therealnews--2020-07-10--Srebrenica At 25: Have We Learned Anything?

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Marc Steiner : Welcome to The Real News .
This is Marc Steiner .
Good to have you all with us again today .
25 years ago , between July 11th and July 22nd , Serbian forces massacred 8,372 defenses Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica , a mountain town in Bosnia .
Before we get into the conversation and our story , I need to warn you that this story contains graphic and disturbing images and descriptions of crimes against humanity .
So you can turn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ want to watch it now .
Now the Srebrenica massacre , or genocide , happened 50 years after the liberation of Auschwitz .
Another European genocide on European soil , in which unarmed civilians were captured , taken to camps , and murdered systematically , just because of their religion , and ethnic identity , and sometimes on politics .
Unlike that moment , Serbia has never dealt with the massacre of Bosnian civilians , it never talked about it in an honest way .
The world stood by and did almost nothing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war , the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia did convict senior Serbian generals of crimes against humanity .
So let ’ s hear one of them right now .
This is Ratko Mladic and what he got to say .
Speaker 2 : The chamber finds Ratko Mladic guilty as a member of various joint criminal enterprises of the following counts : Count two , genocide .
Count three , persecution , a crime against humanity .
Count four , extermination , a crime against humanity .
Count five , murder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ six , murder , a violation of the laws or customs of war .
Count seven , deportation , a crime against humanity .
Count eight , the inhumane act of forcible transfer , a crime against humanity .
Count nine , terror , a violation of the laws or customs of war .
Count 10 , unlawful attacks on civilians , a violation of the laws or customs of war , and count 11 , taking of hostages , a violation of the laws or customs of war .
Marc Steiner : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ similar their actions were to the actions of the Nazis .
In order to cover their tracks , they exhumed the bodies of them victims from mass graves and scatter those bodies using bulldozers , and then they buried them in secret locations .
Over a thousand bodies are still missing .
The families are so crying for justice after 25 years , after the worst massacre in Europe since World War II .
To discuss the 25th anniversary of the massacre , we will be joined by Julian Borger who covered the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the book , The Butcher ’ s Trail : How the Search for Balkan War Criminals Became the World ’ s Most Successful Manhunt .
He ’ s currently world affairs editor for the Guardian and is based in Washington DC .
Julian , welcome back to The Real News .
It ’ s a pleasure to have to be with us .
Julian Borger : Pleasure to be here .
Marc Steiner : So Julian , let me just take a step way back for a moment .
Let ’ s set @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many people watching weren ’ t even aware of what was going on 25 years ago , as is the case with many people .
When you look at that conflict in a country that was called Yugoslavia , things fell apart after their leader , Josip Tito , many people , I think , who remember him as the communist leader who fought against the Nazis , who fight the Soviet Union , kept Yugoslavia together with all its frailties and then … But really , or now where , how all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take us back even before this started , just to give context to where we are .
Julian Borger : Okay , and as you said there , after Tito ’ s death , the glue that held Yugoslavia together began to come apart and the various constituent republics of Yugoslavia : Slovenia , Croatia , Bosnia started to push towards their own independence .
Now [ Bigia 00:04:18 ] was in charge of Serbia , and at the time Slobodan Milosevic was , “ Hey , I ’ m willing to let @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going to declare independence , ” and was determined to create a greater Serbia out of bits and pieces of those republics , out of Croatia , out of Bosnia .
That led to wars , wars for territorial control , wars of ethnic cleansing .
First in Croatia , and then a much bloodier war in Bosnia that lasted from ’ 92 to ’ 95 .
Marc Steiner : So we have this war going on in the Balkans 50 years after World War II .
We have NATO , we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ European Union .
We ’ re all involved .
I mean , this is the thing that ’ s hard for people to put their hands around sometimes , the atrocities almost were allowed to happen .
You ’ ve written about this , and just as bad , they were mostly forgotten by world leaders who love to say , “ Never again , ” except when it happens and so , I mean , there are a lot of reasons for this .
Some people will say because Bosnia is too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people died , not millions , but those are too easy for answers .
I mean , what allowed this to happen ?
Julian Borger : I think the various international organizations like the European Union , and then the UN , we ’ re not prepared to confront something like this in the wake of the Cold War .
They ’ d emerged from the Cold War and trying to build institutions , and were not politically , psychologically , institutionally prepared to push back , to take military action if needed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first shown in ’ 91 when Serbs massacred hospital patients in Vukovar , in Croatia .
The EU wasn ’ t cohesive enough to act as one .
It wasn ’ t at that stage in its evolution .
There , they really passed leadership on to the US , and the US was unsure whether it wants to get involved in a European country , in the middle of what they saw as a civil war .
So their leadership just wasn ’ t there .
Unfortunately , it took a hundred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US and the EU that there was no option other than military intervention , but it took a lot of deaths , a lot of bloodshed to get to that point .
Marc Steiner : You know , I was looking at a tweet by a journalist [ Mortazo Sane 00:07:10 ] .
He draws this connection between Srebrenica and the massacre and the boarders drawn based on ethnic divisions , something which happens across the globe , Israel , Palestine , India , Pakistan , we can name dozens of countries .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ too simplistic to say genocide was just result of tensions that were based on multiethnic states .
I mean and then you look at the history of Yugoslavia , and you think about the history of Yugoslavia , and during World War II , it was the Serbs who fought the Nazis , and it was the Croatians and many Bosnians who worked with the Axis powers , and the Albania Muslims who saved the Jews .
It ’ s always been a complex place .
So what allowed this to happen , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the world powers , but just in terms of the situation itself objectively ?
Julian Borger : I think , ultimately , it ’ s a question of a decision of leadership , a decision of Slobodan Milosevic and a group around him , that they were prepared to go to all lengths to create this greater Serbia and everything flowed from that .
They drew up a plan about how they were going to go about this , about how they were going to carry out ethnic cleansing .
I mean @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are ethnic , multi-ethnic countries , all around the world , and in particular , in Europe .
It doesn ’ t , itself , explain why there were mass killings .
I think that comes down to a deliberate plan backed up by the racial ideology that was spread through mass media in the former Yugoslavia to create the conditions were neighbors were prepared to kill each other .
Marc Steiner : Yeah , and I remember reading pieces in the Greek press and other places as well .
You could clearly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some of the reasoning behind this , but the Serbians were descendants of what was supposed to have been a multinational socialist state , whatever that meant , in the ’ 40s and ’ 50s , and Serbians who actually fought the atrocities 50 years ago .
Yet they were the ones , or at least the leadership pushed them , and the army carried out these atrocities .
I mean , that ’ s always been something that kind of … I think , it ’ s hard to answer in terms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Julian Borger : Yes , and the interesting questions that … It brings up how states are able to make their citizens turn against one another with the use of propaganda , as we saw , at about the same time , in Rwanda , this constant dehumanization of the other , the other ethnic group , constantly , through the state controlled apparatus .
It creates conditions in which this can happen .
It showed the fragility and the vulnerability of those soft of ties of civilization that we think keep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Steiner : You mentioned Rwanda and Paul Kagame , President of Rwanda .
I mean , he built his presidency in part on ending the genocide and ending the civil war .
Then Germany , after World War II , adopted these kind of anti-fascist values and repentance for the Holocaust and it became something , a part of the culture .
But to this day , Serbian politics just seems to show no remorse .
I mean , and deny accusation of a genocide .
I mean , what ’ s happening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allows it not to confront what it ’ s done ?
Julian Borger : I think the simple answer is that politicians find it easier to get elected by shoving all that aside and appealing to a rosier view of the country ’ s past .
That is the problem , in part , part of populism , more generally , is a rosy view of a country ’ s past great , and with a rose tinted view of its future and the suppression of uncomfortable facts .
We ’ re seeing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Brexit in Britain , to a certain amount in the US .
It ’ s an appeal to patriotism that glosses over the dark areas of a country ’ s history .
Marc Steiner : I ’ m curious , when you were covering this , the Dutch were there then , the Dutch forces , or the UN force , so the Dutch battalion and they were accused of criminal irresponsibility in all of this and not protecting the Bosnians .
It led to an investigation that led to a downfall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2002 .
So there ’ s so much involved here , in terms of complicity , either through non-action or just ignoring the realities .
It looks as if , you know , I was thinking about the article you just wrote , that came out in The Times on Sunday .
The Guardian on Sunday .
Excuse me , I ’ m sorry , Julian .
You put part of that to the war against Gaddafi , Libya ending , as you put it in your article , you wrote , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Libya ’ s fragmentation marked the definitive end of an era for the global response to war crimes.
” Then on top of that , you ’ ve got Donald Trump attacking the ICC .
So let ’ s put these things together in terms of where we are with all this now .
Julian Borger : Okay .
Sure .
I ’ m in the aftermath of Rwanda and Bosnia , there was this move , global move , among intellectuals , but also among political leaders , that something more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being the international community , to be able to A , prevent genocide , intervene to stop genocide , and secondly , to hold those responsible for genocide to account .
And this idea of stepping in and stopping genocide through international action was enshrined in this principle called Responsibility to Protect which sort of percolated up through the late ’ 90s , finally adopted by the UN officially in 2005 , and said that , if a state wasn ’ t prepared to protected some people , then the international community has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ means , if at all possible .
But failing that under Chapter VII of the UN , with force .
