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Fracture: Author Joy-Ann Reid on Barack Obama, the Clintons and the Racial DivideIn the new book, "Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide," MSNBC national correspondent Joy-Ann Reid looks at the history of race relations in the U.S. while tracing the political shifts in the Democratic Party through the relationship between the Clintons and Obama. "The fundamental question that the Democratic Party has faced over the last 50 years is what to do with Johnson’s legacy, whether to run away from it, which the party by and large did, really spearheaded by Bill Clinton, who really shifted the party to the right, as a corrective to what I think a lot of party leaders saw as the electoral consequences of embracing so much social change,” Reid said. Reid was the host of MSNBC’s "The Reid Report" and a press aide in the final stretch of Barack Obama’s Florida campaign in 2008.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We end today’s show with a conversation with Joy-Ann Reid, national correspondent for MSNBC. She used to host The Reid Report and was a press aide in the final stretch of Barack Obama’s Florida campaign in 2008. She has written a book called Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide, which looks at the history of race relations in the U.S. while tracing the political shifts in the Democratic Party through the relationship between the Clintons and President Obama. Last week, Democracy Now!’s Juan González and I sat down with Joy-Ann Reid, and I began by asking her what exactly is the fracture she sees occurring between Barack Obama and not just Hillary Clinton, but the Clintons.
JOY-ANN REID: It’s interesting, because in 2008, in that campaign, you really did see both of the Clintons litigating with then-Senator Obama the legacy of the civil rights era. And they ran into trouble over their interpretation of the dichotomy between the Kingian nonviolent movement for social change, for economic empowerment, but also for the right to vote, and the Lyndon Johnson real break with his own party and with the once-Democratic, solid, segregated South on the issue of civil rights. And they ran into trouble, but the fundamental question that the Democratic Party has faced over the last 50 years is what to do with Johnson’s legacy, whether to run away from it, which the party by and large did, really spearheaded by Bill Clinton, who shifted the party to the right as a corrective to what I think a lot of party leaders saw as the consequences, the electoral consequences, of embracing so much social change.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But you actually go back and look at how this developed even before the Clintons and the role of the Jesse Jackson campaign within the Democratic Party, as well. Could you talk about that, as well?
JOY-ANN REID: Yeah, absolutely. I think there have been several fractures in the party, and the first, of course, was this break that Lyndon Johnson made from his own heritage, really, as a Southern politician, a Southern Democrat. And then I think the next one really was with Jesse Jackson. You know, when Reverend Jesse Jackson ran for president in 1984, it was a movement, and it was a movement that was not embraced either by the black political leadership or by the Democratic Party leadership. But this incredible movement really did fundamentally transform the party. He won several important concessions at the convention, because he was so successful both in that campaign and in 1988 in just registering millions and millions of voters, many of them African-American. You saw really this fundamental shift in the way delegates were awarded, in the way the party had to campaign, in the reintroduction of the need for Southern politics, that really made Barack Obama’s rise possible, because he could actually sort of bleed the Clinton campaign over the course of these small races because of Jesse Jackson.
AMY GOODMAN: How did President Clinton deal with Jesse Jackson?
JOY-ANN REID: It was interesting, because once Jesse Jackson had achieved these two back-to-back campaigns, that really were successful political movements that galvanized African Americans, the party had to decide what to do with him. And by 1988, really, the answer was, you know, we’re going to set him aside. And Bill Clinton really led that in 1992, when he essentially rebuked Jesse Jackson, and he was also at the same time, people will recall, rebuking Mario Cuomo and the liberal, McGovernite wing of the party. And he did so in very stark terms, as a way of signalizing to really white working-class voters that this is a party that’s not beholden to the Jackson wing, this is a candidacy that’s not beholden to Jackson himself. And that rejection of Jackson in 1992 really reset the party with white working-class voters, helped Bill Clinton to win the White House. But it set a tone for the party that was very center-right and that had liberals within the party really left yearning for a movement of their own. And it took quite a long time for the liberal wing to come back and for the African-American sort of part of that movement to find its own voice. But they definitely did in 2008.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And yet—but yet you say that Jackson and Clinton did develop a personal relationship of some sorts.
JOY-ANN REID: Yeah, one of Bill Clinton’s great talents—he is a very deft politician and a Southern politician, so politicians in the South, including Jimmy Carter, had long had this dichotomy of holding the African-American vote with one hand and the white rural vote with the other, and being able to do both. And because Bill Clinton is so personally conversant with African Americans, in such an easy and sort of natural relationship, he was able to surmount that both with black voters, but also with Jesse Jackson. He had a personal relationship with the guy. They could set up until 3:00 in the morning talking politics. He could walk into a black church with Jesse Jackson, and the two of them both know the second and third stanzas of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," and maybe not even everyone in the pews might, but he did. And I think that Bill Clinton’s personal gift as a politician helped him overcome some of the political strains that he himself created with policy.
AMY GOODMAN: He just spoke at Jackson’s mother’s funeral, is that right?
JOY-ANN REID: Absolutely. And that relationship developed personally, and I talk in the book about how they first sort of got together sitting in the Governor’s Mansion in Arkansas and sitting up 'til 3:00 in the morning when Hillary Clinton had to literally kick Jesse Jackson out, because the two of them just sat up talking politics and really enjoying each other's company. This is a really interesting relationship that’s had its ups and its downs, but that at the end of the day has remained really close.
