democracynow--2020-09-11--Costs of War: After 9/11 Attacks, U.S. Wars Displaced at Least 37 Million People Around the World

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : It ’ s been 19 years since the coordinated attacks on the World Trade Center , the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 killed nearly 3,000 people .
At 8:46 a.m. Eastern time , the first plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center here in New York City .
Today , President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will both visit the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville , Pennsylvania , at different times .
Biden will also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ceremony in New York , which Vice President Pence will also attend .
Today , the United States faces a terror of a different kind , as more than 191,000 people have died from the COVID-19 pandemic , and a new report projects the U.S. death toll could rise to as high as 3,000 people per day by December .
There were more than 1,200 new deaths in the U.S. in the last 24 hours .
Time magazine plans to mark the approaching milestone of 200,000 COVID-related deaths in the U.S. with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and has a black border for only the second time in its history .
The first time was after 9/11 .
This comes as a new report finds the U.S.-led so-called global war on terrorism has displaced at least 37 million people in eight countries since 2001 .
The Costs of War Project at Brown University has also estimated more than 800,000 people [ dead ] in U.S.-led wars since 2001 at a cost of $ 6.4 trillion to U.S. taxpayers .
The new report is titled “ Creating Refugees : Displacement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wars.
” For more , we ’ re joined by its co-author , David Vine , professor of anthropology at American University .
His new book is out next month , called The United States of War : A Global History of America ’ s Endless Conflicts , from Columbus to the Islamic State .
He ’ s also the author of Base Nation : How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World .
David Vine , welcome to Democracy Now !
It ’ s great to have you back with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sad day , on this 19th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks .
Can you talk about the findings of your report ?
DAVID VINE : Sure .
Thank you , Amy , for having me .
It ’ s great to be back .
The findings of our report are basically asking — the United States has been fighting wars continuously , as you said , for 19 years .
We ’ re looking at what the effects of these wars have been .
The Costs of War Project has been doing this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to look specifically at how many people had been displaced by these wars .
Basically , we found that no one had bothered to investigate how many people had been displaced by the wars in what are now , actually , at least 24 countries that the United States has been involved in .
And we found that , in total , at least 37 million people have been displaced in just eight of the most violent wars that the United States has either launched or participated in since 2001 .
That ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Somalia , Yemen , Libya , Syria and the Philippines .
And that ’ s a very conservative estimate .
We found that the actual total could be up to 48 to 59 million .
And I do think we have to pause on these numbers , because we — in many ways , our lives are drowning in numbers , about COVID , about many things that are important to track quantitatively , but to wrap one ’ s mind around what — just 37 million people displaced is difficult , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some active effort , certainly did for me .
Thirty-seven million , to put it in historical perspective , that ’ s more people displaced by any war since at least the beginning of the 20th century , with the exception of World War II .
And if our larger less conservative methodology is accurate , the 48 to 59 million estimate , that is comparable to the displacement one saw in World War II .
Another way to try to wrap one ’ s mind around just the 37 million minimum figure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the state of California .
Just imagine the entire state of California disappearing , having to flee their homes .
It ’ s about the size of all of Canada , or Texas and Virginia combined .
AMY GOODMAN : And for those enough who are lucky to have homes during this pandemic , I think people particularly appreciate — I mean , the word “ refugees ” is thrown around , but what it means to be displaced .
Can you talk about why those eight countries ?
And can you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ DAVID VINE : Sure .
Again , we wanted to focus on the most violent wars that the United States has been involved in , the wars that the United States has most deeply invested money , and , of course , the blood , the lives of U.S. military personnel , and , by extension , the lives that have been affected , the family members of U.S. military personnel and others .
We wanted to look specifically at the wars the United States has launched , so the overlapping war in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Iraq , of course ; wars that the United States has significantly escalated , Libya and Syria , Libya along with — and Syria , along with European and other allies ; and then wars the United States has participated in significantly , in ways including providing battlefield advisers , providing fuel , arms and others , in Yemen , Somalia and the Philippines .
In each of these wars , we have found displacement numbering in the millions .
And indeed , I think , you know , we have to recognize @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one ’ s home , to flee for one ’ s life , is — in many ways , there ’ s no way to calculate what that means for a single individual , a single family , a single community , but we did feel it was important to look at the total mass displacement that these wars have caused .
It is important to note , we are not saying the United States is solely to blame for this level of displacement .
Clearly , there are other actors , other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ important in the responsibility they bear for displacement in these wars : Assad in Syria , Sunni and Shia militias in Iraq , the Taliban , of course , al-Qaeda , the Islamic State , others .
U.S. allies , including Britain , also bear some responsibility .
But the United States has played a disproportionate role in waging war , in launching war and in perpetuating war over the last 19 years .
And as you pointed out , this has cost U.S. taxpayers , U.S. citizens , U.S. residents in other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — and that ’ s trillion with a T , $ 6.4 trillion — that the Costs of War Project has estimated the United States has either spent or obligated already .
And that total is , of course , increasing by the day .
AMY GOODMAN : And , David Vine , the number of refugees the U.S. accepts from these wars , whose displacement the U.S. is causing ?
DAVID VINE : Yeah , and we can look at the fire in Lesbos that you referred to earlier , that has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ camp on Lesbos that ’ s been totally destroyed .
And I would hope that people looking at the fires in California and Oregon and Washington could more easily empathize with the refugees in Lesbos and the refugees throughout the Greater Middle East , in particular , where fires — essentially , one large fire has been burning since October 2001 , when the U.S. launched its War in Afghanistan .
AMY GOODMAN : I wanted to turn to President Trump earlier this week telling reporters top Pentagon officials don ’ t like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. out of endless wars that benefit weapons manufacturers .
AMY GOODMAN : Sounds a little like , well , if Howard Zinn were alive , what he would say .
But Trump ’ s criticism of the military-industrial complex contradicts his own record of overseeing this historic increase in war spending , in the defense budget , in spending on military equipment , selling weapons overseas .
Politico recently called Trump the “ booster-in-chief of defense contractors.
” Last year , Trump bypassed Congress so he could sell $ 8 billion of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Emirates .
Earlier this year , his administration ordered a reinterpretation of a Cold War-era arms treaty in order to pave the way for drone sales to go to governments that have previously been barred from such purchases .
Can you respond to what he said ?
DAVID VINE : In many ways , what Trump said is quite rich , so to speak .
Indeed , he is correct that weapons manufacturers have benefited greatly , to the tune of tens of billions of dollars , in addition to other infrastructure contractors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that now dot the Middle East .
But , you know , Trump , indeed , as Politico said , is the booster-in-chief .
He has overseen and pushed for military budgets that exceed those at the height of the Cold War .
And I think we have to ask : What are the enemies the United States faces today that require a military budget of this size ?
Does the United States need to be spending upwards of $ 740 billion a year to defend itself ?
Could we be spending this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
And what needs , drastic , dramatic , pressing needs , human needs , are being neglected because we are pouring tens of billions , hundreds of billions of dollars into this war machine on a yearly basis ?
And I think COVID , of course , points to this , underlines it , more than ever .
The United States was not prepared for a pandemic .
And this is in no small part because the United States has been pouring money into this war machine while neglecting human needs in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — healthcare needs , pandemic preparedness , affordable housing , the environment .
This money that we ’ ve been pouring into the war machine , of course , could have been addressing the global warming that one sees , that plays some role in the fires one is seeing across the West Coast , among many other pressing needs that the world faces today .