That principle , the principle to protect was cited in the UN resolution under which the US , UK and France got involved in Libya .
It was to protect the civilian population who were under attack from Muammar Gaddafi ’ s forces .
Russia was uneasy about it , but persuaded to abstain .
They , ever since then , felt hoodwinked by the West that that resolution , the UN resolution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remove Muhammad Gaddafi power .
They saw it as a slight of hand used by the West to achieve regime change .
From that moment on , Russia is not interested at all in Responsibility to Protect .
China never was .
But at that time , only a few years ago , wasn ’ t prepared to be isolated on the UN security council .
Now it has no trouble at all stepping in and stopping anything to do with the global application of international humanitarian law and human rights .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a block that would stop any kind of humanitarian intervention so-called , in the future .
like we saw it in Libya .
So that is really , term in terms of the international community , acting out of responsibility to protect , to step in and stop genocide , that ’ s kind of over for the time being .
Now , the other part of it , accountability to war crimes .
We still see some of the tribunals that were set up to bring accountability , still in operation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the International Criminal Court , there was supposed to be a general court for these kinds of crimes , we see it without support of Russia , China , and now the US very much on the offensive against it .
So the issue of accountability for crimes against humanity and war crimes is also in retreat .
This is a very low point when it comes to the international response to genocide and other crimes against humanity .
Marc Steiner : I mean … Just to closeout .
When you look @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was 25 years ago , and there ’ s still a thousand bodies missing .
And you think about what you wrote about with Libya and the Russians , I mean , the Western powers , did it use that as an excuse to overthrow Qaddafi ?
Marc Steiner : Just dismembered that country ?
So disillusionment set in , but what happens now when you have the United States in retreat from the ICC because it doesn ’ t want to be brought to task in Afghanistan , or because of its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Israel/Palestine , not wanting that to be looked at it all , and China with the Uyghurs .
So where does that leave us in terms of international order ?
All this began because the Holocaust and World War II .
I mean , that ’ s why this was set up originally in the first place , and our consciousness was raised , but something has happened in those intervening years , which has changed everything .
So where do you think political will is now ?
What do you think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Julian Borger : That ’ s a good question , and you framed it as it ’ s happened … it started with the Holocaust .
But you got to remember , even after the Holocaust , during the Cold War , any sense of accountability for mass crimes after Nuremberg was completely forgotten .
So we ’ ve been here before , we ’ ve seen mass crimes , and then we ’ ve fallen into amnesia and impotence when it comes to addressing them .
Then with the end of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ humanity in Bosnia and Rwanda , there was a fresh effort , and there was a brief window in which country ’ s like Russia at the security council we ’ re prepared to go along with it .
That window is now closed .
So when it comes to accountability and seeking to intervene to stop genocide in any kind of muscular way , it ’ s really left to the countries individual regions .
Whenever asked , people who are concerned with the sad study of genocide , genocide denial , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ optimism for the future , they point to a body of law that has grown up , and also a body of expectations , that if there is genocide and mass crimes in the future , there will be an expectation that something must be done , and that driving force , and that expectation is at least a lasting legacy .
We ’ re seeing it being put into practice in some small ways .
Like in Germany , we ’ ve seen the first prosecution of Syrian officials for the killings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ universal jurisdiction in the national courts .
There will be many more of those kind of cases .
So for the time being , in the absence of a court that will look into war crimes in Syria , and Yemen , in Myanmar , we ’ re at least seeing individual courts , individual countries , step up and kind of pick up the torch when it comes to accountability .
Marc Steiner : Well , first of all , I deeply appreciate you taking the time with us today , Julian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that you ’ ve been doing over the years in covering this stuff and bringing it to the fore and your book was amazing .
So thank you , once again , for joining us here on The Real News , and I look forward to all the conversations as we watch what unfolds in front of us .
Julian Borger : Thank you very much .
Pleasure to be on .
Marc Steiner : Always good to have you with us .
I ’ m Marc Steiner here for The Real News @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you think , and stay safe and take care .

In 1995, between July 11-22, Serbian forces murdered 8,327 defenseless Bosnians in an act of genocide. What’s happened to international law and outrage over crimes against humanity?
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Marc Steiner: Welcome to The Real News. This is Marc Steiner. Good to have you all with us again today. 25 years ago, between July 11th and July 22nd, Serbian forces massacred 8,372 defenses Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, a mountain town in Bosnia. Before we get into the conversation and our story, I need to warn you that this story contains graphic and disturbing images and descriptions of crimes against humanity. So you can turn it off if you don’t want to watch it now.
Now the Srebrenica massacre, or genocide, happened 50 years after the liberation of Auschwitz. Another European genocide on European soil, in which unarmed civilians were captured, taken to camps, and murdered systematically, just because of their religion, and ethnic identity, and sometimes on politics. Unlike that moment, Serbia has never dealt with the massacre of Bosnian civilians, it never talked about it in an honest way. The world stood by and did almost nothing to protect the victims. After the war, the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia did convict senior Serbian generals of crimes against humanity. So let’s hear one of them right now. This is Ratko Mladic and what he got to say.
Speaker 2: The chamber finds Ratko Mladic guilty as a member of various joint criminal enterprises of the following counts: Count two, genocide. Count three, persecution, a crime against humanity. Count four, extermination, a crime against humanity. Count five, murder, a crime against humanity. Count six, murder, a violation of the laws or customs of war. Count seven, deportation, a crime against humanity. Count eight, the inhumane act of forcible transfer, a crime against humanity. Count nine, terror, a violation of the laws or customs of war. Count 10, unlawful attacks on civilians, a violation of the laws or customs of war, and count 11, taking of hostages, a violation of the laws or customs of war.
Marc Steiner: The Serbian forces were fully aware how similar their actions were to the actions of the Nazis. In order to cover their tracks, they exhumed the bodies of them victims from mass graves and scatter those bodies using bulldozers, and then they buried them in secret locations. Over a thousand bodies are still missing. The families are so crying for justice after 25 years, after the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.
To discuss the 25th anniversary of the massacre, we will be joined by Julian Borger who covered the Bosnian War for the BBC and wrote the book, The Butcher’s Trail: How the Search for Balkan War Criminals Became the World’s Most Successful Manhunt. He’s currently world affairs editor for the Guardian and is based in Washington DC. Julian, welcome back to The Real News. It’s a pleasure to have to be with us.
Julian Borger: Pleasure to be here.
Marc Steiner: So Julian, let me just take a step way back for a moment. Let’s set the context here. I mean, many people watching weren’t even aware of what was going on 25 years ago, as is the case with many people. When you look at that conflict in a country that was called Yugoslavia, things fell apart after their leader, Josip Tito, many people, I think, who remember him as the communist leader who fought against the Nazis, who fight the Soviet Union, kept Yugoslavia together with all its frailties and then … But really, or now where, how all this even began? So just to take us back even before this started, just to give context to where we are.
Julian Borger: Okay, and as you said there, after Tito’s death, the glue that held Yugoslavia together began to come apart and the various constituent republics of Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia started to push towards their own independence. Now [Bigia 00:04:18] was in charge of Serbia, and at the time Slobodan Milosevic was, “Hey, I’m willing to let these Republicans go and if they were going to declare independence,” and was determined to create a greater Serbia out of bits and pieces of those republics, out of Croatia, out of Bosnia. That led to wars, wars for territorial control, wars of ethnic cleansing. First in Croatia, and then a much bloodier war in Bosnia that lasted from ’92 to ’95.
Marc Steiner: So we have this war going on in the Balkans 50 years after World War II. We have NATO, we have the UN, and we have the European Union. We’re all involved. I mean, this is the thing that’s hard for people to put their hands around sometimes, the atrocities almost were allowed to happen. You’ve written about this, and just as bad, they were mostly forgotten by world leaders who love to say, “Never again,” except when it happens and so, I mean, there are a lot of reasons for this. Some people will say because Bosnia is too smaller country, only the thousands of people died, not millions, but those are too easy for answers. I mean, what allowed this to happen?
Julian Borger: I think the various international organizations like the European Union, and then the UN, we’re not prepared to confront something like this in the wake of the Cold War. They’d emerged from the Cold War and trying to build institutions, and were not politically, psychologically, institutionally prepared to push back, to take military action if needed to stop mass killings. It was first shown in ’91 when Serbs massacred hospital patients in Vukovar, in Croatia.
The EU wasn’t cohesive enough to act as one. It wasn’t at that stage in its evolution. There, they really passed leadership on to the US, and the US was unsure whether it wants to get involved in a European country, in the middle of what they saw as a civil war. So their leadership just wasn’t there. Unfortunately, it took a hundred thousand deaths to persuade leadership in the US and the EU that there was no option other than military intervention, but it took a lot of deaths, a lot of bloodshed to get to that point.
Marc Steiner: You know, I was looking at a tweet by a journalist [Mortazo Sane 00:07:10]. He draws this connection between Srebrenica and the massacre and the boarders drawn based on ethnic divisions, something which happens across the globe, Israel, Palestine, India, Pakistan, we can name dozens of countries. But sometimes, maybe that’s too simplistic to say genocide was just result of tensions that were based on multiethnic states.
I mean and then you look at the history of Yugoslavia, and you think about the history of Yugoslavia, and during World War II, it was the Serbs who fought the Nazis, and it was the Croatians and many Bosnians who worked with the Axis powers, and the Albania Muslims who saved the Jews. It’s always been a complex place. So what allowed this to happen, do you think, not in terms of the world powers, but just in terms of the situation itself objectively?