AMY GOODMAN: So how does that translate into Hillary Clinton running for president now, in 2015, ’16?
JOY-ANN REID: Yeah, it’s interesting, because Hillary Clinton has had this remarkable arc over the course of her life, from being a sort of conservative, "Goldwater Girl" teenager to being this really fierce, feminist young lawyer in Arkansas and this, you know, advocate or this acolyte of Marian Wright Edelman, to then having to shift back into a traditional first lady role after really being rebuked for trying to have a policy portfolio of her own with healthcare. And so she sort of occupied this strange space that has mirrored the Democratic Party, that’s gone left, she’s gone right, she’s been hawkish, she’s been sort of the neocon in the party. And now she’s trying to find her own individual voice and balance whether she is, in a sense, looked at as a Clinton restoration candidate or an Obama continuation candidate, because she has a role, really, in both of those administrations, in both of those wings of the party. So she has this sort of odd space, and she hasn’t really decided which camp to really come down on. And she really needs to, because she needs that ascendant Obama coalition in order to become president.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in terms of the issue of the racial divide during the Obama administration, we’ve seen, especially after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the continuing incidents all across the country of police abuse, that the president has been challenged in terms of how he responds to this huge and growing concern in the African-American community and among people of color in the United States.
JOY-ANN REID: Yeah, and issues of policing underlie the movements around black civic justice going back a hundred years. I mean, if you go back to the 1960s, the majority of the riots that took place in urban centers were around incidents of police brutality or allegations of police misconduct against black citizens that caused these eruptions. It’s been that way for a long time; we just didn’t have cellphones to document it before. So Barack Obama comes along in a moment when his ascendancy was tied to this idea he could transcend race, that he could get the country beyond it, really by not really addressing it and not sticking that needle into the large body politic. But he finds that because, A, he is an African-American man, he can’t really avoid showing that inner self at these moments. And he showed it with Trayvon Martin. Though that was not a police incident, it was likened to it, because this was a person acting sort of in the guise of a police officer. It happens again with Michael Brown. And I think what the president finds is that his original sort of attempting to embrace this larger vision of race is unsatisfying to African Americans. And African Americans say, "No, we want you to litigate this issue and to respond to it and to speak our pain from the pulpit of the presidency." And it takes President Obama quite a while to do it, because I think he just feels he has this duty as president. But he, over time, starts to unfold that little by little, until now you really see a president who’s kind of come into his own talking about race, which I think happened around Selma, and you started to see him really open up. The African-American community and white Americans have very different expectations when it comes to talking race. On the one hand, there’s this desire to transcend it and sort of heal the past and say the past is past. But African Americans, the past is present, and they want it discussed.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to comments made by President Obama earlier this year during his address to the NAACP’s annual convention, where he spoke about racism as, quote, "the legacy of slavery and segregation."
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: By just about every measure, the life chances for black and Hispanic youth still lag far behind those of their white peers. Our kids, America’s children, so often are isolated, without hope, less likely to graduate from high school, less likely to earn a college degree, less likely to be employed, less likely to have health insurance, less likely to own a home. A part of this is a legacy of hundreds of years of slavery and segregation and structural inequalities that compounded over generations.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s President Obama addressing the NAACP. Now, you were his press aide in Florida, assistant press aide, in the last days of his run in 2008. How do you think he has changed? Has he disappointed you? Has he surprised you?
JOY-ANN REID: Well, you know, I think that the president has changed fundamentally in the way that he communicates with African Americans. The earlier iterations of then-Senator and President Obama would have followed those statements by saying we also have to turn off the TV and tell black parents to be present in the home and sit up with little Johnny and do the homework, and he had this sort of admonition style that’s very much in the pastor style. There is a tradition even in the black church of telling parents to, you know, pull up the kids—make the kids pull up their pants and behave themselves. And he had that part of his presentation, which was much like what Bill Clinton would often do in black churches in his political career. And it’s successful in the room, but I think outside of the room and in a growing body particularly of young black intellectuals and the younger African-American cohort, that was received as blaming the victim and constantly lecturing African Americans without really directly addressing the structural inequalities in the country.
Well, present-day President Obama, particularly in the last 18 months, is really where you just saw him at the NAACP, where he’s able to speak to the ongoing structural inequalities African Americans experience in real life, and I think he’s more comfortable doing that. I think the White House, you know, their side of the story would be, well, the reason he didn’t spend more time on race before is he was dealing with an economy that was cratering and other things. But I really do think there’s a greater comfort level that you can see in President Obama in talking about race the way his fellow African Americans talk about race all the time.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But is it also, perhaps, seeing that it’s coming in the last couple of years of an eight-year term—
JOY-ANN REID: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —his own realization that his expectation to take the country beyond racial conflicts has not happened?
