Democracy Now! Blog

"First as Tragedy, Then As Farce": Philosopher and Cultural Theorist Slavoj Žižek Speaks at Cooper Union

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:15:00 -0500

Dubbed by the National Review as “the most dangerous political philosopher in the West” and the New York Times as “the Elvis of cultural theory,” Slovenian philosopher and public intellectual Slavoj Žižek has written over fifty books on philosophy, psychoanalysis, theology, history and political theory.

In his latest book, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, Žižek analyzes how the United States has moved from the tragedy of 9/11 to what he calls the farce of the financial meltdown.

He spoke on that same theme at Cooper Union during a recent trip to New York.

The Tortured Logic Continues

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:06:00 -0500

“Extraordinary rendition” is White House-speak for kidnapping. Just ask Maher Arar. He’s a Canadian citizen who was “rendered” by the U.S. to Syria, where he was tortured for almost a year.

Just this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York City, dismissed Arar’s case against the government officials (including FBI Director Robert Mueller, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and former Attorney General John Ashcroft) who allegedly conspired to have him kidnapped and tortured. Arar is safe now, recovering in Canada with his family. But the decision sends a signal to the Obama administration that there will be no judicial intervention to halt the cruel excesses of the Bush-era “Global War on Terror,” including extraordinary rendition, torture and the use of the “state secrets privilege” to hide these crimes.

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The War Condolences Obama Hasn't Sent

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:39:00 -0400

U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Chancellor Keesling died in Iraq on June 19, 2009, from “a non-combat related incident,” according to the Pentagon. Keesling had killed himself. He was just one in what is turning out to be a record year for suicides in the U.S. military.

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Afghan Peace Activist Malalai Joya Speaks on "Crisis and Resistance"

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:12:00 -0400

Malalai Joya is one of Afghanistan’s leading democracy activists. In 2005, she became the youngest person ever elected to the Afghan parliament. She was suspended in 2007 for her denunciation of warlords and their cronies in government. She has just written her memoir, “A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out.”

She spoke in New York at the Northeast Socialist Conference on October 23, 2009.

The Late Clarence Kailin in his Own Words: "We've Got a Lot of Work to Do"

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:40:00 -0400

Clarence Kailin was one of the last survivors of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a group of American volunteers who fought against fascism in the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. Kailin fought in defense of Spain’s democratically elected government against a military coup led by Gen. Francisco Franco, backed by Adolf Hitler and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. In one of his last public appearances, Kailin, a lifelong activist, told friends and supporters at his 95th birthday celebration in Madison, “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Thanks to Karen Rybold-Chin for this video.

Trick or Treat for Climate Change

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:52:00 -0400

Halloween is around the corner, and children will soon be dressing up and chanting “trick or treat,” their demand for candy backed up by the threat of a prank. Climate-change activists, from pranksters to presidents, are doing the same.

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Lt. Choi Won’t Lie for His Country

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:23:00 -0400

Lt. Dan Choi doesn’t want to lie. Choi, an Iraq war veteran and a graduate of West Point, declared last March 19 on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” “I am gay.” Under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” regulations, those three words are enough to get Choi kicked out of the military. Choi has become a vocal advocate for repealing the policy, having spoken before tens of thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their allies at last Sunday’s National Equality March in Washington, D.C.

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Watch What You Tweet

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:31:00 -0400

A social worker from New York City was arrested last week while in Pittsburgh for the G-20 protests, then subjected to an FBI raid this week at home—all for using Twitter. Elliot Madison faces charges of hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility and possession of instruments of crime. He was posting to a Twitter feed (or tweeting, as it is called) publicly available information about police activities around the G-20 protests, including information about where police had issued orders to disperse.

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Nomi Prins on "It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals From Washington to Wall Street"

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:38:00 -0400

Nomi Prins is a former investment banker turned journalist. She worked at Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns. She is the author of several books; her latest, just out, is called It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street. She spoke on the themes of the book at the Strand Bookstore in New York on September 29th.

Scanning the Horizon of Books and Libraries

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:04:00 -0400

A battle is raging over the future of books in the digital age and the role that libraries will play. One case now before a U.S. federal court may, some say, grant a practical monopoly on recorded human knowledge to global Internet search giant Google. The complex case has attracted opposition from hundreds of individuals and groups from around the planet.