Julian Borger: I think, ultimately, it’s a question of a decision of leadership, a decision of Slobodan Milosevic and a group around him, that they were prepared to go to all lengths to create this greater Serbia and everything flowed from that. They drew up a plan about how they were going to go about this, about how they were going to carry out ethnic cleansing. I mean, as you point out, there are ethnic, multi-ethnic countries, all around the world, and in particular, in Europe. It doesn’t, itself, explain why there were mass killings. I think that comes down to a deliberate plan backed up by the racial ideology that was spread through mass media in the former Yugoslavia to create the conditions were neighbors were prepared to kill each other.
Marc Steiner: Yeah, and I remember reading pieces in the Greek press and other places as well. You could clearly see the Muslim/Orthodox, Muslim/Catholic divide in some of the reasoning behind this, but the Serbians were descendants of what was supposed to have been a multinational socialist state, whatever that meant, in the ’40s and ’50s, and Serbians who actually fought the atrocities 50 years ago. Yet they were the ones, or at least the leadership pushed them, and the army carried out these atrocities. I mean, that’s always been something that kind of … I think, it’s hard to answer in terms of what we do as human beings.
Julian Borger: Yes, and the interesting questions that … It brings up how states are able to make their citizens turn against one another with the use of propaganda, as we saw, at about the same time, in Rwanda, this constant dehumanization of the other, the other ethnic group, constantly, through the state controlled apparatus. It creates conditions in which this can happen. It showed the fragility and the vulnerability of those soft of ties of civilization that we think keep us safe in the West.
Marc Steiner: You mentioned Rwanda and Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda. I mean, he built his presidency in part on ending the genocide and ending the civil war. Then Germany, after World War II, adopted these kind of anti-fascist values and repentance for the Holocaust and it became something, a part of the culture. But to this day, Serbian politics just seems to show no remorse. I mean, and deny accusation of a genocide. I mean, what’s happening inside of the Serbian political world that allows it not to confront what it’s done?
Julian Borger: I think the simple answer is that politicians find it easier to get elected by shoving all that aside and appealing to a rosier view of the country’s past. That is the problem, in part, part of populism, more generally, is a rosy view of a country’s past great, and with a rose tinted view of its future and the suppression of uncomfortable facts. We’re seeing that in Serbia, as we see in Brexit in Britain, to a certain amount in the US. It’s an appeal to patriotism that glosses over the dark areas of a country’s history.
Marc Steiner: I’m curious, when you were covering this, the Dutch were there then, the Dutch forces, or the UN force, so the Dutch battalion and they were accused of criminal irresponsibility in all of this and not protecting the Bosnians. It led to an investigation that led to a downfall of a Dutch government years later in 2002. So there’s so much involved here, in terms of complicity, either through non-action or just ignoring the realities.
It looks as if, you know, I was thinking about the article you just wrote, that came out in The Times on Sunday. The Guardian on Sunday. Excuse me, I’m sorry, Julian. You put part of that to the war against Gaddafi, Libya ending, as you put it in your article, you wrote, “Gaddafi is murdered by a mob, and Libya’s fragmentation marked the definitive end of an era for the global response to war crimes.” Then on top of that, you’ve got Donald Trump attacking the ICC. So let’s put these things together in terms of where we are with all this now.
Julian Borger: Okay. Sure. I’m in the aftermath of Rwanda and Bosnia, there was this move, global move, among intellectuals, but also among political leaders, that something more should be done in terms of, being the international community, to be able to A, prevent genocide, intervene to stop genocide, and secondly, to hold those responsible for genocide to account. And this idea of stepping in and stopping genocide through international action was enshrined in this principle called Responsibility to Protect which sort of percolated up through the late ’90s, finally adopted by the UN officially in 2005, and said that, if a state wasn’t prepared to protected some people, then the international community has a responsibility to step in by peaceful means, if at all possible. But failing that under Chapter VII of the UN, with force.
That principle, the principle to protect was cited in the UN resolution under which the US, UK and France got involved in Libya. It was to protect the civilian population who were under attack from Muammar Gaddafi’s forces. Russia was uneasy about it, but persuaded to abstain. They, ever since then, felt hoodwinked by the West that that resolution, the UN resolution, was used, ultimately, to remove Muhammad Gaddafi power. They saw it as a slight of hand used by the West to achieve regime change. From that moment on, Russia is not interested at all in Responsibility to Protect.
China never was. But at that time, only a few years ago, wasn’t prepared to be isolated on the UN security council. Now it has no trouble at all stepping in and stopping anything to do with the global application of international humanitarian law and human rights. But China and Russia now are very much a block that would stop any kind of humanitarian intervention so-called, in the future. like we saw it in Libya. So that is really, term in terms of the international community, acting out of responsibility to protect, to step in and stop genocide, that’s kind of over for the time being.
Now, the other part of it, accountability to war crimes. We still see some of the tribunals that were set up to bring accountability, still in operation. But when we look at the ICC, the International Criminal Court, there was supposed to be a general court for these kinds of crimes, we see it without support of Russia, China, and now the US very much on the offensive against it. So the issue of accountability for crimes against humanity and war crimes is also in retreat. This is a very low point when it comes to the international response to genocide and other crimes against humanity.
Marc Steiner: I mean … Just to closeout. When you look at what happened in Bosnia, that was 25 years ago, and there’s still a thousand bodies missing. And you think about what you wrote about with Libya and the Russians, I mean, the Western powers, did it use that as an excuse to overthrow Qaddafi?
Julian Borger: Yes.
Marc Steiner: Just dismembered that country? So disillusionment set in, but what happens now when you have the United States in retreat from the ICC because it doesn’t want to be brought to task in Afghanistan, or because of its support for Israel, and in terms of Israel/Palestine, not wanting that to be looked at it all, and China with the Uyghurs. So where does that leave us in terms of international order? All this began because the Holocaust and World War II. I mean, that’s why this was set up originally in the first place, and our consciousness was raised, but something has happened in those intervening years, which has changed everything. So where do you think political will is now? What do you think that the future may lead us?
Julian Borger: That’s a good question, and you framed it as it’s happened … it started with the Holocaust. But you got to remember, even after the Holocaust, during the Cold War, any sense of accountability for mass crimes after Nuremberg was completely forgotten. So we’ve been here before, we’ve seen mass crimes, and then we’ve fallen into amnesia and impotence when it comes to addressing them. Then with the end of the Cold War and these new crimes against humanity in Bosnia and Rwanda, there was a fresh effort, and there was a brief window in which country’s like Russia at the security council we’re prepared to go along with it. That window is now closed.
So when it comes to accountability and seeking to intervene to stop genocide in any kind of muscular way, it’s really left to the countries individual regions. Whenever asked, people who are concerned with the sad study of genocide, genocide denial, and accountability, if they have any optimism for the future, they point to a body of law that has grown up, and also a body of expectations, that if there is genocide and mass crimes in the future, there will be an expectation that something must be done, and that driving force, and that expectation is at least a lasting legacy.
We’re seeing it being put into practice in some small ways. Like in Germany, we’ve seen the first prosecution of Syrian officials for the killings in Syria brought through the principle of universal jurisdiction in the national courts. There will be many more of those kind of cases. So for the time being, in the absence of a court that will look into war crimes in Syria, and Yemen, in Myanmar, we’re at least seeing individual courts, individual countries, step up and kind of pick up the torch when it comes to accountability.
Marc Steiner: Well, first of all, I deeply appreciate you taking the time with us today, Julian. I also really appreciate the work that you’ve been doing over the years in covering this stuff and bringing it to the fore and your book was amazing. So thank you, once again, for joining us here on The Real News, and I look forward to all the conversations as we watch what unfolds in front of us.
Julian Borger: Thank you very much. Pleasure to be on.
Marc Steiner: Always good to have you with us. I’m Marc Steiner here for The Real News Network. Please let us know what you think, and stay safe and take care.
Studio: Will Arenas
Production: Will Arenas
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therealnews--2020-07-13--Congo Doesn’t Need An Apology, It Needs Justice And Reparations

Protests against racism sparked by the police killing of George Floyd continue to sweep the globe , including in Belgium , where activists have demanded the removal of statues of King Leopold II , and an acknowledgement of the horrors he inflicted on the Democratic Republic of Congo .
Pointing to a statue of King Leopold II , an activist told Reuters , “ We won ’ t accept this until the government understands that this belongs in a museum , not in public space .
Because it is a shame.
” Leopold ’ s descendant King Philippe expressed regret @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and as Congo celebrated 60 years of independence on June 30 .
“ Our history is made of common achievements but has also experienced painful episodes .
During the period of the Congo Free State , acts of violence and cruelty were committed , which still weigh on our collective memory , ” he wrote .
But the King ’ s letter fell short of apologizing for the country ’ s actions .
Many argue that ’ s not enough .
An estimated 10-15 million people were killed during King Leopold ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in modern history .
“ What Congolese are demanding is bigger than apology , it is justice , and justice looks like reparations , ” Kambale Musavuli , a human rights activist and native of the Democratic Republic of Congo , told The Real News .
Under the guise of a humanitarian mission , and with the backing of the United States and Europe , Belgium claimed control of the Congo in 1885 .