JOY-ANN REID: Yeah, I think that the idea—and I do write about the fact that I think that there was a belief in a—a false belief, in a way, in the Obama team, not just—and that comes from the top—that his being president could help the country sort of surmount this issue of race and could render his race almost incidental to his presidency, that the successes in policy would spread across race and would sort of help him to surmount it. That was not possible. I even believed at the time, when then-Senator Obama was running, that if he won, we would have a reckoning on who we were as a country, as a multiracial democracy, and that it would be not always pretty. I haven’t been that surprised that there’s been a lot of ugliness tied to the presidency of Barack Obama, because we still have a lot of racial baggage as a country. We just don’t like to talk about it. We have to talk about it, with a black family in the White House. And he had to unfortunately experience some of the direct and really ugly sides of this country as president. But doing it as president, I think, makes a difference, because it forces the country to reckon with it.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s contrast President Obama with Hillary Clinton. Last month, a group of Black Lives Matter activists from Massachusetts met with Hillary Clinton following a campaign event in New Hampshire. I want to go to a clip of the exchange. It begins with Daunasia Yancey of Black Lives Matter Boston.
DAUNASIA YANCEY: But your—you and your family have been personally and politically responsible for policies that have caused health and human services disasters in impoverished communities of color through the domestic and international war on drugs that you championed as first lady, senator and secretary of state. And so I just want to know how you feel about your role in that violence and how you plan to reverse it?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, you know, I feel strongly, which is why I had this town hall today. And as, you know, the questions and the comments from people illustrated, there’s a lot of concern that we need to rethink and redo what we did in response to a different set of problems. And, you know, in life, in politics, in government—you name it—you’ve got to constantly be asking yourself, "Is this working? Is it not? And if it’s not, what do we do better?" And that’s what I’m trying to do now on drugs, on mass incarceration, on police behavior and criminal justice reform, because I do think that there was a different set of concerns back in the '80s and the early ’90s. And now I believe we have to look at the world as it is today and try to figure out what will work now. And that's what I’m trying to figure out. That’s what I intend to do as president.
AMY GOODMAN: So that’s Hillary Clinton speaking with Daunasia Yancey, the founder of Black Lives Matter Boston. Our guest is Joy-Ann Reid, who wrote Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide. Can you assess that conversation, the issues Daunasia was raising and what Hillary Clinton responded?
JOY-ANN REID: Yeah, it’s interesting, because I think you’re really seeing Hillary Clinton. We were having this sort of, I think, sort of bit false conversation about authenticity and campaigns and candidates. That is authentic Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a policy wonk. Part of even the reason she ran into trouble in 2008 is that she was having this very academic discussion about the difference between what advocacy did in the Kingian sort of model and what it took for actual legislation, to make that possible. And she was essentially saying the same thing here.
AMY GOODMAN: Joy-Ann Reid, author of Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide. She’s a national correspondent for MSNBC.
Pope Francis in Cuba: "The World Needs Reconciliation in This Atmosphere of a Third World War"Ahead of his first U.S. visit, Pope Francis celebrated mass in Cuba Sunday before hundreds of thousands of worshipers in Havana’s Revolution Square. Born in Argentina, Francis is the first Latin American pope. He is widely praised in Cuba for helping to broker secret talks with Washington that resulted in the further normalization of U.S.-Cuban relations, and praised the detente between the two countries as "an example of reconciliation for the entire world." The pope’s homily in Havana included no direct political message besides urging the successful conclusion of Colombia peace talks that have been taking place in Cuba for nearly three years. On Tuesday, Pope Francis arrives in Washington, where he will address Congress and meet with President Obama. We speak about Pope Francis’ Cuba-U.S. trip with Carlos Alzugaray Treto, a former Cuban diplomat and former Havana University professor; and Andrea Bartoli, dean of the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University and member of the Community of Sant’Egidio, a liberal Catholic group active in international affairs.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Ahead of his first U.S. visit, Pope Francis celebrated mass in Cuba Sunday before hundreds of thousands of worshipers in Havana’s Revolution Square. Born in Argentina, Francis is the first Latin American pope. He is widely praised in Cuba for helping to broker secrets talks with Washington that resulted in the further normalization of U.S.-Cuban relations. After arriving in Cuba Saturday, Pope Francis praised the detente between the two countries as, quote, "an example of reconciliation for the entire world." During Sunday’s mass in Havana, Pope Francis called on Catholics to be of service to one another.
POPE FRANCIS: [translated] People of flesh and blood, people with individual lives and stories and with all their frailty, these are those whom Jesus asks us to protect, to care for, to serve, because being a Christian entails serving the dignity of your brothers and sisters, to fight for our brothers’ and sisters’ dignity, and to live for the dignity of your brothers and sisters. That is why Christians are constantly called to set aside their own wishes and desires, their pursuit of power, and to look instead to those who are most vulnerable. There is a kind of service which truly serves others, yet we need to be careful not to be tempted by another kind of service, a service which is self-serving. There is a way to go about serving, which is interested in only helping my people in the name of our people. This service always leaves your people outside and gives rise to a process of exclusion.
AMY GOODMAN: The pope’s homily in Havana included no direct political message besides urging the successful conclusion of Colombia peace talks that have been taking place in Cuba for nearly three years.
After the mass, Pope Francis met former Cuban leader Fidel Castro at his home. The pope, who is Jesuit, gave Castro a collection of sermons by Castro’s former Jesuit teacher, the Reverend Amando Llorente, and two CD recordings of the Spanish priest speaking. Te pope also met with President Raúl Castro at the Palace of Revolution.
On Tuesday, Pope Francis arrives in Washington, where he’ll address Congress and meet with President Obama. According to some accounts, Pope Francis had initially wanted to begin his U.S. trip by crossing the Mexican border to show support for immigrants, but the plan had to be scrapped for logistical reasons. After Washington, the pope heads to New York and Philadelphia. Over the weekend, the Vatican released a short video of Pope Francis speaking in English about his Philadelphia stop.
