therealnews--2020-04-10--Can Biden/Bernie Wings of the Democrats Come Together To Defeat Trump?

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Bernie Sanders : I know that there may be some in our movement who disagree with this decision , who would like us to fight on to the last valid test at the Democratic Convention .
I understand that position , but as I see the crisis gripping the nation , exacerbated by a president unwilling or unable to provide any kind of credible leadership and the work that needs to be done to protect people in this most desperate hour , I can not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a campaign that can not win and which would interfere with the important work required of all of us in this difficult hour .
Marc Steiner : Welcome to the Real News .
I ’ m Marc Steiner .
Great to have you with us .
Of course , that was Bernie Sanders suspending his race for the Democratic nomination for president .
He hasn ’ t dropped out .
He ’ ll still be on the ballots on the primaries to come .
He wants to amass delegates and continue the movement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ building the force of his campaign .
What will that mean ?
Now , Biden wrote an 800-word statement of how important Bernie and the Promise of Movement was to him and the Democratic Party .
But many of the young people around the movement are demanding more than just words .
They want action and commitment .
It ’ s clear that most Democrats want a centrist candidate .
He says what the ballot seem to be saying .
How will this affect the election in November ?
Can these camps unite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ today who ’ ve been part of the Bernie campaign in the past to give us an analysis of where we are .
We have with this Charles Lenchner , who is now our Digital Director at the Real News and founder of People for Bernie , which has supported Sanders since 2015 .
Charles , good to have you on the air .
Marc Steiner : Then , we ’ ll also talk again with Marcus Ferrell , who is Director of African-American Outreach for the Sanders campaign and helped run the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well and was a candidate himself once with the state legislature and Marcus , welcome .
Marcus Ferrell : Hey , thanks for having me .
Marc Steiner : Let ’ s begin .
I want to start with where we find the situation now with Bernie suspending his campaign and Biden making these statements .
His outreach , this 800-word piece that he wrote , that he put out yesterday or somebody wrote it for him .
However , that happened and he said , let ’ s just look what he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ done something rare in politics , He hasn ’ t just run a political campaign .
He ’ s created a movement .
Make no mistake about it .
I believe it ’ s a movement that ’ s as powerful today as it was yesterday .
That ’ s a good thing for our nation and our future.
” Then he talks to Sanders supporters saying , “ I make the same commitment .
I see you .
I hear you .
I understand the urgency of what it is we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I hope you ’ ll join us .
You are more than welcome .
You ’ re needed.
” Let ’ s take Marcus , let me start with you and we ’ ll go over to Charles .
How did you read this place where the Democrats are at this moment in the Biden , Bernie camps and what happens from here on in ?
Marcus Ferrell : I mean , the sentiment feels well .
It looks good , but I don ’ t really think he wrote that .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It sounds like a speech writer was with some and he might ’ ve glossed over it because here ’ s the thing that I got from my timeline and the people that are around me on social media .
Biden saying that he sees Bernie Sanders supporters right now , when he spent pretty much the whole primary acting as if Bernie ’ s policies didn ’ t exist and were non-existent and as soon as Bernie drops out , he ’ s , … and of course it ’ s smart @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right .
But Bernie supporters right now , they ’ re not feeling any of it .
As a matter of fact , if you were to go to my page , you would actually see a lot of folks just basically saying , “ Hell no .
You had 40 years to talk about it.
” A lot of African- Americans who supported Bernie Sanders and yes , they were African-Americans who supported Bernie Sanders and a lot of African-Americans in general , are like , “ Look , you haven ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So , how do you expect us to just step over ?
I ’ m going to say this right here .
It was a sweet gesture .
It doesn ’ t sound like a Biden whatsoever .
To be quite honest with you , Biden ’ s going to have a lot of work to do .
Marc Steiner : Charles .
I hear what you ’ re saying , Marcus .
Let me just throw this in though .
I mean , clearly this was , as you said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he can not win .
The Democrats can not win without Bernie supporters and people coming out .
As I ’ ve said before , there were 16 million people who voted for Barack Obama because he had thought he was a progressive and voted for him in 2008 .
Did not vote in 2016 at all .
Some even went over to voting for Trump .
Even though he might not have written this , this is critical for them and their campaign if the Democrats are going to win .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then ?
Democrats , have a lost cause ?
Charles Lenchner : Well , I want to bring up the words written in January by Ibram X. Kendi , who is the Director of Anti-Racist Research and Policy Center at American University .
He was writing in January about exactly what you ’ re talking about .
He was defending the African- Americans and Rust Belt states , who stayed at home in 2016 and chose not to vote .
Sometimes that was just leaving the top of the ticket blank and sometimes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ basically was saying , if we envision participation as including everything from who you vote for to whether or not you vote , then when we look at people who are abstaining , we have to understand that they represent a constituency that ’ s taking an active role in establishing their priorities .
We need to shift from shaming or arguing over who people should vote for based on what we think and towards an understanding that many sectors in this country exercise their political agency through abstention rather than participation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ we won ’ t have a clue for how to turn out those Bernie folks as well as other constituencies when it ’ s time to vote for Biden .
I think this is something that is fundamentally incomprehensible to the Democratic establishment and nothing Biden said changes my opinion of that .
Marc Steiner : Well , both of you leave a huge question Mark here then .
I mean , if it was black voters who didn ’ t come out in the rust belt .
It was working white working @ @ @ @ @ @ @ went over to Trump , who had voted for Bernie .
Then there were the people who we just talked about who abstained completely .
There are a broad spectrum of people in this country who did not vote .
Bernie Sanders is key to bringing that vote out .
So what if that vote doesn ’ t come out ?
Charles Lenchner : Well , hold on , hold on .
Hold on , Marc .
Actually Mark , you ’ re repeating something that we should avoid .
Not only were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to remember that there was a promise on the Bernie campaign side that there would be unprecedented levels of voter mobilization among this abstainer crowd who needed something to show up for .
What we saw instead , in places like Virginia was a doubling of the vote , not by that crowd , but by college educated , middle-class Democrats who want to keep things , kind of on an even keel .
We can ’ t give in to the unfounded sentiment that Bernie was key to unlocking a mass @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ m not sure I agree .
I mean , I think that I think all those things can be true .
I mean , I think maybe all those things are true in terms of , go ahead Marcus .
Marcus Ferrell : I agree with Charles on this one .
Who turned out and these numbers matter .
Right now , we have a sentiment across the board , that happened in 2016 and let ’ s look at what happened in 2020 with both of our nominees .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re not invigorating campaigns .
The brothers on the street who you need in Milwaukee , Wisconsin and the Midwest are turned on by the lack of platitudes and the lack of things that actually are motivating folks to vote .
You see such adverse reaction from Bernie Sanders supporters , who just want to see something be done differently as towards healthcare , especially in the moments that we ’ re in right now , as towards free college and education , as towards the living wage and maybe even UBI @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Bernie supporters that you don ’ t see from the Biden campaign at all , and you haven ’ t heard anything from them and you ’ ve actually seen more corporate interests take place to take root .
Sanders supporters see that .
Now , if you talk about the general public and your general turnout population that you need , that the Obama coalition , I highly doubt that Joe Biden ’ s going to be able to attract the Obama coalition by saying , “ I am not Donald @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he came out with some platitudes and some and some statements and some real quality conversations about what Medicare for all of means , what criminal justice reform means , apologizing for the Crime Bill and some of the basic things that he still has in his closet , and also address maybe even addressing the allegations that are against him .
I don ’ t want to bring that up negatively , but guess who will ?
Donald Trump .
Guess who will start talking about a little bit more progressive if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ capitalist , not ready to move moderate .
Donald Trump is crazy .
He ’ s willing to say anything and lie about everything .
So we ’ re going to have to make sure that Joe Biden actually has some things that he could take advantage of right now in this moment before it becomes too late for him to live .
Marc Steiner : Both of you gentlemen have been involved in practical politics over the last decade .
Let ’ s talk about where this goes then .
I mean @ @ @ @ @ @ @ today about where the youth movement is going , where the political movements going .
They talked about the Alliance for Youth Action , and March For Our Lives Action and the Sunrise Movements who were very clear in that article that they , as young people , they grew up with the endless war and skyrocketing inequality .
They wrote , student debt , deportations , police [ inaudible 00:10:09 ] of Black Americans , mass incarceration , schools that have gotten nowhere and they ’ re demanding that a Green New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That there ’ s a commitment to clean energy by 2030 , that dealing with DACA and closing of the , as they put it , “ the vast and cool web of detention camps .
Medicare for all .
So , if these demands are part of that , and also if you ’ re seeing that much of the polling that we have is saying that the majority of Americans actually support these ideas when they ’ re not couched in socialism .
Where do you think this takes the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ m curious strategically , where do you think this goes ?
Marcus Ferrell : Ah , you kids , you kids with all your demands and stuff .
[ inaudible 00:10:54 ] And you guys want , listen .
All right , let ’ s go back to the basics .
This is the Real News network .
If you ’ re tied to capitalist interests , capitalism will go ahead and let you know and shape where your policies are going to go .
Capitalism is more than willing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Joe Biden ’ s going to have to realize , and also just with the current moment of America , that there will have to be socialist ideas , democratic socialist ideas .
