CHOMSKY
Democrats Abandoned the Working Class Decades Ago: Chomsky
By: Noam Chomsky - Wallace Shawn

Noam Chomsky is one of the most cited scholars in modern history and among the few most influential public intellectuals in the world. | Photo: EFE

Published 1 March 2020

In an interview with Wallace Shawn, Noam Chomsky explains how elitism and atomization have created political rifts.

Building on a friendship initiated in Sandinista Nicaragua of the 1980s, Wallace Shawn — a committed activist but someone who is best known as an accomplished dramatist and actor — interviewed scholar and linguist Noam Chomsky. In their discussion, Shawn reflected on Chomsky's words and called on him to address the ever-challenging question: how do we convince the people who were not in the room to care, to take action, given the scope and urgency of our current political crises?


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The following transcript is excerpted from their conversation, which can be read in full in the just-released book 'Internationalism or Extinction,' edited by Charles Derber, Suren Moodliar and Paul Shannon.

WALLACE SHAWN: Many of the people who do know about the consequences of nuclear war and climate change are quite well-educated people who are resented by a lot of people. Do you have any thoughts on how I mean there is a class difference that Trump supporters who laugh at the idea of global warming and climate change have a built-in resentment toward people who've been well educated and who may be better off economically? How do we reach them?

NOAM CHOMSKY: That's serious. That is a very interesting phenomenon; it has to be dealt with sensitively and with understanding. As I mentioned, 40% of the population say it can't be a problem because of the Second Coming. Now that's a deep cultural problem in the United States. People who know something about US history should all... we should all understand it.

It's very important to realize that this country was a cultural backwater until World War II. [Until then,] if you wanted to study physics, you went to Germany. You wanted to become a writer, an artist, you went to Paris. There were exceptions of course but it was overwhelmingly true, and it was true even though the United States was far and away from the richest, most powerful country in the world and had been for a long time. [There are] all kinds of historical reasons for that: it's a very insular country. There aren't many countries where you can travel 3,000 miles and be in about the same place where you left, not running into any different culture or language or anything like that.

Protected by oceans, we keep away from those bad guys, enormous internal resources that nobody else had. There were a lot of waves of immigrants that became integrated and so on, so there are a lot of reasons for it, but it's there and you can't ignore it. You can't ignore it, and there is no point railing about atheism. These are issues that have to be understood, and it has to be understood that the churches really mean something to people, plenty of people, including the Trump supporters.

These are people who have just been cast aside, nobody does anything for them. The Democrats abandoned the working class decades ago. Republicans may take a populist line, but they are much more opposed to working people than even the Democrats in policies. Working-class males are — we are supposed to call them "middle class" in the United States, the phrase "working class" is a four-letter word here — but working-class males who are supporting Trump are actually supporting policies which are going to devastate them. Just take a look at the economic policies, the fiscal policies, and others. But it's true that they are cast aside, and their values are being attacked. Their values are in many ways culturally traditional and pre-modern in the Western sense, but they are being attacked. One of the few refuges they have is the church. They are the church in a traditional community so you can't just laugh at it, it's serious. It has to be dealt with.

There is a very interesting book that just came out by Arlie Hochschild, a sociologist, who went to a pretty terribly impoverished area in Louisiana and lived there for six years and studied the people sympathetically. This is deep Trump country, and her results are quite interesting. For example, these are people who are being devastated by chemical and other pollution from the petrochemical industry, but they are strongly opposed to the Environmental Protection Agency.


I was very hopeful. My own family, many of them were unemployed working-class; most workers were unemployed, but they were hopeful.

When she asks why, they have reasons. They say, "Look, what is the Environmental Protection Agency? It's some guy from the city with a Ph.D. who comes out here and tells me I can't fish but he doesn't go after the petrochemical industries. So, who wants them? I don't want them taking away my job and telling me what I can do and speaking to me with the cultivated accents meanwhile I'm under attack by all this stuff."

These attitudes are serious. They are significant. They deserve respect and not ridicule, and I think they can be addressed. For example, I think that say in the 1930s, I'm old enough to remember, in many ways, it was kind of like now; poverty was much greater. The depression was much worse than the current recession. In fact, it was a much poorer country than it is now.

I was very hopeful. My own family, many of them were unemployed working-class; most workers were unemployed, but they were hopeful.

They had a sense that things are going to get better. There were labor actions, the CIO's organizing, there were left political parties, the unions were providing real services: a couple of weeks in the country, educational groups, workers education, ways for people to get together – somehow we'll get out of all this. That's lacking. It has become a very atomized society. People are alone in it: used to be their TV sets, now it's their cell phones or iPhones or whatever. They're very atomized, isolated, makes them feel very vulnerable.

These are the kind of things that can be overcome by organization and activism. My feeling [is] that the Trump supporters and the Sanders supporters could have been a unified bloc. Proper approaches to the problem take effort, sensitivity, and understanding of the kind for example that Hochschild showed with her sympathetic account of where these people are coming from and why. It's easy, say in the New Yorker, to have a cartoon about Trump and how ridiculous it is, but that's missing the point. Maybe it looks ridiculous, but he is reaching people for reasons and we should be interested in the reasons.

Actually, it's the same story, to turn to something else, with young Muslims in the West who are joining the jihad movements. It's not enough to scream at them; there are reasons. If you look at the circumstances in their lives, you can see the reasons and they can be addressed.

SHAWN: Real activism would start with a compassionate traveling into these unknown territories of our own land that Hochschild went into. What we can do in Boston and New York is less important than what we might be able to do if we went to Louisiana and moved there for a significant amount of time?

CHOMSKY: I don't think we have to go many miles to find this. For example, a couple of years ago, I happened to be asked to give a talk at a high school in Boston, it's called English High School, and the reason is because nobody there speaks English [as a first language]. There are maybe a dozen languages with different immigrant groups. It's a very activist community. There are local activists who are discussing the kind of work that they do there, and it's important and interesting right here in Boston. People feel that it's hopeless, we can't do anything.

