstration in his hometown Tuskegee. He needed to use the bathroom more than most, because during his Navy service, including the Cuban blockade, he had lost a kidney. When he tried to use the segregated bathroom at a Tuskegee service station, the owner shot him in the back. The irony of Sammy losing his life after losing his kidney in service to his country prompted SNCC to issue an antiwar statement. We became the first organization to link the prosecution of the Vietnam War with the persecution of blacks at home. We issued a statement which accused the United States of deception in its claims of concern for the freedom of colored people in such countries as the Dominican Republic, the Congo, South Africa, Rhodesia and in the United States itself. We said, "The United States is no respecter of persons or laws when such persons or laws run counter to its needs and desires." This, too, was not without risk.
I was SNCC’s communication director and had just been elected to my first term in the Georgia House of Representatives. When I appeared to take the oath of office, hostility from white legislators was nearly absolute. They prevented me from taking the oath and declared my seat vacant. I ran for the vacancy, and I won again. And the Legislature declared my seat vacant again. My constituents elected me a third time, and the Legislature declared my seat vacant a third time. It would take a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court before I was allowed to take my seat. As King counseled, every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we all must protest. And protest we did. And in so doing, we helped to end the war, and we changed history.
Now we have both a Vietnam Memorial and a Martin Luther King Memorial. But we don’t tell the truth about either. As Tom Hayden has written, "the worst aspects of the Vietnam policy are being recycled instead of reconsidered." I urge you to read his Forgotten Power of [the] Vietnam Protest. We refused to allow the Vietnamese to vote for reunification in 1956, for fear they would vote for Ho Chi Minh. Many people still sadly believe the pervasive postwar myth that veterans returning home from Vietnam were commonly spat upon by protesters. As Christian Appy says, "it became an article of faith that the most shameful aspect of the Vietnam War was the nation’s failure to embrace and honor its returning soldiers." Honoring returning soldiers doesn’t make the war honorable, be it Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq. And the best way to honor our soldiers is to bring them safely home. As James Fallows writes, "regarding [military] members as heroes makes up for committing them to unending, unwinnable missions." The Pentagon has chosen to commemorate the Vietnam War as a multiyear, multidollar thank you, because, as Afghan vet Rory Fanning said, "Thank yous to heroes discourage dissent."
We practiced dissent then. We must practice dissent now. We must, as Dr. King taught us, "move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history." As King said then, and as even more true now, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
I want to close as King closes the Vietnam speech, with an excerpt from James Russell Lowell’s "The Present Crisis." He wrote:
“Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God’s new Messiah, OFFERING each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever ’twixt that darkness and the light.
"Though the cause of Evil PROSPER, yet ’tis Truth alone is strong,
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be Wrong,
Yet the scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own!"
I wish us the right choice. THANK you.
AMY GOODMAN: Civil rights leader Julian Bond, speaking in May at the "Vietnam: Power of Protest" conference in Washington at the Martin Luther King Memorial. It was one of his last public speeches. Julian Bond died August 15th at the age of 75. At the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Julian Bond became the first African American nominated for U.S. vice president by a major political party, but he had to withdraw his name because he was just 28 years old, seven years too young to hold the second-highest elected office. If you want to see our hour special remembering the life and legacy of Julian Bond, visit democracynow.org.
Headlines:
Greece: Alexis Tsipras Resigns, Says He Will Run in Snap Elections
In news from Greece, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced his resignation on Thursday, paving the way for new elections. The move came after Tsipras lost the support of many members of his own Syriza party who opposed his backing of the demands of international creditors for yet more austerity and economic reform in exchange for a new $96 billion bailout. Tspiras, who is expected to win in the snap elections, said the vote will give the Greek people a chance to have a say on the new bailout.
Alexis Tsipras: "I would like to submit the government’s resignation, and I would like to express my belief that the constitutional processes need to be set in motion immediately so that we can go as soon as possible, and with all due civility, to elections so that the Greek people can decide in which way the country should be led safely and quickly out of the crisis."
We’ll have more on Greece after headlines.
July was Hottest Month on Record; 2015 on Pace to Be Hottest Year
New data shows July was the warmest month ever on record. The data, released by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Thursday, also shows 2015 has been the hottest year on record so far. The agency said the temperatures have caused global heat waves throughout the summer.
Washington: Gov. Calls Wildfires "An Unprecedented Cataclysm"
The heat waves have worsened the wildfire season in the Western United States. In Washington state, Governor Jay Inslee has called the wildfires "an unprecedented cataclysm," one day after three firefighters were killed after being engulfed in flames. A fourth firefighter is in critical condition with burns covering approximately 60 percent of his body. Nearly 400,000 acres across Washington state are currently on fire.
San Joaquin Valley Is Sinking as a Result of Groundwater Extraction
Meanwhile, in California, new research from NASA shows that parts of the San Joaquin Valley are sinking almost two inches every month as a result of the increased consumption of groundwater due to the drought. A least one town has sunk by more than a foot. The sinking is cracking roads and unearthing underground pipelines. Researchers say the damage may be irreversible. We’ll have more on climate change later in the broadcast.
Jeb Bush Defends Use of Controversial Term "Anchor Babies"
In news from the campaign trail, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has said he does not regret using the term "anchor babies" during a radio interview on Wednesday. In the interview, he said he supports the 14th Amendment, which guarantees people born on American soil are automatically U.S. citizens, but that he wants more enforcement to protect against so-called anchor babies. Jeb Bush responded to questions from reporters Thursday.