POPE FRANCIS: I look forward to greeting the pilgrims and the people of Philadelphia when I come for the World Meeting of Families. I will be there, because you will be there. See you in Philadelphia.
AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about Pope Francis’s Cuba and U.S. trips, we’re joined by two guests. In Havana, Dr. Carlos Alzugaray Treto, a former Cuban diplomat who attended the pope’s mass in Havana Sunday and has closely followed the pope’s visit. Dr. Treto is a scholar and writer and former Havana University professor. Here in New York, we’re joined by Andrea Bartoli. The Community of Sant’Egidio is the group he is with, a liberal Catholic group active in international affairs. He’s the representative to the U.N. and the United States. Bartoli is also the dean of the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! But let’s begin in Havana. Dr. Treto, can you talk about what happened on Sunday, the mass in Havana’s Revolution Square? Describe the scene for us and what the pope said.
CARLOS ALZUGARAY TRETO: Well, I think—Amy, thank you for having me. I think first you have to describe the city the day before. It’s very important, because it was a Saturday. And everything was very subdued, like everyone was in the expectation of what was going to happen on Sunday. Night places were not full of patrons. Patrons simply stayed at home and got ready for the mass.
The mass was attended by a large number of Cubans. I think that it’s interesting, because it underlines the very complex religiosity of the Cuban people. I bet that there were many practicing Catholics. And as a matter of fact, communion was handed out all over the Plaza de la Revolución. But at the same time, there were many curious people who simply were attracted by the figure of the pope.
This is the first Latin American pope. His position in international affairs is quite different from what we have seen in the past, because the pope has aligned itself—in the big debates of the world today, the pope has aligned itself with the poor people, with the underdeveloped countries. But his message at the Plaza was basically a Catholic message, and under no doubt that it helped the Catholic Church in Cuba. The Catholic Church in Cuba is not very influential, mainly because it had been always in the national debates on the wrong side. But now the church is aligning itself with the right side. And it’s interesting because, to a great extent, it is the Vatican that has promoted that position of the church.
And even though at the mass yesterday the pope simply kept going a message of solidarity, of getting together, but the cardinal, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, mentioned the fact that the church was playing a role in the normalization of relations with the United States, and the church, through Cardinal Ortega, very distinctly stepped on the side of normalization. And this is important, because there was a large delegation of Cuban Americans from Miami and other places in the United States. I personally met with the bishop of Miami, Archbishop Wenski, and there were lots of Cuban Americans who some years ago wouldn’t have dreamed to come to Cuba, and now they are here in Cuba being part of this process. As a matter of fact, many of them have left for Holguín to be present at the mass today in Holguín.
AMY GOODMAN: And describe the mass that you attended, what Revolution Square was like on Sunday. And then talk about the significance of the meeting between the pope, between Pope Francis, the first Latin American pope, and Fidel Castro at his home with his family.
CARLOS ALZUGARAY TRETO: OK. The mass, the mass was full of people. I was surprised by the number of young people who are Catholic, who are believing Catholic. This is important for the church, because in the past the church has never crossed the threshold of maybe 10 percent of the population being practicing Catholics. So, it was a manifestation of the growing influence of the church, although my opinion is that it’s not something that will continue to grow forever, because there are obviously limits of what the church can be part of. Maybe the most significant one was the meeting the pope had yesterday in the afternoon in front of the Centro Félix Varela with young people in Cuba. So, I think the important thing here is the church has been growing, but it’s siding in cooperation with the government. And this is very significant. There is no, let’s say, open conflict, although the church would like more presence. And that presence is being achieved with the help of the Vatican.
Now, my view of the meeting with Fidel, it’s very interesting. I mean, Fidel, since 1985, when he gave the interview to Frei Betto and appeared in a book called Fidel and Religion, he has come out as a person who has studied in Catholic schools. I, myself, went to Belén, just like Fidel, and I have a lot of respect for the Jesuits, for the way that the Jesuits have helped us learn more and be constructive, so—which was not the case, by the way, in the Belén that Fidel and me met, because at that time Belén was quite conservative. But, you know, there is such a coincidence between the political positions of Fidel Castro in the world stage—and Raúl Castro, for that matter—and the position of the pope. It’s for equality, for the poor, for advancing progressive agenda worldwide. So, I see it as part of that and as this continuous relationship that began many years ago, especially when, in 1998, Pope John Paul visited Cuba, and the connection between John Paul and Fidel was so good. So, this continues to happen today. Remember, when the pope arrived in Cuba, the first thing the—Pope Francis arrived in Cuba, the first thing he said at his speech, "Please, Mr. President, give my greetings to your brother, Fidel Castro," which, of course, it’s kind of contradictory with the original position of the church in the early years of the revolution, because the church sided with the United States, with the upper classes, against the revolution. And that situation continued in the '60s and the ’70s. It started to change in the ’80s. Both sides approached each other since the ’80s. And I think this is—this was underlined by everything that the pope did yesterday, but especially by his meeting Fidel Castro, who is—after all, he's the historical leader of the Cuban revolution.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to come back to this discussion with Dr. Carlos Alzugaray Treto, former Cuban diplomat, and we’ll also be joined here in New York by Dr. Andrea Bartoli, who is the dean of public—Diplomacy at Seton Hall University. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.