How can we fight these big powers? Some of the things that were described I think were very instructive for me; I think they would [be] for all of us. For example, get together a group of mothers who want to have a traffic light at a street where their kids have to cross when they go to school. They organize leaflets, talk to each other, talk to the local representatives and other things. Finally, they get their traffic light and that's empowering. That tells you that you can do something. We are not alone. We can do other things and then you go on from there; that's how things develop. Yeah, Louisiana, but not far from home either, and there's plenty [to do] incidentally – right in our own "educated" communities. The lack of understanding in educated circles is appalling. Almost everything I talked about tonight, for example, I doubt if a tiny fraction of well-educated academics who work in these areas would even know about it – that's right, exactly where we live.

NOAM CHOMSKY

Considered the founder of modern linguistics, Noam Chomsky is one of the most cited scholars in modern history and among the few most influential public intellectuals in the world. He has written more than 100 books, his most recent being Internationalism or Extinction. Before coming to the University of Arizona as Laureate Professor of Linguistics in 2017, Chomsky taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 50 years.

WALLACE SHAWN

Wallace Shawn is an Obie Award-winning playwright and a noted stage and screen actor. He is the author of two nonfiction books, "Night Thoughts" and "Essays." He is co-author of the movie "My Dinner with Andre" and author of the plays "The Fever," "The Designated Mourner," "Aunt Dan and Lemon," and "Grasses of a Thousand Colors," among others.

BUT WE ALL REMEMBER HIM FROM THE PRINCESS BRIDE

As Trump Visits India, Hindu Hooligans' Anti-Muslim Pogrom Ravages Delhi

By: Amir Malik



Anti-Muslim riots in India's Delhi have taken the lives of almost 40 people and injured over 300 as of Thursday. | Photo: Twitter @14Milimetros

VIDEO
https://www.facebook.com/teleSUREnglish/videos/543394533174399/

Published 27 February 2020

While the president of the ‘world's oldest democracy’ still was a guest in the ‘world's largest democracy’, mosques and shrines were torched, and properties were either burned and looted.

Bullet-ridden bodies kept lining at hospitals' wards as Donald Trump applauded India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “hard work to ensure religious freedom." The U.S. President's much-awaited visit to India on Feb. 24 coupled with anti-Muslim riots in the country's capital city where almost 40 people have been killed and over 300 are injured.

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Death Toll in Delhi Reaches 25, People Flee Violence-Hit Area

Soon after Trump left India, the U.S. issued level-two travel advisory and safety notice. "Exercise increased caution in India due to crime and terrorism. Some areas have increased risk."

While the president of the ‘world's oldest democracy’ still was a guest in the ‘world's largest democracy’, mosques and shrines were torched, and properties were either burned and looted. Two "democracies" together failed to control the riots which are still going on.

The goons assaulted Muslims on the streets while chanting "Jai Shri Ram" (Hail Lord Ram), the far-right Hindu slogan in India. Many said the police have been conniving with the rioters. "This is communal police,” said Vrinda Grover, the country's prominent lawyer. They were treacherous to their oath of upholding "peace', performing public "service" and ensuring a "just" approach towards citizens.

In 1969, when Richard Nixon visited India, he reportedly told the White House that Indians were "slippery, treacherous people.” Nixon, a racist to his core, had to resign from the post of President of the U.S. following the Watergate Scandal. He hated the non-whites and even called Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, a witch. Nixon, a loathsome man said what he did about Indians out of his deep-entrenched racism. After half-a-decade since, a U.S. president visits India and rather than calling its current Prime Minister, a "mass murderer," as the Supreme Court of India once observed, he eulogized Narendra Modi, notorious for spearheading the Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom. Modi is the man who the U.S. denied a diplomatic visa in 2005 citing his "failure" to halt the "Hindu-riot.”

"Remove #DelhiPolice for 5 minutes, we will wipe out #Islam from Delhi" - Hindutva Extremist

This man openly calling for ethnic cleansing of Muslims in #Delhi.#Delhigenocide #DelhiViolence #India #DelhiIsBurning #DelhiBurning #DelhiRiots #Islamophobia pic.twitter.com/b3PMEtSkoS— DOAM (@doamuslims) February 27, 2020

Right-wing propaganda TV channels of India hailed the hand-shake and "bear-hug" of Trump and Modi when the country (particularly women of India), protested the amended Citizenship Bill since December 2019 after it was tabled in the parliament and quickly passed as an act. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Christians, and Parsis, who the ministers of the ruling party say "faced religious persecutions" in neighboring Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.

However, it excludes Muslims from everywhere including Myanmar (where Rohingyas are facing brute of Myanmar Army) and Hindus from Sri Lanka. It is evident that the act in question is discriminatory and despite that Trump only said, "I want to leave that (act in question) to India and hopefully they will make the right decision for their people." The act promising safety and happy life to the minority in the neighborhood, is setting a highway for killing minorities within India's border.

Seeking happiness, Melania Trump visited schools in Delhi to attend "happiness classes" run by the Union Territory government. The newly-formed government of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the capital and the chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who came to power recently maintained "strategic" silence. Probably, for the first time in Delhi, one could question what Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi said, "What you seek is seeking you." The Delhiites were seeking happiness, but they got death instead. Death, perhaps, is the only happiness for the Muslims.



غوغاء هندودوتفا المتطرفة تهاجم مسجدا في دلهي. لقد تسلقوا المئذنة ورفعوا علم الزعفران.#الهند #دلهي #India #DelhiPolice #DelhiRiots #DelhiCAAClashes #DelhiIsBurning #DelhiBurning pic.twitter.com/lzXStNdaMb— DOAM (@doamuslims) February 26, 2020

As Delhi burnt in the anti-Muslim pogrom, Mr. Trump and Melania Trump walked the red carpet for the dinner hosted by the President of India. Such dinners need special lights; the great Roman Emperor, Nero used to hold giant feasts. Known for his "madness and cruelty", Nero would burn bodies of prisoners and poors to illuminate the feast he served in the night. In Delhi, as evening approached and sunlight got moved to the West, the flames from burning houses must have illuminated the duo's table as they dined. However, has India treaded Nero's path? We do not know. What we do know is that this is not the first time when India has burnt the poor minority of its country.