An area the size of Western Europe , the region was rich with ivory and rubber .
Colonial forces @ @ @ @ @ @ @ natural resources , without pay , to meet a growing demand from the nascent automobile industry .
“ Congolese were literally slaves on their own land .
Their hands were chopped off , they were killed , ” said Musavuli , who works for the Center for Research on Congo .
Congo ’ s exploitation did not end when the atrocities were exposed in the media and a global campaign forced Leopold to relinquish his control of the territory in 1908 , which was then transferred to Belgium : “ Congolese fought in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , not because they wanted to go fight , but because they were under colonial rule .
And many of the ex-combatants actually received no pay as they fought these wars.
” Musavuli said .
Belgium continued to exploit Congo ’ s natural resources , including uranium , which was sold to the United States to make the nuclear weapons that bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II .
In 2002 , Belgium apologized for its role in the Jan. 1961 killing of Patrice Lumumba , a Congolese independence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elected prime minister .
Lumumba was assassinated by Belgium and the United States for this opposition to the exploitation of the country ’ s natural resources by corporate interests .
The apology did not mean Lumumba ’ s killers were brought to justice .
“ [ After the apology ] Belgian mercenaries were doing interviews in documentaries , explaining how they removed Lumumba ’ s teeth .
And one of them actually said that he kept one of Patrice Lumumba ’ s teeth .
And no one has been arrested , ” Musavuli @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over Congo till this day : “ The United Nation reports in the early 2000s about 85 companies were being paid for income with resources during the latest war , that ’ s claimed the lives of 16 year millions Congolese During that period , there were Belgian companies again trading Congo ’ s resources illegally pilfered by rebels in the DRC , ” Musavuli said .
For there to be justice , Musavuli argues , Belgium must pay for its past and ongoing crimes and exploitation of the Congolese people : “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Congo needs justice , ” Musavuli said .

Protests against racism sparked by the police killing of George Floyd continue to sweep the globe, including in Belgium, where activists have demanded the removal of statues of King Leopold II, and an acknowledgement of the horrors he inflicted on the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Pointing to a statue of King Leopold II, an activist told Reuters, “We won’t accept this until the government understands that this belongs in a museum, not in public space. Because it is a shame.”
Antwerp, Belgium has removed the statue of mass murder, King Leopold II who killed 10-15 million Congolese people.
It was first set on fire by protesters. Another statue was covered in red paint in Ghent. Over 10,000 people shouted "mass murderer" around his Brussels statue. pic.twitter.com/CShUKJtiPw — Africa Facts Zone (@AfricaFactsZone) June 10, 2020
Leopold’s descendant King Philippe expressed regret in a letter amid the protests, and as Congo celebrated 60 years of independence on June 30.
“Our history is made of common achievements but has also experienced painful episodes. During the period of the Congo Free State, acts of violence and cruelty were committed, which still weigh on our collective memory,” he wrote.
But the King’s letter fell short of apologizing for the country’s actions. Many argue that’s not enough.
An estimated 10-15 million people were killed during King Leopold’s rule, one of the bloodiest atrocities in modern history.
“What Congolese are demanding is bigger than apology, it is justice, and justice looks like reparations,” Kambale Musavuli, a human rights activist and native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, told The Real News.
Under the guise of a humanitarian mission, and with the backing of the United States and Europe, King Leopold II of Belgium claimed control of the Congo in 1885. An area the size of Western Europe, the region was rich with ivory and rubber. Colonial forces worked the Congolese to death harvesting these natural resources, without pay, to meet a growing demand from the nascent automobile industry.
“Congolese were literally slaves on their own land. Their hands were chopped off, they were killed,” said Musavuli, who works for the Center for Research on Congo.
Congo’s exploitation did not end when the atrocities were exposed in the media and a global campaign forced Leopold to relinquish his control of the territory in 1908, which was then transferred to Belgium: “Congolese fought in World War I and World War II, not because they wanted to go fight, but because they were under colonial rule. And many of the ex-combatants actually received no pay as they fought these wars.” Musavuli said.
Belgium continued to exploit Congo’s natural resources, including uranium, which was sold to the United States to make the nuclear weapons that bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.
In 2002, Belgium apologized for its role in the Jan. 1961 killing of Patrice Lumumba, a Congolese independence leader and the nation’s first elected prime minister. Lumumba was assassinated by Belgium and the United States for this opposition to the exploitation of the country’s natural resources by corporate interests. The apology did not mean Lumumba’s killers were brought to justice.
“[After the apology] Belgian mercenaries were doing interviews in documentaries, explaining how they removed Lumumba’s teeth. And one of them actually said that he kept one of Patrice Lumumba’s teeth. And no one has been arrested,” Musavuli said.
Belgium continues to exert influence over Congo till this day: “The United Nation reports in the early 2000s about 85 companies were being paid for income with resources during the latest war, that’s claimed the lives of 16 year millions Congolese During that period, there were Belgian companies again trading Congo’s resources illegally pilfered by rebels in the DRC,” Musavuli said.
The Silent holocaust which killed 6MILLION ppl in the #Congo…SO THEIR RESOURCES ARE EXPLOITED4WESTERN CONSUMPTION pic.twitter.com/Q19dSGLYTz — Bassem Masri (@bassem_masri) September 26, 2016
For there to be justice, Musavuli argues, Belgium must pay for its past and ongoing crimes and exploitation of the Congolese people: “Congo doesn’t need charity, Congo needs justice,” Musavuli said.
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therealnews--2020-07-13--What’s Behind Brazil’s COVID-19 Disaster?

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therealnews--2020-07-14--Shahid Buttar Mounts A Serious Congressional Race Against Speaker Of The House Nancy Pelosi

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Mark Steiner : Welcome to The Real News , I ’ m Mark Steiner .
Good to have you all with us .
Shahid Buttar is running for Congress as a Democrat in California ’ s 12th congressional district .
Guess who has that seat now ?
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi .
California has open primaries and the top two contenders face off in the general election .
And this is the first time in that process that Pelosi has to face another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Buttar is no ordinary Democrat .
He ’ s a Democratic Socialist and activist , an attorney who helped build the American Constitutional Society , which is a progressive network challenging the conservative takeover of our courts , and works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation , where he has fought for digital rights and against mass surveillance .
So , Shahid , welcome to The Real News .
It is a pleasure to have you with us .
Shahid Buttar : Thanks so much for having me , Mark .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Steiner : So , let ’ s just start with where we are for this moment , in a couple of ways .
First with you ’ re fighting for a seat in Congress against one of the most powerful politicians in our country and in the midst of COVID , so talk a bit about how you do that .
Both things , both Nancy Pelosi and COVID , all in this election .
Shahid Buttar : Well , frankly , running against the speaker is easier than it sounds , if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ job of advancing Republican interests .
So , she does a great deal of campaigning on my behalf by doing as much as she does to support and enable the Trump administration while mouthing supposedly resistance to it .
The pandemic creates challenges as well as opportunities , so just to explore all that .
On the one hand , it forces us off the doors .
The backbone of our voter outreach program before the pandemic hit was reaching out to voters at their residences , and we can ’ t do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We can ’ t do campaign events .
We can ’ t do rallies , happy hours , any of the things that we ’ d been doing to pull our supporters together , for the moment at least are off the table .
So , our response is to that have been , they ’ ve gone in a couple of different directions .
One , we ’ ve pivoted to the phones .
We have a very active phone banking operation .
It includes hundreds of people around the country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thousand volunteers and we host online trainings every other day .
Anybody can join us from anywhere in the country at shahid.fyi/volunteer .
We also recently , with the aid of some supporters , we have a sound truck now , which enables us to do outdoor rallies in spaces that don ’ t put people at risk , and we just started that last weekend .
We ’ ll be doing that again this weekend and indefinitely through the election .
Very excited about that .
It ’ s a particular fusion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ background in the service of the campaign , so I ’ m excited about that sort of methodological cultural fusion , if you will .
Another thing that the pandemic has done that ’ s , frankly , opportune is expose the failure of our predatory for profit healthcare system .
It ’ s basically a pharmaceutical pricing racket with government support , and it was untenable before the pandemic .
It is senseless in the wake of the pandemic .
And at the same time the pandemic ’ s complicated the method @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , frankly , made the case and the rationale for our campaign even sharper by exposing all the more the failures of the incumbent .
Mark Steiner : Let me explore one thing you said here , when you said that Nancy Pelosi supports and backs up a lot of moves that around Trump .
Be specific .
What are you talking about ?
Shahid Buttar : The very same day that the House announced an overdue and limited impeachment process , Nancy Pelosi inked the deal , Trump ’ s corporate trade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ standards around the world .
When Trump built concentration camps at our borders , that took Nancy Pelosi signing the $ 4.6 billion budget request .
When Trump requested $ 740 billion for the Defense Department just last week , it took Nancy Pelosi ’ s House to rubber stamp that request .
The very first thing she did as a speaker of the House , without Trump even prompting her , was to basically give away the accounting rules of the House for which Democrats had fought for 20 years , conceding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the PAYGO rules , that basically structurally disadvantaged and discriminate against social spending and discriminate in favor of military industrial fraud , waste and abuse .
I could go on .
Nancy Pelosi extended Trump ’ s unconstitutional surveillance powers .
Nancy Pelosi , after showing up a year late for impeachment , affirmatively limited it to ensure that the president would never answer for his worst crimes .