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AMY GOODMAN: "Mi Guajira," here on Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. Speaking shortly after his arrival Saturday in Havana, Pope Francis praised the recent rapprochement between Cuba and the United States, in which the pope played a key role, and he urged them to set an example for the world, which, he warned, has an atmosphere of, quote, "a third world war."
POPE FRANCIS: [translated] For some months now, we have witnessed an event which fills us with hope: the process of normalizing relations between two peoples following years of estrangement. It’s a process. It’s a sign of the victory of the culture of encounter and dialogue, the system of universal growth over the forever-dead system of groups and dynasties, which José Martí said. I urge political leaders to persevere on this path and to develop all its potentialities as a proof of the high service which they are called to carry out on behalf of the peace and well-being of our peoples of all America and as an example of reconciliation for the entire world. The world needs reconciliation in this atmosphere of a third world war.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Pope Francis when he first arrived in Cuba. He’ll come to the United States tomorrow, on Tuesday. Our guests, to talk about this, in Havana, Carlos Alzugaray Treto, a former Cuban diplomat, and here in New York, we’re joined by Dr. Andrea Bartoli. He’s with the Community of Sant’Egidio, a liberal Catholic group active in international affairs, and is also the dean of the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.
Dr. Andrea Bartoli, tell us about your take on the significance of the pope’s visit. First he chose to go to Cuba, and then he’s coming to the United States. And he played a key secret role in the rapprochement between the two, now calling for an end to the embargo.
ANDREA BARTOLI: So, first of all, it’s very clear that the timing is marvelous. He could have come to the U.S. without going to Cuba. He could have gone to the U.S. first and then to Cuba. Instead, there is his choice of going to Cuba first. Francis is very clear in his message. He likes peripheries. He wants to see the world through the peripheries. He wants to come to the center of the world from the periphery. So the moment of Francis is very telling. And I think it’s a very important moment. He’s not only going to Cuba because Cuba is a Catholic country traditionally, because there is a cultural legacy—he speaks Spanish, obviously, in Cuba—but I think because diplomacy is made with encounters, with this challenge of encountering somebody that can be threatening. And the relationship between Cuba and the U.S. has been clearly mutually threatening for quite some times. So, Francis is trying to say encounter is a challenge, encounter is a risk that you take, and diplomacy must be taken boldly, must be taken with some gusto. And I think that the message that he’s saying is that the U.S. is actually ready for this challenge and has done well so far.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about how the pope did facilitate this rapprochement, something that wasn’t known about until it was announced—well, known by some?
ANDREA BARTOLI: So, it’s very interesting, because in many ways the two parties didn’t need Francis at all. They did all the work in Canada, and they did all the work by themselves. So, in many ways, you wonder why did they think that it was necessary to go to the Vatican and have this blessing. And I think that there is something about the general perception in the world that serious problem must be solved by war, that serious problem must be solved violently, a serious problem must be solved by victory. And instead, both of them felt that Francis was very important in blessing this idea that serious problem actually must be solved by diplomacy, must be solved politically. So the role of the pope was actually at the very end. It was almost a blessing, a fatherly blessing of an agreement that was already made by the Americans and the Cubans.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, this is not the first time a pope has gone to Cuba. You had Pope John Paul II, as well as Pope Benedict.
ANDREA BARTOLI: Yes, indeed. And it’s a very interesting process, because, as we know now, Bergoglio Cardinal studied Wojtyla’s visit very, very carefully. Wojtyla’s visit was an important one. This is a pope that was born in Poland, expressed, you know, and lived in his own way—you know, the tragedy of Europe, Nazi Germany occupying Poland, and then the communist occupation and experience—and yet came out victorious because he felt that the church needed to be the church, needed to be a space for people to think freely. And interestingly enough, his visit to Cuba had similar overtone. The church is not confronting the government, is not aligning itself against the government, but is clearly creating conditions for new options to emerge, is clearly giving the system a possibility to breathe. And Bergoglio clearly is setting himself into this line that Benedict, too, wanted to strengthen.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you comment on the comments made about the pope by New Jersey governor and Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie? Christie is Catholic, but, speaking to CNN, he said he disagrees with the pope on the U.S.-Cuba relationship.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: I just think the pope was wrong. And so, the fact is that his infallibility is on religious matters, not on political ones. And the fact is that, for me, I just believe that when you have a government that is harboring fugitives, murdering fugitives, like JoAnne Chesimard who murdered a state policeman in New Jersey in cold blood, was broken out of prison and has been harbored for the last 40-plus years by a Cuban government that has paid her and held her up as a hero, that this president could extend diplomatic relations with that country without getting her returned, so that she can serve the prison sentence that she was sentenced to by a jury of her peers in New Jersey, is outrageous. And so, I just happen to disagree with the pope on this one.
AMY GOODMAN: That is Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey. You are at Seton Hall University. You’re the head of the School of Diplomacy and International Relations, you’re the dean of it. Seton Hall in East Orange, New Jersey. Your response to Governor Christie?