AMY GOODMAN : This is an amazing fact you ’ ve pointed out , David Vine : The U.S. military has waged war , engaged in combat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but 11 years of its existence .
DAVID VINE : That ’ s right .
The past 19 years of war , many people often see it as exceptional , as strange that people entering college today or most people enlisting in the U.S. military today will not have seen a day of their life or will not — have no memory of a day of their life when the United States was not at war .
In fact , this is the norm in U.S. history .
And the Congressional Research Service @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a report that you can find online .
This is not just me , although I have a list of the wars , expanding on the Congressional Research Service list .
These are wars and other forms of combat that the United States has engaged in since independence .
And indeed , in 95 % of the years in U.S. history , all but 11 years in U.S. history , the United States has been involved in some form of war or other combat .
And one needs to look at this much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extends beyond the war , the so-called war on terror that George W. Bush launched in 2001 , to understand why the United States has poured so much money into these wars and why the effects of these wars have been so horrific for the people involved .
AMY GOODMAN : David Vine , you report in your forthcoming book , The United States of War : A Global History of America ’ s Endless Conflicts , from Columbus to the Islamic State , that U.S. bases abroad enable combat in 24 countries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ military bases in nearly 100 foreign countries and territories — more than half of them built since 2001 — have enabled the involvement of U.S. military forces in wars and other combat deployments across at least 24 nations since the George W. Bush administration launched its war on terror , ” so-called , following the September 11 , 2001 , attacks .
DAVID VINE : Indeed .
The United States currently has about 800 military bases in around 80 foreign countries and territories .
This is more bases than any nation in world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as you alluded to , had even larger numbers of bases .
At the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , there were upwards of 2,000 bases abroad .
And part of what my book , The United States of War , shows is that this is also a long-term pattern .
The United States has been building military bases abroad since independence , initially on the lands of Native American peoples , then increasingly outside of North America , and eventually encircling the globe , particularly after World War II @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these bases have not only enabled war , they ’ ve not only made war possible , but they ’ ve actually made war more likely .
It ’ s made war a far-too-easy policy choice decision for powerful decisionmakers , leaders , politicians , corporate leaders and others .
And we need to basically dismantle this infrastructure of war that the United States has built up .
Why does the United States have dozens of military bases in the Middle East , in virtually every country outside of Yemen and Iran ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in countries that are led by undemocratic regimes , not spreading democracy — far from it — in many cases , actually blocking the spread of democracy , and making these wars possible , that — I think it ’ s important to underline again — beyond displacing 37 million people , at least , and perhaps up to 59 million people , these wars have taken the lives of , as the Costs of War Project has shown , around 800,000 people .
And this is just in five of the wars @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Libya and Yemen — the United States has — U.S. combat has taken the lives of around 800,000 people .
But there are also indirect deaths , deaths that have been caused by the destruction of local infrastructure , healthcare services , hospitals , food sources .
And those total deaths could number upwards of 3 million people .
And I think most people in the United States , again , myself included , have not really reckoned with the total damage that these wars have caused .
We haven ’ t even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it would mean to have this level of destruction in our lives .
AMY GOODMAN : And you have , for example , the effects of soldiers on bases , like what happened in the Philippines , where the authoritarian leader , President Duterte , just pardoned a U.S. soldier who was found guilty of murdering a trans woman off a base .
DAVID VINE : Yes , this is another cost of war .
We need to look at the costs of war in terms — the human costs in terms of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wars , the “ wars on terror , ” numbering in the tens of millions , but we also need to look at the deaths and injuries that are caused on a daily basis around U.S. military bases around the world .
These bases have — in addition to enabling the wars that the United States has been fighting , they have very immediate harms that they inflict on local populations , including in the Philippines and in , as I said , around 80 countries and territories around the world , damage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in a whole variety of ways .
AMY GOODMAN : David Vine , I want to thank you so much for being with us , professor of anthropology at American University , co-author of the new report on the Costs of War Project headlined “ Creating Refugees : Displacement Caused by the United States ’ Post-9/11 Wars.
” Your new book , coming out , The United States of War .
This is Democracy Now !
We ’ ll be back in 30 seconds with the African American scholar and icon Barbara @ @ @ @ @ @ @ issue of terrorism at home , as we look at the threat of white supremacist violence .
Stay with us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s been 19 years since the coordinated attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 killed nearly 3,000 people. At 8:46 a.m. Eastern time, the first plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center here in New York City. Today, President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will both visit the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at different times. Biden will also pay respects after attending a 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York, which Vice President Pence will also attend.
Today, the United States faces a terror of a different kind, as more than 191,000 people have died from the COVID-19 pandemic, and a new report projects the U.S. death toll could rise to as high as 3,000 people per day by December. There were more than 1,200 new deaths in the U.S. in the last 24 hours. Time magazine plans to mark the approaching milestone of 200,000 COVID-related deaths in the U.S. with a cover that reads “An American Failure” and has a black border for only the second time in its history. The first time was after 9/11.
This comes as a new report finds the U.S.-led so-called global war on terrorism has displaced at least 37 million people in eight countries since 2001. The Costs of War Project at Brown University has also estimated more than 800,000 people [dead] in U.S.-led wars since 2001 at a cost of $6.4 trillion to U.S. taxpayers. The new report is titled “Creating Refugees: Displacement Caused by the United States’ Post-9/11 Wars.”
For more, we’re joined by its co-author, David Vine, professor of anthropology at American University. His new book is out next month, called The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State. He’s also the author of Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World.
David Vine, welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you back with us, although this is a very sad day, on this 19th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Can you talk about the findings of your report?
DAVID VINE: Sure. Thank you, Amy, for having me. It’s great to be back.
The findings of our report are basically asking — the United States has been fighting wars continuously, as you said, for 19 years. We’re looking at what the effects of these wars have been. The Costs of War Project has been doing this for about a decade. We wanted to look specifically at how many people had been displaced by these wars. Basically, we found that no one had bothered to investigate how many people had been displaced by the wars in what are now, actually, at least 24 countries that the United States has been involved in.
And we found that, in total, at least 37 million people have been displaced in just eight of the most violent wars that the United States has either launched or participated in since 2001. That’s Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Syria and the Philippines. And that’s a very conservative estimate. We found that the actual total could be up to 48 to 59 million.
And I do think we have to pause on these numbers, because we — in many ways, our lives are drowning in numbers, about COVID, about many things that are important to track quantitatively, but to wrap one’s mind around what — just 37 million people displaced is difficult, in fact, and I think it requires some active effort, certainly did for me.
Thirty-seven million, to put it in historical perspective, that’s more people displaced by any war since at least the beginning of the 20th century, with the exception of World War II. And if our larger less conservative methodology is accurate, the 48 to 59 million estimate, that is comparable to the displacement one saw in World War II. Another way to try to wrap one’s mind around just the 37 million minimum figure, 37 million is about the size of the state of California. Just imagine the entire state of California disappearing, having to flee their homes. It’s about the size of all of Canada, or Texas and Virginia combined.
AMY GOODMAN: And for those enough who are lucky to have homes during this pandemic, I think people particularly appreciate — I mean, the word “refugees” is thrown around, but what it means to be displaced. Can you talk about why those eight countries? And can you correlate that with U.S. wars abroad?