She is the reason he ’ s still in office because she showed up for impeachment , like a boxer throwing a fight , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one to say it .
Jerry Nadler ’ s the chair of the House Judiciary Committee , and he has said in public that the reason Trump didn ’ t face an emoluments charge was because Pelosi took it off the table [ crosstalk 00:04:38 ] .
Mark Steiner : And why do you think that is ?
Shahid Buttar : Well , probably because violations of the emoluments clause , that ’ s a constitutional prohibition on self enrichment at public expense , and the sad reality , frankly , is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the self enrichment at public expense is hardly a partisan problem .
That is something , unfortunately , in which both corporate parties are up to their necks .
So , I think basically , Pelosi lives in a glass house and couldn ’ t cast that stone .
But the unfortunate implication of that is that we , the people , of the United States are paying a profound price , a constitutional cost , for the corporate corruption of the Democratic party .
The corruption might not be illegal , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case and whether it ’ s Trump ’ s corruption , whether it ’ s Biden ’ s corruption , whether it ’ s Pelosi ’ s corruption , whether it ’ s the GOP ’ s corruption or the Democrats ’ corruption , we , the people of the United States need an actual democracy .
That ’ s the ultimate principle that ’ s animating and driving our campaign to liberate San Francisco ’ s voice after having been co-opted for the last 20 years by Wall Street .
Mark Steiner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here about what we face right now in this country .
We ’ re facing , at a number of levels , some of the most serious crises in the history of the country .
The murder of George Floyd and all the others , massive demonstrations , and the depth of racism is kind of really being exposed for all Americans to see .
It ’ s changing minds and hearts .
We saw Nancy Pelosi taking a knee in kente cloth .
But tell me what you think we ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and what would be different about how you think Congress should respond where we are at this moment .
Shahid Buttar : Thank you so much for asking that question , because she gets by based on these acts of theater , attempting to co-op social movements that she refuses to stand in solidarity with .
The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act , which just passed the House , includes a number of provisions that would advance civil rights , which I have proposed for years and which the movement for Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ m glad to see Nancy Pelosi finally show up for , for instance , and for ending qualified immunity or creating a national registry of violent police , tracking the data that we need to establish how bad is profiling as an empirical matter , in any given jurisdiction .
All of that is included in the Justice in Policing Act , all of that has been proposed for years and fallen on the deaf ears of corporate Democrats who have stood in the way until finally getting with the program @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worse than that , because the Justice in Policing Act falls vastly short of our community ’ s demands to defund police .
When we say defund police , what we are saying is we have seen too many people gunned down arbitrarily by paid agents of the state who murdered with impunity , and we don ’ t need commissions , we don ’ t need body cameras .
What we need are social workers .
That ’ s what defund the police means .
It means that we are over it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ era of paramilitary , predatory policing , militarily occupying our cities .
I could chase a rabbit here and unpack the roots of paramilitary policing , NCIA corruption and Gary Webb ’ s revelations of the CIA ’ s international human rights abusing cartels .
Instead of holding anyone at the agency accountable for its documented role in equipping and training narcotraffickers , who ’ ve gunned down us police officers in the 1990s , instead of holding the agency accountable , we sent two and a half million Black and Brown people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ today .
That ’ s another piece that I should put on the table .
We are reckoning at the moment , you ’ re right , with our nation ’ s unfortunate , frankly , terrible history of institutional racism and ongoing history of institutional racism that , frankly , is worse than even many people think .
A lot of people are observing the contemporary movement as one responding to arbitrary police violence that kills unarmed innocent people at the rate of roughly two every three days .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the United States , currently , a system of industrial scale slavery , worse , at least imprisoning and enslaving more people today , than at the height of the antebellum South .
And when we envision ourselves as supposedly in some post-racial society , we have to grapple with the fact that the vestiges of manufacturing capacity in the United States are slave labor .
That ’ s why we have mass incarceration .
It ’ s very lucrative for corporate interests .
It ’ s a bipartisan problem .
Nancy Pelosi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she wants , but as long as she is an architect of mass incarceration and an architect of paramilitary police , I don ’ t buy the theater for a second and her constituents don ’ t either .
Mark Steiner : We ’ ve had this history where you have people like progressive leaders , like Grijalba who have introduced the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act in 2015 , but clearly that it has gone nowhere .
This could be a time where that could be reinvigorated by Congress , given the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We can touch on that .
And also , I mean , COVID also raises issues around housing and we ’ re facing these huge evictions across the country .
I ’ ve heard you and watch you speak before about the Faircloth Amendment and housing , and how to develop a model of social housing that really may be another discussion to have now because we ’ re in the midst of COVID .
Let ’ s talk a bit about that and your ideas around this whole sort of social housing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Shahid Buttar : Maybe I ’ ll start with Grijalba if I can , and then just- Mark Steiner : Go right on .
Go ahead .
Shahid Buttar : I appreciate the question in both dimensions .
Raul Grijalba is one of the leading voices on immigrant rights in Congress .
And , in addition to his proposal to demilitarize police , I ’ m particularly reminded of a moment , frankly , that sealed my resolve to run for Congress and replace Nancy Pelosi .
This is February , 2018 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ March , and she did this stunt .
She read for eight hours from the House floor , and it ’ s a feat of remarkable endurance for a woman for her age .
She read letters from DREAM Act students while selling us out in a budget negotiation , and Raul Grijalba was one of the few voices in Congress that was willing to call her out for it .
It ’ s a consistent pattern with Pelosi of mouthing support for social movements that she undermines in policy and practice .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to immigrant rights , peace and justice , human rights … I could go on in any number of directions .
Let ’ s talk about housing .
This is as illustrative in an area as any other .
Before the pandemic hit , the untenable cost of housing here in San Francisco was , frankly , the principal local issue , and it has become an increasingly pressing local issue in cities across the United States .
I wonder how much different it might be if the leader of the Democratic party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wealthy commercial landlord , inclined to protect her own class and business interests , in a way not unlike our president .
They are both wealthy commercial landlords and that in itself , I think , is revealing of an oligarchy that most Americans are uncomfortable grappling with .
The fact that our president and the leader of the supposed opposition party are cut very much from the same cloth , children of powerful east coast real estate families born with silver spoons in their mouths , who are building political dynasties .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Democratic and the Republican party .
Neither of those things are actually democratic .
That ’ s , that ’ s a quintessential reflection of oligarchy .
And just to think about setting that aside to really embrace housing questions , there ’ s two dimensions of it .
One is the short term crisis that the COVID pandemic has revealed .
And then , the second I heard you alluding to , with respect to the Faircloth Amendment , is the longer term project to usher in a new era of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crisis .
Let ’ s start with the short term first .
There is , at the first of every month , a mounting eviction crisis unfolding across the country .
It gets worse every month , precisely because Congress has done nothing to keep people in their homes .
We need rent and mortgage relief .
There was a bill proposed by representative Ilhan Omar from Minnesota that would do exactly that .
It would cancel rents and mortgages , and it would provide support from the government for small landlords to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the cost of housing during the economic shutdown forced by the pandemic .
It is a no brainer .
If we force millions of Americans into the street in the middle of an economic collapse , that just ensures that the recession will turn into a depression and it will be the worst in our country ’ s history .
Instead of doing that , what Congress , with Nancy Pelosi ’ s leadership , prioritized were tax breaks of $ 1.6 million each for 43,000 millionaires who got that giveaway in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seem to me entirely too revealing , and completely disqualifying , that , in the middle of an economic collapse and a pandemic , before getting to rent and mortgage relief , corporate Democrats were handing out tax breaks for millionaires .
I don ’ t see why anybody should be okay with that , not anyone who calls themselves a Democrat .
That ’ s a Republican policy , that ’ s a shock doctrine policy .
That ’ s the kind of thing I expect from Wall Street , from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economics , and we have the Democrats led by a voice that is leveraging social crisis to actively redistribute wealth up to the 0.1 % .
We have a grave problem in this country and it looks like the cooptation of the supposedly opposition party by capital .
Ultimately , my run to replace Nancy Pelosi in the House is an effort to liberate the Democratic party from it ’ s seizure by Wall Street and capital .
We need a real democracy in this country , and it has to start with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mark Steiner : So , in the time we have left , there ’ s a couple things I really try to cover here as briefly as possible .
There ’ s two questions here I think are important to wrestle with .
A is your work for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the question of police surveillance .
This can be really complex , I ’ m going to try to figure out how we can do this in a short time , but the connections between why you have maintained that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ re facing , in terms of keeping police in check .
But also , the larger question of , as you ’ ve talked about , capitalist digital surveillance and what ’ s happening in our country , both in terms of Facebook , the battles in that industry which clearly needs to have some antitrust investigations because it ’ s the new antitrust .
It ’ s the 21st century , but started in the 19th century .
So , connect those things for us and talk about your work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ question .
Shahid Buttar : My work at the Electronic Frontier Foundation was about trying to ensure digital civil liberties , both in the face of corporate surveillance and co-optation and content moderation and suppressing speech and all the things that corporations do online , and particularly for me , government surveillance .
I remember the COINTELPRO era .
I was born in ’ 74 , so at the tail end of the official narrative and the conventional wisdom is that it ended in ’ 76 , though it never , frankly , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and it ’ s not just an offense of privacy .
This is a really important point .