Reporter 1: "Do you regret using the term 'anchor babies' yesterday on the radio?"
Jeb Bush: "No, I didn’t. I don’t. I don’t regret it."
Reporter 1: "You don’t regret it?"
Jeb Bush: "No. Do you have a better term?"
Reporter 1: "I’m not—I’m asking you."
Jeb Bush: "OK, you give me—you give me a better term, and I’ll use it. I’m serious."
Reporter 1: "Governor, Governor"—
Jeb Bush: "Don’t yell at me behind my ear, though.
Reporter 1: "Sorry about that."
Reporter 2: "Is that not bombastic language, 'anchor baby'? Is that not bombastic language?"
Jeb Bush: "No, it isn’t. Give me another—give me another word."
In response, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted: "How about 'babies,' 'children,' or 'American citizens?'"
Judge: Hillary Clinton’s Private Email Violated "Government Policy"
Meanwhile, Clinton is facing increasing pressure over her use of a private email setup while serving as secretary of state. During a FOIA hearing on Thursday, a federal judge said in reference to Clinton, "We wouldn’t be here today if this employee had followed government policy." The Justice Department is currently investigating whether any classified email was handled improperly.
Macedonia Declares State of Emergency to Address Migration
In news from Europe, Macedonia has declared a state of emergency and sealed its southern border with Greece after more than 40,000 migrants have flooded into the country over the last two months. A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry announced the decision Thursday.
Interior Ministry spokesperson Ivo Kotevski: "The Macedonian government has decided to declare a state of emergency in crisis regions, on its southern and northern borders, so, according to laws, army can be deployed on the territory of the Republic of Macedonia."
The majority of migrants have been passing through Macedonia in efforts to reach Germany, Britain and Sweden. But with the border between Greece and Macedonia now sealed, thousands are stranded in a no man’s land between the two countries. On Thursday night, police fired tear gas at the crowd of migrants by the border. One man spoke about the violence.
Migrant: "They shoot us today. They shoot us today, I can tell you. I see it. We was in front of the place. Officer people, they—officer people in Macedonia, they shoot the people."
With 2 New Accusations, Number of Bill Cosby’s Accusers Surpasses 50
Two more women have accused comedian Bill Cosby of drugging and raping them, bringing the total number of accusers to more than 50. One of the women spoke at a press conference with lawyer Gloria Allred Thursday.
Elizabeth (pseudonym): "I don’t know how we got to the hotel room. He went into the bathroom, undressed and came out in a robe. I told him I needed to go back to the hotel. I could barely stand up, and I was either going to pass out or get very sick. He made me kneel down, and I’m not going to repeat what happened next. All I know is that it was the most horrifying thing that could happen to any young woman. And I have daughters. The next thing I remember is I was in the Rolls Royce profusely vomiting. I apologized, and the driver said I wasn’t the first."
While she showed her face at the news conference, she did not want to be identified, simply being called "Elizabeth." She is one of now more than 50 women who have accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault and rape.
Pentagon Looking at Prisons in U.S. to Relocate Gitmo Prisoners
U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter says the Pentagon is visiting prisons in the United States where the agency could relocate men currently being held at Guantánamo Bay. The Pentagon teams have already visited the Army prison at Leavenworth, Kansas, and will soon visit the naval brig at Charleston, South Carolina. Carter said Thursday he wants to see Guantánamo closed before President Obama leaves office, calling the naval base a "rallying cry for jihadi propaganda."
New Campaign Calls on 5 Top Museums to Divest from Fossil Fuels
A new campaign is calling on five of the country’s most influential museums to divest from fossil fuels. The campaign singles out the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, the Field Museum in Chicago, the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh and the Natural History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City. The call to action was launched this morning by 350.org and The Natural History Museum, a new mobile museum that champions climate action.
Jimmy Carter Reveals Cancer Has Spread to His Brain
Former President Jimmy Carter has revealed his cancer has spread to his brain and that he has begun radiation treatment. In a press conference Thursday, Carter said he would like to live to continue his humanitarian work, but that he is "at ease with whatever comes."
Former President Jimmy Carter: "Well, at first, I—I felt that it was confined to my liver and that the operation had completely removed it, so I had been quite relieved. And then, that same afternoon, we had an MRI of my head and neck, and it showed up that it was already in four places in my brain. So, I would say that night and the next day, until I came back up to Emory (hospital), I just thought I had a few weeks left. But I was surprisingly at ease. You know, I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve had thousands of friends. And I’ve had an exciting and adventurous and gratifying existence. So I was surprisingly at ease, much more so than my wife was. But now I feel, you know, that it’s in the hands of God, whom I worship, and I’ll be prepared for anything that comes."
Longtime Civil Rights Activist Rev. George Houser Dies at 99
And longtime civil rights activist Reverend George Houser has died. The white Methodist minister helped found the Congress of Racial Equality, alongside civil rights icons James Farmer and Bayard Rustin. He also helped organize the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation, in which eight African-American and eight white activists rode interstate buses through 15 cities throughout the South. The action prefigured the Freedom Rides of 1961, which galvanized the civil rights movement. Earlier in life, Houser also served a year in federal prison for opposing the draft in World War II. He died in his home in California on Wednesday at the age of 99.
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