In 1984, the anti-Sikh pogrom spearheaded by the then ruling Congress party shattered Delhi to the core and more than three thousand Sikhs were massacred within a week on the streets of India's capital. The then, newly elected Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had said, "When a big tree falls, the earth trembles," referring to the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (by two of her Sikh bodyguards) and the bloodbath that the Indian state took recourse into.

In 2002, the anti-Muslim pogrom saw bloodbath on the streets of Gujarat. Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister. A coach of a train was burnt and over 50 right-wing people died. Till today, no one knows how that coach carrying Hindus caught fire, but Muslims were instantly blamed. When Hindu rioters assaulted Muslims, burnt their houses, raped Muslim women, cut womb of pregnant mothers and threw children in the burning fire, Modi told in a meeting with his officials, "Let the Hindus vent their anger." Sanjiv Bhatt, the officer who revealed this to the public has been languishing in prison soon after Modi became the Prime Minister of India.

In 2008, hell broke out in Kandhamal where about 50 Christians were killed, 250-300 churches were destroyed, 600 villages were ransacked, 5,600 houses were looted, more than 50,000 were rendered homeless in a months-run riot by Hindu rioters. Statements filled with venom were spread to justify crimes against humanity. Similar voices echoed from the mouths of several leaders from the country’s current ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during the Delhi elections which ended recently.


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‘Anti-Muslim Pogrom’ Denounced Amid Anti-CAA Protests in New Delhi

The Home Minister of India, Mr. Amit Shah asked voters to "press” the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) so hard that the "current" reaches out to Shaheen Bagh, where Muslim Women sat in protest against the CAA. The movement was considered Muslim women uprising in India and served as a model for other areas of the country to come out and assert themselves. They did come and said, "we would not be cowed down.”

They have been worrying that if clubbed with the nationwide register of citizens, the National Population Register (NPR) and the CAA would be “catastrophic." Protestors fear that the National Population Register (NPR), a precursor to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) would ask the citizens of India to prove that they are Indians. The government said that it only wants to document citizens, a claim which stood redundant after the right-wing goons unleashed Hindu-terror echoing the Home Minister who had, several times in the past, said, "illegal immigrants" would be pushed out of the country and "termites" (a slang he fondly uses against Muslims) would not be tolerated.

India, a culturally diverse country and a heterogeneous one, would have people outside the frames of state, like Sadhus (Saints), vagabonds or people who do not believe in the concept of the nation-state. “They are most important for a democracy to survive as they fiercely criticize the state,” Varun Sahni, the Vice-Chancellor of the Goa University had said in a public talk by Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), a think-tank body of the Indian state. They do not maintain a proof for showing the state who they are, not primarily because they simply rebel (as state portrays the non-state actors) but due to their ideological non-acquiescence towards a world imprisoned by boundaries. Above all, many "others" are forced to be stateless and are pushed into the Detention Camps (India is making new ones) because they are "undesirable,” a ready-made fuel to illuminate Nero's feast.

As happens in any anti-minority right, members of the majority community also pay the price, this time, in Delhi, a few among the dead are Hindus.


RELATED:

India Consul General to US Calls for Israel's Model For Kashmir

Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Trump that once India had about 40 million Muslims and now it houses 200 million. The parameter to decide “religious freedom” is faulty as Trump was not told that Hindus as well grew to the tunes of 966.3 million in the last census from 303 million in 1951. Also, Jammu and Kashmir, the Muslim majority population which India later administered had been exempted from the 1951 Census of India.

By saying what he did, Narendra Modi once again fanned the fire of lies that the Muslim population is “exponentially growing.” The truth, however, is that it has been growing slower than it did in the last decades. The prestigious newspaper The Hindu was called a “minority appeasement newspaper” when it reported otherwise, using the government census report. What Nixon and his security advisor Henry Kissinger said about Indians is something no Indian would like to listen to. Agreeing to Nixon's bigotry remark “slippery and treacherous,", Kissinger added that "the Indians are bastards anyway. They are the most aggressive goddamn people around." Whether Indians proved the imperial and the racist America correct can be understood by visiting the areas hit by an anti-Muslim pogrom in Delhi.

Argentina's Fernandez Defends Evo Morales' Presidential Victory

Published 1 March 2020 

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted an analysis of the results of the elections in Bolivia last October 20 and highlighted the legitimate victory of Morales by more than 10 percentage points.

The President of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, ratified his complaint that in Bolivia "the rule of law was violated" after the coup d'etat against Evo Morales and demanded "prompt democratization" in the country "with the full participation of the peop

"According to a report published by the Washington Post and made by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Evo Morales won last year's election by more than 10 points, without any fraud," the president wrote.

In a series of tweets on his Twitter account, Fernández said that "the report disseminated, with singular hardness, criticizes, for its inconsistency, the audit conducted at that time by the OAS (Organization of American States) that concluded in affirming the existence of irregularities in the election that is now claimed".

"As I always pointed out, in Bolivia the rule of law was violated with the actions of the Armed Forces and sectors of the opposition to the then president and with the explicit complicity of the OAS that was called to ensure the full validity of democracy." 

Fernández said: "The Argentine Government at the time (headed by Macri), kept an accomplice silence before such an outrage, ignoring the voices that then rose to preserve the Bolivian institutionality."

The MIT study questions the report in which the OAS once noticed irregularities in the elections and that served as an argument for its secretary general, Luis Almagro, to ensure that there was fraud in favor of Morales.