Surveillance kills democracy .
That ’ s why I fought it for 10 years because I , whether at the Electronic Frontier Foundation or in replacing Pelosi , the central thread that animates my work , what I am here to do , is defend democracy in America .
I ’ m an immigrant here .
I don ’ t take it lightly .
I take it very , very seriously and the need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I understand how fragile it is .
I think many Americans don ’ t understand how fragile it is .
I have feared fascism in the United States for 20 years .
The Bush versus Gore decision , in my mind , uncorked the bottle and it ’ s just been unfolding ever since , in ways that I think most people don ’ t understand .
Like the cooptation of the Supreme court , and I have a plan to fix that .
Like the emergence of the mass surveillance regime , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In addition to defending democracy , the strategy that I pioneered both at EFF and , frankly , before it , the reason the organization hired me , was that in 2010 , I developed a strategy of fighting the surveillance state hydra by plucking off at scales one at a time at the local level , through city councils passing enforceable restrictions to limit their police departments ’ activities , acquisition of surveillance equipment , deployment of surveillance equipment , and then the length of time for which , for instance , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any number of other parameters .
The high watermark of that effort is the Providence Community Police Relations Act that was passed in 2017 .
It ’ s an intersectional civil rights law .
It is the leading local civil rights law in the country , and I ’ m proud to have authored many components of it .
When we look beyond government surveillance , particularly at corporate actors , the thing I ’ d want to focus on here is that the Silicon Valley tech giants , people think of them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advertising machine and the corporate surveillance that that implies .
There are whole other problems here .
One of them is that all of the Silicon Valley big tech giants are also defense contractors , and there is , frankly , nothing I have a greater antipathy for than weapons dealers .
Google might pretend not to be a weapons dealer , but the line between Northrop Grumman , Raytheon , Lockheed Martin , Google , and Facebook gets thinner and thinner every day , and I aim to be very sharply critical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get my hands on .
I want to shut down the sordid enterprise of the military industrial complex starving our social needs .
I ’ m not the first person to fear it .
The architect of that system told us it would happen , he said it on national television .
Dwight Eisenhower , the Supreme Allied Commander of the victorious forces of the second world war told us that his signature creation would threaten democracy in America and two generations of policymakers buried their heads in the sand and ducked directly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was coming .
And I , as an immigrant , am coming to this apparatus , to Congress , recognizing that my predecessors had let slip through their fingers , $ 21 trillion that they can no longer account for while they tell us that we don ’ t have money and resources for doctors and medicine .
I don ’ t buy that for a second either .
The tech giants in Silicon Valley need to be pulled off the government trough of the defense department to the same extent that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and aircraft carriers and fighter jets that we don ’ t need .
We have real national security threats in our country .
They include a pandemic , they include climate catastrophe .
They include the need to ensure that an election happens by mail in November .
You can ’ t fight any of those things with a fighter plane or an aircraft carrier or a nuclear missile .
Every penny that we hurl at the defense department is money that we are taking out of the mouths of American people who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , let me conclude with this .
There ’ s a quote that I found in The Daily Northwestern , and you were quoted in that magazine saying that Biden put millions of Americans in prison and Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court and sent tens of thousands of us soldiers into war zones that left hundreds of thousands , if not millions , of people dead and went on to say , “ No , I ’ m not going to vote for that .
I ’ m sorry.
” So , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a minute .
There are a lot of people who are watching us at this moment that go , “ Wait , wait , wait , wait , Shahid .
I mean , we ’ re facing a white nationalist mob , an overtly racist mob of people , to take over this country and right-wing elite ruling class ideologues that are transforming the course and transforming the country .
So , isn ’ t better , don ’ t we have to stop that before we can begin to stop the other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ re all screwed.
” Shahid Buttar : Absolutely .
That ’ s exactly why I can ’ t get behind Biden .
People might remember , I don ’ t see eye to eye with Kamala Harris about much , but people might remember her very accurate statement early in the presidential debates that Joe Biden was an active segregationist .
He is part of every one of these problems .
He ’ s the closest thing that the Democratic party has to Donald Trump .
He is the most conservative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who was an unapologetic Republican , he was the most conservative of the entire field of Democratic nominees .
And I ’ ll just put it this way , there was a nominee who very clearly has the support to be the president of the United States .
The Democratic party didn ’ t want him .
The Democratic party would rather lose to Trump than win with Bernie , and carrying Biden ’ s water is not my problem and it ’ s not my job .
I ’ m not here @ @ @ @ @ @ @ corrupt Democratic party .
I ’ m here to defend the interests of we , the people of the United States and Joe Biden has been an architect of every one of the racist , militarist , capitalist , abusive systems that we are trying to shrug off the yoke of .
I live in a safe blue state , so I intend to vote for a presidential nominee who I could actually support .
With respect to people in battleground states , I don ’ t recommend that they follow my lead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is an existential threat to the Republic .
Frankly , so is Biden .
Whoever wins this presidential election , I ’ m going to spend my first term in Congress fighting them from the left .
As , frankly , I have fought every one of the presidential administration since 2000 from the left .
I spent most of the Obama administration in DC fighting his deportation machine , trying to stop drone strikes , and the crackdown on the press as spies .
I fought for the Constitution under Democratic presidents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than Republicans here .
In fact , that ’ s why I ’ m running to replace Pelosi .
Because if electing Democrats were enough , I could go back to my life .
I liked my life before , working at EFF , deejaying on the weekends .
That was great fun , I enjoyed it .
I would love to go back to that life , but seeing Democrats pave the roads of fascism , I can ’ t just live my life at a time like this .
None of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so many of us are being forced into the street [ inaudible 00:22:13 ] the principles that I think many of us took for granted are withering , to the extent they remained vestigial at all .
This is a time when it ’ s absolutely critical , crucial that we all lean in to reclaim our democracy , to defend not only our rights and not only our democracy for ourselves , but particularly to guard the future from the predation of a failed predatory past .
Mark Steiner : Is Nancy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Buttar : I certainly hope so .
She hasn ’ t debated anyone in 33 years .
Just to be clear that I do think it ’ s disqualifying when a public official refuses to defend their record for an entire generation .
I think it ’ s disturbing about what it implies about our democracy .
I don ’ t think it ’ s her failure , I think it ’ s our failure , and it ’ s particularly a failure of the fourth branch .
The news media have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the press is embedded in the first amendment is that journalism has a constitutional significance , and I hope that any number of news outlets might play that function .
If performing their constitutional function were not enough , I would hope that the business interest of private media sources , there ’ s a vast audience waiting for this debate around the country , very eager to have it , and I ’ m eager to see CNN or MSNBC or the San Francisco Chronicle invite this debate .
Radio stations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ refused to show up for it .
I don ’ t think that she can get away with ducking debates for much longer .
I am the first Democrat to ever reach a November election against her , and if that ’ s not enough to get her to show up for work , I ’ ll just take the seat and I ’ ll look forward to celebrating her legacy as her replacement [ crosstalk 00:23:46 ] .
Mark Steiner : Shahid Buttar , it ’ s been a pleasure talking with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ debate , I ’ m going to be in the front row , if there is a row , to watch that happen .
Thank you so much for your principled stances and thank so much for joining us today on The Real News .
It ’ s been a pleasure to talk with you .
Shahid Buttar : Thanks for having me on , Mark .
Mark Steiner : Thank you .
And I ’ m Mark Steiner here for The Real News Network .
Thank you all for joining us .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and please stay safe .
Take care .

Democratic Socialist Buttar is challenging Pelosi as a progressive-sounding centrist who pushes a conservative agenda that enables Trump.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Mark Steiner: Welcome to The Real News, I’m Mark Steiner. Good to have you all with us. Shahid Buttar is running for Congress as a Democrat in California’s 12th congressional district. Guess who has that seat now? Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. California has open primaries and the top two contenders face off in the general election. And this is the first time in that process that Pelosi has to face another Democrat in the general election. Shahid Buttar is no ordinary Democrat. He’s a Democratic Socialist and activist, an attorney who helped build the American Constitutional Society, which is a progressive network challenging the conservative takeover of our courts, and works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where he has fought for digital rights and against mass surveillance. So, Shahid, welcome to The Real News. It is a pleasure to have you with us.
Shahid Buttar: Thanks so much for having me, Mark. It’s great to be with you.
Mark Steiner: So, let’s just start with where we are for this moment, in a couple of ways. First with you’re fighting for a seat in Congress against one of the most powerful politicians in our country and in the midst of COVID, so talk a bit about how you do that. Both things, both Nancy Pelosi and COVID, all in this election.
Shahid Buttar: Well, frankly, running against the speaker is easier than it sounds, if only because she does such an effective job of advancing Republican interests. So, she does a great deal of campaigning on my behalf by doing as much as she does to support and enable the Trump administration while mouthing supposedly resistance to it. The pandemic creates challenges as well as opportunities, so just to explore all that.
On the one hand, it forces us off the doors. The backbone of our voter outreach program before the pandemic hit was reaching out to voters at their residences, and we can’t do that now without putting people at risk. We can’t do campaign events. We can’t do rallies, happy hours, any of the things that we’d been doing to pull our supporters together, for the moment at least are off the table. So, our response is to that have been, they’ve gone in a couple of different directions.