We can couch them and wrap them up no matter what kind of way that you want to put it and you can put any kind of label , any kind of tag on them , but we ’ re going to have to do some , across America for all ideas to get ourselves out of this economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to see the beginning of .
6 million people unemployed .
Realistically , we ’ re looking at around 15 million people who are already really unemployed , in general .
How do we get out of this economic crunch ?
You can ’ t Wall Street your way out of it .
Capitalism is not going to save us .
These kids are right .
These organizations are right , and big businesses as usual is going to have to stop .
The last thing I ’ ll say on this , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can ’ t have a budding coronavirus hotbed in jails and expect to be open to having the prisons overcrowded .
Something has to get .
Charles Lenchner : I would also add that there ’ s a really interesting lesson we learned from the Warren campaign , that she was referred to , sometimes in a pejorative way as a representative of the nonprofit industrial complex , in that a lot of her visible support , especially on social media and the regular media was made up of this layer of activist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who would say all the right things , all the right plans , all the right phrases , all the right efforts to actively posture and listened to various constituencies .
But it didn ’ t matter at the ballot box .
It just didn ’ t matter .
This is a candidate who couldn ’ t even win .
She couldn ’ t even win her own state or get to second place in her own state .
I just want to say , when I see efforts by organizations , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ figures , the one thing I ’ m thinking about is , you haven ’ t proved that you have the votes .
You ’ re good at doing the media , at getting attention .
But , since you don ’ t represent a solid voting constituency , you got to be like , ah , I ’ m not sure that ’ s what needs to be centered right now .
I want folks to recognize that there is this constituency that is not as active at the level of doing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ registering , donating , but is actively participating in the conversation on social media , in the neighborhood , at the barbershop .
There is a gap between these two groups .
We thought that one of them was a leading indicator for the other and it ’ s just not true .
Marcus Ferrell : We don ’ t seen you in our neighborhoods .
We do not see you .
I don ’ t see these campaigns .
I don ’ t see these organizations in the neighborhoods .
Now , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doing the work .
I hear the conversation , but I agree with Charles .
The work that needs to be done in these communities , when you start seeing t-shirts on Boulevard , when you start seeing t-shirts on MLK , knocking on businesses doors .
That might not even be safe right now , but when you start seeing the t-shirts from these organizations actively engaging in the places where you know the votes are , then that ’ s when you ’ ll start seeing some change and you can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actually go vote .
Charles Lenchner : Right , and here ’ s where we go to some important critique of the Bernie Sanders campaign .
See , in 2016 because the campaign initially didn ’ t expect to win and because they were not anticipating the vast response that they would get from tens of millions of people desperate for those ideas , those policies , there was a wave of grassroots , self-directed mobilization across the country .
It was an amazing thing to watch .
But this time around , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the best fundraising program with a really good staff , with a tight leadership .
They basically went around the country saying , “ Hey , we know what we ’ re doing and we know what we want you to do .
Download the app , do text banking , get ready to canvas.
” But that layer of self-directed organizing taking place across the country , it was much reduced , reduced on the internet and reduced in real life , reduced in the neighborhoods .
The consequence of not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of voters and people at the community level who are not being used by a campaign but who see themselves as using the campaign , that is something that really hurt them this time around .
That energy can ’ t be directed entirely from above .
It has to be allowed to flourish from below because that ’ s where people actually get sucked in to a new movement , in a way that we saw last time , but not this time .
Marc Steiner : Let ’ s conclude with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to conclude here , but I mean I think that … I want to take it to again , go back to what ’ s your analysis of what just happened takes us into the future .
I mean , I think we can all agree that capitalism will not be overthrown by November .
But we also , I think , I don ’ t know if we agree or not that people who are among the elite are as divided as the rest of America .
Now you have these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ control of Washington , D C. People are confronted by Trump and a potential authoritarian-like future .
It ’ s an abyss we ’ re confronting and COVID complicates that .
The response to it , complicates that .
The question is , if you take the things you ’ ve just said analytically , what does that portend for what comes between now and August and November , August being the DNC ?
And November ?
How does this coalition come together ?
How does it coalesce ?
Is there a possibility @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so they can take on Donald Trump or the way you ’ re talking now it almost feels like , Oh , woe is me .
This stuff is up .
We ’ re done .
Marcus Ferrell : It can be .
You just mentioned that we have the Neo-conservative elitists , then the moderate and the Republican moderate elitist .
We ’ re all elitist , all Democratic elitists .
Our super- left elitists need to go ahead and start having real conversations about what ’ s going to motivate us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ does capitalism stop us from having the real conversations in communities that need to turn out about what a Medicare for all looks like ?
Is our side of the house too tied to the pharmacy , the pharmaceutical industry , the private insurance industry .
Is our side of the house too tied to these industries where they can ’ t make sound just and fair decisions that will bring onboard a coalition of people who need change right now .
Let me tell you something .
I live in Atlanta , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Our County is literally one of the highest , has the highest amount of COVID-19 and also happens to have the highest amount of African-Americans , one of the half counties that has most African Americans in the country .
I ’ m pretty sure that if you talk to the normal , uninsured family here in Fulton County , Atlanta , Georgia , and you say to them , “ This is what single-payer healthcare means .
This will single-payer health care looks like , and Joe Biden ’ s , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so you can make sure you are insured , they will support Joe Biden .
That would be a natural turnout vote .
If they do not , if you have no conversation like that with these communities , then you can say bye-bye to your victory .
Marc Steiner : Charles , a quick closing thought from you before we have to go , on the same subject .
Charles Lenchner : Well , just that I ’ m seeing a small but significant chunk of people whose conclusion from the primary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ third parties , to thinking about abstention .
They ’ re angry .
They think that an electorate that actually wanted Biden is an electorate that doesn ’ t deserve their loyalty or support .
I disagree .
I think that ’ s shortsighted and I would like to see Trump defeated in 2020 .
But I think these folks are raising a really important challenge , and I ’ m looking on the horizon .
Is there any response to it other than shaming or finger-wagging that would make sense to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could cause the Democrats to lose again in Rust Belt States and elsewhere .
Frankly , I ’ m not seeing anything even remotely like an answer right now .
That makes me pretty pessimistic about our ability to defeat Trump in 2020 .
Marc Steiner : well , I think many of us share the same pessimism , but I ’ m not completely done with it .
I don ’ t think that we ’ ve lost and I think there ’ s a great deal of room for struggle and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what we ’ re going to try to do is create these conversations , bring you these stories .
We want to hear what you have to say about this 2020 election .
Let us know .
Go to realnews.com .
Let us know what you think .
We want to really expand this conversation .
It has to be had because we ’ re facing something really important together and I want to see what you all think .
We all want to see what you think .
I want to thank @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is always great to work with every day .
Good to have you here , Charles as a guest , and Marcus Ferrell , I really am glad that Charles brought you to the Real News .
It ’ s great to have you with us .
We look forward to many more conversations in the coming months .
So thank you gentlemen both for being with us .
Marc Steiner : I ’ m Marc Steiner , here with the Real News Network .
Thank you all for joining and I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what you think and please be safe .
Take care .
Wash your hands .
Stay home .
Take care .
I ’ m Marc Steiner , the real news network .
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Sanders suspending his campaign raises a lot of unanswered and uncomfortable questions for the Democratic Party as they battle Trump’s right wing Presidency.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Bernie Sanders: I know that there may be some in our movement who disagree with this decision, who would like us to fight on to the last valid test at the Democratic Convention. I understand that position, but as I see the crisis gripping the nation, exacerbated by a president unwilling or unable to provide any kind of credible leadership and the work that needs to be done to protect people in this most desperate hour, I cannot in good conscience, continue to Mount a campaign that cannot win and which would interfere with the important work required of all of us in this difficult hour.
Marc Steiner: Welcome to the Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. Great to have you with us. Of course, that was Bernie Sanders suspending his race for the Democratic nomination for president. He hasn’t dropped out. He’ll still be on the ballots on the primaries to come. He wants to amass delegates and continue the movement that he’s been building and building the force of his campaign. What will that mean? Now, Biden wrote an 800-word statement of how important Bernie and the Promise of Movement was to him and the Democratic Party. But many of the young people around the movement are demanding more than just words. They want action and commitment. It’s clear that most Democrats want a centrist candidate. He says what the ballot seem to be saying. How will this affect the election in November? Can these camps unite? We’ll talk with people today who’ve been part of the Bernie campaign in the past to give us an analysis of where we are.
We have with this Charles Lenchner, who is now our Digital Director at the Real News and founder of People for Bernie, which has supported Sanders since 2015. Charles, good to have you on the air.
Charles Lenchner: Thank you.
Marc Steiner: Then, we’ll also talk again with Marcus Ferrell, who is Director of African-American Outreach for the Sanders campaign and helped run the campaign for Stacey Abrams in Georgia as well and was a candidate himself once with the state legislature and Marcus, welcome.
Marcus Ferrell: Hey, thanks for having me.