The day that an advance of the OAS report was published, on November 10, in violation prior to an agreement to disseminate the report later, the then President Morales announced his resignation, and left the country to Mexico, which granted him asylum . 

The Indigenous leader was pressured to leave Bolivia, after the army, along with the police command, asked him to resign, which consumed the coup, orchestrated by the right-wing opposition that did not recognize Morales's triumph in the elections of last october

The now campaign leader of the Movement to Socialism (MAS) of Bolivia remained in exile for a month in Mexico and on December 12, two days after Fernández assumed the Argentine Presidency, he arrived in Buenos Aires, where he requested refuge.

The new elections in Bolivia will be held on May 3 and the MAS candidate, Luis Arce, heads the polls in the face of the elections organized by the electoral authorities chosen by the de facto government. 

Mexico: OAS Must Clarify Audit of Electoral Fraud in Bolivia

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales. | Photo: EFE

Published 28 February 2020

" [...] the Organization must clarify and explain the deficiencies in its report that were announced by these two investigators (MIT),” the Mexican spokesman said.


Mexico will demand the Organization of American States (OAS) "clarify and explain the deficiencies in its report," in which it affirmed the existence of alleged irregularities during the elections of Bolivia in Oct. 2019. This action follows a report revealed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which states that there is no "statistical evidence" of electoral fraud.


RELATED:

A Washington Post Survey Rules out Electoral Fraud in Bolivia

On Tuesday, researchers John Curiel and Jack R. Williams from MIT published an investigation in the Washington Post explaining that there is no statistical support to justify the claims made by the current de-facto government about electoral fraud. Statistics were the central basis in the report presented by the OAS, which claimed fraud.

"Bolivia described its October elections as fraudulent. Our investigation found no reason to suspect fraud," they said in the study conducted by the two investigators.

The spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, Roberto Velasco, spoke on the fact and said that it is not possible to consider that the analysis of both researchers has any political interest.

"From our perspective, given the results of the study, which call into question the analysis of the Organization of American States and what was expressed by its Secretary-General, Luis Almagro, the Organization must clarify and explain the deficiencies in its report that were announced by these two investigators," the Mexican spokesman said.

Given this, Mexico's mission at the OAS will formally request that a "third party" conduct a comparison of the two reports and clarify the discrepancies between them.

The OAS denounced 12 severe irregularities in its report, made six observations, and concluded that it was not possible to give certainty of the results of the Transmission of Preliminary Electoral Results (TREP) after its paralyzation, declaring a potential fraud.

However, the analysis published in the Washington Post states that the OAS does not cite any previous investigation to prove that there was a fraud with the paralysis of the Transmission of Preliminary Electoral Results (TREP), which casts doubt on its submitted report.

Bolivia is immersed in a profound social and political crisis after the OAS report became the tip of the iceberg that led to the resignation of then-President Evo Morales. Since then, a series of human rights violations and political persecutions have been committed, which has led to concern by international organizations like the UN.

Fernandez Renews Commitment to Fighting Poverty in Argentina


Newly elected President of Argentina Alberto Fernandez waves to a crowd in Buenos Aires. | Photo: Notimérica

Published 1 March 2020

In his speech at the opening session of the Argentinian Congress, the president presented a series of achievements of his management, which began last December 10.



The President of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, renewed on Sunday his government's fight against poverty and unemployment so that they can rebuild the income of those who have less, in addition to strengthening policies to protect wome , in particular he announced that he will send a project to legalize abortion.


RELATED:

Argentina's Fernandez Defends Evo Morales' Presidential Victory

In his speech at the opening of ordinary sessions of the Congress of Argentina, the President presented a series of achievements of his administration, which began last December 10 and advanced the next steps that his Government will take in social, economic, financial, judicial matters and foreign policy.

Fernández presented a negative diagnosis on the inheritance he received from the government of Mauricio Macri, tracing a "dramatic, destructive" situation on the economy and the National State.

In that sense, he highlighted the enormous challenges facing his administration for this year 2020 and the effort they will make in his Government to strengthen social rights and move forward in recovering the economy.

He proposed measures to reform the judicial system in several areas aimed at improving and strengthening the delivery of justice in an impartial manner.

The head of state also ruled in favor of tightening security policies in order to deal with organized crime and drug trafficking effectively.

On the social issue, Fernández stressed that "we have found an extremely delicate situation, we receive a country damaged in its social and productive fabric."

"We must stop the fall of Argentines in poverty, reassure the economy, recover work and rebuild the income of those who have less," he said

"The fight against our hunger is a priority because eating cannot be a privilege," said the president, adding that "That prices stop growing in Argentina is everyone's responsibility."

Fernández announced that he will send to Congress a bill to legalize abortion, along with an initiative to give assistance to two low-income women who decide to give birth to their children for two years.

"Within the next ten days I will present a bill for voluntary termination of pregnancy," Fernandez said.

A project to legalize abortion had already been discussed in 2018, during the Government of Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), when the Chamber of Deputies endorsed it but the Senate rejected it, amid massive mobilizations for and against the initiative.

Ecuador: Andean Peoples Greet New Year Dancing 'La Diablada'

In January, Indigenous communities in Pillaro, Ecuador, celebrate The Dance of the Devils (La Diablada), a festival recalling the resistance of their ancestors to the ​​​​​​​Spanish conquest.

Thousands dance for hours wearing masks that evoke images of devils. Made with paper and wire, ​​​​​​​these masks also include horns of animals such as bulls, deer or rams.

During this early Andean carnival, groups of dancers compete with each other to stand out as the best performers.​​​​​​​

While touring downtown Pillaro, devils scar, curse, and dance with a sticky rhythm that entertains visitors

Afro-Feminist Resistance in Brazil’s Carnival
February 25, 2020

In Southern Brazil, the all women's carnival block Cores de Aide is marching for political resistance and in defense of women, who have been particularly under attack during the far-right presidency of Jair Bolsonaro.



Story Transcript

Carnival.