One, we’ve pivoted to the phones. We have a very active phone banking operation. It includes hundreds of people around the country. We’ve trained almost a thousand volunteers and we host online trainings every other day. Anybody can join us from anywhere in the country at shahid.fyi/volunteer. We also recently, with the aid of some supporters, we have a sound truck now, which enables us to do outdoor rallies in spaces that don’t put people at risk, and we just started that last weekend. We’ll be doing that again this weekend and indefinitely through the election. Very excited about that. It’s a particular fusion of sort of my artist and organizing background in the service of the campaign, so I’m excited about that sort of methodological cultural fusion, if you will.
Another thing that the pandemic has done that’s, frankly, opportune is expose the failure of our predatory for profit healthcare system. It’s basically a pharmaceutical pricing racket with government support, and it was untenable before the pandemic. It is senseless in the wake of the pandemic. And at the same time the pandemic’s complicated the method of the campaign, it’s, frankly, made the case and the rationale for our campaign even sharper by exposing all the more the failures of the incumbent.
Mark Steiner: Let me explore one thing you said here, when you said that Nancy Pelosi supports and backs up a lot of moves that around Trump. Be specific. What are you talking about?
Shahid Buttar: The very same day that the House announced an overdue and limited impeachment process, Nancy Pelosi inked the deal, Trump’s corporate trade agreement, that undermined labor and environmental standards around the world. When Trump built concentration camps at our borders, that took Nancy Pelosi signing the $4.6 billion budget request. When Trump requested $740 billion for the Defense Department just last week, it took Nancy Pelosi’s House to rubber stamp that request. The very first thing she did as a speaker of the House, without Trump even prompting her, was to basically give away the accounting rules of the House for which Democrats had fought for 20 years, conceding to a Republican demand, this is the PAYGO rules, that basically structurally disadvantaged and discriminate against social spending and discriminate in favor of military industrial fraud, waste and abuse.
I could go on. Nancy Pelosi extended Trump’s unconstitutional surveillance powers. Nancy Pelosi, after showing up a year late for impeachment, affirmatively limited it to ensure that the president would never answer for his worst crimes. She is the reason he’s still in office because she showed up for impeachment, like a boxer throwing a fight, and I’m not the only one to say it. Jerry Nadler’s the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and he has said in public that the reason Trump didn’t face an emoluments charge was because Pelosi took it off the table [crosstalk 00:04:38].
Mark Steiner: And why do you think that is?
Shahid Buttar: Well, probably because violations of the emoluments clause, that’s a constitutional prohibition on self enrichment at public expense, and the sad reality, frankly, is that the public enrichment, pardon me, the self enrichment at public expense is hardly a partisan problem. That is something, unfortunately, in which both corporate parties are up to their necks. So, I think basically, Pelosi lives in a glass house and couldn’t cast that stone.
But the unfortunate implication of that is that we, the people, of the United States are paying a profound price, a constitutional cost, for the corporate corruption of the Democratic party. The corruption might not be illegal, but it’s a problem in any case and whether it’s Trump’s corruption, whether it’s Biden’s corruption, whether it’s Pelosi’s corruption, whether it’s the GOP’s corruption or the Democrats’ corruption, we, the people of the United States need an actual democracy. That’s the ultimate principle that’s animating and driving our campaign to liberate San Francisco’s voice after having been co-opted for the last 20 years by Wall Street.
Mark Steiner: Let me come into another point here about what we face right now in this country. We’re facing, at a number of levels, some of the most serious crises in the history of the country. The murder of George Floyd and all the others, massive demonstrations, and the depth of racism is kind of really being exposed for all Americans to see. It’s changing minds and hearts. We saw Nancy Pelosi taking a knee in kente cloth. But tell me what you think we’re missing about her leadership at this moment and what would be different about how you think Congress should respond where we are at this moment.
Shahid Buttar: Thank you so much for asking that question, because she gets by based on these acts of theater, attempting to co-op social movements that she refuses to stand in solidarity with. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which just passed the House, includes a number of provisions that would advance civil rights, which I have proposed for years and which the movement for Black lives has supported for even longer. I’m glad to see Nancy Pelosi finally show up for, for instance, and for ending qualified immunity or creating a national registry of violent police, tracking the data that we need to establish how bad is profiling as an empirical matter, in any given jurisdiction. All of that is included in the Justice in Policing Act, all of that has been proposed for years and fallen on the deaf ears of corporate Democrats who have stood in the way until finally getting with the program.
But it’s actually much worse than that, because the Justice in Policing Act falls vastly short of our community’s demands to defund police. When we say defund police, what we are saying is we have seen too many people gunned down arbitrarily by paid agents of the state who murdered with impunity, and we don’t need commissions, we don’t need body cameras. What we need are social workers. That’s what defund the police means. It means that we are over it, and we are done with the era of paramilitary, predatory policing, militarily occupying our cities.
I could chase a rabbit here and unpack the roots of paramilitary policing, NCIA corruption and Gary Webb’s revelations of the CIA’s international human rights abusing cartels. Instead of holding anyone at the agency accountable for its documented role in equipping and training narcotraffickers, who’ve gunned down us police officers in the 1990s, instead of holding the agency accountable, we sent two and a half million Black and Brown people into prison where they are legally enslaved today.
That’s another piece that I should put on the table. We are reckoning at the moment, you’re right, with our nation’s unfortunate, frankly, terrible history of institutional racism and ongoing history of institutional racism that, frankly, is worse than even many people think. A lot of people are observing the contemporary movement as one responding to arbitrary police violence that kills unarmed innocent people at the rate of roughly two every three days. It’s worse than that. We embrace in the United States, currently, a system of industrial scale slavery, worse, at least imprisoning and enslaving more people today, than at the height of the antebellum South. And when we envision ourselves as supposedly in some post-racial society, we have to grapple with the fact that the vestiges of manufacturing capacity in the United States are slave labor. That’s why we have mass incarceration. It’s very lucrative for corporate interests. It’s a bipartisan problem. Nancy Pelosi can put on all the kente cloth she wants, but as long as she is an architect of mass incarceration and an architect of paramilitary police, I don’t buy the theater for a second and her constituents don’t either.
Mark Steiner: We’ve had this history where you have people like progressive leaders, like Grijalba who have introduced the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act in 2015, but clearly that it has gone nowhere. This could be a time where that could be reinvigorated by Congress, given the moment that we’re facing. We can touch on that.
And also, I mean, COVID also raises issues around housing and we’re facing these huge evictions across the country. I’ve heard you and watch you speak before about the Faircloth Amendment and housing, and how to develop a model of social housing that really may be another discussion to have now because we’re in the midst of COVID. Let’s talk a bit about that and your ideas around this whole sort of social housing and getting rid of the Faircloth Amendment.
Shahid Buttar: Maybe I’ll start with Grijalba if I can, and then just-
Mark Steiner: Go right on. Go ahead.
Shahid Buttar: I appreciate the question in both dimensions. Raul Grijalba is one of the leading voices on immigrant rights in Congress. And, in addition to his proposal to demilitarize police, I’m particularly reminded of a moment, frankly, that sealed my resolve to run for Congress and replace Nancy Pelosi. This is February, 2018. Might’ve been the early March, and she did this stunt. She read for eight hours from the House floor, and it’s a feat of remarkable endurance for a woman for her age. She read letters from DREAM Act students while selling us out in a budget negotiation, and Raul Grijalba was one of the few voices in Congress that was willing to call her out for it. It’s a consistent pattern with Pelosi of mouthing support for social movements that she undermines in policy and practice. That’s true from racial justice to immigrant rights, peace and justice, human rights … I could go on in any number of directions.
Let’s talk about housing. This is as illustrative in an area as any other. Before the pandemic hit, the untenable cost of housing here in San Francisco was, frankly, the principal local issue, and it has become an increasingly pressing local issue in cities across the United States. I wonder how much different it might be if the leader of the Democratic party for the last generation were not a wealthy commercial landlord, inclined to protect her own class and business interests, in a way not unlike our president. They are both wealthy commercial landlords and that in itself, I think, is revealing of an oligarchy that most Americans are uncomfortable grappling with. The fact that our president and the leader of the supposed opposition party are cut very much from the same cloth, children of powerful east coast real estate families born with silver spoons in their mouths, who are building political dynasties. That’s the head of both the Democratic and the Republican party. Neither of those things are actually democratic. That’s, that’s a quintessential reflection of oligarchy.
And just to think about setting that aside to really embrace housing questions, there’s two dimensions of it. One is the short term crisis that the COVID pandemic has revealed. And then, the second I heard you alluding to, with respect to the Faircloth Amendment, is the longer term project to usher in a new era of social housing to deal with the preceding crisis. Let’s start with the short term first.
There is, at the first of every month, a mounting eviction crisis unfolding across the country. It gets worse every month, precisely because Congress has done nothing to keep people in their homes. We need rent and mortgage relief. There was a bill proposed by representative Ilhan Omar from Minnesota that would do exactly that. It would cancel rents and mortgages, and it would provide support from the government for small landlords to ensure that banks and corporate landlords bear the cost of housing during the economic shutdown forced by the pandemic. It is a no brainer. If we force millions of Americans into the street in the middle of an economic collapse, that just ensures that the recession will turn into a depression and it will be the worst in our country’s history.