Marc Steiner: Let’s begin. I want to start with where we find the situation now with Bernie suspending his campaign and Biden making these statements. His outreach, this 800-word piece that he wrote, that he put out yesterday or somebody wrote it for him. However, that happened and he said, let’s just look what he said here.
“Bernie’s done something rare in politics, He hasn’t just run a political campaign. He’s created a movement. Make no mistake about it. I believe it’s a movement that’s as powerful today as it was yesterday. That’s a good thing for our nation and our future.” Then he talks to Sanders supporters saying, “I make the same commitment. I see you. I hear you. I understand the urgency of what it is we have to get done in this country. I hope you’ll join us. You are more than welcome. You’re needed.” Let’s take Marcus, let me start with you and we’ll go over to Charles. How did you read this place where the Democrats are at this moment in the Biden, Bernie camps and what happens from here on in?
Marcus Ferrell: I mean, the sentiment feels well. It looks good, but I don’t really think he wrote that. I’ll just be very honest. It sounds like a speech writer was with some and he might’ve glossed over it because here’s the thing that I got from my timeline and the people that are around me on social media. Biden saying that he sees Bernie Sanders supporters right now, when he spent pretty much the whole primary acting as if Bernie’s policies didn’t exist and were non-existent and as soon as Bernie drops out, he’s, … and of course it’s smart to send out an olive branch, right. But Bernie supporters right now, they’re not feeling any of it. As a matter of fact, if you were to go to my page, you would actually see a lot of folks just basically saying, “Hell no. You had 40 years to talk about it.”
A lot of African- Americans who supported Bernie Sanders and yes, they were African-Americans who supported Bernie Sanders and a lot of African-Americans in general, are like, “Look, you haven’t apologized for the crime bill yet. So, how do you expect us to just step over? I’m going to say this right here. It was a sweet gesture. It doesn’t sound like a Biden whatsoever. To be quite honest with you, Biden’s going to have a lot of work to do.
Marc Steiner: Charles. I hear what you’re saying, Marcus. Let me just throw this in though. I mean, clearly this was, as you said, an olive branch that Biden knows that he cannot win. The Democrats cannot win without Bernie supporters and people coming out. As I’ve said before, there were 16 million people who voted for Barack Obama because he had thought he was a progressive and voted for him in 2008. Did not vote in 2016 at all. Some even went over to voting for Trump. Even though he might not have written this, this is critical for them and their campaign if the Democrats are going to win. I mean, how does that play out then? Democrats, have a lost cause?
Charles Lenchner: Well, I want to bring up the words written in January by Ibram X. Kendi, who is the Director of Anti-Racist Research and Policy Center at American University. He was writing in January about exactly what you’re talking about. He was defending the African- Americans and Rust Belt states, who stayed at home in 2016 and chose not to vote. Sometimes that was just leaving the top of the ticket blank and sometimes it was not showing up. He basically was saying, if we envision participation as including everything from who you vote for to whether or not you vote, then when we look at people who are abstaining, we have to understand that they represent a constituency that’s taking an active role in establishing their priorities. We need to shift from shaming or arguing over who people should vote for based on what we think and towards an understanding that many sectors in this country exercise their political agency through abstention rather than participation.
If we fail to understand this, we won’t have a clue for how to turn out those Bernie folks as well as other constituencies when it’s time to vote for Biden. I think this is something that is fundamentally incomprehensible to the Democratic establishment and nothing Biden said changes my opinion of that.
Marc Steiner: Well, both of you leave a huge question Mark here then. I mean, if it was black voters who didn’t come out in the rust belt. It was working white working class voters, many of them who went over to Trump, who had voted for Bernie. Then there were the people who we just talked about who abstained completely. There are a broad spectrum of people in this country who did not vote. Bernie Sanders is key to bringing that vote out. So what if that vote doesn’t come out?
Charles Lenchner: Well, hold on, hold on. Hold on, Marc. Actually Mark, you’re repeating something that we should avoid. Not only were those people not key, but we have to remember that there was a promise on the Bernie campaign side that there would be unprecedented levels of voter mobilization among this abstainer crowd who needed something to show up for. What we saw instead, in places like Virginia was a doubling of the vote, not by that crowd, but by college educated, middle-class Democrats who want to keep things, kind of on an even keel. We can’t give in to the unfounded sentiment that Bernie was key to unlocking a mass vote.
Marc Steiner: Well, I’m not sure I agree. I mean, I think that I think all those things can be true. I mean, I think maybe all those things are true in terms of, go ahead Marcus.
Marcus Ferrell: I agree with Charles on this one. Who turned out and these numbers matter. Right now, we have a sentiment across the board, that happened in 2016 and let’s look at what happened in 2020 with both of our nominees. They’re not exciting campaigns. They’re not invigorating campaigns. The brothers on the street who you need in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the Midwest are turned on by the lack of platitudes and the lack of things that actually are motivating folks to vote. You see such adverse reaction from Bernie Sanders supporters, who just want to see something be done differently as towards healthcare, especially in the moments that we’re in right now, as towards free college and education, as towards the living wage and maybe even UBI. You see some of these things from Bernie supporters that you don’t see from the Biden campaign at all, and you haven’t heard anything from them and you’ve actually seen more corporate interests take place to take root.
Sanders supporters see that. Now, if you talk about the general public and your general turnout population that you need, that the Obama coalition, I highly doubt that Joe Biden’s going to be able to attract the Obama coalition by saying, “I am not Donald Trump.” I do believe that if he came out with some platitudes and some and some statements and some real quality conversations about what Medicare for all of means, what criminal justice reform means, apologizing for the Crime Bill and some of the basic things that he still has in his closet, and also address maybe even addressing the allegations that are against him. I don’t want to bring that up negatively, but guess who will? Donald Trump. Guess who will start talking about a little bit more progressive if Joe Biden is seen as an old capitalist, not ready to move moderate. Donald Trump is crazy. He’s willing to say anything and lie about everything. So we’re going to have to make sure that Joe Biden actually has some things that he could take advantage of right now in this moment before it becomes too late for him to live.
Marc Steiner: Both of you gentlemen have been involved in practical politics over the last decade. Let’s talk about where this goes then. I mean, Common Dreams put up a piece today about where the youth movement is going, where the political movements going. They talked about the Alliance for Youth Action, and March For Our Lives Action and the Sunrise Movements who were very clear in that article that they, as young people, they grew up with the endless war and skyrocketing inequality. They wrote, student debt, deportations, police [inaudible 00:10:09] of Black Americans, mass incarceration, schools that have gotten nowhere and they’re demanding that a Green New Deal Legislation be part of this campaign. That there’s a commitment to clean energy by 2030 ,that dealing with DACA and closing of the, as they put it, “the vast and cool web of detention camps.
Medicare for all. So, if these demands are part of that, and also if you’re seeing that much of the polling that we have is saying that the majority of Americans actually support these ideas when they’re not couched in socialism. Where do you think this takes the next months leading up to November? I’m curious strategically, where do you think this goes?
Marcus Ferrell: Ah, you kids, you kids with all your demands and stuff. [inaudible 00:10:54] And you guys want, listen. All right, let’s go back to the basics. This is the Real News network. If you’re tied to capitalist interests, capitalism will go ahead and let you know and shape where your policies are going to go. Capitalism is more than willing to keep Donald Trump into office, right? Joe Biden’s going to have to realize, and also just with the current moment of America, that there will have to be socialist ideas, democratic socialist ideas. We can couch them and wrap them up no matter what kind of way that you want to put it and you can put any kind of label, any kind of tag on them, but we’re going to have to do some, across America for all ideas to get ourselves out of this economic crunch that we’re just starting to see the beginning of. 6 million people unemployed.
Realistically, we’re looking at around 15 million people who are already really unemployed, in general. How do we get out of this economic crunch? You can’t Wall Street your way out of it. Capitalism is not going to save us. These kids are right. These organizations are right, and big businesses as usual is going to have to stop. The last thing I’ll say on this, including the private prison industry. You can’t have a budding coronavirus hotbed in jails and expect to be open to having the prisons overcrowded. Something has to get .
Charles Lenchner: I would also add that there’s a really interesting lesson we learned from the Warren campaign, that she was referred to, sometimes in a pejorative way as a representative of the nonprofit industrial complex, in that a lot of her visible support, especially on social media and the regular media was made up of this layer of activist, organizer groups, C4s and whatnot, who would say all the right things, all the right plans, all the right phrases, all the right efforts to actively posture and listened to various constituencies. But it didn’t matter at the ballot box. It just didn’t matter. This is a candidate who couldn’t even win. She couldn’t even win her own state or get to second place in her own state. I just want to say, when I see efforts by organizations, by lists of people, by public figures, the one thing I’m thinking about is, you haven’t proved that you have the votes. You’re good at doing the media, at getting attention.
But, since you don’t represent a solid voting constituency, you got to be like, ah, I’m not sure that’s what needs to be centered right now. I want folks to recognize that there is this constituency that is not as active at the level of doing things, voting, being active, registering, donating, but is actively participating in the conversation on social media, in the neighborhood, at the barbershop. There is a gap between these two groups. We thought that one of them was a leading indicator for the other and it’s just not true.