Brazil’s biggest celebration of the year.

This is the scene televised into most homes across the country and the world.

Massive floats and carnival blocks in the Samba stadiums of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

But on the streets nearby, there’s another carnival.

Blocos Afro, or Afro group have been performing in Brazil since the 1970s.

They were born in Salvador, Bahia, in 1974, with the legendary group Ilê Ayê.

And they have spread across the country, even far to the south.

Their music has its roots in Afro-Brazilian religion and culture.

These groups and their performances are about honoring black Brazilian culture, history, and resistance, which is at the heart of carnival.

Angela Maria:

“We, blacks, are the ones who really made carnival. And carnival is an opportunity to be in the streets and lift our voices and celebrate  our dances and song.”

Here, in Florianopolis, the Afro group Cores de Aide is taking it a step further. It’s composed of all women. They march and dance in defense of women, who have been particularly under attack, amid the government of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.

They were joined in the streets by allies and members of other groups and social movements.

Eliro, social worker:

“The goal of this carnival block is to unite the women in struggle in Florianopolis, and to highlight our daily struggles here.”


Sarah Massí, Cores de Aide:

“We are here to honor the women of the leaves. Those who are marginalized by society. Women healers. Women from traditional black communities. Women small farmers. Indigenous women. Candomblé priestesses. Women of the Landless Workers Movement. All of these women who are resisting. And each of us who is present today.”


Before performing they held a minute of silence in honor of Elenir de Siqueira Fontão, the director of a local state school who was brutally killed last week. Brazil is the fifth-worst country in the world for violence against women. Over the last three years, 3200 women here were victims of femicides.

Eliro, social worker:

“This act is important, principally at this moment when this country is not well, when public policies are weaker than ever. When women are dying. When LGBT people are being killed daily.”


Sarah Massí, Cores de Aide:

“This is an act of political resistance, to give a counterweight to this chauvinista, racist, homophobic and LGBT-phobic society, that is only focused on the appearance. That’s why we are here fight. Everyone should feel welcomed here on this planet, which belongs to all of us.”

The Laura Flanders Show: Trump’s Wall and the End of the American Frontier

Partner Content Provided By:The Laura Flanders Show

February 27, 2020

Historian Greg Grandin talks about his new book, "The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America." Will the wall finally force us to reckon with the white supremacist conquest veiled by the frontier myth?

"The views expressed in third party content do not necessarily reflect those of The Real News Network or its editors."

Corporate Democrats Target Sanders as his Popularity Rises
The Intercept's Akela Lacy says Sanders is being targeted by wealthy interests who would be damaged by his presidency

Egypt’s Government Rehabilitates Ex-President Mubarak with State Funeral

February 27, 2020

Despite being discredited and ousted by the 2011 Arab Spring, former president Mubarak's funeral aims to rehabilitate him and his legacy of military rule.



Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Greg Wilpert: It’s The Real News Network. I’m Greg Wilpert in Arlington, Virginia. Egypt’s long-time dictator, Hosni Mubarak, died at the age of 91 on Tuesday, he was buried the following day. Mubarak ruled Egypt with an iron hand for nearly 30 years from 1981 until the protest of Egypt’s Arab Spring ousted him in 2011. After his forced resignation, Mubarak faced a trial where he was at first convicted largely as a result of the Egyptian public’s demand for him to be tried for the killing of over 800 protesters during the Arab Spring.

He received a life sentence in 2012, but it was released five years later when his conviction was overturned under current president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Mubarak’s former director of military intelligence who became president shortly after the 2014 coup d’état against elected president, Mohamed Morsi. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt’s top military officers, Mubarak’s sons Alaa and Gamal, and other Egyptian and Arab officials accompanied Mubarak’s funeral procession in Cairo.

Joining me now to discuss Mubarak’s death and what he meant for Egypt is Angela Joya. She’s a political economist with expertise on the middle East and North Africa, and who has taught at the University Of Oregon. Her most recent book is The Roots of Revolt: A Political Economy of Egypt from Nasser to Mubarak, forthcoming very soon from Cambridge University Press. Thanks for joining us again, Angela.

Angela Joya: Pleasure to be here, Greg.

Greg Wilpert: Let’s start with who Mubarak was. How did he come to power and how did he govern Egypt for 30 years as Egypt’s longest serving president?

Angela Joya: Mubarak, interestingly enough as a cohort of free officers, had came from a rural background in the Nile Delta in the North of Egypt, and it was through the military schooling and military training that he climbed through the ranks of power within the state. His role became more prominent in the 1973 Egyptian Israeli war. It was right after that that Sadat basically appointed him as his vice president. He served as vice president for Sadat until you mentioned 1981 when Sadat was assassinated, Mubarak assumed the presidency of Egypt until he was overthrown decades later.

Greg Wilpert: So the 2011 Arab Spring protests actually forced Mubarak to resign. Let’s review those developments a little bit. I mean how and why did the Arab Spring come about in Egypt?

Angela Joya: When I heard the news of Mubarak passing away, you reflect on how long he actually ruled Egypt. Talking to my Egyptian friends, a lot of them remark how they were born under his rule, they grew up under his rule, and now they’re getting closer to becoming in their early 40s. Close to two generations of Egyptians almost have seen no one else in power except Mubarak. He has had a massive influence in the state, in Egypt and in society there. That, I guess in some ways, affected politics in Egypt, affected the economy in Egypt.

When I think about the chronology of Mubarak’s rule I see a particular transition that happens initially in the 1980s, for instance, because of the environment of fear, because of Islamists and the fact that Sadat was assassinated, Mubarak was very cautious in the kind of policies that he was implementing.

Egypt was gripped in economic crisis, and so Mubarak was not necessarily so keen on implementing reforms that the International Monetary Fund at the time or the World Bank were prescribing. This waited until the end of 1980s, early 1990s when Egypt started accepting some of those requests for opening Egyptian markets to the global economy.