ANDREA BARTOLI: So, the governor, Christie, is right: The pope is infallible only on matters of faith and when he speaks ex cathedra. So that point is very clear. But the question is: Should we keep countries frozen in a 50-years relationship that doesn’t go anywhere? The fugitive that Governor Christie mentioned is not in New Jersey, and is not going to be in New Jersey anytime soon if the policy of the U.S. remains the same. So, the result of that policy is that justice, according to New Jersey law, was definitely not served. Do we have a chance that that justice will be served if there is an agreement between the U.S. and Cuba? I would say that is certainly much higher. So, in a world of probability, I would say that actually the pope is right, in a sense that even the justice that Governor Christie is claiming will actually be probably better served by a collaboration between the government of Cuba and the government of the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about his trip to the United States and the significance of this, and the priest he will be sanctifying here when he first comes to Washington, D.C.
ANDREA BARTOLI: So, Junípero Serra is clearly an interesting presence in the U.S. He was a Spanish-speaking missionary, and his memory is very fond in certain quarters, but he’s also debated. And I think it’s important for people to realize that the debate within the Catholic Church has been around for quite some times. We celebrated a few years ago 500 years of the Montesinos homilies, you know, these famous words in which this Dominican friar was condemning the Spanish conquistadores to—against, you know, their oppression of the natives. And las Casas and the others clearly put that emphasis into play. So the Catholic Church has been thinking this contradiction for quite some times. And interestingly enough, the Jesuits themselves found in Latin America a very interesting history of experimenting with politics that the European monarchy couldn’t accept. So I think that what we are seeing here is the long end of a long history. And the Catholic Church has been around for quite some times.
AMY GOODMAN: Pope Francis’s decision to canonize Father Serra has drawn a strong protest from many Native Americans. They accuse—they say that in the 18th century the Franciscan missionary was brutal, imposing conversion to Catholicism. This is Corine Fairbanks, director of the Southern California chapter of the American Indian Movement, or AIM.
CORINE FAIRBANKS: I think that Serra was, you know, an accomplice and co-conspirator to rape, land theft, torture, murder. I think that he’s just as bad as Hitler. I mean, some people might not understand the comparison, but he was a man with a vision and kept nothing—nothing—in the way of making that vision happen, didn’t care how many thousands of people that he hurt. He had a vision, he had a plan, he executed it.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Andrea Bartoli, your response? Interestingly, the pope has condemned colonialism, has apologized to indigenous and Native American people.
ANDREA BARTOLI: Yeah, exactly. So, this is a very interesting challenge for the Catholic Church more than anyone else, you know, of being a presence in human history for more than 2,000 years. And so, clearly, you have contradictions in acts that were wrong and for which the church has apologized. The pope himself, especially John Paul II, started this expression of contrition. But I also think that it’s important to realize how the debates within the church were well alive at that time and are still alive, and also how the political realities of that moment—you know, the secular forces were pushing for even further oppression and discrimination. So I think that the choices that we make today are clearly making the world as we live it, but it’s important to realize that the ways in which we remember is also counting.
MY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to Dr. Carlos Alzugaray Treto in Havana, in Cuba, and ask you about Assata Shakur, who Governor Christie was talking about. Assata Shakur, who was known—who was born as JoAnne Chesimard [married name was Chesimard] was convicted May 2nd, 1973, of killing of a New Jersey state trooper during a shootout that left one of her fellow activists dead on the New Jersey Turnpike. She was shot twice by the New Jersey police during the incident. In ’79, she managed to escape from jail. She later fled to Cuba. And she has long proclaimed her innocence, but said she could not get a fair trial in the United States. Is it possible that her exile is threatened under this rapprochement, Dr. Treto?
CARLOS ALZUGARAY TRETO: The Cuban government has been very clear on this issue. They have insisted again and again that JoAnne Chesimard, or Assata Shakur, is a political exile, is considered a political exile by the Cuban government. Of course, Governor Christie, it’s only normal that he would have that opinion, but I would invite him to think about these things, because, I mean, if we are going to stop the normalization process because of these kinds of issues, the Cuban government can say, "Why doesn’t the United States extradite to Cuba Luis Posada Carriles, whose case is even worse, even than the one that Christie describes about Assata Shakur?" Luis Posada Carriles is a terrorist, and he has confessed to major crimes. He’s not—he was tried and convicted in Venezuela, tried and convicted in Panama, but in Panama he was pardoned by the influence of the right-wing Cuban Americans. And he is in the United States, and the United States hasn’t processed him for his terrorist activities, even though the—in internal documents, it is recognized that he’s a violent terrorist. And he’s not extradited. Now, the Cuban government could say, "Well, I am not going to talk to the American government until they extradite Posada Carriles." They don’t say that, because the logical thing is for these issues to be debated diplomatically and to be talked about diplomatically. It’s a reality, unfortunately. It’s a reality of our long conflict. But Cuba stands on its position that she is a political—she came to Cuba asking for political asylum, and she was given political asylum by the Cuban government.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, this—I don’t know if it was a rumor, but the possibility that the pope would have come up to the United States through the Mexican border, Dr. Bartoli, what do you know about this?
ANDREA BARTOLI: Well, I think it’s a wonderful gesture, and I think that it’s definitely possible that Francis had considered that. You know, you will remember him at the wall. And I think that it’s important for Francis to realize that his presence and his politic is not just made by speeches, it’s also made by gestures. And he’s actually becoming more known, in many ways, in this global age, through these gestures. I think that we also need to remember that American cardinals went to the wall, to the border, to celebrate. Cardinal O’Malley, who is fluent in Spanish and fluent in Portuguese and has been a very strong defender of the rights of the immigrant, already did this. So, for the Catholic Church, that border is particularly relevant, because, as we can imagine, Catholics are everywhere—clearly very strong in the U.S., but very strong in Mexico, too. So, it would have been a wonderful gesture, and it’s interesting that it could not happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Sant’Egidio, the community that you represent—we only have a minute, but can you explain how this relates to the pope and what this community of liberal Catholic service does?