Marcus Ferrell: We don’t seen you in our neighborhoods. We do not see you. I don’t see these campaigns. I don’t see these organizations in the neighborhoods. Now, I don’t see them actively doing the work. I hear the conversation, but I agree with Charles. The work that needs to be done in these communities, when you start seeing t-shirts on Boulevard, when you start seeing t-shirts on MLK, knocking on businesses doors. That might not even be safe right now, but when you start seeing the t-shirts from these organizations actively engaging in the places where you know the votes are, then that’s when you’ll start seeing some change and you can actually pull people from their homes to actually go vote.
Charles Lenchner: Right, and here’s where we go to some important critique of the Bernie Sanders campaign. See, in 2016 because the campaign initially didn’t expect to win and because they were not anticipating the vast response that they would get from tens of millions of people desperate for those ideas, those policies, there was a wave of grassroots, self-directed mobilization across the country. It was an amazing thing to watch. But this time around, the campaign came in as the front-runner with the best fundraising program with a really good staff, with a tight leadership. They basically went around the country saying, “Hey, we know what we’re doing and we know what we want you to do. Download the app, do text banking, get ready to canvas.” But that layer of self-directed organizing taking place across the country, it was much reduced, reduced on the internet and reduced in real life, reduced in the neighborhoods.
The consequence of not figuring out how to develop organic verticals of voters and people at the community level who are not being used by a campaign but who see themselves as using the campaign, that is something that really hurt them this time around. That energy can’t be directed entirely from above. It has to be allowed to flourish from below because that’s where people actually get sucked in to a new movement, in a way that we saw last time, but not this time.
Marc Steiner: Let’s conclude with this. I mean, and we have to conclude here, but I mean I think that … I want to take it to again, go back to what’s your analysis of what just happened takes us into the future. I mean, I think we can all agree that capitalism will not be overthrown by November. But we also, I think, I don’t know if we agree or not that people who are among the elite are as divided as the rest of America. Now you have these white nationalist movements and neoconservative elite in control of Washington, D C. People are confronted by Trump and a potential authoritarian-like future. It’s an abyss we’re confronting and COVID complicates that. The response to it, complicates that. The question is, if you take the things you’ve just said analytically, what does that portend for what comes between now and August and November, August being the DNC? And November? How does this coalition come together?
How does it coalesce? Is there a possibility this kind of front can be built so they can take on Donald Trump or the way you’re talking now it almost feels like, Oh, woe is me. This stuff is up. We’re done.
Marcus Ferrell: It can be. You just mentioned that we have the Neo-conservative elitists, then the moderate and the Republican moderate elitist. We’re all elitist, all Democratic elitists. Our super- left elitists need to go ahead and start having real conversations about what’s going to motivate us to vote. The question is, does capitalism stop us from having the real conversations in communities that need to turn out about what a Medicare for all looks like? Is our side of the house too tied to the pharmacy, the pharmaceutical industry, the private insurance industry. Is our side of the house too tied to these industries where they can’t make sound just and fair decisions that will bring onboard a coalition of people who need change right now.
Let me tell you something. I live in Atlanta, Georgia. I live in Fulton County. Our County is literally one of the highest, has the highest amount of COVID-19 and also happens to have the highest amount of African-Americans, one of the half counties that has most African Americans in the country. I’m pretty sure that if you talk to the normal, uninsured family here in Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia, and you say to them, “This is what single-payer healthcare means. This will single-payer health care looks like, and Joe Biden’s, the guy that if he pushes it so you can make sure you are insured, they will support Joe Biden. That would be a natural turnout vote. If they do not, if you have no conversation like that with these communities, then you can say bye-bye to your victory.
Marc Steiner: Charles, a quick closing thought from you before we have to go, on the same subject.
Charles Lenchner: Well, just that I’m seeing a small but significant chunk of people whose conclusion from the primary is that they’re thinking about third parties, to thinking about abstention. They’re angry. They think that an electorate that actually wanted Biden is an electorate that doesn’t deserve their loyalty or support. I disagree. I think that’s shortsighted and I would like to see Trump defeated in 2020. But I think these folks are raising a really important challenge, and I’m looking on the horizon. Is there any response to it other than shaming or finger-wagging that would make sense to the small but significant numbers of people who could cause the Democrats to lose again in Rust Belt States and elsewhere. Frankly, I’m not seeing anything even remotely like an answer right now. That makes me pretty pessimistic about our ability to defeat Trump in 2020.
Marc Steiner: well, I think many of us share the same pessimism, but I’m not completely done with it. I don’t think that we’ve lost and I think there’s a great deal of room for struggle and I think here at Real News, what we’re going to try to do is create these conversations, bring you these stories. We want to hear what you have to say about this 2020 election. Let us know. Go to realnews.com. Let us know what you think. We want to really expand this conversation. It has to be had because we’re facing something really important together and I want to see what you all think. We all want to see what you think. I want to thank our guest, Charles Lenchner, who it is always great to work with every day. Good to have you here, Charles as a guest, and Marcus Ferrell, I really am glad that Charles brought you to the Real News. It’s great to have you with us. We look forward to many more conversations in the coming months. So thank you gentlemen both for being with us.
Charles Lenchner: Thank you.
Marc Steiner: I’m Marc Steiner, here with the Real News Network. Thank you all for joining and I’m serious. Let us know what you think and please be safe. Take care. Wash your hands. Stay home. Take care. I’m Marc Steiner, the real news network.
Speaker 6: Thanks a lot for watching. Appreciate it. But do us one more solid favorite. Hit the Subscribe button below. You know, you want to. Stay up on the videos.
Studio: Dwayne Gladden
Post-Production: Bababtunde Ogunfolaju
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therealnews--2020-04-10--Reverse Shock Doctrine? Spain Moves Towards Permanent Basic Income

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Jaisal Noor : Welcome to The Real News .
I ’ m Jaisal Noor .
Spain continues to be one of the country ’ s hardest hit by the Coronavirus pandemic , and in a response , it may provide a permanent basic income for those who need it most .
So far , Spain has over 139,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 , second only to the US .
While its death toll has surpassed 15,000 , the economic impact has also been dire .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s economy harder than any other country in Europe .
More than 900,000 people have lost their jobs in the past three weeks alone adding to Spain ’ s record unemployment rate .
The most vulnerable groups are the people who were already in a difficult economic situation before the crisis .
Here ’ s a clip of Enrique Maurist coordinator of Red Cross in Catalonia .
Speaker 3 : The first people who are falling into extreme vulnerability in this emergency are people who come from the underground economy .
Basically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or care for the elderly , and now that they can not go , they are in extreme vulnerability .
Jaisal Noor : Well , now joining us to discuss this is Sebastiaan Faber .
He ’ s a professor of Hispanic studies at Oberlin College .
He ’ s the author of the book Memory Battles of the Spanish Civil War .
Thank you so much for joining us again .
Jaisal Noor : So we know that Spain is being devastated not only by the pandemic , but by the economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to adapt or almost every country now .
Give us an update about what you ’ re hearing on the ground .
Off camera we talked about some troubling developments .
Sebastiaan Faber : Yeah .
So you ’ re right , Spain has been among the country ’ s hardest hit and given the nature of the Spanish economy , where since the Great Recession , a lot of labor had been temporary and precarious to begin with .
A lockdown like this one hits large amounts of the population pretty hard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dire .
And the measures that are being discussed and debated now in the national parliament seek to soften that blow as much as possible .
But these come on top of a whole series of stimulus measures that were approved in the last couple of weeks already to increase the support network and especially try to discourage or even prohibit companies from firing people .
So rather than massive firings , what we ’ re seeing in Spain are something resembling furloughs , right ?
Where people temporarily being put on hold @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Now there ’ s a couple of things set Spain apart from other countries in Europe in how they ’ ve dealt with the crisis .
One is the role of the political oppositions .
Spain is currently led by a left-wing coalition government of the Central Left Labor Party socialist party joining with a smaller and more leftist party called [ Spanish 00:03:17 ] So the right wing in Spain in the opposition and has been in opposition for a while .
And rather than supporting the national government ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ ve seen in other countries , for example , Portugal , the right in Spain has rather been more confrontational and critical of the central government .
And especially in the past couple of weeks , in the past couple of days they ’ ve tried to emphasize a couple of main points of critique .
One of them is they ’ ve accused a simple government of acting slow in response to the crisis .
This is an argument that ’ s hard to sustain because if you compare reaction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other countries including the United States , Spain was actually pretty early to put measures in place .
[ crosstalk 00:04:06 ] .
Jaisal Noor : For the US that wouldn ’ t be hard to beat because we were months behind .
Sebastiaan Faber : Right , exactly right , but even compared to Italy or France , Spain has been quicker .
Another major point of critique in the last couple of days has been about numbers .
So Spain as every country reports daily numbers of infected and dead and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the numbers of dead especially are much too low because the government only counts those people who were already diagnosed with the virus and then died .
This is true .
It is true that the likely number of the real number of people deceased from the virus is higher than the official numbers indicate .
But that is pretty much true for every country that is going through this .
In large part because the countries can ’ t afford to test everybody who dies .