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Police Crackdown on G20 Protests: Democracy Now! Reports from the Streets

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:37:00 -0400

World leaders are gathering in Pittsburgh for the G20 summit under the shadow of a police crackdown on protesters in the streets. Heavily-armed riot police are out in force all over the city, using tear gas, stun grenades, smoke canisters, and sound cannons, which direct extremely loud shrill sounds. This is believed to be the first time sound cannons have been publicly used in the United States. Democracy Now! producer Steve Martinez reports from the streets of Pittsburgh.

Tune in on Monday for Steve’s full report

Arun Gupta asks "What Anti-War Movement?"

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:43:00 -0400

It has now been eight years since 9/11. The United States is still engaged in Iraq and is escalating its wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan with no end in site. Speaking at the Bluestockings Bookstore on the Lower East Side in New York, Arun Gupta, a founding Editor of The Indypendent, takes a critical look at the failures and future of the once massive anti-war movement.

President Zelaya and the Audacity of Action

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:59:00 -0400

Manuel Zelaya, the democratically elected president of Honduras, is back in his country after being deposed in a military coup June 28. Zelaya appeared there unexpectedly Monday morning, announcing his presence in Tegucigalpa, the capital, from within the Brazilian Embassy, where he has taken refuge. Hondurans immediately began flocking to the embassy to show their support. Zelaya’s bold move occurs during a critical week, with world leaders gathering for the annual United Nations General Assembly, followed by the G-20 meeting of leaders and finance ministers in Pittsburgh. The Obama administration may be forced, finally, to join world opinion in decisively opposing the coup.

Let Us Not Become the Evil We Deplore

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:30:00 -0400

On Sept. 14, 2001, the U.S. House of Representatives considered House Joint Resolution 64, “To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.” The wounds of 9/11 were raw, and the lust for vengeance seemed universal. The House vote was remarkable, relative to the extreme partisanship now in evidence in Congress, since 420 House members voted in favor of the resolution. More remarkable, though, was the one lone vote in opposition, cast by Barbara Lee of San Francisco. Lee opened her statement on the resolution, “I rise today with a heavy heart, one that is filled with sorrow for the families and loved ones who were killed and injured in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.” Her emotions were palpable as she spoke from the House floor.

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Christian Parenti responds to Kevin Bales

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:42:00 -0400

Democracy Now! recently interviewed Kevin Bales, founder of Free the Slaves. Journalist Christian Parenti wrote a response to that interview which we have posted below. Parenti is an investigative journalist who has covered issues of child labor in the chocolate industry in Côte d’Ivoire for Fortune magazine. See Democracy Now! interview

Free The Truth: A response to Kevin Bales
by Christian Parenti

On September 9, Kevin Bales, founder of Free The Slaves, was on Democracy Now making comments about his organization and the chocolate industry that were either willfully naïve or simply dishonest.

Bales goes around fund raising, flogging his book and promoting himself on the basis that he has successfully reformed the chocolate industry and largely halted its use of child labor in West Africa. But no such thing has happened.

In his DN interview Bales’ said that “instead of, say, attacking corporations and boycotting corporations,” his group was “bringing them into the mix and getting them to pay for the work on the ground.”

He went on to claim: “[W]e have done this with the chocolate industry to what I think is enormous success. And about $50 million has been transferred out of chocolate company profits over the last seven years into work on the ground in West Africa to remove slavery and child labor from cocoa production. Now, that’s money that never would have come to human rights, never would have come to anti-slavery work, if we hadn’t brought [corporations] in at the beginning.”

Bales was here referring to the “Harkin-Engel Protocol,” a toothless, voluntary, self-policing agreement created by the chocolate industry and signed on September 19, 2001. The Protocol named, after two America politicians, was the industry’s way of avoiding binding legislation that would’ve required labeling of chocolate as “child labor free.” Through the protocol Big Chocolate promised to eliminate the worst forms of child labor by 2005. But the chocolate companies missed that deadline and the Protocol was extended to 2008.

The Protocol led to the creation of an NGO called the International Cocoa Initiative. Along with all the big chocolate and confectionery corporations, the ICI board includes Kevin Bales’ group Free The Slaves. The ICI claims to be working hard to prevent the use of child labor in West African cocoa production – but it is not.

In 2007 as this Protocol was coming to fruition Fortune magazine sent photojournalist Jessica Dimmock and me to Côte d’Ivoire (where half the world’s Chocolate comes from) to investigate the situation. We found nothing like the happy situation described by Kevin Bales.

We saw absolutely no evidence that any of the $50 million that Kevin Bales brags about has hit the ground or is helping children in any way.