ANDREA BARTOLI: So, in this particular case, the community is a largest movement of Catholics in Cuba, and it’s growing quite remarkably, being born in Rome in 1968, its presence in the United States, and has being working on peacemaking for a long time. I’m representing the community to the U.N. because we were involved in the peace process in Mozambique. We have been involved in Albania and Algeria, in many countries. And we are working now on Syria. So the Community of Sant’Egidio is the beginning of a new church, after Vatican II. It’s the expression of a new Catholic understanding of the world. And this is why we feel that Francis is so important, not just for Catholics, but for everyone.
AMY GOODMAN: And in Syria, you are doing what?
ANDREA BARTOLI: In Syria, we gathered all the non-armed Syrian opposition, and we have been working with de Mistura on the new concept and the new ideas on ways in which diplomacy could address the issue. Our presence in Syria has been especially through the Christians in the territory. One in particular—two bishops and one Catholic priest, Mar Gregorios Ibrahim and Paul Yazigi, a Syrian Orthodox and Orthodox—Greek Orthodox bishop, and Paolo Dall’Oglio, all kidnapped, have been in our prayers every day since the kidnapping. The community has been dedicated to Syria from all over the world. And I think it’s very, very important to realize that we definitely feel the lacking of a peace movement worldwide for peace in Syria. It’s just outrageous what is happening there and the lack of response that we have.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us, and I’d like to continue the conversation at another time with you about Sant’Egidio’s work all over the world. Dr. Andrea Bartoli is the representative of the Community of Sant’Egidio, a liberal Catholic group active in international affairs, dean of the School of Diplomacy and International Relations, as well, at Seton Hall University. And Carlos Alzugaray Treto, a former Cuban diplomat, speaking to us directly from Havana, Cuba.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, we looked at racial relations over the last 50 years, but particularly focusing in the last years around President Obama and the Clintons. We’ll speak with Joy-Ann Reid, author and MSNBC correspondent, about her book called Fracture. Stay with usHeadlines:
Japanese Parliament OKs Overseas Combat Role Despite Mass Protests Japanese lawmakers have voted into law new measures to allow Japanese troops to fight abroad for the first time since the end of World War II. The vote came after tens of thousands flocked to the streets to defend Japan’s pacifist constitution. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pushed to weaken the pacifist provisions as part of a broader strategy of militarization. Opposition parties tried unsuccessfully to block the pro-military measures, which are opposed by a majority of the public. Protesters vowed to continue fighting.
Ayumi Nakamura: "Just because this law has been enacted doesn’t mean we should let it pass. We can’t just give up because it passed. After all, it was passed in the most irregular way."
Pope Celebrates Mass in Cuba, Meets with Castro
Pope Francis celebrated mass in Cuba Sunday before hundreds of thousands of worshipers in Havana’s Revolution Square. Born in Argentina, Francis is the first Latin American pope. He is widely praised in Cuba for helping to broker secret talks with Washington that resulted in the further normalization of U.S.-Cuban relations. After arriving in Cuba Saturday, Pope Francis praised the detente between Cuba and the United States as "an example of reconciliation for the entire world." On Tuesday, Pope Francis arrives in Washington, where he will address Congress and meet with President Obama. We’ll have more on the pope’s visit to Cuba after headlines.
Yemen: Hostages Released as Saudi-Led Strikes Kill Family In news from Yemen, six foreign hostages, including two Americans, have been freed by Houthi rebels after months in captivity. The news comes as the latest U.S.-backed, Saudi-led airstrikes targeting the Houthi rebels have killed dozens more people. Airstrikes over the weekend hit the Old City in the Yemeni capital Sana’a, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, killing 10 members of a single family, including eight children.
Greece: Tsipras to Form New Gov’t After Syriza Wins Snap Election In Greece, the left-leaning Syriza party has won snap elections, bringing Alexis Tsipras back to the role of prime minister a month after he resigned. Tsipras had stepped down amid a revolt within his own Syriza party after he reversed course on austerity and accepted the harsh terms of an international bailout. Syriza won 35 percent of the vote versus 28 percent for the conservative New Democracy Party, giving Syriza 145 seats in the 300-member Parliament. Tsipras said he felt "vindicated" by the win.
Alexis Tsipras: "We gave a tough and difficult battle, and I feel vindicated today because the Greek people gave us a clear mandate to continue fighting inside and outside the country and boost our people’s pride."
Thousands of Refugees Enter Austria; 13 Die Off Turkish Coast Foreign ministers from four countries in Eastern Europe are meeting for talks today to address the influx of Syrian refugees fleeing violence in their home country. Thousands of people flooded into Austria over the weekend, with more expected to arrive from Hungary today. Hungary has reportedly reopened its main border crossing with Serbia, after its closure sent refugees streaming into Croatia. In Serbia, hundreds of people attending a heavily guarded LGBT pride event in the capital Belgrade over the weekend called for solidarity with the refugees and migrants passing through their country. Meanwhile, at least 13 people, including four children, died when their dinghy collided with a ferry off the coast of Turkey. Another 26 people are missing in a separate incident after their boat sank off the coast of the Greek island of Lesbos.