But there is some real evidence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dead , like the number of people who normally die in a month of March in the region of Madrid and if you compare the last couple of years to what we ’ ve seen last month , there ’ s a significant increase that could indicate that as much as 40 % more people have died of the virus than the official statistics indicate .
But like I said , that ’ s sort of par for the course everywhere else too because in France , same is true and all the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In the States , I ’ m not sure to what extent we can trust the official numbers of that either .
So but it ’ s interesting to point out that the political right and the opposition rather than assuming we ’ re all in this together attitude , they ’ re looking for ways to undermine and question the leadership of the left ring coalition .
Then another point that ’ s worth pointing out is that a Spain is among the countries that has a more strict lockdown .
Stricter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are allowed to do , when they are allowed to leave their homes , what kind of jobs are allowed to have to continue exercising .
But what ’ s interesting in Spain is the role that the armed forces and the military police have taken on .
The army has been prominent from the beginning of the crisis .
So for example , in the daily press conferences that the government organizes , there ’ s always some kind of high ranking armed forces officer who gives his report and the military @ @ @ @ @ @ @ streets along with the sort of the standard , national militarized police force , [ Spanish 00:06:44 ] and that is I would say a worrisome development in a country that until 1975 was a military dictatorship .
Jaisal Noor : Yeah and obviously has a long history with fascist governments and a bloody civil war and much more .
So everything you said is important context for the main topic I want to talk about today , which is a proposal by the Spanish government .
Different than UBI , but giving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need it most at this time .
Spain ’ s economy is just locked down .
So as you said , a lot of people just can ’ t go to work .
Some people have said this is the only way forward to address these massive economic crisis that Spain has felt and is starting to feel .
Can you discuss that ?
Sebastiaan Faber : Yes .
So in the past , this measure from the Spanish government that is being discussed right now , jumped to the front page or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speaking world recently .
And it was framed as a response to the COVID crisis .
But the truth is that this was a proposal already included in the electoral program .
So both parties currently in the government and it was explicitly included as well in their coalition agreement that they presented in January .
So in that sense it ’ s nothing new .
It is true that the government is trying to speed up the implementation of this measure in response to the crisis , recognizing that economic need is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they included in their programs in the coalition agreement earlier this year , it was really an acknowledgement of the fact that the longterm consequence of the great recession , which in Spain really started hitting in 2011 with hardcore or [ inaudible 00:08:39 ] measures , that those longterm consequences have not really been alleviated it enough .
So currently for example , even before the whole COVID crisis hit about one in five Spaniards live at or below the poverty line .
That ’ s a percentage .
Among children and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 26 % .
So there ’ s a huge number of Spaniards who really can ’ t make the end of the month and who are in need of some form of income and what this measure , which in Spanish is called [ Spanish 00:09:15 ] but you can translate it as kind of a minimum living income , what the measure seeks to do is to put in a base level income for those people who are most in need of it as a way to alleviate poverty and to prevent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ result of their poverty .
But also of course to stimulate the economy because the more money people have in their pockets , the more they can spend and keep the economy going .
Jaisal Noor : Yeah .
And it ’ s interesting because we have Bernie Sanders , a democratic socialist sort of almost in that European model almost , he dropped out of the presidential race because the crisis actually really hurt his ability to campaign and the moderate candidates all consolidated behind Joe Biden , but what ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or even hoped that the crisis of the Coronavirus could have spurred these ideas into the center .
Even as things like single payer health are more popular than ever .
What do you think the future holds for Spain ?
As you ’ ve noted , the governing coalition consists of parties on the left .
Sebastiaan Faber : Yeah .
So what ’ s interesting to me is that across the board in Europe , the US and elsewhere , you see kind of a shift of economic common sense , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say in the third way nineties , the economic common sense , even among the left , it ’ s shifted toward right , toward ending welfare as we know it , in Clinton ’ s terms or toward privatization and neo-liberalism .
What you ’ re seeing now in a very short time period is a shift to the left of that economic common sense where even newspapers like The Financial Times are now saying , “ Yes we do need large stimulus packages and yes , maybe some form of universal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s being discussed in Spain makes sense.
” And in Spain the actual measure looks like it will take quite a while to implement in part because Spain has a semi-federal set up and at the regional level , at the level of the autonomous regional government , there are already measures in place that resemble the measure now being discussed at the national level .
And to coordinate those two levels would take some time .
But today in parliament , the deputies are discussing and it looks like agreeing on an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emergency set of minimum income in place .
Probably looking at about 500 Euros so about $ 550 per month per person .
And then more as the household increases .
And this is a measure that today even the corporate leadership in Spain has said it will approve .
So , it ’ s really interesting to see that those bodies that until recently would display shock and indignation at any kind of mention of these kinds of ideas are now embracing them as really the only way forward and the only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ large scale social unrest for breaking out .
Jaisal Noor : And you were talking about how the police and the army have been mobilized .
So this is a real specter and that ’ s sort of forcing the business community to react in this way .
Is that what you ’ re- Sebastiaan Faber : Yeah exactly right .
And I think nobody wants to see lootings and things like that take place .
So I think the awareness that quick things have to be done to alleviate this massive drop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There ’ s a thing , I mean we ’ ll have to see once we come all out of this , whenever that is , to what extent that new consensus will hold and to what extent people who are now jumping on the UBI bandwagon will jump off again and take up their former positions we ’ ll have to see that .
I think one person , I think one interesting thing will be to see what effects these kinds of measures will have right now and whether we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ once the economy resumes some sense of normality .
Jaisal Noor : Well , Sebastiaan Faber we want to thank you for joining us and we ’ ll keep coming back to you because you always provide us really powerful insight , but to see how this goes and how this crisis , we ’ ve seen an exploited to implement draconian measures and as have been for decades .
But we ’ ll see if this time around , some positive change can come out of this for working people around in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you so much for joining us .
Jaisal Noor : And thank you for joining us at The Real News Network .

Even the business community has signaled support for the proposal as Spain’s economy craters during the coronavirus pandemic.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Jaisal Noor: Welcome to The Real News. I’m Jaisal Noor. Spain continues to be one of the country’s hardest hit by the Coronavirus pandemic, and in a response, it may provide a permanent basic income for those who need it most. So far, Spain has over 139,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, second only to the US. While its death toll has surpassed 15,000, the economic impact has also been dire. Some are warning COVID-19 may hit Spain’s economy harder than any other country in Europe. More than 900,000 people have lost their jobs in the past three weeks alone adding to Spain’s record unemployment rate. The most vulnerable groups are the people who were already in a difficult economic situation before the crisis. Here’s a clip of Enrique Maurist coordinator of Red Cross in Catalonia.
Enrique M.: [Spanish 00:00:59]
Speaker 3: The first people who are falling into extreme vulnerability in this emergency are people who come from the underground economy. Basically women who went to houses to clean or care for the elderly, and now that they cannot go, they are in extreme vulnerability.
Enrique M.: [Spanish 00:01:19]
Jaisal Noor: Well, now joining us to discuss this is Sebastiaan Faber. He’s a professor of Hispanic studies at Oberlin College. He’s the author of the book Memory Battles of the Spanish Civil War. Thank you so much for joining us again.
Sebastiaan Faber: Great to be back.
Jaisal Noor: So we know that Spain is being devastated not only by the pandemic, but by the economic lockdown that every country has been forced to adapt or almost every country now. Give us an update about what you’re hearing on the ground. Off camera we talked about some troubling developments.
Sebastiaan Faber: Yeah. So you’re right, Spain has been among the country’s hardest hit and given the nature of the Spanish economy, where since the Great Recession, a lot of labor had been temporary and precarious to begin with. A lockdown like this one hits large amounts of the population pretty hard. So economically things have been pretty dire. And the measures that are being discussed and debated now in the national parliament seek to soften that blow as much as possible. But these come on top of a whole series of stimulus measures that were approved in the last couple of weeks already to increase the support network and especially try to discourage or even prohibit companies from firing people. So rather than massive firings, what we’re seeing in Spain are something resembling furloughs, right? Where people temporarily being put on hold but not in fact lose their job.
Now there’s a couple of things set Spain apart from other countries in Europe in how they’ve dealt with the crisis. One is the role of the political oppositions. Spain is currently led by a left-wing coalition government of the Central Left Labor Party socialist party joining with a smaller and more leftist party called [Spanish 00:03:17] So the right wing in Spain in the opposition and has been in opposition for a while. And rather than supporting the national government’s efforts to deal with the crisis as we’ve seen in other countries, for example, Portugal, the right in Spain has rather been more confrontational and critical of the central government.
And especially in the past couple of weeks, in the past couple of days they’ve tried to emphasize a couple of main points of critique. One of them is they’ve accused a simple government of acting slow in response to the crisis. This is an argument that’s hard to sustain because if you compare reaction speed to the crisis in Spain to other countries including the United States, Spain was actually pretty early to put measures in place. [crosstalk 00:04:06].
Jaisal Noor: For the US that wouldn’t be hard to beat because we were months behind.