In the 1980s also, Mubarak was seen… I mean if you look at his legacy, he was seen more of a democratic figure in some ways because he opened up society to a more political competition by other groups. It was repressive as it later on became post reforms, I mean the political environment in Egypt.

I would say Mubarak’s rule transformed quite a bit in the 1990s when Egypt adopted a structure adjustment program recommended by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. In that period, Mubarak’s reputation among Egyptians, ordinary Egyptians, transformed quite a bit as well.

I recall when I was doing my field work in 2008 I was going through some of the villages and smaller towns in upper Egypt, and ordinary Egyptians were already referring to him as a foreigner, as a foreign ruler over Egyptian. They were disowning him in some ways because of the way his policies were affecting the lives of these people.

The 1990s is when you see Egypt opening up and Egyptians seeing Mubarak as taking away the wealth of Egypt and handing it over to private investors, whether Egyptian or foreigner, they didn’t make the distinction. But that’s what the process of dispossession that I discussed in my book, it started happening in the course of 1990s land reform and housing reform which I’ve looked at more closely.

Greg Wilpert: Talk a little bit more about how people reacted to these policies. I mean like you said, he implemented this structural adjustment program, how’s that related then to… First of all, the economy seems to have picked up a little bit, but still in 2011 you saw the Arab Spring. Why was that?

Angela Joya: Right. I guess the part of the violence that I examined in my research was mostly linked to urban land reform and rural land reform, so agricultural reform and urban land rights, tenancy rights. We saw slow mobilization with the Kefaya group, but also with peasants in rural areas engaging in resistance, acts of resistance across villages and towns of Egypt, against the actions of landlords, and against the actions of the military that often would send off security forces to support the landlords in this process of dispossessing peasants and farmers, small farmers.

Workers also went on various strikes so [inaudible 00:06:35] happened where various manufacturing centers of Egypt started revolting against some of the changes that were introduced that entailed shrinking the labor force, but also bringing in stringent rules of contract that were short-term contracts and wages that were stagnating for the longest time. Egypt experienced quite a radical… Basically increased the rate of poverty, and there’s a rule of Mubarak. A lot of that had to do part and parcel because over a million Egyptians were dispossessed from land in the late 1990s, ’97 and onward.

So by the time 2000s rolled in, there was expectation that maybe investors will be attracted, foreign investors, but also Egyptian private investors, then they would transform the economy, create jobs and lift people out of poverty. Unfortunately by the end of 2000s, the number of strikes, the number of protests in Egypt started climbing up precisely because people’s conditions of life were not changing, it was not getting better.

I remember around those times walking in the streets of Cairo, but also Alexandria, their bigger cities, there was an increasing environment of fear that was setting in. I remember my internal couturiers would often say, “Do not take a picture of that. Do not take a picture of this particular building.” They thought that they were being seen. Oppression seemed to have set in Egypt as economic reform packages were introduced, and basically, people’s lives were being put under pressure.

By 2010, it was predictable in some ways that some uprising would happen but not to the scale that it happened. The scale of it and the fact that it was more urban based was quite shocking to a lot of experts of Egypt. Now thinking back to 2011 and how Mubarak reacted to that, it says quite a bit about Mubarak and who he had become in the 2000s.

I wanted to emphasize is that in the 2000s, it was his son, Gamal Mubarak and a lot of his friends who were trained in western universities and who worked for the World Bank, for International Monetary Fund, they had taken over various cabinet roles and advising basically the government as to what policies they should implement. They had become the government basically. Mubarak was, at this part, I think at this part of his rule, more of a figure without much influence. I do not think that he had the power to basically dictate the kind of policies that came out under his name in the late 2000s.

This is the part where Mubarak was shocked that the people were revolting in 2011 in January. He didn’t believe that they were actually asking him to step down, and he thought, “I’m the father figure, these are my children,” and he did refer to all Egyptian as his children, and so he was quite shocked. But I can assume that at this point, maybe even mentally, he was not there fully and so he had been going through various rounds of sicknesses.

The actual manipulations, and rules, and policy-making were happening at the hands of, at this point, late 2000s, the military-supported capitalist class in Egypt that had gained quite a bit of control of the state and the economy.

Greg Wilpert: Now, another major player and factor in Egypt of course, was the United States. That is Egypt, for a long time, was the second largest recipient of US foreign aid after Israel. Why would you say that the US give so much support to Mubarak, about $2 billion per year, and how important was that aid for keeping Mubarak in office?

Angela Joya: I have to say that initially, the aid started with the peace agreement, the Camp David Accords with Israel under Sadat, and so the aid was promised then, but it continued happening afterwards because Egypt continued to fulfill its role as a “peacekeeper” between Israel and Palestine.

But in reality, when we talk to Palestinians, they would often talk or refer to Mubarak as the one who kept the Gates closed for Palestinians not to escape the conditions that they were experiencing, especially the Sinai region and the border between Gaza and Egypt. Mubarak was seen by the Palestinians and by some of the critical scholars of the region as doing the dirty job of Israel for it. In some ways, that’s what they thought they got rewarded for.

I think given that the kind of research that I’ve done in my forthcoming book, you also find out that the relationship between the Egyptian military and between the American corporations over the course of 1980s, 1990s and 2000s strengthens and becomes much closer, and so Egypt became a market basically for American products, mainly military products. Either they were assembling them in Egypt or they were preparing, making them, and selling them, and getting licenses out of US.

It was that relationship also that ensured if Egypt received this $3 billion a year of US aid, they would continue becoming or remaining a customer for American military. That was another reason, it was not necessarily just for the support of Egypt’s role in maintaining the peace between Israel and Palestine.

Greg Wilpert: Now, finally, very briefly, Mubarak spent only a few years in prison and was ultimately released under a President el-Sisi. It seems that also given Mubarak’s ceremonious funeral, that he has been completely rehabilitated by the current government. Would you say that’s correct? If so, what does this say about the current president?