Kerry: U.S. to Resettle 15,000 More Refugees Next Year The United States has vowed to take in more refugees from around the world. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would take in a total of 100,000 refugees in 2017.
John Kerry: "I’m pleased to announce today that the United States will significantly increase our numbers for refugee resettlement in the course of this next year and the year after. Last year, I think we were at 70,000. We are now going to go up to 85,000, with at least, and I underscore the 'at least' — it is not a ceiling, it’s a floor of 10,000 over the next year from Syria specifically, even as we also receive more refugees from other areas. And in the next fiscal year, we’ll target 100,000."
Kerry’s announcement still falls far short of calls from human rights groups to accept 100,000 refugees from Syria alone next year. The United States has taken in only about 1,600 Syrian refugees since the conflict began in 2011.
Volkswagen Accused of Evading Pollution Rules; CEO Apologizes Volkswagen has apologized and halted the sale of certain diesel cars in the United States following reports it illegally installed software to evade standards for curbing pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency ordered Volkswagen to recall half a million vehicles after finding it installed the devices in a deliberate bid to avoid emissions rules. It remains unclear if Volkswagen officials will face criminal charges. Tyson Slocum of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen told The Huffington Post, "This is a huge test of how serious the [Obama] administration’s commitment is to prosecuting white collar crime."
Ben Carson Says a Muslim Should Not Become President The Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling on Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson to withdraw from the race after he said he would not agree with a Muslim being elected president. Carson made the comments on NBC’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.
Ben Carson: "Well, I guess it depends on what that faith is. If it’s inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the Constitution, no problem."
Chuck Todd: "So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the Constitution?"
Ben Carson: "No, I don’t. I do not."
Chuck Todd: "So you— "
Ben Carson: "I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that."
Carson’s campaign has defended the remarks, saying there is a "huge gulf" between the Muslim faith and "our Constitution and American values." Carson’s comments came after fellow Republican contender Donald Trump was criticized for failing to correct a supporter who called Obama a Muslim at a town hall event last week. On Sunday, Trump told Chuck Todd he was willing to take Obama at his word when the president said he was a Christian. He also said that some people already think we have a Muslim president.
House Votes to Defund Planned Parenthood House lawmakers on Friday voted to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood for a year unless it stops performing abortions. The vote follows a series of Republican-led hearings on heavily edited videos released by an anti-choice group which show Planned Parenthood employees discussing the sharing of fetal tissue with researchers. At one hearing, Arizona Republican Congressmember Trent Franks acknowledged Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee had neither seen or requested the full, unedited videos. On Friday, Florida Democratic Congressmember Lois Frankel denounced the bill defunding Planned Parenthood.
Rep. Lois Frankel: "I want to say this as respectfully as possible, but this bill is dumb, it’s foolish, and it’s mean-spirited, with only one purpose, and that is to punish one of our country’s premier health organizations because it provides women access to an array of services that we need to lead healthy lives."
Obama Nominee Would Be 1st Openly Gay Civilian to Lead Army President Obama has nominated Eric Fanning as secretary of the Army. If confirmed by the Senate, Fanning would become the first openly gay civilian to lead a branch of the U.S. military.
Military Denies Chelsea Manning Permission to Grow Her Hair The move comes as the U.S. military continues to deny imprisoned, transgender Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning permission to grow her hair. Manning is serving a 35-year sentence for giving classified documents to WikiLeaks. Last year, the ACLU filed a lawsuit demanding treatment for Manning’s gender dysphoria, including permission to grow out her hair. While Manning has been granted access to hormones and makeup, on Friday the military ruled she must continue to cut her hair short, citing security concerns. In a message on her Twitter feed, Manning vowed to fight the decision in court.
Chicago: Hunger Strike for Dyett High School Ends After 34 Days In Chicago, a dozen public school parents, grandmothers and education activists have ended a hunger strike over the fate of Dyett High School, after 34 days. Under Chicago mayor and former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, the city has closed about 50 schools in predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhoods. Earlier this month, under pressure from the hunger strikers, officials announced plans to reopen Dyett High School as an arts-focused, open-enrollment school. But the hunger strikers had called for it to become a global leadership and green technology school. They ended their fast Saturday amid concerns over the hunger strikers’ health.
Watch: Viola Davis Quotes Harriet Tubman in Historic Emmys Speech And Viola Davis has made history, becoming the first African American to win an Emmy Award for best lead actress on a drama series.
Viola Davis: "'In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line. But I can't seem to get there no how. I can’t seem to get over that line.’ That was Harriet Tubman in the 1800s. And let me tell you something: The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there. So here’s to all the writers, the awesome people that are Ben Sherwood, Paul Lee, Peter Nowalk, Shonda Rhimes, people who have redefined what it means to be beautiful, to be sexy, to be a leading woman, to be black, and to the Taraji P. Hensons and Kerry Washingtons, the Halle Berrys, the Nicole Beharies, the Meagan Goods, to Gabrielle Union. Thank you for taking us over that line. Thank you for the Television Academy. Thank you."
That’s Viola Davis, making history, accepting the Emmy Award for best lead actress on a drama series for her role as a defense attorney in the series "How to Get Away with Murder."
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