Sebastiaan Faber: Right, exactly right, but even compared to Italy or France, Spain has been quicker. Another major point of critique in the last couple of days has been about numbers. So Spain as every country reports daily numbers of infected and dead and the right-wing opposition has been saying that the numbers of dead especially are much too low because the government only counts those people who were already diagnosed with the virus and then died. This is true. It is true that the likely number of the real number of people deceased from the virus is higher than the official numbers indicate. But that is pretty much true for every country that is going through this. In large part because the countries can’t afford to test everybody who dies. But there is some real evidence if you look at the numbers of dead, like the number of people who normally die in a month of March in the region of Madrid and if you compare the last couple of years to what we’ve seen last month, there’s a significant increase that could indicate that as much as 40% more people have died of the virus than the official statistics indicate.
But like I said, that’s sort of par for the course everywhere else too because in France, same is true and all the same as true in the States. In the States, I’m not sure to what extent we can trust the official numbers of that either. So but it’s interesting to point out that the political right and the opposition rather than assuming we’re all in this together attitude, they’re looking for ways to undermine and question the leadership of the left ring coalition. Then another point that’s worth pointing out is that a Spain is among the countries that has a more strict lockdown. Stricter measures, stricter prohibitions on what people are allowed to do, when they are allowed to leave their homes, what kind of jobs are allowed to have to continue exercising.
But what’s interesting in Spain is the role that the armed forces and the military police have taken on. The army has been prominent from the beginning of the crisis. So for example, in the daily press conferences that the government organizes, there’s always some kind of high ranking armed forces officer who gives his report and the military have also been more present in the streets along with the sort of the standard, national militarized police force, [Spanish 00:06:44] and that is I would say a worrisome development in a country that until 1975 was a military dictatorship.
Jaisal Noor: Yeah and obviously has a long history with fascist governments and a bloody civil war and much more. So everything you said is important context for the main topic I want to talk about today, which is a proposal by the Spanish government. Different than UBI, but giving direct payments to families and individuals that need it most at this time. Spain’s economy is just locked down. So as you said, a lot of people just can’t go to work. Some people have said this is the only way forward to address these massive economic crisis that Spain has felt and is starting to feel. Can you discuss that?
Sebastiaan Faber: Yes. So in the past, this measure from the Spanish government that is being discussed right now, jumped to the front page or into the new cycle in the English speaking world recently. And it was framed as a response to the COVID crisis. But the truth is that this was a proposal already included in the electoral program. So both parties currently in the government and it was explicitly included as well in their coalition agreement that they presented in January.
So in that sense it’s nothing new. It is true that the government is trying to speed up the implementation of this measure in response to the crisis, recognizing that economic need is greater than ever. But even when they included in their programs in the coalition agreement earlier this year, it was really an acknowledgement of the fact that the longterm consequence of the great recession, which in Spain really started hitting in 2011 with hardcore or [inaudible 00:08:39] measures, that those longterm consequences have not really been alleviated it enough. So currently for example, even before the whole COVID crisis hit about one in five Spaniards live at or below the poverty line.
That’s a percentage. Among children and adolescents under 16 the percentage is about 26%. So there’s a huge number of Spaniards who really can’t make the end of the month and who are in need of some form of income and what this measure, which in Spanish is called [Spanish 00:09:15] but you can translate it as kind of a minimum living income, what the measure seeks to do is to put in a base level income for those people who are most in need of it as a way to alleviate poverty and to prevent or remedy their social exclusion as a result of their poverty. But also of course to stimulate the economy because the more money people have in their pockets, the more they can spend and keep the economy going.
Jaisal Noor: Yeah. And it’s interesting because we have Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist sort of almost in that European model almost, he dropped out of the presidential race because the crisis actually really hurt his ability to campaign and the moderate candidates all consolidated behind Joe Biden, but what’s interesting is that some people actually predicted or even hoped that the crisis of the Coronavirus could have spurred these ideas into the center. Even as things like single payer health are more popular than ever. What do you think the future holds for Spain? As you’ve noted, the governing coalition consists of parties on the left.
Sebastiaan Faber: Yeah. So what’s interesting to me is that across the board in Europe, the US and elsewhere, you see kind of a shift of economic common sense, right? If, let’s say in the third way nineties, the economic common sense, even among the left, it’s shifted toward right, toward ending welfare as we know it, in Clinton’s terms or toward privatization and neo-liberalism. What you’re seeing now in a very short time period is a shift to the left of that economic common sense where even newspapers like The Financial Times are now saying, “Yes we do need large stimulus packages and yes, maybe some form of universal basic income or the measure that’s being discussed in Spain makes sense.”
And in Spain the actual measure looks like it will take quite a while to implement in part because Spain has a semi-federal set up and at the regional level, at the level of the autonomous regional government, there are already measures in place that resemble the measure now being discussed at the national level. And to coordinate those two levels would take some time. But today in parliament, the deputies are discussing and it looks like agreeing on an emergency measure that would put a quick emergency set of minimum income in place. Probably looking at about 500 Euros so about $550 per month per person. And then more as the household increases. And this is a measure that today even the corporate leadership in Spain has said it will approve. So, it’s really interesting to see that those bodies that until recently would display shock and indignation at any kind of mention of these kinds of ideas are now embracing them as really the only way forward and the only way to prevent, for example, large scale social unrest for breaking out.
Jaisal Noor: And you were talking about how the police and the army have been mobilized. So this is a real specter and that’s sort of forcing the business community to react in this way. Is that what you’re-
Sebastiaan Faber: Yeah exactly right. And I think nobody wants to see lootings and things like that take place. So I think the awareness that quick things have to be done to alleviate this massive drop in economic activity that consensus is widespread. There’s a thing, I mean we’ll have to see once we come all out of this, whenever that is, to what extent that new consensus will hold and to what extent people who are now jumping on the UBI bandwagon will jump off again and take up their former positions we’ll have to see that. I think one person, I think one interesting thing will be to see what effects these kinds of measures will have right now and whether we can predict how that affect will look once the economy resumes some sense of normality.
Jaisal Noor: Well, Sebastiaan Faber we want to thank you for joining us and we’ll keep coming back to you because you always provide us really powerful insight, but to see how this goes and how this crisis, we’ve seen an exploited to implement draconian measures and as have been for decades. But we’ll see if this time around, some positive change can come out of this for working people around in Spain or around the world. Thank you so much for joining us.
Sebastiaan Faber: Absolutely. My pleasure.
Jaisal Noor: And thank you for joining us at The Real News Network.
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therealnews--2020-04-10--Black, Indigenous Americans Hit Hard by COVID-19

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Marc Steiner : Welcome to The Real News , I ’ m Marc Steiner , good to have you with us .
We at The Real News are planning a number of broadcasts and conversations about the adverse and outsized impact that the COVID-19 pandemic is having on black and indigenous communities .
Our guest today has been writing about this , most recently in the newspaper , The Hill , he ’ s Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. , who is president and CEO @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that represents most of the black owned newspapers in the country .
He ’ s global director for them for the coronavirus task force , he ’ s a 60-year veteran of the civil rights movement , ordained minister in the United Church of Christ , journalist , author , chemist , and father of eight children , and of course was the President of the NAACP , and Dr. Chavis , welcome .
Great to have you with us .
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. : Thank you , Marc .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you , and I appreciate the work of Real News .
Marc Steiner : Well , it ’ s good to have you with us , and I appreciate your work as well over the years .
When I saw your bio , it said 60 years , I realized that two weeks ago , it was 60 years that I walked my first picket line to end segregation in Baltimore as a kid .
So- Marc Steiner : Here we are .
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. : I think we were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Marc Steiner : That ’ s right .
So let ’ s begin .
One of the things that is striking me at the moment , and I think much of America , is the news now coming out , about the inordinate number of members of the African American community in Michigan , in Louisiana and in Wisconsin that are being affected and infected by this virus , and dying from the virus .
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. : They ’ re saying New York too .
It ’ s almost- @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well .
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. : As soon as the data comes out… And in Jersey , it ’ s all over the country , Marc .
And that is because African Americans , before the coronavirus hit , we were already disproportionately consumed with preexisting health disparities , preexisting health maladies .
And that ’ s made us more vulnerable .
It ’ s not that black people are taking more risks , that ’ s not it , it is that the vulnerability of this disease depends on your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weakened immune systems because of obesity , diabetes , heart disease… For example , right in Harlem , 60 % of all the children in Harlem have asthma .
They ’ re not born with asthma , they get asthma because of the poor air quality .
So the environmental concerns , the racial justice concerns , the economic justice concerns , all of these disparities have made black Americans , and a lot of brothers and sisters on the native lands also , indigenous people , much more vulnerable than a majority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why… It ’ s amazing that some people were shocked that more black , people are dying of coronavirus .
Well , there ’ s a reason why .
And the reason is because of all the history of discrimination , history of disparities , history of disabilities that are visited on our community disproportionately , and the lack of access to quality health care .
Also food deserts .
If you don ’ t have the right nutrition , your body can ’ t fight off these diseases .
You have to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what we all know from epidemiology , immune system is also a function of your nutrition , of what kind of food you eat .
And we have food deserts in our community .
Even in the urban centers , people don ’ t get a lot of fresh food .
So all these things together , there ’ s not one single fact a month , it ’ s a combination , a complex web of history of oppression , history of economic exploitation , history of a lack of access to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is , once we get through this coronavirus , what is America going to do ?