Angela Joya: Ultimately in the case of Egypt as I have noticed since 2011 onwards, the military has definitely assumed a stronger control over the state and under el-Sisi, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, we see a consolidation of the military’s power within the state and economy. Some of the activists in Egypt that I speak with, they have confirmed some of my worst fears that the environment of safety of journalists, of activists, of NGOs is much worse now under the rule of el-Sisi than it was under Mubarak in all of his period of rule.

In some ways, this repression is also speaking to how the military as a class want to celebrate the legacy of one of their own, and that’s where this three days of mourning for Mubarak comes into play and this massive ceremony that they are going to have for his funeral, is part and parcel of that consolidating this [inaudible 00:13:57] of the military in Egypt, in the mind of Egyptians.

It’s not surprising. I mean, I kind of expected that they will rehabilitate him not because of who he think, they think he is or he was, but more so as to what he symbolically represents on the part of the military and how the military should be viewed by the Egyptian public in general.

Greg Wilpert: Okay. Well, very interesting but we’re going to leave it there. I was speaking to Angela Joya, author of the forthcoming book, The Roots of Revolt: A Political Economy of Egypt from Nasser to Mubarak. Thanks again, Angela, for having joined us today.

Angela Joya: Pleasure to be here, Greg. Thank you.

Greg Wilpert: Thank you for joining The Real News Network.

Germany Is Failing to Take Racism Seriously

February 26, 2020

A white supremacist in Hanau murdered ten people. German authorities, however, refuse to acknowledge the connection between Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, considering only the latter to be worthy of attention.



Story Transcript

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Greg: It’s The Real News Network. I’m Greg Wolpert in Arlington, Virginia. On February 19th, a man walked into a shisha bar in the town of Hanau, a suburb of Frankfurt, Germany, and began shooting with a nine-millimeter pistol, killing nine people there and in a nearby coffee shop. He then went home, killed his mother, and took his own life. This shooting has become a highly divisive political issue in Germany because of the killer’s racism. Here’s how some of the leaders from Germany’s political parties reacted to the mass-shooting. Chancellor Angela Merkel, of the Christian Democratic Party, Christian Lindner of the Neo Liberal Free Democratic Party, Robert Habeck of the Green Party and John Carter of the Left Party.

Greg: Jack [inaudible 00:01:39] of the Far-right Alternative for Germany argued on Twitter that the shooting was neither a left wing or right wing attack, but just an act of insanity. The German police discovered that the shooter had legally registered weapons, that he was influenced by white supremacist ideology and sought to kill as many Muslims as possible. The mass shooting and German politicians reactions to it, highlight the different ways in which Germany deals with right-wing extremists depending on whether they target Jews or Muslims. Joining me now to discuss the different reactions to racist mass shootings is Shir Hever. Shir is a Real News correspondent in Heidelberg, Germany and is the author of the book, The Privatization of Israeli Security that was published by Pluto Press in 2017. Also, he is a board member of the German organization, Jewish Voices for Just Peace in the Middle East. Thanks for joining us today, Shir.

Shir: Thanks for having me, Greg.

Greg: So what was the official response of German authorities to the Hanau attack? And do you think that this was the correct way to respond?

Shir: So the German police has been taken by surprise and is very embarrassed by this because apparently, according to the records, this man … the killer actually reached out to the German police and to other institutions and tried to make contact with them because he was under the impression that his Islamophobic ideas would be welcomed by the government, by the police. And he wanted to cooperate with them in the act of killing Muslims basically. And they kind of brushed it away or it didn’t respond in time. And so he went on and decided to commit murder on his own. And I think that’s something that the German police is now responding to by saying the problem is that a response is to decentralize and calling for not stricter gun control, because Germany already has quite strict gun control laws, but rather a more centralized system for controlling guns, a more centralized system for managing racism and hate crimes.

And I’m not completely sure that this is the right response that one should expect from the German police in this case. In fact, one specific response with the German police was especially dis-concerning, because they said that they are now preparing for counter attacks or retaliatory attacks from Muslims. So already, their initial responses to suspect the victims, the Muslim community in Germany of maybe planning some kind of counter attack and attacking people of … attacking Christians or Far-right white nationalists. And interestingly, or very tellingly when there were other attacks in Germany for example, targeting Jews like there was in [Hale 00:04:31] late last year, there was no similar statement with the police. “Oh, no. Now the Jews are going to organize a counter attack and attack a white nationalist.”

But one thing I do want to point out that I think was a very good response, and it came surprisingly from the Green Party in Germany, the Green Party in many ways has many conservative elements that I do not expect them to make the statement, but they’ve actually echoed something that left organizations and especially anti-racist organizations in Germany have been saying for years, that it doesn’t make any sense that Germany has an official government appointed employee to deal with the matter of antisemitism, racism against Jews, but there is nobody to deal with other forms of racism. And we need in Germany somebody who will be organizing the efforts in the education specifically on all kinds of racism regardless of whether the targets are Jews or Muslims or [inaudible 00:05:39].

Greg: Now, in Germany there are laws that prohibit Holocaust denial and state security organs are charged with the surveillance of organizations that are suspected of antisemitic activities as you point out. And also there is a federal and state level official charged with combating antisemitism. But prior to this shooting in Hanau, there were polls that show that Islamophobia is actually much more widespread in Germany today than antisemitism is, and there are numerous attacks against Muslims and have been in recent years. So why are German authorities focusing on the protection of Jews so exclusively and not of most Muslims? And is this now going to change after the Hanau attack?

Shir: Well, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that in the German political discourse, in the German political culture, there is a complete mix of Judaism and the state of Israel to the point that people have forgotten the historical facts of the Holocaust and many Germans don’t understand that the state of Israel was only founded after the Holocaust, and there was never a war between Germany and Israel. In fact, the Jews that are being targeted in Germany by far-right crime, receive very little protection from the German state despite of all these mechanisms that you listed. Because the people who are in charge of fighting antisemitism for Germany … first and foremost among them is Dr. Felix Klein, who is the federal appointee for the issue of an antisemitism. He doesn’t really concern himself so much with far-right racism.