Instead of doing that, what Congress, with Nancy Pelosi’s leadership, prioritized were tax breaks of $1.6 million each for 43,000 millionaires who got that giveaway in the early coronavirus stimulus packages. It does seem to me entirely too revealing, and completely disqualifying, that, in the middle of an economic collapse and a pandemic, before getting to rent and mortgage relief, corporate Democrats were handing out tax breaks for millionaires. I don’t see why anybody should be okay with that, not anyone who calls themselves a Democrat. That’s a Republican policy, that’s a shock doctrine policy. That’s the kind of thing I expect from Wall Street, from the GOP, from the Chicago school of economics, and we have the Democrats led by a voice that is leveraging social crisis to actively redistribute wealth up to the 0.1%.
We have a grave problem in this country and it looks like the cooptation of the supposedly opposition party by capital. Ultimately, my run to replace Nancy Pelosi in the House is an effort to liberate the Democratic party from it’s seizure by Wall Street and capital. We need a real democracy in this country, and it has to start with the party that calls itself democratic.
Mark Steiner: So, in the time we have left, there’s a couple things I really try to cover here as briefly as possible. There’s two questions here I think are important to wrestle with. A is your work for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the question of police surveillance. This can be really complex, I’m going to try to figure out how we can do this in a short time, but the connections between why you have maintained that police cameras cannot solve the issue we’re facing, in terms of keeping police in check. But also, the larger question of, as you’ve talked about, capitalist digital surveillance and what’s happening in our country, both in terms of Facebook, the battles in that industry which clearly needs to have some antitrust investigations because it’s the new antitrust. It’s the 21st century, but started in the 19th century. So, connect those things for us and talk about your work there before we get to our final question.
Shahid Buttar: My work at the Electronic Frontier Foundation was about trying to ensure digital civil liberties, both in the face of corporate surveillance and co-optation and content moderation and suppressing speech and all the things that corporations do online, and particularly for me, government surveillance. I remember the COINTELPRO era. I was born in ’74, so at the tail end of the official narrative and the conventional wisdom is that it ended in ’76, though it never, frankly, ended.
I understand what surveillance means, and it’s not just an offense of privacy. This is a really important point. Surveillance kills democracy. That’s why I fought it for 10 years because I, whether at the Electronic Frontier Foundation or in replacing Pelosi, the central thread that animates my work, what I am here to do, is defend democracy in America.
I’m an immigrant here. I don’t take it lightly. I take it very, very seriously and the need to protect it and guard it. I understand how fragile it is. I think many Americans don’t understand how fragile it is. I have feared fascism in the United States for 20 years. The Bush versus Gore decision, in my mind, uncorked the bottle and it’s just been unfolding ever since, in ways that I think most people don’t understand.
Like the cooptation of the Supreme court, and I have a plan to fix that. Like the emergence of the mass surveillance regime, let’s get into that.
In addition to defending democracy, the strategy that I pioneered both at EFF and, frankly, before it, the reason the organization hired me, was that in 2010, I developed a strategy of fighting the surveillance state hydra by plucking off at scales one at a time at the local level, through city councils passing enforceable restrictions to limit their police departments’ activities, acquisition of surveillance equipment, deployment of surveillance equipment, and then the length of time for which, for instance, that they could hold the data, any number of other parameters. The high watermark of that effort is the Providence Community Police Relations Act that was passed in 2017. It’s an intersectional civil rights law. It is the leading local civil rights law in the country, and I’m proud to have authored many components of it.
When we look beyond government surveillance, particularly at corporate actors, the thing I’d want to focus on here is that the Silicon Valley tech giants, people think of them particularly through the lens of the corporate advertising machine and the corporate surveillance that that implies. There are whole other problems here. One of them is that all of the Silicon Valley big tech giants are also defense contractors, and there is, frankly, nothing I have a greater antipathy for than weapons dealers. Google might pretend not to be a weapons dealer, but the line between Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Google, and Facebook gets thinner and thinner every day, and I aim to be very sharply critical of every defense contract that I can get my hands on. I want to shut down the sordid enterprise of the military industrial complex starving our social needs.
I’m not the first person to fear it. The architect of that system told us it would happen, he said it on national television. Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander of the victorious forces of the second world war told us that his signature creation would threaten democracy in America and two generations of policymakers buried their heads in the sand and ducked directly into the punch that he warned us was coming. And I, as an immigrant, am coming to this apparatus, to Congress, recognizing that my predecessors had let slip through their fingers, $21 trillion that they can no longer account for while they tell us that we don’t have money and resources for doctors and medicine. I don’t buy that for a second either.
The tech giants in Silicon Valley need to be pulled off the government trough of the defense department to the same extent that the companies that are manufacturing bombs and missiles and aircraft carriers and fighter jets that we don’t need. We have real national security threats in our country. They include a pandemic, they include climate catastrophe. They include the need to ensure that an election happens by mail in November. You can’t fight any of those things with a fighter plane or an aircraft carrier or a nuclear missile. Every penny that we hurl at the defense department is money that we are taking out of the mouths of American people who need support.
Mark Steiner: So, let me conclude with this. There’s a quote that I found in The Daily Northwestern, and you were quoted in that magazine saying that Biden put millions of Americans in prison and Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court and sent tens of thousands of us soldiers into war zones that left hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people dead and went on to say, “No, I’m not going to vote for that. I’m sorry.” So, let’s talk about that for a minute.
There are a lot of people who are watching us at this moment that go, “Wait, wait, wait, wait, Shahid. I mean, we’re facing a white nationalist mob, an overtly racist mob of people, to take over this country and right-wing elite ruling class ideologues that are transforming the course and transforming the country. So, isn’t better, don’t we have to stop that before we can begin to stop the other? Because if they take over, we’re all screwed.”
Shahid Buttar: Absolutely. That’s exactly why I can’t get behind Biden. People might remember, I don’t see eye to eye with Kamala Harris about much, but people might remember her very accurate statement early in the presidential debates that Joe Biden was an active segregationist. He is part of every one of these problems. He’s the closest thing that the Democratic party has to Donald Trump. He is the most conservative, with the exception of Michael Bloomberg who was an unapologetic Republican, he was the most conservative of the entire field of Democratic nominees.
And I’ll just put it this way, there was a nominee who very clearly has the support to be the president of the United States. The Democratic party didn’t want him. The Democratic party would rather lose to Trump than win with Bernie, and carrying Biden’s water is not my problem and it’s not my job. I’m not here to defend the interests of a corporate corrupt Democratic party. I’m here to defend the interests of we, the people of the United States and Joe Biden has been an architect of every one of the racist, militarist, capitalist, abusive systems that we are trying to shrug off the yoke of.
I live in a safe blue state, so I intend to vote for a presidential nominee who I could actually support. With respect to people in battleground states, I don’t recommend that they follow my lead. I recognize the point that Trump is an existential threat to the Republic. Frankly, so is Biden. Whoever wins this presidential election, I’m going to spend my first term in Congress fighting them from the left. As, frankly, I have fought every one of the presidential administration since 2000 from the left. I spent most of the Obama administration in DC fighting his deportation machine, trying to stop drone strikes, and the crackdown on the press as spies. I fought for the Constitution under Democratic presidents, too. Democrats are barely better than Republicans here.
In fact, that’s why I’m running to replace Pelosi. Because if electing Democrats were enough, I could go back to my life. I liked my life before, working at EFF, deejaying on the weekends. That was great fun, I enjoyed it. I would love to go back to that life, but seeing Democrats pave the roads of fascism, I can’t just live my life at a time like this. None of us can. It’s why so many of us are being forced into the street [inaudible 00:22:13] the principles that I think many of us took for granted are withering, to the extent they remained vestigial at all. This is a time when it’s absolutely critical, crucial that we all lean in to reclaim our democracy, to defend not only our rights and not only our democracy for ourselves, but particularly to guard the future from the predation of a failed predatory past.
Mark Steiner: Is Nancy Pelosi going to debate you?
Shahid Buttar: I certainly hope so. She hasn’t debated anyone in 33 years. Just to be clear that I do think it’s disqualifying when a public official refuses to defend their record for an entire generation. I think it’s disturbing about what it implies about our democracy. I don’t think it’s her failure, I think it’s our failure, and it’s particularly a failure of the fourth branch. The news media have a constitutional role. The reason the freedom of the press is embedded in the first amendment is that journalism has a constitutional significance, and I hope that any number of news outlets might play that function.
If performing their constitutional function were not enough, I would hope that the business interest of private media sources, there’s a vast audience waiting for this debate around the country, very eager to have it, and I’m eager to see CNN or MSNBC or the San Francisco Chronicle invite this debate. Radio stations have invited the debate. She has refused to show up for it. I don’t think that she can get away with ducking debates for much longer. I am the first Democrat to ever reach a November election against her, and if that’s not enough to get her to show up for work, I’ll just take the seat and I’ll look forward to celebrating her legacy as her replacement [crosstalk 00:23:46].
Mark Steiner: Shahid Buttar, it’s been a pleasure talking with you, and if there is a debate, I’m going to be in the front row, if there is a row, to watch that happen. Thank you so much for your principled stances and thank so much for joining us today on The Real News. It’s been a pleasure to talk with you.
Shahid Buttar: Thanks for having me on, Mark.
Mark Steiner: Thank you. And I’m Mark Steiner here for The Real News Network. Thank you all for joining us. Please let us know what you think, and please stay safe. Take care.
Studio: Taylor Hebden
Production: Taylor Hebden
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