DAVID VINE: Sure. Again, we wanted to focus on the most violent wars that the United States has been involved in, the wars that the United States has most deeply invested money, and, of course, the blood, the lives of U.S. military personnel, and, by extension, the lives that have been affected, the family members of U.S. military personnel and others. We wanted to look specifically at the wars the United States has launched, so the overlapping war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the War in Iraq, of course; wars that the United States has significantly escalated, Libya and Syria, Libya along with — and Syria, along with European and other allies; and then wars the United States has participated in significantly, in ways including providing battlefield advisers, providing fuel, arms and others, in Yemen, Somalia and the Philippines.
In each of these wars, we have found displacement numbering in the millions. And indeed, I think, you know, we have to recognize that displacement, the need to flee one’s home, to flee for one’s life, is — in many ways, there’s no way to calculate what that means for a single individual, a single family, a single community, but we did feel it was important to look at the total mass displacement that these wars have caused.
It is important to note, we are not saying the United States is solely to blame for this level of displacement. Clearly, there are other actors, other governments, other combatants, who are important in the responsibility they bear for displacement in these wars: Assad in Syria, Sunni and Shia militias in Iraq, the Taliban, of course, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, others. U.S. allies, including Britain, also bear some responsibility.
But the United States has played a disproportionate role in waging war, in launching war and in perpetuating war over the last 19 years. And as you pointed out, this has cost U.S. taxpayers, U.S. citizens, U.S. residents in other ways, including the $6.4 trillion — and that’s trillion with a T, $6.4 trillion — that the Costs of War Project has estimated the United States has either spent or obligated already. And that total is, of course, increasing by the day.
AMY GOODMAN: And, David Vine, the number of refugees the U.S. accepts from these wars, whose displacement the U.S. is causing?
DAVID VINE: Yeah, and we can look at the fire in Lesbos that you referred to earlier, that has displaced some 13,000 people, a refugee camp on Lesbos that’s been totally destroyed. And I would hope that people looking at the fires in California and Oregon and Washington could more easily empathize with the refugees in Lesbos and the refugees throughout the Greater Middle East, in particular, where fires — essentially, one large fire has been burning since October 2001, when the U.S. launched its War in Afghanistan.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to President Trump earlier this week telling reporters top Pentagon officials don’t like him because he wants to get the U.S. out of endless wars that benefit weapons manufacturers.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Biden shipped away our jobs, threw open our borders and sent our youth to fight in these crazy, endless wars. And it’s one of the reasons the military — I’m not saying the military is in love with me. The soldiers are. The top people in the Pentagon probably aren’t, because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy. But we’re getting out of the endless wars.
AMY GOODMAN: Sounds a little like, well, if Howard Zinn were alive, what he would say. But Trump’s criticism of the military-industrial complex contradicts his own record of overseeing this historic increase in war spending, in the defense budget, in spending on military equipment, selling weapons overseas. Politico recently called Trump the “booster-in-chief of defense contractors.” Last year, Trump bypassed Congress so he could sell $8 billion of weapons to Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. Earlier this year, his administration ordered a reinterpretation of a Cold War-era arms treaty in order to pave the way for drone sales to go to governments that have previously been barred from such purchases. Can you respond to what he said?
DAVID VINE: In many ways, what Trump said is quite rich, so to speak. Indeed, he is correct that weapons manufacturers have benefited greatly, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, in addition to other infrastructure contractors, the companies that make military bases that now dot the Middle East. But, you know, Trump, indeed, as Politico said, is the booster-in-chief. He has overseen and pushed for military budgets that exceed those at the height of the Cold War.
And I think we have to ask: What are the enemies the United States faces today that require a military budget of this size? Does the United States need to be spending upwards of $740 billion a year to defend itself? Could we be spending this money in better ways to defend ourselves? And what needs, drastic, dramatic, pressing needs, human needs, are being neglected because we are pouring tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars into this war machine on a yearly basis?
And I think COVID, of course, points to this, underlines it, more than ever. The United States was not prepared for a pandemic. And this is in no small part because the United States has been pouring money into this war machine while neglecting human needs in the United States and around the world — healthcare needs, pandemic preparedness, affordable housing, the environment. This money that we’ve been pouring into the war machine, of course, could have been addressing the global warming that one sees, that plays some role in the fires one is seeing across the West Coast, among many other pressing needs that the world faces today.
AMY GOODMAN: This is an amazing fact you’ve pointed out, David Vine: The U.S. military has waged war, engaged in combat or otherwise invaded foreign lands in all but 11 years of its existence.
DAVID VINE: That’s right. The past 19 years of war, many people often see it as exceptional, as strange that people entering college today or most people enlisting in the U.S. military today will not have seen a day of their life or will not — have no memory of a day of their life when the United States was not at war.
In fact, this is the norm in U.S. history. And the Congressional Research Service shows this on a yearly basis in a report that you can find online. This is not just me, although I have a list of the wars, expanding on the Congressional Research Service list. These are wars and other forms of combat that the United States has engaged in since independence. And indeed, in 95% of the years in U.S. history, all but 11 years in U.S. history, the United States has been involved in some form of war or other combat.
And one needs to look at this much longer-term trend, this longer-term pattern that extends beyond the war, the so-called war on terror that George W. Bush launched in 2001, to understand why the United States has poured so much money into these wars and why the effects of these wars have been so horrific for the people involved.
AMY GOODMAN: David Vine, you report in your forthcoming book, The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State, that U.S. bases abroad enable combat in 24 countries: quote, “Thousands of U.S. military bases in nearly 100 foreign countries and territories — more than half of them built since 2001 — have enabled the involvement of U.S. military forces in wars and other combat deployments across at least 24 nations since the George W. Bush administration launched its war on terror,” so-called, following the September 11, 2001, attacks.
DAVID VINE: Indeed. The United States currently has about 800 military bases in around 80 foreign countries and territories. This is more bases than any nation in world history. The United States has, as you alluded to, had even larger numbers of bases. At the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were upwards of 2,000 bases abroad.
And part of what my book, The United States of War, shows is that this is also a long-term pattern. The United States has been building military bases abroad since independence, initially on the lands of Native American peoples, then increasingly outside of North America, and eventually encircling the globe, particularly after World War II.
And what I show is that these bases have not only enabled war, they’ve not only made war possible, but they’ve actually made war more likely. It’s made war a far-too-easy policy choice decision for powerful decisionmakers, leaders, politicians, corporate leaders and others.
And we need to basically dismantle this infrastructure of war that the United States has built up. Why does the United States have dozens of military bases in the Middle East, in virtually every country outside of Yemen and Iran? These bases, of course, are in countries that are led by undemocratic regimes, not spreading democracy — far from it — in many cases, actually blocking the spread of democracy, and making these wars possible, that — I think it’s important to underline again — beyond displacing 37 million people, at least, and perhaps up to 59 million people, these wars have taken the lives of, as the Costs of War Project has shown, around 800,000 people. And this is just in five of the wars — Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen — the United States has — U.S. combat has taken the lives of around 800,000 people.
But there are also indirect deaths, deaths that have been caused by the destruction of local infrastructure, healthcare services, hospitals, food sources. And those total deaths could number upwards of 3 million people. And I think most people in the United States, again, myself included, have not really reckoned with the total damage that these wars have caused. We haven’t even begun to wrap our minds around what it would mean to have this level of destruction in our lives.
AMY GOODMAN: And you have, for example, the effects of soldiers on bases, like what happened in the Philippines, where the authoritarian leader, President Duterte, just pardoned a U.S. soldier who was found guilty of murdering a trans woman off a base.