We visited the ICI Representative in Côte d’Ivoire, Robale Kagohi. He was at that time the only ICI staff member in Ivory Coast. He offered me a beer at noon but could not point me in the direction of any real initiatives on the ground to help children who work in the cocoa industry – except one: a nongovernmental organization called the Movement for Education, Health, and Development, or Mesad, that provides accommodation and education to homeless street children in Abidjan.

But when Jessica Dimmock and I visited, she for the second time, no children from the cocoa sector were staying at the shelter. The group’s director, Kouakou Kouadio Watson, told us the ICI had supported only eight underage former cocoa workers, who lived at the shelter for periods of between one and four months. The shelter was a squalid mess, smelling of urine, and contained only a few filthy children sleeping on the concrete floors. You can see Jessica Dimmock’s photographs of the conditions at: http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/24/news/international/chocolate_bittersweet.fortune

Far more damning than my reporting and Dimmock’s photographs are the findings of Tulane University’s Payson Center. As part of the Harkin-Engle Protocol the U.S. Department of Labor contracted with Tulane’s Payson Center to monitor the progress of the ICI’s efforts.

Payson’s first report criticized the governments of Ivory Coast and Ghana for lack of transparency and said the industry’s slave /child labor free certification process “contains no standards.” The Tulane report criticizes the industry for not providing specifics to back up its assertions that it is helping.

Last year Tulane released their latest, 400 page long, report on the impact of the protocol. It found that “the vast majority of children in the cocoa growing areas… do not report exposure to any intervention projects in support of children in the rural areas.” This is what Kevin Bales calls, “enormous success.”

Worse yet, Kevin Bales’ organization FTS defended the chocolate industry when the Department of Labor sought to list cocoa as a product tainted by slave and child labor. Free The Slaves urged the Department of Labor not to put cocoa on a list of tainted products but to instead support the model of the Protocol.

Here is what Bales’ colleague Margaret Ellen Roggensack, policy director for Free The Slaves said about Big Chocolate and the Harkin Engel protocol:

“there is only one industry that – as a whole industry – has taken the unprecedented step of taking responsibility for its supply chain. In 2001, the chocolate industry committed itself to the eradication of the worst forms of child labor from its production chain. As part of this path breaking commitment, the industry agreed to allocate significant resources to make cocoa growing communities thriving and viable… The process is working and progress has been made… No list can comprehend the scope of this challenge. Moreover, we know from our work that lasting change comes from community-based solutions, and that suggests a policy of engagement with all stakeholders, including business, whose in country roots are often deep and broad.”

If Bales was serious about removing child labor from West African cocoa production he would have pressured the corporations – who are his buddies on the ICI board– to pay higher prices for cocoa. This would allow the parents of child laborers to send their kids to school.

Only paying cocoa farmers a living wage, a decent wage, will keep their children out of the cocoa groves. Only when corporations pay producers will there be change. This goes for not only cocoa but also cotton rubber and tobacco.

Conditions in Cote d’Ivoire are appalling and there is no evidence that the money Bales talks about exist, was spent or is helping children in any way.

His behavior is utterly unconscionable. And his beloved Protocol works with “enormous success” in only one regard – sometimes it serves as a fig leaf that shields from sight the unseemly ways in which the great chocolate companies exploit the children of cocoa farmers in West Africa.

Sandra Maria Esteves Performs "Aguacero" at the Young Lords 40th Anniversary Celebration

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 09:33:00 -0400

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the revolutionary community organizing group the Young Lords. The group called for self-determination for all Puerto Ricans, community control of institutions and land, freedom for all political prisoners and the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam, Puerto Rico and other areas. The Young Lords would also play a pivotal role in spreading awareness of Puerto Rican culture and history, leaving a legacy still felt today.

Sandra Maria Esteves is a “Puerto Rican-Dominican-Boriqueña- Quisqueyana-Taino-African-American,” born and raised in the Bronx. She is also one of the founders of the Nuyorican poetry movement. She performed her poem “Aguacero” at the 40th Anniversary celebration of the Young Lords.

The event took place at the First Spanish Methodist Church in East Harlem, the same church on East 111th Street that the group took over in late 1969 to house free breakfast and clothing programs, health services, a daycare center, a liberation school and community dinners.