Are we going to try to make the democracy include health care ?
Are we going to try to make the democracy include adequate housing , adequate raising of children up in environments and communities that are safe and not vulnerable to these kind of health epidemics ?
Marc Steiner : Approach this in a couple of different ways here .
My friend , Dr. Lawrence Brown , is now at the university of Wisconsin , Madison @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this for years when he was at Morgan State University .
And he… One of the things he talks about is that if you look at the history of redlining in this country , if you look at the history of segregation , what ’ s happened since the end of segregation , and the industrialization , and the increased impoverishment of a huge section of the black community in the United States , in urban areas , in the dystopian communities , bombed out looking communities , that all this kind of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to why more African Americans are being affected .
Like in Louisiana , one third of the population is black , 70 % of the cases are black .
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. : Louisiana also has Cancer Alley .
That means that there were more black people… Back in the 1980s , Marc , I coined the term environmental racism .
And people said , “ Well , what does that have to do with civil rights stuff ?
” Well , because epidemiologically it exposes us to all these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because of poor housing , because of industrial base being right adjacent to our communities , we inhale the fumes , we inhaled other things .
So while it is shocking again , and alarming , in fact , a week ago , at the NNPA , our national global coronavirus task force , we declared a state of emergency in black America , around this terrible pandemic that… The pandemic itself is indiscriminatory .
It ’ ll get anybody , from the prime minister of the UK to brothers and sisters on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is , who is more vulnerable ?
And that ’ s the issue that we need to address , that we need to try to have remedied , and not sweep under the carpet until the next pandemic happens .
Marc Steiner : So this raises two questions I want to raise with you .
One has to do with where we are now , and what to do in the future .
If you look at where we are now , and the real lackadaisical response of the Trump administration to dealing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in this country , and looking now at the adverse effects it ’ s having on black , indigenous and poor communities , what should they be doing at this moment they ’ re not doing , to ensure that we get ahead of this while this is happening , so we don ’ t lose tens of thousands of black Americans , indigenous people , and poor people in this country to this pandemic ?
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. : Well , I think what has been done is not enough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal government , States , or… To have every state depending for itself is not right .
It should have been a national , and it ’ s still not too late , Marc , I think that the federal government , working in concert with all the States , needs to have one plan .
And that plan is to get to the communities that are most vulnerable , black communities and indigenous people are most vulnerable .
That ’ s where the resources ought to go .
That ’ s where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s where the masks ought to go .
We ’ re in somewhat of a… We believe that American society is exceptional .
Well , that ’ s arrogant , because we should have learned from the other places this pandemic hit before it hit the United States .
In China , everybody ’ s required to wear a mask .
Everybody ’ s not required to wear a mask here .
And once you have the coronavirus in China , they track you .
They don ’ t do that here @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been appropriate or proportional or adequate government response .
We ’ re still not… This thing , we ’ re not even halfway through this thing Marc .
And I still think the government , on an emergency basis , now has to act to save lives .
We talk about Black Lives Matter , our hashtag now is Save Black Lives .
Marc Steiner : Take us beyond this , the political question .
It ’ s hard to get away from politics at any of this , but when you look @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and coverage for people in the United States , and how it adversely affects poor people who… Poor people have to go to work , who can not telecommute , as you wrote about in your article in The Hill .
And so what do we have to do longterm ?
What lessons do we learn from this to change what goes on in the future for our children , grandchildren , everybody else ?
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. : Well , again , and it ’ s a very good question @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health care for all .
Healthcare should be a right , not a privilege .
Right now , healthcare is a privilege , it ’ s an economic privilege , and I think… So number one , we need universal health care for all of people who live in this country .
We can afford it .
And look , talk about the cost , look what happened with the cost of not having universal healthcare .
Now billions of dollars are going to have to be spent to try to repair the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even in the repair , if we ’ re not careful , Marc , all this stimulus packages are going to try to get us back to where we were before the pandemic , but that ’ s the problem , where we were before the pandemic is also the problem .
In fact , it ’ s going to cost us more if we don ’ t have universal healthcare .
Secondly , I think we have to work on greater economic equity and equality in America .
Affordability .
People need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a good job .
The wages , there was a big argument about whether or not we ’ re going to have the minimum wage between 8 and $ 15 .
The minimum wage should be about $ 25 .
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. : So , all these issues , you ’ re right , are going to become public policy now that you know the census has been counted .
Well , during this virus , the census has been suppressed .
It ’ s going to be an inadequate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extend the period of the United States census , they need to extend the period , and making sure that people can register to vote .
I think some states , I think Wisconsin did a terrible thing this week , requiring people to go out and vote amidst a pandemic .
So you ’ re right , the politics of this is making a heavier burden on people of color , the politics of this is making a heavier burden on indigenous people , and I think for all Americans .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ three different kinds of democracy .
We need one society , not a society that is distinguished or discriminated based on race or ethnicity or religion or anything else .
Marc Steiner : So let me close , that ’ s an eloquent statement .
Let me close with this question .
When you look at this pandemic and the political divide that exists in our country , this pandemic does not stop the social , political and economic battle for equality in America and the world we want to build here in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you see that playing out between now and November ?
This is a very difficult time .
People are stuck , they can ’ t get out of their homes , people can look at you saying you ’ re attacking Trump , you ’ re being divisive , so how do you think we proceed ?
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. : Well , I think we have to use what we have in our own hands as Martin Luther King used to tell us , and Adam Clayton used to tell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our hands ?
We have our vote , we have our count in the census , and we have our responsibility to hold our elected officials accountable at the congressional level , at the state level , at the municipal level , at the county level , and we have to hold our own communities .
I think this is just not about a finger at somebody else , we all need to look in our national mirror , our personal mirrors , and see what more we can do to help one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health care workers who are risking their own lives to save lives .
And I think that we need better wages for teachers , better wages for healthcare workers , I think America now , it ’ s interesting with all this talk about the stimulus and how to revive the economy , I don ’ t think we can go back to days before this January .
I think 2020 has to be a year of pivot , we have to pivot in America , and to be more concerned about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use a biblical phrase .
And I think that we need what Martin Luther King used talk about the beloved community .
The beloved community is not and exclusive community .
It is an inclusive community .
And that ’ s the central issue , Marc , that we ’ re facing with this corona virus .
Are we going to come out of this and have a more inclusive America , or are we going to come out as even more divided , even more discriminated against , even more oppressed and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And I think all Americans are going to have to weigh in on how we come out of this at the ballot box in November and how we ’ ve come out of this in terms of demand in universal health care .
Marc Steiner : Well , Dr. Ben Chavis , first let me thank you for your decades of fighting for an equitable America , and it ’ s been a pleasure to have you here on The Real News .
Look forward to many more conversations .
Good luck @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safe .
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. : Thank you , Marc .
The same to you .
We ’ ve got another 60 years to go brother .
Marc Steiner : Yes we do bro .
Thank you so much Dr. Chavis .
Marc Steiner : And I ’ m Marc Steiner here for The Real News Network .
Please , all of you stay healthy and safe .
Let us know what you think , stay in touch , take care .

Civil rights leader Ben Chavis joins us to talk about why this is happening, how we have to address this epidemic, and what it means for our future.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Marc Steiner: Welcome to The Real News, I’m Marc Steiner, good to have you with us. We at The Real News are planning a number of broadcasts and conversations about the adverse and outsized impact that the COVID-19 pandemic is having on black and indigenous communities.
Our guest today has been writing about this, most recently in the newspaper, The Hill, he’s Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., who is president and CEO of the storied National Newspaper Publishers Association that represents most of the black owned newspapers in the country. He’s global director for them for the coronavirus task force, he’s a 60-year veteran of the civil rights movement, ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, journalist, author, chemist, and father of eight children, and of course was the President of the NAACP, and Dr. Chavis, welcome. Great to have you with us.
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.: Thank you, Marc. It’s always good to speak to you, and I appreciate the work of Real News.
Marc Steiner: Well, it’s good to have you with us, and I appreciate your work as well over the years. When I saw your bio, it said 60 years, I realized that two weeks ago, it was 60 years that I walked my first picket line to end segregation in Baltimore as a kid. So-
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.: Absolutely.
Marc Steiner: Here we are.
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.: I think we were around the same age, Marc.
Marc Steiner: That’s right. So let’s begin. One of the things that is striking me at the moment, and I think much of America, is the news now coming out, about the inordinate number of members of the African American community in Michigan, in Louisiana and in Wisconsin that are being affected and infected by this virus, and dying from the virus.
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.: They’re saying New York too. It’s almost-
Marc Steiner: And New York as well.
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.: As soon as the data comes out… And in Jersey, it’s all over the country, Marc. And that is because African Americans, before the coronavirus hit, we were already disproportionately consumed with preexisting health disparities, preexisting health maladies. And that’s made us more vulnerable. It’s not that black people are taking more risks, that’s not it, it is that the vulnerability of this disease depends on your immune system. And if you have weakened immune systems because of obesity, diabetes, heart disease… For example, right in Harlem, 60% of all the children in Harlem have asthma. They’re not born with asthma, they get asthma because of the poor air quality.