DAVID VINE: Yes, this is another cost of war. We need to look at the costs of war in terms — the human costs in terms of direct combat deaths, injuries in these wars, the “wars on terror,” numbering in the tens of millions, but we also need to look at the deaths and injuries that are caused on a daily basis around U.S. military bases around the world. These bases have — in addition to enabling the wars that the United States has been fighting, they have very immediate harms that they inflict on local populations, including in the Philippines and in, as I said, around 80 countries and territories around the world, damage to their environments, their local communities, in a whole variety of ways.
AMY GOODMAN: David Vine, I want to thank you so much for being with us, professor of anthropology at American University, co-author of the new report on the Costs of War Project headlined “Creating Refugees: Displacement Caused by the United States’ Post-9/11 Wars.” Your new book, coming out, The United States of War.
This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in 30 seconds with the African American scholar and icon Barbara Smith, as we look at the issue of terrorism at home, as we look at the threat of white supremacist violence. Stay with us.


democracynow--2020-09-11--Headlines for September 11, 2020

Headlines for September 11, 2020

In Mexico , women have started occupying human rights offices across the country .
This comes as feminist groups and family members of women and girls who have been murdered or disappeared have occupied Mexico City ’ s National Human Rights Commission for a week .
In the city of Ecatepec , in the state of Mexico , police attacked and detained protesters at one of the feminist occupations last night .
Ecatepec is one of the most dangerous places for women in the country .
The activists and families are demanding the government do more to end disappearances and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of 11 women are killed daily in Mexico , and the perpetrators are rarely brought to justice .
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has frequently dismissed violence against women .
This is Yesenia Zamudio , whose 19-year-old daughter was murdered in Mexico City four years ago .
Yesenia Zamudio : “ We are the families , the real ones , the searchers , the diggers , those who have suffered femicide , rape , the survivors , the real women , those that no one names , that are not shown on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speak about everyone .
We are going to guarantee justice for all women , and we demand to live in a country free of violence .
It is our right .
… This occupation will help all women .
I told the secretary of the interior that if we don ’ t see a solution , we are going to take over the entire country .
”

In Mexico, women have started occupying human rights offices across the country. This comes as feminist groups and family members of women and girls who have been murdered or disappeared have occupied Mexico City’s National Human Rights Commission for a week. In the city of Ecatepec, in the state of Mexico, police attacked and detained protesters at one of the feminist occupations last night. Ecatepec is one of the most dangerous places for women in the country. The activists and families are demanding the government do more to end disappearances and investigate cases of femicides. An average of 11 women are killed daily in Mexico, and the perpetrators are rarely brought to justice. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has frequently dismissed violence against women. This is Yesenia Zamudio, whose 19-year-old daughter was murdered in Mexico City four years ago.
Yesenia Zamudio: “We are the families, the real ones, the searchers, the diggers, those who have suffered femicide, rape, the survivors, the real women, those that no one names, that are not shown on the television. … We are going to speak about everyone. We are going to guarantee justice for all women, and we demand to live in a country free of violence. It is our right. … This occupation will help all women. I told the secretary of the interior that if we don’t see a solution, we are going to take over the entire country.”


democracynow--2020-09-14--"Trump Is Criminality Personified": Rev. William Barber on Protecting the Vote & Mobilizing the Poor

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
Early voting begins this week in Minnesota , Wyoming and South Dakota , with the November 3rd election just seven weeks away .
But voting rights advocates are sounding the alarm over efforts to disenfranchise voters , as President Trump and others cast doubts on voting by mail .
In the key battleground state of Florida , a federal appeals court has ruled hundreds of thousands of former prisoners must first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can register to vote .
The ruling overturns a ruling by a federal judge who compared the restriction to an unconstitutional poll tax .
This comes nearly two years after voters in Florida approved a landmark referendum to restore voting rights to people with felony convictions .
In other election news , the Wisconsin Supreme Court has temporarily blocked absentee ballots from being mailed last week , one week before the deadline , while the court decides whether to add the Green Party ’ s candidate to the ballot .
Meanwhile , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ballots due to a slew of lawsuits and other challenges .
To talk more about voting rights and the election , we ’ re joined by Reverend William Barber , co-chair of the Poor People ’ s Campaign , president of Repairers of the Breach .
The Poor People ’ s Campaign is running a campaign ahead of the election called MORE .
It stands for Mobilizing , Organizing , Registering , [ Educating ] People for a Movement That Votes .
Reverend Barber is joining us from Raleigh , North Carolina , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you doing now , Reverend Barber , to get people out to the polls , as clearly that right is being cracked down on all over the country ?
REV .
WILLIAM BARBER II : Yeah .
We must do more , Amy .
And thank you for having me on .
We must do more mobilizing , organizing , registering , educating people for the movement who vote .
And voting is power unleashed .
And there ’ s a great fear of people of every race , creed and color , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There is fear .
It ’ s a fear that ’ s been around ever since the Southern Strategy was implemented by people like George Wallace and Strom Thurmond and Richard Nixon and Lee Atwater , because they know that if poor and low-wealth people mobilize together , they can change the outcome of elections .
And that ’ s not just emotional , that ’ s empirical .
So , what we ’ re doing is we have this campaign .
And tonight , you can go to www.PoorPeoplesCampaign.org tonight at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ West Coast .
We ’ re having a National Moral Monday “ Voting Is Power Unleashed ” teach-in .
And we had 3 million people that showed up for our Mass Poor People ’ s Assembly in June , on June 20th , to view .
We are inviting them and millions more to join us .
We ’ ve got to train the people on the power of the vote , the power to protect the vote , and the power to shape public policy by the vote .
And here ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In the last election , 63 million poor and low-wealth people did not vote — 63 million were eligible to vote , 29 million voted , 34 million didn ’ t vote .
We also did a study with a professor of Columbia , and it showed us that from Maryland to New Mexico , there are 193 Electoral College votes , so whoever locks that up goes into this race with 193 Electoral College votes , that are good in a race to 270 .
But we also found out from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many of them in those Southern states and across the Midwest , if poor and low-wealth voters just vote from 1 % to 19 % increase from last time — I want your viewers to hear that : not 20 % , not 21 , 25 , 30 % , just 1 to 19 % increase among poor and low-wealth people , regardless of race , creed or color , who vote issues , who vote their agenda — fundamentally shifts all the elections , from the gubernatorial to the Senate to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in those seats , and we can break the solid South .
So that ’ s why our campaign is really about mobilizing poor and low-wealth voters .
And tonight , we have them coming on .
We also invited Biden and Trump to talk about their campaigns and relate to poor and low-wealth people .
Trump never responded .
Biden said yes and is coming on .
Because here are three things our study also found out , Amy .
Poor and low-wealth people have not voted for three reasons , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
One is voter suppression .
The other is transportation and time off from work .
But the third is issues , not hearing candidates talk to them .
They talk about the middle class and the wealthy , but not talking to poor and low-wealth people .
When we say poor and low-wealth people , we ’ re talking about that 62 million people who work — 62 million people who work every day for less than a living wage .
We ’ re talking about 140 million poor and low-wealth people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of nearly 50 % of the nation after COVID .
We can not leave this demographic untouched , untalked to , untransformed and unorganized .
AMY GOODMAN : President Trump recently suggested people in North Carolina , where you are , break the law by voting twice in the upcoming presidential election — once by mail and then again in person — to test the election system .
This is what he said .
AMY GOODMAN : Under federal law , voting twice is illegal .
In North Carolina , it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ twice .