Click here to download the PDF of “Aguacero” by Sandra Maria Esteves

Van Jones and the Boycott of Glenn Beck

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:42:00 -0400

Glenn Beck was mad. He’s the right-wing talk radio host who has a television program on the Fox News Channel. Advertisers were fleeing his Fox program en masse after the civil rights group Color of Change mounted a campaign urging advertisers to boycott Beck, who labeled President Barack Obama a “racist.” As the campaign progressed, Beck began his attacks against Van Jones. Jones was appointed by Obama in March to be special adviser for green jobs. He co-founded Color of Change four years ago. After weeks of attacks from Beck, Jones resigned his position at the White House last Sunday.

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New Light on Copenhagen Climate Talks

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:19:00 -0400

On Sept. 1, the European Union stopped manufacturing and importing incandescent light bulbs. Europeans will now turn to the much more efficient compact fluorescent, halogen and LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs. Incandescents, critics argue, waste up to 95 percent of energy as heat, using only 5 percent for light. The EU hopes to save the equivalent of 11 million households’ energy usage through the year 2020, worth $7.33 billion per year to the European economy.

The ban precedes the December 2009 Copenhagen climate conference, held by the United Nations to update the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Greenhouse-gas emissions now occur faster than ever. Copenhagen will be critical to the success or failure of establishing a practical, binding global plan of action before human-caused climate change reaches the point of no return, creating a cascade of catastrophes.

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Part II: Tim Robbins on Activism in Hollywood from the 1930s to the Present

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:11:00 -0400

Tim Robbins is the artistic director of the Actor’s Gang and an Academy-award winning actor, director, producer, and writer. He won an Oscar for his role in “Mystic River” and is well-known for his roles in numerous films over the past two decades including “The Shawshank Redemption”, “The Player”, “Bull Durham”, and “Bob Roberts.” His best known directorial ventures include the award-winning “Cradle Will Rock” and “Dead Man Walking.”

Who is Obama Playing Ball With?

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:48:00 -0400

It looked like it was business as usual for President Barack Obama on the first day of his Martha’s Vineyard vacation, as he spent five hours golfing with Robert Wolf, president of UBS Investment Bank and chairman and CEO of UBS Group Americas. Wolf, an early financial backer of Obama’s presidential campaign, raised $250,000 for him back in 2006, and in February was appointed by the president to the White House’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Economic recovery for whom?

Interestingly, Wolf’s appointment came in the same month that UBS agreed to pay the U.S. $780 million to settle civil and criminal charges related to helping people in the U.S. avoid taxes. Not to worry. UBS, an ailing bank with a pre-existing condition, had great insurance coverage. It was actually receiving $2.5 billion in a backdoor bailout from bailed-out insurance giant AIG. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said, “It looks like we’re simply laundering this money through AIG.” UBS, this bank that shelters wealthy tax dodgers, was actually being bailed out by hardworking U.S. taxpayers.

UBS, which once stood for Union Bank of Switzerland, was founded more than a century ago. Its success hinges on Switzerland’s famous banking secrecy laws, allowing people to squirrel money away in untraceable “numbered accounts.” Secret Swiss bank accounts have become a favorite way for wealthy people in the U.S. to dodge taxes. According to the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in a July 2008 report, “From at least 2000 to 2007, UBS made a concerted effort to open accounts in Switzerland for wealthy U.S. clients, employing practices that could facilitate, and have resulted in, tax evasion by U.S. clients.”

As part of the settlement, UBS agreed to share client account information with the U.S. government. While there may be as many as 52,000 such accounts, UBS is releasing around 4,450 client names. Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Doug Shulman said in a press release, “We will be receiving an unprecedented amount of information on taxpayers who have evaded their tax obligation by hiding money offshore at UBS.” UBS will be sending account holders notification that their names may be among those delivered to the IRS, and the IRS, in turn, is granting leniency to tax dodgers who turn themselves in before Sept. 23. Account holders won’t know if their names are included, though, so gamblers among them may keep quiet and hope their accounts stay secret.

Last Friday, as Wolf was preparing for his golf game with Obama, UBS whistle-blower Bradley Birkenfeld was sentenced to 40 months in prison for facilitating offshore tax evasion through UBS banking schemes, despite assisting federal investigators in exposing the secretive bank.

Above the entrance to UBS’s headquarters in Zurich is a bust of the Greek god Hermes — not only the fleet-footed messenger of the gods, but also the god of thieves and merchants. The symbolism is striking. Whether or not Wolf won his golf game against Obama, UBS has clearly scored a hole-in-one.

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Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

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