So the environmental concerns, the racial justice concerns, the economic justice concerns, all of these disparities have made black Americans, and a lot of brothers and sisters on the native lands also, indigenous people, much more vulnerable than a majority of the population. And that is why… It’s amazing that some people were shocked that more black, people are dying of coronavirus. Well, there’s a reason why. And the reason is because of all the history of discrimination, history of disparities, history of disabilities that are visited on our community disproportionately, and the lack of access to quality health care.
Also food deserts. If you don’t have the right nutrition, your body can’t fight off these diseases. You have to have a strong immune system. And what we all know from epidemiology, immune system is also a function of your nutrition, of what kind of food you eat. And we have food deserts in our community. Even in the urban centers, people don’t get a lot of fresh food. So all these things together, there’s not one single fact a month, it’s a combination, a complex web of history of oppression, history of economic exploitation, history of a lack of access to health care.
Now, the question is, once we get through this coronavirus, what is America going to do? Are we going to try to make the democracy include health care? Are we going to try to make the democracy include adequate housing, adequate raising of children up in environments and communities that are safe and not vulnerable to these kind of health epidemics?
Marc Steiner: Approach this in a couple of different ways here. My friend, Dr. Lawrence Brown, is now at the university of Wisconsin, Madison. He’s been working on this for years when he was at Morgan State University. And he… One of the things he talks about is that if you look at the history of redlining in this country, if you look at the history of segregation, what’s happened since the end of segregation, and the industrialization, and the increased impoverishment of a huge section of the black community in the United States, in urban areas, in the dystopian communities, bombed out looking communities, that all this kind of feeds into, as you were saying, to why more African Americans are being affected. Like in Louisiana, one third of the population is black, 70% of the cases are black.
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.: Louisiana also has Cancer Alley. That means that there were more black people… Back in the 1980s, Marc, I coined the term environmental racism. And people said, “Well, what does that have to do with civil rights stuff?” Well, because epidemiologically it exposes us to all these health hazards. Because of gerrymandering, because of poor housing, because of industrial base being right adjacent to our communities, we inhale the fumes, we inhaled other things.
So while it is shocking again, and alarming, in fact, a week ago, at the NNPA, our national global coronavirus task force, we declared a state of emergency in black America, around this terrible pandemic that… The pandemic itself is indiscriminatory. It’ll get anybody, from the prime minister of the UK to brothers and sisters on the street corners. But the thing is, who is more vulnerable? And that’s the issue that we need to address, that we need to try to have remedied, and not sweep under the carpet until the next pandemic happens.
Marc Steiner: So this raises two questions I want to raise with you. One has to do with where we are now, and what to do in the future. If you look at where we are now, and the real lackadaisical response of the Trump administration to dealing with this pandemic we’re facing in this country, and looking now at the adverse effects it’s having on black, indigenous and poor communities, what should they be doing at this moment they’re not doing, to ensure that we get ahead of this while this is happening, so we don’t lose tens of thousands of black Americans, indigenous people, and poor people in this country to this pandemic?
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.: Well, I think what has been done is not enough, by the government, by the federal government, States, or… To have every state depending for itself is not right. It should have been a national, and it’s still not too late, Marc, I think that the federal government, working in concert with all the States, needs to have one plan. And that plan is to get to the communities that are most vulnerable, black communities and indigenous people are most vulnerable. That’s where the resources ought to go. That’s where the ventilators ought to go. That’s where the masks ought to go.
We’re in somewhat of a… We believe that American society is exceptional. Well, that’s arrogant, because we should have learned from the other places this pandemic hit before it hit the United States. In China, everybody’s required to wear a mask. Everybody’s not required to wear a mask here. And once you have the coronavirus in China, they track you. They don’t do that here. So I think there has not been appropriate or proportional or adequate government response. We’re still not… This thing, we’re not even halfway through this thing Marc. And I still think the government, on an emergency basis, now has to act to save lives. We talk about Black Lives Matter, our hashtag now is Save Black Lives.
Marc Steiner: Take us beyond this, the political question. It’s hard to get away from politics at any of this, but when you look at the lack of universal health care and coverage for people in the United States, and how it adversely affects poor people who… Poor people have to go to work, who cannot telecommute, as you wrote about in your article in The Hill. And so what do we have to do longterm? What lessons do we learn from this to change what goes on in the future for our children, grandchildren, everybody else?
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.: Well, again, and it’s a very good question, number one, we need universal health care for all. Healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. Right now, healthcare is a privilege, it’s an economic privilege, and I think… So number one, we need universal health care for all of people who live in this country. We can afford it. And look, talk about the cost, look what happened with the cost of not having universal healthcare. Now billions of dollars are going to have to be spent to try to repair the economy, repair the communities.
And even in the repair, if we’re not careful, Marc, all this stimulus packages are going to try to get us back to where we were before the pandemic, but that’s the problem, where we were before the pandemic is also the problem. In fact, it’s going to cost us more if we don’t have universal healthcare. Secondly, I think we have to work on greater economic equity and equality in America. Affordability. People need not only just a job, but a good job. The wages, there was a big argument about whether or not we’re going to have the minimum wage between 8 and $15. The minimum wage should be about $25.
Marc Steiner: Amen to that.
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.: So, all these issues, you’re right, are going to become public policy now that you know the census has been counted. Well, during this virus, the census has been suppressed. It’s going to be an inadequate count. I think they need to extend the period of the United States census, they need to extend the period, and making sure that people can register to vote. I think some states, I think Wisconsin did a terrible thing this week, requiring people to go out and vote amidst a pandemic.
So you’re right, the politics of this is making a heavier burden on people of color, the politics of this is making a heavier burden on indigenous people, and I think for all Americans. We need one democracy, not two or three different kinds of democracy. We need one society, not a society that is distinguished or discriminated based on race or ethnicity or religion or anything else.
Marc Steiner: So let me close, that’s an eloquent statement. Let me close with this question. When you look at this pandemic and the political divide that exists in our country, this pandemic does not stop the social, political and economic battle for equality in America and the world we want to build here in our own country. So how do you see that playing out between now and November? This is a very difficult time. People are stuck, they can’t get out of their homes, people can look at you saying you’re attacking Trump, you’re being divisive, so how do you think we proceed?
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.: Well, I think we have to use what we have in our own hands as Martin Luther King used to tell us, and Adam Clayton used to tell us. What do we have in our hands? We have our vote, we have our count in the census, and we have our responsibility to hold our elected officials accountable at the congressional level, at the state level, at the municipal level, at the county level, and we have to hold our own communities. I think this is just not about a finger at somebody else, we all need to look in our national mirror, our personal mirrors, and see what more we can do to help one another.
I think of all these health care workers who are risking their own lives to save lives. And I think that we need better wages for teachers, better wages for healthcare workers, I think America now, it’s interesting with all this talk about the stimulus and how to revive the economy, I don’t think we can go back to days before this January. I think 2020 has to be a year of pivot, we have to pivot in America, and to be more concerned about the least of these, if I can use a biblical phrase.
And I think that we need what Martin Luther King used talk about the beloved community. The beloved community is not and exclusive community. It is an inclusive community. And that’s the central issue, Marc, that we’re facing with this corona virus. Are we going to come out of this and have a more inclusive America, or are we going to come out as even more divided, even more discriminated against, even more oppressed and exploited? That is the central question. And I think all Americans are going to have to weigh in on how we come out of this at the ballot box in November and how we’ve come out of this in terms of demand in universal health care.
Marc Steiner: Well, Dr. Ben Chavis, first let me thank you for your decades of fighting for an equitable America, and it’s been a pleasure to have you here on The Real News. Look forward to many more conversations. Good luck to you and please stay healthy and safe.
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.: Thank you, Marc. The same to you. We’ve got another 60 years to go brother.
Marc Steiner: Yes we do bro. Thank you so much Dr. Chavis.
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.: Thank you. God bless.
Marc Steiner: And I’m Marc Steiner here for The Real News Network. Please, all of you stay healthy and safe. Let us know what you think, stay in touch, take care.
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therealnews--2020-04-10--What the Coughing Cop Says About American Policing

A cop caught coughing on residents and video of a man arrested and incarcerated for running a red light illustrates @ @ @ @ @ into an enforcer of social control .

Host & Producer
Stephen Janis is an award winning investigative reporter turned documentary filmmaker. His first feature film, The Friendliest Town was distributed by Gravitas Ventures and won an award of distinction from The Impact Doc Film Festival, and a humanitarian award from The Indie Film Fest. He is the co-host and creator of The Police Accountability Report on The Real News Network, which has received more than 10,000,000 views on YouTube. His work as a reporter has been featured on a variety of national shows including the Netflix reboot of Unsolved Mysteries, Dead of Night on Investigation Discovery Channel, Relentless on NBC, and Sins of the City on TV One.
He has co-authored several books on policing, corruption, and the root causes of violence including Why Do We Kill: The Pathology of Murder in Baltimore and You Can’t Stop Murder: Truths about Policing in Baltimore and Beyond. He is also the co-host of the true crime podcast Land of the Unsolved. Prior to joining The Real News, Janis won three Capital Emmys for investigative series working as an investigative producer for WBFF. Follow him on Twitter.