Meanwhile , the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign have sued the state of Montana to block an expansion of mail-in voting .
Reverend Barber , if you can comment on this , and also what just happened in Florida with the appeals court ruling that hundreds of thousands of people — I mean , this is a key swing state , where this could clearly tip the balance — will not be able to vote if they have felonies on their record and can ’ t afford to pay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at once ?
REV .
WILLIAM BARBER II : Well , first of all , Trump is criminality personified .
He will put his people at risk , because , you know , there ’ s a five-year felony prison sentence for doing exactly what he said do .
He wants to confuse the systems .
He knows that in North Carolina , for instance , we have numerous days of early voting , same-day registration .
We also have absentee balloting .
And we also have on Election Day .
And he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fundamentally lose .
You know , we just finished beating all of the racist voter suppression laws that Thom Tillis , who ’ s now in the Senate , who ’ s running again , in North Carolina , had helped put in place .
So this is the first election where we ’ re not under those voter suppression laws .
The courts have ruled both in our favor in terms of undoing racist gerrymandering , undoing those laws .
And North Carolina can easily turn with people turning out to vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We see , in these other states , the great fear that Republicans have of people voting .
They don ’ t want anybody to vote .
The only people they want to vote is the small group of people that support them .
They don ’ t want persons who have paid their debts to society to vote .
We ’ re having strange decisions , though .
And one thing we got , the decision we saw in Florida , but in North Carolina we just won a decision that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ formerly incarcerated people to vote , even if they have not finished paying their monetary debt to society .
What we are seeing is — in our Constitution , the 15th Amendment , it says no one can deny or abridge the right to vote .
What we ’ re seeing is an attempt to both deny and abridge the right to vote in real time .
And that ’ s why we have to fight back .
That ’ s why we have to know the law .
That ’ s why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ watchers he ’ s talking about sending in to question people , to intimidate us .
That ’ s why we can ’ t let precincts close .
That ’ s why people have to engage early voting .
That ’ s why we need to know our legal rights .
And that ’ s one of the things tonight .
We have two law firms that have fought against voter suppression : Forward Justice , led by attorney Caitlin Swain , and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund , led by Sherrilyn Ifill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ laying out what your power is to protect your vote .
And we have to stay in and be steadfast , because nobody would be fighting this hard to keep people from voting , if it was not rooted in fear .
AMY GOODMAN : Finally , Reverend Barber , we just have 20 seconds .
Tomorrow , Tuesday , September 15th , is the 57th anniversary of the bombing of the Birmingham church that killed the four little girls in 1963 .
In these last 20 seconds , your thoughts on what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ WILLIAM BARBER II : We ’ ll be there , Richard Trumka and I , with the AFL-CIO , and myself and a pastor laying a wreath and then speaking to the nation , that just like labor and faith came together in Birmingham to transform the nation , even after their deaths and before , we have to do the same thing today .
Tune in at 11:00 Central , 12:00 Eastern .
We have a message to the nation , calling everybody to join together to fight against regressivism and racism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for justice and for truth .
AMY GOODMAN : And that ’ s the PoorPeoplesCampaign.org .
Reverend Dr. William Barber , I want to thank you so much for being with us .
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
Thanks for joining us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman. Early voting begins this week in Minnesota, Wyoming and South Dakota, with the November 3rd election just seven weeks away. But voting rights advocates are sounding the alarm over efforts to disenfranchise voters, as President Trump and others cast doubts on voting by mail.
In the key battleground state of Florida, a federal appeals court has ruled hundreds of thousands of former prisoners must first pay court fines and fees before they can register to vote. The ruling overturns a ruling by a federal judge who compared the restriction to an unconstitutional poll tax. This comes nearly two years after voters in Florida approved a landmark referendum to restore voting rights to people with felony convictions.
In other election news, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has temporarily blocked absentee ballots from being mailed last week, one week before the deadline, while the court decides whether to add the Green Party’s candidate to the ballot. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, election officials delayed sending out ballots due to a slew of lawsuits and other challenges.
To talk more about voting rights and the election, we’re joined by Reverend William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, president of Repairers of the Breach. The Poor People’s Campaign is running a campaign ahead of the election called MORE. It stands for Mobilizing, Organizing, Registering, [Educating] People for a Movement That Votes. Reverend Barber is joining us from Raleigh, North Carolina, a key swing state.
What are you doing now, Reverend Barber, to get people out to the polls, as clearly that right is being cracked down on all over the country?
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: Yeah. We must do more, Amy. And thank you for having me on. We must do more mobilizing, organizing, registering, educating people for the movement who vote. And voting is power unleashed. And there’s a great fear of people of every race, creed and color, particularly poor and low-wealth people, organizing. There is fear. It’s a fear that’s been around ever since the Southern Strategy was implemented by people like George Wallace and Strom Thurmond and Richard Nixon and Lee Atwater, because they know that if poor and low-wealth people mobilize together, they can change the outcome of elections. And that’s not just emotional, that’s empirical.
So, what we’re doing is we have this campaign. And tonight, you can go to www.PoorPeoplesCampaign.org tonight at 7 p.m. East Coast, 4 p.m. West Coast. We’re having a National Moral Monday “Voting Is Power Unleashed” teach-in. And we had 3 million people that showed up for our Mass Poor People’s Assembly in June, on June 20th, to view. We are inviting them and millions more to join us. We’ve got to train the people on the power of the vote, the power to protect the vote, and the power to shape public policy by the vote.
And here’s what the metrics say, Amy. In the last election, 63 million poor and low-wealth people did not vote — 63 million were eligible to vote, 29 million voted, 34 million didn’t vote.
We also did a study with a professor of Columbia, and it showed us that from Maryland to New Mexico, there are 193 Electoral College votes, so whoever locks that up goes into this race with 193 Electoral College votes, that are good in a race to 270.
But we also found out from the data that in 15 states, many of them in those Southern states and across the Midwest, if poor and low-wealth voters just vote from 1% to 19% increase from last time — I want your viewers to hear that: not 20%, not 21, 25, 30%, just 1 to 19% increase among poor and low-wealth people, regardless of race, creed or color, who vote issues, who vote their agenda — fundamentally shifts all the elections, from the gubernatorial to the Senate to the presidency, can literally determine who sits in those seats, and we can break the solid South.
So that’s why our campaign is really about mobilizing poor and low-wealth voters. And tonight, we have them coming on. We also invited Biden and Trump to talk about their campaigns and relate to poor and low-wealth people. Trump never responded. Biden said yes and is coming on.
Because here are three things our study also found out, Amy. Poor and low-wealth people have not voted for three reasons, and they’re not necessarily in hierarchy. One is voter suppression. The other is transportation and time off from work. But the third is issues, not hearing candidates talk to them. They talk about the middle class and the wealthy, but not talking to poor and low-wealth people. When we say poor and low-wealth people, we’re talking about that 62 million people who work — 62 million people who work every day for less than a living wage. We’re talking about 140 million poor and low-wealth people prior to COVID, and now upwards of nearly 50% of the nation after COVID. We cannot leave this demographic untouched, untalked to, untransformed and unorganized.
AMY GOODMAN: President Trump recently suggested people in North Carolina, where you are, break the law by voting twice in the upcoming presidential election — once by mail and then again in person — to test the election system. This is what he said.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Let them send it in, and let them go vote. And if their system is as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote. So that’s the way it is. And that’s what they should do.
AMY GOODMAN: Under federal law, voting twice is illegal. In North Carolina, it’s also illegal to induce someone to vote twice. Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign have sued the state of Montana to block an expansion of mail-in voting. Reverend Barber, if you can comment on this, and also what just happened in Florida with the appeals court ruling that hundreds of thousands of people — I mean, this is a key swing state, where this could clearly tip the balance — will not be able to vote if they have felonies on their record and can’t afford to pay all of the costs related to this at once?
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, first of all, Trump is criminality personified. He will put his people at risk, because, you know, there’s a five-year felony prison sentence for doing exactly what he said do.
He wants to confuse the systems. He knows that in North Carolina, for instance, we have numerous days of early voting, same-day registration. We also have absentee balloting. And we also have on Election Day. And he knows that if people engage, they fundamentally lose. You know, we just finished beating all of the racist voter suppression laws that Thom Tillis, who’s now in the Senate, who’s running again, in North Carolina, had helped put in place. So this is the first election where we’re not under those voter suppression laws. The courts have ruled both in our favor in terms of undoing racist gerrymandering, undoing those laws. And North Carolina can easily turn with people turning out to vote. He simply wants to confuse everything.
We see, in these other states, the great fear that Republicans have of people voting. They don’t want anybody to vote. The only people they want to vote is the small group of people that support them. They don’t want persons who have paid their debts to society to vote. We’re having strange decisions, though. And one thing we got, the decision we saw in Florida, but in North Carolina we just won a decision that actually will allow a large number of formerly incarcerated people to vote, even if they have not finished paying their monetary debt to society.
What we are seeing is — in our Constitution, the 15th Amendment, it says no one can deny or abridge the right to vote. What we’re seeing is an attempt to both deny and abridge the right to vote in real time. And that’s why we have to fight back. That’s why we have to know the law. That’s why we can’t allow these poll watchers he’s talking about sending in to question people, to intimidate us. That’s why we can’t let precincts close. That’s why people have to engage early voting. That’s why we need to know our legal rights.
And that’s one of the things tonight. We have two law firms that have fought against voter suppression: Forward Justice, led by attorney Caitlin Swain, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, led by Sherrilyn Ifill. They’re going to be laying out what your power is to protect your vote. And we have to stay in and be steadfast, because nobody would be fighting this hard to keep people from voting, if it was not rooted in fear.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Reverend Barber, we just have 20 seconds. Tomorrow, Tuesday, September 15th, is the 57th anniversary of the bombing of the Birmingham church that killed the four little girls in 1963. In these last 20 seconds, your thoughts on what we should know today?
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: We’ll be there, Richard Trumka and I, with the AFL-CIO, and myself and a pastor laying a wreath and then speaking to the nation, that just like labor and faith came together in Birmingham to transform the nation, even after their deaths and before, we have to do the same thing today. Tune in at 11:00 Central, 12:00 Eastern. We have a message to the nation, calling everybody to join together to fight against regressivism and racism, and stand up for life, for justice and for truth.
AMY GOODMAN: And that’s the PoorPeoplesCampaign.org. Reverend Dr. William Barber, I want to thank you so much for being with us. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.


democracynow--2020-09-14--"These Are Climate Fires": Oregon Firefighter Ecologist Says Devastating Blazes Are a Wake-Up Call

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
As California , Oregon and Washington face unprecedented fires , President Trump is refusing to link the devastation to the climate crisis .
After ignoring the fires for a week , Trump is traveling to California today .
Over the weekend , he blamed the fires on poor forest management .
AMY GOODMAN : Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti also pushed back on Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a forest management issue .
Speaking on CNN , Garcetti said the president was reluctant to help California , Oregon and Washington because they have Democratic governors .
AMY GOODMAN : In Washington state , where firefighters are tackling 15 large fires , Governor Jay Inslee also emphasized the climate crisis is most responsible for the wildfires .
AMY GOODMAN : Meanwhile , in Oregon , six of the military helicopters operated by the state ’ s National Guard , that could have been used to help fight the wildfires , are not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ earlier this year .
This is Oregon Governor Kate Brown speaking Friday .
AMY GOODMAN : For more , we go to Eugene , Oregon , where we ’ re joined by Timothy Ingalsbee .
He is a wildland fire ecologist , former wildland firefighter , n ow director of Firefighters United for Safety , Ethics , and Ecology , known as FUSEE .
Welcome to Democracy Now !
, Tim .
First , describe the scene in Oregon .
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE : Well , the situation changes day by day , sometimes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ past week , we ’ ve had over two dozen very large fires burning on the west side of the Cascades .
These have been explosive rates of growth , tens of thousands of acres , several miles per day .
And it is natural for Oregon to have big fires high in the mountains .
What ’ s very freakish about these is to have these fires coming down from the mountains , barreling down our valleys , marching right up to the doorsteps of major metropolitan areas like Portland and Eugene @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beyond those people within the reach of flames ; the whole region is under a pall of smoke .
It ’ s literally blotting out the sun , from British Columbia to Baja .
As you noted , we had some of the world ’ s worst air quality .
And interestingly , this dense pall of smoke has largely grounded the fleet of helicopters and air tankers that would normally be working on these wildfires .
AMY GOODMAN : President Trump refuses , even being in Reno , Nevada , to make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He said this is linked to two words : “ forest management.
” Talk about the link to the climate crisis and what we ’ re seeing throughout the West .
And these fires are going way beyond .
I mean , they ’ re in Montana , they ’ re in Colorado , as well as Oregon , Washington and California , that they ’ re devastating .
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE : Well , these are climate fires .
And they ’ re the product of extreme heat waves and prolonged droughts and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s really rare about this , this event here in Oregon , is there was a regionwide east wind event .
The winds came screaming from the deserts on the east side of the mountains up over , barreled down these valleys and just propelled these flames .
And though some scientists hesitate to attribute a single event to climate change , these are exactly the conditions predicted by climatologists .
And where once they were rare — I mean , they ’ re not entirely unprecedented in our prehistoric past — they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ days ahead .
So , just the combination of heat and dryness and winds and lightning storms are making these fires explosive .
AMY GOODMAN : What about the fact that six helicopters that are supposed to be fighting Oregon ’ s — that could be used to fight the wildfires are in Oregon — are in Afghanistan ?
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE : Yeah .
Well , I guess we ’ re fighting one war or the other all across the planet .
But in addition to that , there ’ s been several @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Oregon that have been in California or Colorado for weeks .
So , I mean , it ’ s really a West-wide phenomenon , another indication of climate change .
Trump isn ’ t entirely wrong about forest management playing a role , because in addition to these fires being propelled by these hot , dry winds , they ’ re also raging through the industrial tree farms that were clear-cut in the 1970s and '80s , covered over with densely stocked young trees .
And where , you know , for an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , very high-intensity fire to kill those trees , it does n't take much for these tree farms to just be incinerated .
And what will be seen here in the Oregon landscape is kind of time going in reverse , the green veneer of tree farms that are being stripped off , and we ’ ll just see these proverbial moonscapes of barren , ash-covered slopes as these tree farms are incinerated .
That ’ s what ’ s burning in the Holiday Farm market — Holiday Farm Fire outside my town @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you talk about your experience as a firefighter , and what you think needs to happen right now ?
Now , we had heard that something like 10 % of the population of Oregon was under evacuation orders , but that was taken back .
What is happening ?
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE : Well , again , it ’ s very chaotic .
When these fires erupted , in some cases , you know , the wind event blew down power lines in the dark of night right on the edge of towns , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and flames lapping at their walls , and they had to flee for their lives .
The first crews to arrive there were not even able to engage the fire .
They had to help people evacuate .
So , it wasn ’ t for a couple days that firefighters were actually able to fight the fire .
They were being more like traffic control cops .
So , we were really short-handed .
A very important point , though , is , no amount of firefighters , engines , air tankers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to handle phenomena like this .
This is a climate-driven wildfire .
Nature is far more powerful than us .
And so , unless and until we get a handle on our fossil fuel emissions , there ’ s nothing we can do that will really prevent these kinds of events from happening .
And once happening , very little that we can do , other than just get out of the way .
AMY GOODMAN : Tim Ingalsbee , if you can talk about your daughter ’ s lawsuit ?
Last year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Kelsey Juliana , who was the lead plaintiff in the landmark youth climate lawsuit against the U.S. government .
I started by asking her about the lawsuit .
AMY GOODMAN : So , that ’ s Kelsey Juliana , Tim , your daughter .
Explain this lawsuit and what ’ s happened to it .
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE : Well , I ’ m very proud of my daughter and her peers , who are , you know , taking on the federal government .
An important point for people to understand is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the federal government that is part of the climate crisis ; it ’ s their deliberate actions , pushing more fossil fuel extraction and burning , you know , promoting the alteration of the planet ’ s atmosphere and oceans .
And so , this is a constitutional-based case , that this is causing — the government is causing my daughter ’ s generation and all future generations , of all species , for that matter , significant harm .
And so , it ’ s been tied up in court for years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when she started this case .
Who knows when it will be resolved ?
She may be a middle-aged woman .
AMY GOODMAN : Started under Obama , is that right ?
Now moved on to Trump .
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE : That ’ s right , because this has been , you know , both parties .
All administrations , for decades , have knowingly been putting the planet in peril by promoting the fossil fuel civilization , you might say .
So , I ’ m hopeful that the case will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the meantime , these are big , big , huge problems , dealing with climate change , dealing with rural sprawl .
I mean , that ’ s what ’ s making this a disaster .
So many people are in the pathway of these fires .
And then the legacy of clearcut logging , livestock grazing , you know , mining , other things that have really damaged the ecosystems , made them less resilient to climate change .
So — AMY GOODMAN : Timothy Ingalsbee , if you could talk about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out Cadillac insurance , and what this means , hiring private firefighters ?
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE : Right .
This is — wealthy people can purchase private firefighters to protect their properties in case of fire .
And that goes back to the early days of even municipal fire departments , where , you know , you ’ d have to buy protection , and they would skip over homes that weren ’ t part of the service , and protect those that were .
But what that portends is a further decline in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agency crews to protect all of us , in favor of just those who are wealthy enough to buy their own protection .
And just like the pandemic , though , wildfire makes no distinctions between rich and poor .
And , you know , as now in Oregon , we ’ ve suddenly realized we ’ re all in the fire zone , even those of us in the middle of the city .
It just takes one home to ignite , and then we have house-to-house ignitions , like a domino @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re all in this together , really .
AMY GOODMAN : You know , California Governor Newsom just signed a law that will allow some prisoners , who are firefighters , who haven ’ t been able to become firefighters once they get out of jail , though they ’ re among the most experienced , that they will have their records expunged , making it easier for them to become professional firefighters when they ’ re released , and apply for jobs .
Newsom tweeted Friday , quote , “ CA ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has long needed reform , ” unquote , along with a picture of him signing the law in a scorched forest .
A lot of these private firefighters — some of them are those former prisoners who couldn ’ t get into the public firefighting forces .
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE : Yeah , yeah .
You know , in California , the inmate firefighters have a reputation to be some of the bravest , most hard-working , fearless firefighters .
This is — it ’ s about time .
It ’ s a matter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their sentence , they should be members of society with job opportunities .
But we have to kind of get beyond the monopolization of fire management by government agencies .
And really , there ’ s a huge role that communities and citizens should play as partners with government agencies in preparing their homes for fire , because we know we can ’ t prevent all these fires .
Large fires are natural and inevitable , but urban fire disasters are entirely avoidable .
AMY GOODMAN : Timothy Ingalsbee , we want to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us , wildland fire ecologist , former wildland firefighter himself , now director of FUSEE .
That ’ s Firefighters United for Safety , Ethics , and Ecology .
When we come back , we go to Reverend William Barber in North Carolina to talk about a new voting campaign .
Stay with us .
AMY GOODMAN : “ Take Me Home , Country Roads ” by Toots and the Maytals .
He [ Toots Hibbert ] died on September 11th in Jamaica .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
As California, Oregon and Washington face unprecedented fires, President Trump is refusing to link the devastation to the climate crisis. After ignoring the fires for a week, Trump is traveling to California today. Over the weekend, he blamed the fires on poor forest management.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But, you know, it is about forest management. Please remember the words, very simple: forest management. Please remember. It’s about forest management.
AMY GOODMAN: California Governor Newsom rejected Trump’s focus on forest management practices.
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: I’m a little bit exhausted that we have to continue to debate this issue. This is a climate damn emergency. … And I’m not going to suggest for a second that the forest management practices in the state of California over a century-plus have been ideal, but that’s one point, but it’s not the point.
AMY GOODMAN: Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti also pushed back on Trump’s characterization of the wildfires as a forest management issue. Speaking on CNN, Garcetti said the president was reluctant to help California, Oregon and Washington because they have Democratic governors.
MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI: This is climate change. And this is an administration that’s put its head in the sand. While we have Democratic and Republican mayors across the country stepping up to do their part, this is an administration, a president, who wants to withdraw from the Paris climate accords later this year — the only country in the world to do so. Talk to a firefighter if you think that climate change isn’t real. And it seems like this administration are the last vestiges of the Flat Earth Society of this generation. We need real action.
AMY GOODMAN: In Washington state, where firefighters are tackling 15 large fires, Governor Jay Inslee also emphasized the climate crisis is most responsible for the wildfires.
GOV. JAY INSLEE: These are not just wildfires. They are climate fires. And we cannot and we will not surrender our state and expose people to have their homes burned down and their lives lost because of climate fires.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, in Oregon, six of the military helicopters operated by the state’s National Guard, that could have been used to help fight the wildfires, are not available because they were sent to Afghanistan earlier this year. This is Oregon Governor Kate Brown speaking Friday.
GOV. KATE BROWN: Well over a million acres of land has burned, which is over 1,500 square miles. Right now our air quality ranks the worst in the world due to these fires. … There is no question that the changing climate is exacerbating what we see on the ground. We had, as we mentioned earlier, unprecedented, a weather event with winds and temperatures. In addition, we added a ground that has had a 30-year drought. So, it made for extremely challenging circumstances and has certainly exacerbated the situation.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Eugene, Oregon, where we’re joined by Timothy Ingalsbee. He is a wildland fire ecologist, former wildland firefighter, n ow director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology, known as FUSEE.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Tim. First, describe the scene in Oregon.
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE: Well, the situation changes day by day, sometimes even by the hour. But this past week, we’ve had over two dozen very large fires burning on the west side of the Cascades. These have been explosive rates of growth, tens of thousands of acres, several miles per day.
And it is natural for Oregon to have big fires high in the mountains. What’s very freakish about these is to have these fires coming down from the mountains, barreling down our valleys, marching right up to the doorsteps of major metropolitan areas like Portland and Eugene. So, it’s even beyond those people within the reach of flames; the whole region is under a pall of smoke. It’s literally blotting out the sun, from British Columbia to Baja.
As you noted, we had some of the world’s worst air quality. And interestingly, this dense pall of smoke has largely grounded the fleet of helicopters and air tankers that would normally be working on these wildfires.
AMY GOODMAN: President Trump refuses, even being in Reno, Nevada, to make the connection to the climate crisis. He said this is linked to two words: “forest management.” Talk about the link to the climate crisis and what we’re seeing throughout the West. And these fires are going way beyond. I mean, they’re in Montana, they’re in Colorado, as well as Oregon, Washington and California, that they’re devastating.
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE: Well, these are climate fires. And they’re the product of extreme heat waves and prolonged droughts and then very low humidities. What’s really rare about this, this event here in Oregon, is there was a regionwide east wind event. The winds came screaming from the deserts on the east side of the mountains up over, barreled down these valleys and just propelled these flames. And though some scientists hesitate to attribute a single event to climate change, these are exactly the conditions predicted by climatologists. And where once they were rare — I mean, they’re not entirely unprecedented in our prehistoric past — they will become much more frequent in the days ahead. So, just the combination of heat and dryness and winds and lightning storms are making these fires explosive.
AMY GOODMAN: What about the fact that six helicopters that are supposed to be fighting Oregon’s — that could be used to fight the wildfires are in Oregon — are in Afghanistan?
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE: Yeah. Well, I guess we’re fighting one war or the other all across the planet. But in addition to that, there’s been several firefighters and engines and other crews from Oregon that have been in California or Colorado for weeks. So, I mean, it’s really a West-wide phenomenon, another indication of climate change.
Trump isn’t entirely wrong about forest management playing a role, because in addition to these fires being propelled by these hot, dry winds, they’re also raging through the industrial tree farms that were clear-cut in the 1970s and '80s, covered over with densely stocked young trees. And where, you know, for an old-growth forest it takes a very rare, very high-intensity fire to kill those trees, it doesn't take much for these tree farms to just be incinerated. And what will be seen here in the Oregon landscape is kind of time going in reverse, the green veneer of tree farms that are being stripped off, and we’ll just see these proverbial moonscapes of barren, ash-covered slopes as these tree farms are incinerated. That’s what’s burning in the Holiday Farm market — Holiday Farm Fire outside my town.
AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about your experience as a firefighter, and what you think needs to happen right now? Now, we had heard that something like 10% of the population of Oregon was under evacuation orders, but that was taken back. What is happening?
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE: Well, again, it’s very chaotic. When these fires erupted, in some cases, you know, the wind event blew down power lines in the dark of night right on the edge of towns, and so people had almost no warning, and flames lapping at their walls, and they had to flee for their lives. The first crews to arrive there were not even able to engage the fire. They had to help people evacuate. So, it wasn’t for a couple days that firefighters were actually able to fight the fire. They were being more like traffic control cops. So, we were really short-handed.
A very important point, though, is, no amount of firefighters, engines, air tankers, or whatever, will be able to handle phenomena like this. This is a climate-driven wildfire. Nature is far more powerful than us. And so, unless and until we get a handle on our fossil fuel emissions, there’s nothing we can do that will really prevent these kinds of events from happening. And once happening, very little that we can do, other than just get out of the way.
AMY GOODMAN: Tim Ingalsbee, if you can talk about your daughter’s lawsuit? Last year, Democracy Now! spoke to Kelsey, Kelsey Juliana, who was the lead plaintiff in the landmark youth climate lawsuit against the U.S. government. I started by asking her about the lawsuit.
KELSEY JULIANA: This lawsuit is a constitutional climate change case against the U.S. federal government, filed by 21 courageous young individuals in 2015. At the time, the youngest was 8, and the oldest, myself, was 19. This case looks at the actions of the federal government for the past several decades of helping to perpetuate the climate crisis by continuing to fund the fossil fuel economy, endangering the lives of all citizens, but especially disproportionately harming the lives of young citizens and future generations.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Kelsey Juliana, Tim, your daughter. Explain this lawsuit and what’s happened to it.
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE: Well, I’m very proud of my daughter and her peers, who are, you know, taking on the federal government. An important point for people to understand is it’s not the inaction of the federal government that is part of the climate crisis; it’s their deliberate actions, pushing more fossil fuel extraction and burning, you know, promoting the alteration of the planet’s atmosphere and oceans. And so, this is a constitutional-based case, that this is causing — the government is causing my daughter’s generation and all future generations, of all species, for that matter, significant harm. And so, it’s been tied up in court for years. My daughter was a young girl when she started this case. Who knows when it will be resolved? She may be a middle-aged woman.
AMY GOODMAN: Started under Obama, is that right? Now moved on to Trump.
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE: That’s right, because this has been, you know, both parties. All administrations, for decades, have knowingly been putting the planet in peril by promoting the fossil fuel civilization, you might say. So, I’m hopeful that the case will be resolved in our favor. But in the meantime, these are big, big, huge problems, dealing with climate change, dealing with rural sprawl. I mean, that’s what’s making this a disaster. So many people are in the pathway of these fires. And then the legacy of clearcut logging, livestock grazing, you know, mining, other things that have really damaged the ecosystems, made them less resilient to climate change. So —
AMY GOODMAN: Timothy Ingalsbee, if you could talk about wealthy people hiring — or, taking out Cadillac insurance, and what this means, hiring private firefighters?
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE: Right. This is — wealthy people can purchase private firefighters to protect their properties in case of fire. And that goes back to the early days of even municipal fire departments, where, you know, you’d have to buy protection, and they would skip over homes that weren’t part of the service, and protect those that were. But what that portends is a further decline in the public agencies and the ability of agency crews to protect all of us, in favor of just those who are wealthy enough to buy their own protection.
And just like the pandemic, though, wildfire makes no distinctions between rich and poor. And, you know, as now in Oregon, we’ve suddenly realized we’re all in the fire zone, even those of us in the middle of the city. It just takes one home to ignite, and then we have house-to-house ignitions, like a domino effect. And so, we’re all in this together, really.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, California Governor Newsom just signed a law that will allow some prisoners, who are firefighters, who haven’t been able to become firefighters once they get out of jail, though they’re among the most experienced, that they will have their records expunged, making it easier for them to become professional firefighters when they’re released, and apply for jobs. Newsom tweeted Friday, quote, “CA’s inmate firefighter program is decades-old and has long needed reform,” unquote, along with a picture of him signing the law in a scorched forest. A lot of these private firefighters — some of them are those former prisoners who couldn’t get into the public firefighting forces.
TIMOTHY INGALSBEE: Yeah, yeah. You know, in California, the inmate firefighters have a reputation to be some of the bravest, most hard-working, fearless firefighters. This is — it’s about time. It’s a matter of justice, that once they pay their sentence, they should be members of society with job opportunities.
But we have to kind of get beyond the monopolization of fire management by government agencies. And really, there’s a huge role that communities and citizens should play as partners with government agencies in preparing their homes for fire, because we know we can’t prevent all these fires. Large fires are natural and inevitable, but urban fire disasters are entirely avoidable.
AMY GOODMAN: Timothy Ingalsbee, we want to thank you so much for being with us, wildland fire ecologist, former wildland firefighter himself, now director of FUSEE. That’s Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology.
When we come back, we go to Reverend William Barber in North Carolina to talk about a new voting campaign. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by Toots and the Maytals. He [Toots Hibbert] died on September 11th in Jamaica.