He barely mentions or criticizes and the far-right party alternative for Germany and their antisemitic statements and history. But rather, he’s focusing on criticism of the state of Israel. And because of that, there is this kind of false equivalence as if you have the left on the one side and the right on the one side, and both of the extreme left and the extreme right around this medic. That’s nonsense. That’s just not the case. And Muslims are in many ways on the same situation as Jews are, in many ways worse off than Jews in Germany today in the amount of stereotypes, and racism and discrimination that they are subjected to just because of their religion. But the authorities and the government often considers them to be potential perpetrators rather than victims of racism, because the focus is specifically on antisemitism, but it’s not really a focus on antisemitism, it’s just a focus on criticizing the state of Israel.

And Jews are perceived as if they are somehow representative of that state, even though of course, most Jews in the world and most Jews in Germany are not supporting Israeli state policy and do not see themselves as representatives of the Israeli state. And I think that’s a very big problem. And we have here a problem of blaming the victim when newspapers in Germany are talking about antisemitic attacks, and then immediately referring to Muslims, even if the perpetrators were not Muslims, or to the BDS movement as if that has anything to do with antisemitism and attacks on Jews in Germany and it does not. And I think that needs to change. That was the question. Is it going to change?

It needs to change. The problem is, do Muslim communities have the power to change it just by their activity in civil society? I think on their own they do not, but neither do the Jewish communities. It only works when minority groups work together in solidarity to demand to be treated equally and with respect. And the group that does have power in the German political system, is a state of Israel just because it’s a state, not because it’s particularly strong as a state, but it uses antisemitism as a tool to improve relationship with the German government instead of caring for the safety of persecuted minorities in Germany or in other countries.

Greg: Well, I think your point about solidarity is very important, but of course, the solidarity probably should also be coming from non Muslims and non Jews in Germany towards both of these populations. And that’s a real problem as you say. I think the issue of equating our criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism is just so prevalent, also in my experience. But I also wanted to ask about your organization, Jewish Voice for Just Peace. It has taken part in vigils and calls for a fight against all forms of racism, not just antisemitism. Now, does this represent and mainstream view among German Jews? And how is the relationship between the many Jewish communities and Muslim communities in Germany anyway?

Shir: Yeah. Well, first of all, yes, our organization is definitely committed to a joint struggle against all forms of racism and for promoting peace. And we are working together in demonstrations and other kinds of political activities together with groups representing other minorities, and also, groups that don’t necessarily represent minorities, but groups on the left that believe in solidarity and they’re neither Muslim nor Jewish, but they still and want to join these coalitions of course. I think that there is a kind of myth in Germany as if Jews and Muslims are inherently hostile to each other. And that is absolutely a myth because of course, in history, the relationship between Jews and Muslims has been far better than they have been between Jews and Christians, or between Christians and Muslims. So in many ways that that kind of mythology is part of perpetrating far-right’s vision of the so-called Judeo-Christian culture, which is a very racist concept. And of course, we rejected completely.

But I do think that when we talk about the German Jews and how they respond to these things, you have a lot of people who just don’t want to deal necessarily with politics and we don’t necessarily want to have their Judaism part of their public life at all. And they say that’s a private thing. And it doesn’t matter if I’m Jewish or not in the way that I choose my political opinions, that’s absolutely fine and respectable. But there are also Jews on the left and Jews on the right. And my organization is of course, an organization of Jews on the left who are progressive and demand equal rights, human rights and so on. There are also unfortunately, Jews on the right and even on the far-right. And I feel the need to mention that in Hamburg, there was this organization called, German-Israeli Society in Germany. And the German-Israeli Society is organizing an event in a synagogue in Hamburg on March 29th inviting professor [inaudible 00:13:20] from Israel to speak about Islamic culture and how evil it is.

[inaudible 00:13:29] is a well known Islamophobe. He has called for raping the sisters and mothers of Muslim terrorists in order to discourage terrorism. That is his idea for a solution. Now the problem is that this is a far-right group. This is a hate crime and this is incitement to racism. If the situation was different, if it was for example, a mosque inviting some extremist preacher from … or a professor from Iran to give a talk about the values of Judaism in a way like that and calling for rape and other forms of violence, that would’ve been illegal. That person would never have received a visa to enter Germany in the first place. German law does not allow freedom of speech to that extent, except when it is organized by this far-right Jewish group. Because this group which is funded by the state of Israel, is considered to be almost above the law because limiting their speech would be considered to be a form of antisemitism, which is of course, nonsense.

And I think it’s not that the right wing Jews who reject solidarity with Muslim groups are more. They’re not more of them. It’s just that they receive more institutional support. And we know that Felix Klein … I mentioned it before, the official for fighting antisemitism, he’s a good friend of the German-Israeli Society. He has no problem visiting them and speaking to them directly because they are his partners, but he, the same man, is boycotting our group, refusing to meet with Jewish Voice For Just Peace because according to him, we are possible antisemites. So I think this is a question I would like to pose for our audience, for you, what do you think is a better way to protect Jewish life in Germany? Is it to form solidarity with other groups who are suffering from racism? Or to create a separation and say, “Well, we’re only interested in racism against Jews antisemitism, but all other forms of racism just don’t interest us.”

Greg: Yeah. I think that’s an excellent question, but we’re going to leave it there for now. I was speaking to Shir Hever, Real News correspondent based in Heidelberg, Germany. Thanks again Shir for having joined us today.

Shir: Thank you, Greg.

Greg: And thank you for joining The Real News Network.


Shir Hever is an economic researcher in the Alternative Information Center, a Palestinian-Israeli organization active in Jerusalem and Beit-Sahour. Researching the economic aspect of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, some of his research topics include the international aid to the Palestinians and to Israel, the effects of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian…