democracynow--2020-02-24--Sanders & Socialism: Debate Between Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman & Socialist Economist Richard Wolff

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The War and Peace Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , as we continue to look at Senator Bernie Sanders ’ runaway victory in Nevada , which cemented his position as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination .
As Sanders ’ bid for the Democratic nomination looks more and more likely , the Democratic Party establishment and much of the mainstream media are openly expressing concern about a self-described democratic socialist leading @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including former Vice President Joe Biden and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg , are also on the attack .
AMY GOODMAN : That was Joe Biden and , before that , Pete Buttigieg .
They were speaking on Saturday night after the results from the Nevada caucuses rolled in .
Well , last week , during the primary debate in Las Vegas , Bernie Sanders addressed misconceptions about socialism .
AMY GOODMAN : So , that was Bernie Sanders .
For more , we host a debate on Bernie Sanders and democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ York studio is the Nobel Prize-winning economist , the op-ed columnist for The New York Times , Paul Krugman .
His latest book is just out .
It ’ s called Arguing with Zombies : Economics , Politics , and the Fight for a Better Future .
One of his recent columns is headlined “ Bernie Sanders Isn ’ t a Socialist.
” Also with us in studio is Richard Wolff , professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts , Amherst , visiting professor at The New School here in New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democracy at Work and hosts a weekly national TV and radio program called Economic Update .
Among his books , his latest is called Understanding Socialism .
We welcome you both to Democracy Now !
Well , what do you make of what is happening right now , Paul Krugman , with Bernie Sanders so far the clear front-runner — AMY GOODMAN : — but moving into South Carolina , and why that headline , “ Bernie Sanders Is Not a Socialist , ” what you were getting at ?
PAUL KRUGMAN : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he loves Denmark .
I love Denmark .
I think Denmark is an illustration of how decent a society can be .
The Danes don ’ t think that they ’ re socialists .
They think that they ’ re social democrats .
They don ’ t use the word “ socialist.
” And it isn ’ t socialism as we ’ ve always used to understand it .
It ’ s not government ownership of the means of production .
It ’ s not seizing the commanding heights of the economy .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ safety net and a strong labor movement , all of which I support .
In Arguing with Zombies , I have a whole chapter called “ Eek !
Socialism !
” which is about the Republican habit of playing three-card monte .
You say that you ’ re for universal healthcare ; they say , “ That ’ s socialist.
” You say you ’ re for universal child care ; they say , “ Think about how many people Stalin killed.
” You know , it ’ s this crazy stuff .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Why describe yourself ?
I think it ’ s kind of self-indulgent to call yourself a socialist and give the Republicans unnecessary ammunition .
I think , probably , we ’ re for the same — I ’ m for the same kinds of policies .
I ’ m for universal healthcare , universal child care , all of these things .
Why buy into the Republican effort to make this sound like something Stalin would do ?
AMY GOODMAN : Well , he calls himself a democratic socialist , is that right @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s cutting it way too fine .
Why use the word ?
AMY GOODMAN : Let me turn to a clip from the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas last week .
First we hear from Bernie Sanders , then Mike Bloomberg .
AMY GOODMAN : So , there was Michael Bloomberg , the former mayor of New York City , going after Bernie Sanders .
Richard Wolff , you describe yourself as a socialist economist .
Respond to what both Paul Krugman says and what Bloomberg is saying here .
RICHARD @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agency , neither public nor private , that defines what a socialist is .
If you follow the socialist movement for the last 150 years , you would discover that it has been a contested terrain from day one .
There were different interpretations and different meanings .
Bernie Sanders is perfectly in line with one of the traditions of what socialism is .
It ’ s the government having a big role in offsetting some of the awful qualities of capitalism .
But we also know that the kind of control that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ difficult for it to succeed with .
We once had a New Deal in this country .
We lost most of it because we didn ’ t go beyond a government intervention to change the society .
What Bernie Sanders represents is an awareness that it ’ s time to have a conversation we should have had for 75 years about our capitalist system and whether we can do better .
This is now a changed environment in which what was taboo in this country isn ’ t anymore .
And Bernie has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in this country to talk about socialism , its strengths and weaknesses , its different interpretations , and compare them to capitalism , rather than running away because nasty conservatives call us various names .
That ’ s not a profound reason .
And for the young people of this country , it doesn ’ t carry much weight anyway .
So I welcome the opening that Bernie achieves , that we can talk about socialism , its different interpretations and why we ought to explore them a lot more than we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the last 75 years .
PAUL KRUGMAN : I actually agree that a lot of young people have reacted .
I mean , we have a 60-year-long campaign of equating any attempt to make American lives better with socialism , and a fair number of young people have said , “ Well , in that case , I ’ m a socialist.
” The trouble is , you ’ re not going to win this election without a fair number of old people , too .
And it just seems to me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to go down this route .
I wish he wouldn ’ t .
I mean , if Sanders is the nominee , then Democrats are going to have to get behind him , and people like me are going to end up writing lots of things saying , you know , “ Don ’ t be scared .
He , yes , uses the word 'socialist , ' but he doesn ’ t actually mean what Republicans think — want you to think he means.
” But who needed this , this extra @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not sure that this is — I ’ m not sure I quite see what the point is .
I mean , it seems to me that there ’ s — to make the argument that says , “ I want social justice .
I want a strong government safety net .
I want worker empowerment , ” you can say all of those things without having to give ammunition to people who want to make you sound like Stalin .
So , I mean , I ’ m going to be spending @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will probably be the nominee , and I expect to spend a lot of the next year saying , “ Look , he ’ s really talking about Denmark , not Venezuela.
” But I shouldn ’ t have to be doing that .
RICHARD WOLFF : I ’ m proud to be part of the socialist tradition .
And I understand Paul ’ s difficulty .
He ’ s having to defend now a centrism that ’ s being rejected by a large number of people .
The stunning reality is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ least age 35 and under , no longer think that “ socialism ” is a bad word , and they are immune to that .
And the young people are the future of this country , which the older people know , too .
And they are being asked to question — the older ones , by the younger ones — why this taboo , why we couldn ’ t talk about socialism , why we can ’ t embrace a socialism .
And on electability ?
My goodness , if we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years , we ’ ve seen the center , whether it ’ s in Europe or this country , falling away , disappearing — center-left , center-right — for the extremes on the right and now an extreme on the left .
I don ’ t find that frightening .
I understand people who are centrists do .
But I welcome that we can have an honest debate in this country .
And there ’ s much in the socialist tradition that is well worth keeping .
There are lessons of what we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lessons of what we shouldn ’ t do , which is true for capitalism , as well .
So , we ’ re opening things up .
And I think when it comes to electability , we have as much to argue that this is the way forward as anyone on the other side .
PAUL KRUGMAN : By the way , I don ’ t think — I don ’ t think the people who send me hate mail think — and I am the king of hate mail — think that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
I ’ m for universal healthcare .
I ’ m for deficit spending on infrastructure .
I ’ m for universal child care .
If that ’ s centrism , then , you know , let ’ s have it .
By that standard , Denmark is centrist , right ?
AMY GOODMAN : I want to — before we go to issues like Medicare for All , I want to turn to MSNBC and what ’ s been happening over the weekend , a kind of meltdown on MSNBC around the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ s the front-runner .
And chief among those melting down appears to be MSNBC host Chris Matthews , who this weekend compared Senator Sanders ’ Nevada victory to Nazi Germany ’ s takeover of France .
AMY GOODMAN : So , Bernie Sanders ’ communications director , Mike Casca , responded to Matthews ’ comment on Twitter , saying , quote , “ never thought part of my job would be pleading with a national news network to stop likening the campaign of a jewish presidential candidate whose family was wiped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reich .
but here we are.
” A number of people are now calling for Chris Matthews to resign .
Paul Krugman ?
PAUL KRUGMAN : Yes .
I mean , far be it for me to defend Chris Matthews , who I think has been a malign influence on a lot of our political discourse .
I don ’ t think he was actually calling Sanders a Nazi .
He was just thinking of , this is what it looks like when you ’ ve lost .
But it was stupid .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ insensitive .
And it was characteristic .
I mean , if — that ’ s what centrism sounds like , this notion that calling for universal healthcare or stuff is some kind of extreme position .
And , no , I mean , this is — it ’ s telling you something about where Matthews ’ s head is at , and not something good .
And unfortunately , I don ’ t think it ’ s unique .
The fact of the matter is , there ’ s a lot of — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Oh , I might have to vote for Trump , if Sanders is nominated.
” AMY GOODMAN : And explain the significance of who Lloyd Blankfein is .
PAUL KRUGMAN : Lloyd Blankfein , Goldman Sachs .
And , you know , for God ’ s sake , yeah , Trump might — Sanders might raise your taxes .
That is not an important consideration .
American democracy is on the line .
So , there are a lot of people out there who are — I ’ m not sure how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot of influential people out there who are horrified by the prospect of a strongly progressive candidate .
And that should be condemned .
You know , I just wish he wouldn ’ t call himself a socialist .
RICHARD WOLFF : Well , I think politics is shifting , and the centrists are having to discover that they are centrists because the politics has moved to the left .
That ’ s what Bernie has accomplished .
That ’ s what the young people around him have accomplished .
It may be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to think of themselves as the left to discover they ’ re not , that there ’ s a movement to their left .
But we ’ re very proud that that has returned as a kind of sanity of balance in our political discourse .
And so , I ’ m not surprised that people like Matthews overreact , because they ’ re being outflanked on the left .
They weren ’ t ready for it .
I remember , in 2016 , talking to a high official of the Democratic Party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never get more than 1 or 2 % of any vote , anywhere , ever .
And they didn ’ t know , and they didn ’ t understand .
And it ’ s a little bit like the old Bob Dylan song , you know , “ Wake Up.
” There ’ s things going on that you didn ’ t foresee and that are shifting the ground on which you stand .
But I want to be clear that many of us welcome this .
AMY GOODMAN : I mean , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He recently said , “ I remember the Cold War .
I have an attitude toward Fidel Castro.
” He added , “ I believe if Castro and the Reds had won the Cold War , there would have been executions in Central Park , and I might have been one of the ones getting executed .
And certain other people would be there cheering , ” suggesting , as he was talking about Bernie Sanders , that Bernie Sanders would be responsible for his execution in Central Park .
RICHARD WOLFF @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is — all that I hear in all of this is an anguished fear that the politics is moving to the left .
These are individuals who made a commitment long ago in their lives not to go to the left , even if they had sympathies there , to stay in the middle , because it was the safe , the wise thing for their future , for the country and for their careers .
And that ’ s no longer the case .
And they are outraged , and out come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : We ’ re going to break , then come back to this discussion .
We ’ re talking to two economists .
Richard Wolff has a new book out .
It ’ s called Understanding Socialism .
And the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has a new book out .
It ’ s called Arguing with Zombies : Economics , Politics , and the Fight for a Better Future .
Stay with us .
AMY GOODMAN : “ All Your Questions Answered ” by McCarthy .
This is Democracy Now !
, @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , as we continue our debate on Bernie Sanders and democratic socialism with Paul Krugman , Nobel Prize-winning economist , op-ed columnist for The New York Times , has a new book out called Arguing with Zombies , and Richard Wolff , emeritus professor of economics at University of Massachusetts , Amherst , visiting professor at The New School .
His book is called Understanding Socialism .
So , Paul Krugman , I wanted to go to your — one of your columns that you just wrote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t the Left ’ s Trump , ” where you write , “ I ’ m more concerned about … the electability of someone who says he ’ s a socialist even though he isn ’ t and … if he does win , whether he ’ ll squander political capital on unwinnable fights like abolishing private health insurance.
” Your stance on Medicare for All ?
PAUL KRUGMAN : If I could do it , if I could wave a magic wand , or if I had a time machine and could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we almost — almost — got single-payer healthcare , I would do it in a moment .
It ’ s not the only way to do it .
One thing you learn if you study healthcare systems is every other advanced country has universal healthcare , they do it in different ways .
Some of them have government provision .
Some of them have regulated private healthcare .
Some of them have single payer .
Single payer is not the only solution , but it ’ s fine .
The trouble is , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America who have private health insurance .
You ’ re saying to those people , “ We ’ re going to replace what you have with something completely different .
Trust us .
It ’ ll be better.
” It will probably be true : For most of them , it would be better .
But that ’ s a huge political lift .
You ’ re asking people to make a huge leap of faith , whereas we can in fact get to universal coverage through a more — through a public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America , something that lets people buy into Medicare and subsidizes it , without having to waste their time .
And there are so many — you know , that ’ s not — having the absolute best healthcare system is not the only priority .
If I had to say what is the most — biggest gap in America is that we ’ re not doing enough to help children .
And I would like to get another couple percent of GDP spent on helping children in a variety of ways .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Medicare for All will kill that possibility .
AMY GOODMAN : Interestingly , when you look at the polls in New Hampshire and in Nevada about what people care most about , in both places it ’ s the same .
Number one is healthcare .
Number two is climate change .
Number three , I think it ’ s inequality .
AMY GOODMAN : Number four , it ’ s foreign policy .
And especially in Nevada , Richard Wolff , what ’ s interesting is you had a very powerful union @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were offering excellent health insurance to their workers , and yet their workers overwhelmingly , the rank and file , bucked the leadership and said , “ Even if we ’ re getting great healthcare , we have family members who are not , loved ones who are not .
And ultimately , we want Medicare for All.
” So , explain this discrepancy .
Paul Krugman is saying it ’ s not realistic .
RICHARD WOLFF : Well , I think , again , the politics in America have changed .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans want to hear the details about what you might get and how careful we should be and what step we should — they want change .
They wanted it from Obama , who promised hope and change .
They wanted it even from Mr. Trump , who promised a change .
We didn ’ t get the changes that they promised , neither the one nor the other .
And so people now want something that will solve their problem , will not respect the old , centrist “ Let ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this , let ’ s not push too hard.
” They want the opposite .
AMY GOODMAN : So , how do you get to Medicare for All immediately , or more rapidly than what Paul Krugman is suggesting can be done ?
RICHARD WOLFF : Well , I agree with Paul , which surprises probably both of us .
But the point is , there are plenty of models out there of countries that have , in a variety of ways , answered the basic human demand : “ I want to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that when I ’ m born and until I die , if something happens to me in the way of illness or injury , I am taken care of .
Like I want a public park and I want public schools , I want public healthcare.
” And they don ’ t want the details and the hesitance .
They want that .
And any of them would be a perfectly good basis .
AMY GOODMAN : You know , it ’ s always interested me how people look to other countries to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we have the model right here at home .
We have Medicare , one of the most of popular programs in this country .
RICHARD WOLFF : Yes , by all means .
PAUL KRUGMAN : Oh , yeah .
We have socialized medicine for everybody over 65 , and — although it ’ s interesting .
If you look at it , we also do have private insurance .
We have not abolished private supplemental insurance for older people in America .
So , it is , in a way , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actually existing Medicare that we have for older Americans is not as radical as the Medicare that Bernie Sanders is proposing for everyone .
But look , yeah , the United States contains multitudes .
We have pure socialized medicine .
The Veterans Health Administration is actual government provision of healthcare , and it works .
We have regulated private markets and Obamacare .
I mean , people trash Obama a lot , but , you know , given the constraints he was under , he got 20 million people health insurance who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I personally know people whose lives were saved by Obamacare .
So let ’ s not dismiss it as nothing .
And we have single payer .
But , you know , that , in a way , is telling you that there are many ways to achieve it .
And we should look at — every other country does it for everybody .
The problem is , we have a safety net that ’ s got huge holes in it .
AMY GOODMAN : Interestingly , this Yale study just came out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said Medicare for All would save the U.S. $ 450 billion and prevent nearly 70,000 deaths a year .
You have Bernie Sanders recently saying that he wants people in the movement to say , “ I ’ m willing to fight for someone I don ’ t know.
” RICHARD WOLFF : Yeah , I mean , I could match Paul ’ s argument in his little model of somebody whose life was saved by introducing him to people whose life was lost , or at least their relatives , because they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mr. Obama was unable to get .
RICHARD WOLFF : And for someone who kept saying , “ I could do more , if only I had a groundswell of support , ” we do have to remember that when that groundswell developed , called Occupy Wall Street , Mr. Obama wiped it out with his bulldozers in Zuccotti Park and everywhere else , undercutting the very groundswell he had earlier used as an excuse for not doing more .
But my response is , whether it ’ s healthcare or a decent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saddle them with tens of thousands of dollars of debt , the demand is now out there , and that ’ s what ’ s fueling Mr. Bernie Sanders ’ support .
They don ’ t want the middling bit , old , this change , that .
They want these problems , that — Paul is right — have existed in this country for many years , they want it finally solved .
And they want a politician who they can believe might actually do it , as opposed to those in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and promising it and belaboring the difficulties , and basically not getting it done .
AMY GOODMAN : One of your columns , Paul Krugman , you talk about — the headline is “ Have Zombies Eaten Bloomberg ’ s and Buttigieg ’ s Brains ?
” PAUL KRUGMAN : OK. That was mostly — so , my book is Arguing with Zombies .
And one of the zombies is this obsession with public debt and the belief that we should be terribly scared of government debt , and we can ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ !
And that ’ s the way Buttigieg talks now , at that very moment when mainstream economics , if you like , centrist economics , has concluded , “ Hey , these debt worries were way overblown.
” You know , the president of the American Economic Association gave this presidential address saying debt is just not nearly the problem people think it is , and it ’ s not a constraint .
And , of course , Republicans have pulled one of the greatest acts of policy hypocrisy in history .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ threat as long as Obama was in office ; they don ’ t matter as soon as Trump is in office .
So , I really don ’ t want to see — I mean , if we did get a Democratic centrist who bought into this deficit scaremongering , that would be a really bad thing .
That would block any kind of initiative .
AMY GOODMAN : And as we begin to wrap up , there is a mayoral — there is a presidential debate coming up on Tuesday night in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidates are billionaires .
RICHARD WOLFF : Well , for me , it is always an astonishment to observe this inequality getting worse and worse .
I ’ m one of the people , even though I wasn ’ t alive then , who celebrated that during the 1930s we compressed the inequality in this country by means of an unusual president , whose politics are remarkably like that of Mr. Bernie Sanders these days , and we actually did something to lessen the inequality .
And as soon as the war was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the New Deal , and the inequality began to get to the crazy levels now .
It is an abomination that one person — for example , Jeffrey Bezos — disposes of $ 100-plus billion deciding what is to be done with all those resources .
That ’ s not democratic .
That excludes the mass of people from the needs that could be met if that money was used differently .
And he can hardly consume it himself .
It ’ s an extraordinary critique of capitalism that it allows this kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ course , protects itself by trying to control the politics of our country , so that they don ’ t have the power in Congress to undo the inequality in the first place .
So , for me , declaiming against that , right on , Bernie Sanders .
PAUL KRUGMAN : I mean , I don ’ t think billionaires are inherently evil , but there is something wrong when two guys who really don ’ t have any kind of national political base are in this debate only because of their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of course , that Steyer may well make Bernie Sanders the nominee by drawing support away from Biden .
But no , this is — I mean , as these guys go — PAUL KRUGMAN : Yeah .
Bloomberg is not evil , but he shouldn ’ t be in this race .
AMY GOODMAN : We want to leave it there for the moment , but of course we will continue to cover all of this during this 2020 election year .
We will be doing a five-hour special on Super Tuesday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Time right through midnight .
I want to thank Paul Krugman , Nobel Prize-winning economist , op-ed columnist for The New York Times .
He is the author of numerous books .
His latest , Arguing with Zombies .
And thanks so much to Richard Wolff , author of the new book Understanding Socialism .
That does it for our broadcast .
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
Thanks so much .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue to look at Senator Bernie Sanders’ runaway victory in Nevada, which cemented his position as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. As Sanders’ bid for the Democratic nomination looks more and more likely, the Democratic Party establishment and much of the mainstream media are openly expressing concern about a self-described democratic socialist leading the presidential ticket. His opponents, including former Vice President Joe Biden and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, are also on the attack.
PETE BUTTIGIEG: Senator Sanders believes in an inflexible, ideological revolution that leaves out most Democrats, not to mention most Americans.
JOE BIDEN: I ain’t a socialist. I ain’t a plutocrat. I’m a Democrat.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Joe Biden and, before that, Pete Buttigieg. They were speaking on Saturday night after the results from the Nevada caucuses rolled in. Well, last week, during the primary debate in Las Vegas, Bernie Sanders addressed misconceptions about socialism.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Let’s talk about democratic socialism. Let’s talk about what goes on in countries like Denmark, where, Pete correctly pointed out, they have a much higher quality of life in many respects than we do. What are we talking about? We are living, in many ways, in a socialist society right now. Problem is, as Dr. Martin Luther King reminded us, we have socialism for the very rich, rugged individualism for the poor.
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: Wait a second.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: When Donald — let me finish. When Donald Trump gets $800 million in tax breaks and subsidies to build luxury condominiums, that’s socialism for the rich. When Walmart —
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: Wait a second.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: We have to subsidize Walmart’s workers, who are on Medicaid and food stamps, because the wealthiest family in America pays starvation wages. That’s socialism for the rich.
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: Business —
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I believe in democratic socialism for working people —
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: OK, no.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: — not billionaires — healthcare for all, educational opportunity for all.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Bernie Sanders.
For more, we host a debate on Bernie Sanders and democratic socialism. With us in our New York studio is the Nobel Prize-winning economist, the op-ed columnist for The New York Times, Paul Krugman. His latest book is just out. It’s called Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future. One of his recent columns is headlined “Bernie Sanders Isn’t a Socialist.” Also with us in studio is Richard Wolff, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, visiting professor at The New School here in New York. He is the founder of Democracy at Work and hosts a weekly national TV and radio program called Economic Update. Among his books, his latest is called Understanding Socialism.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Well, what do you make of what is happening right now, Paul Krugman, with Bernie Sanders so far the clear front-runner —
PAUL KRUGMAN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — but moving into South Carolina, and why that headline, “Bernie Sanders Is Not a Socialist,” what you were getting at?
PAUL KRUGMAN: OK. I mean, Bernie says he loves Denmark. I love Denmark. I think Denmark is an illustration of how decent a society can be. The Danes don’t think that they’re socialists. They think that they’re social democrats. They don’t use the word “socialist.” And it isn’t socialism as we’ve always used to understand it. It’s not government ownership of the means of production. It’s not seizing the commanding heights of the economy. It’s a really strong social safety net and a strong labor movement, all of which I support.
In Arguing with Zombies, I have a whole chapter called “Eek! Socialism!” which is about the Republican habit of playing three-card monte. You say that you’re for universal healthcare; they say, “That’s socialist.” You say you’re for universal child care; they say, “Think about how many people Stalin killed.” You know, it’s this crazy stuff. So, why use the word? Why describe yourself? I think it’s kind of self-indulgent to call yourself a socialist and give the Republicans unnecessary ammunition. I think, probably, we’re for the same — I’m for the same kinds of policies. I’m for universal healthcare, universal child care, all of these things. Why buy into the Republican effort to make this sound like something Stalin would do?
AMY GOODMAN: Well, he calls himself a democratic socialist, is that right?
PAUL KRUGMAN: Yeah, that’s cutting it way too fine. Why use the word?
AMY GOODMAN: Let me turn to a clip from the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas last week. First we hear from Bernie Sanders, then Mike Bloomberg.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: What we need to do to deal with this grotesque level of income and wealth inequality is make sure that those people who are working — you know what, Mr. Bloomberg? It wasn’t you who made all that money; maybe your workers played some role in that, as well. And it is important that those workers are able to share the benefits also. When we have so many people who go to work every day and they feel not good about their jobs, they feel like cogs in a machine. I want workers to be able to sit on corporate boards, as well, so they can have some say over what happens to their lives.
HALLIE JACKSON: Mayor Bloomberg, you own a large company. Would you support what Senator Sanders is proposing?
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: Absolutely not. I can’t think of a ways that would make it easier for Donald Trump to get re-elected than listening to this conversation. This is ridiculous. We’re not going to throw out capitalism. We tried that. Other countries tried that. It was called communism, and it just didn’t work.
AMY GOODMAN: So, there was Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, going after Bernie Sanders. Richard Wolff, you describe yourself as a socialist economist. Respond to what both Paul Krugman says and what Bloomberg is saying here.
RICHARD WOLFF: Sure. There is no agency, neither public nor private, that defines what a socialist is. If you follow the socialist movement for the last 150 years, you would discover that it has been a contested terrain from day one. There were different interpretations and different meanings. Bernie Sanders is perfectly in line with one of the traditions of what socialism is. It’s the government having a big role in offsetting some of the awful qualities of capitalism. But we also know that the kind of control that the government tries to operate is very difficult for it to succeed with. We once had a New Deal in this country. We lost most of it because we didn’t go beyond a government intervention to change the society.
What Bernie Sanders represents is an awareness that it’s time to have a conversation we should have had for 75 years about our capitalist system and whether we can do better. This is now a changed environment in which what was taboo in this country isn’t anymore. And Bernie has already achieved the breaking of a taboo in this country to talk about socialism, its strengths and weaknesses, its different interpretations, and compare them to capitalism, rather than running away because nasty conservatives call us various names. That’s not a profound reason. And for the young people of this country, it doesn’t carry much weight anyway. So I welcome the opening that Bernie achieves, that we can talk about socialism, its different interpretations and why we ought to explore them a lot more than we’ve been able to under the taboo of the last 75 years.
AMY GOODMAN: Paul Krugman?
PAUL KRUGMAN: I actually agree that a lot of young people have reacted. I mean, we have a 60-year-long campaign of equating any attempt to make American lives better with socialism, and a fair number of young people have said, “Well, in that case, I’m a socialist.” The trouble is, you’re not going to win this election without a fair number of old people, too. And it just seems to me, again, it’s self-indulgent to go down this route. I wish he wouldn’t. I mean, if Sanders is the nominee, then Democrats are going to have to get behind him, and people like me are going to end up writing lots of things saying, you know, “Don’t be scared. He, yes, uses the word 'socialist,' but he doesn’t actually mean what Republicans think — want you to think he means.” But who needed this, this extra thing? So, I’m not sure that this is — I’m not sure I quite see what the point is. I mean, it seems to me that there’s — to make the argument that says, “I want social justice. I want a strong government safety net. I want worker empowerment,” you can say all of those things without having to give ammunition to people who want to make you sound like Stalin. So, I mean, I’m going to be spending, I expect — I expect Sanders will probably be the nominee, and I expect to spend a lot of the next year saying, “Look, he’s really talking about Denmark, not Venezuela.” But I shouldn’t have to be doing that.
AMY GOODMAN: Richard?
RICHARD WOLFF: I’m proud to be part of the socialist tradition. And I understand Paul’s difficulty. He’s having to defend now a centrism that’s being rejected by a large number of people. The stunning reality is that the majority of young people, at least age 35 and under, no longer think that “socialism” is a bad word, and they are immune to that. And the young people are the future of this country, which the older people know, too. And they are being asked to question — the older ones, by the younger ones — why this taboo, why we couldn’t talk about socialism, why we can’t embrace a socialism. And on electability? My goodness, if we’ve seen anything in the last few years, we’ve seen the center, whether it’s in Europe or this country, falling away, disappearing — center-left, center-right — for the extremes on the right and now an extreme on the left. I don’t find that frightening. I understand people who are centrists do. But I welcome that we can have an honest debate in this country. And there’s much in the socialist tradition that is well worth keeping. There are lessons of what we should do, just like there are lessons of what we shouldn’t do, which is true for capitalism, as well. So, we’re opening things up. And I think when it comes to electability, we have as much to argue that this is the way forward as anyone on the other side.
PAUL KRUGMAN: By the way, I don’t think — I don’t think the people who send me hate mail think — and I am the king of hate mail — think that I’m a centrist. Right? I’m for universal healthcare. I’m for deficit spending on infrastructure. I’m for universal child care. If that’s centrism, then, you know, let’s have it. By that standard, Denmark is centrist, right?
AMY GOODMAN: I want to — before we go to issues like Medicare for All, I want to turn to MSNBC and what’s been happening over the weekend, a kind of meltdown on MSNBC around the issue of Bernie Sanders clearly looking like he’s the front-runner. And chief among those melting down appears to be MSNBC host Chris Matthews, who this weekend compared Senator Sanders’ Nevada victory to Nazi Germany’s takeover of France.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: I’m reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940. And the general, Reynaud, calls up Churchill and says, “It’s over.” And Churchill says, “How can it be? You’ve got the greatest army in Europe. How can it be over?” He said, “It’s over.” So I had that suppressed feeling. I can’t be as wild as Carvill, but he is damn smart, and I think he’s damn right on this one.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Bernie Sanders’ communications director, Mike Casca, responded to Matthews’ comment on Twitter, saying, quote, “never thought part of my job would be pleading with a national news network to stop likening the campaign of a jewish presidential candidate whose family was wiped out by the nazis to the third reich. but here we are.” A number of people are now calling for Chris Matthews to resign. Paul Krugman?
PAUL KRUGMAN: Yes. I mean, far be it for me to defend Chris Matthews, who I think has been a malign influence on a lot of our political discourse. I don’t think he was actually calling Sanders a Nazi. He was just thinking of, this is what it looks like when you’ve lost. But it was stupid. It was stupid, and it was insensitive. And it was characteristic. I mean, if — that’s what centrism sounds like, this notion that calling for universal healthcare or stuff is some kind of extreme position. And, no, I mean, this is — it’s telling you something about where Matthews’s head is at, and not something good. And unfortunately, I don’t think it’s unique. The fact of the matter is, there’s a lot of — I mean, Lloyd Blankfein saying, “Oh, I might have to vote for Trump, if Sanders is nominated.”
AMY GOODMAN: And explain the significance of who Lloyd Blankfein is.
PAUL KRUGMAN: Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs. And, you know, for God’s sake, yeah, Trump might — Sanders might raise your taxes. That is not an important consideration. American democracy is on the line. So, there are a lot of people out there who are — I’m not sure how many there are. There are a lot of influential people out there who are horrified by the prospect of a strongly progressive candidate. And that should be condemned. You know, I just wish he wouldn’t call himself a socialist.
AMY GOODMAN: Richard Wolff?
RICHARD WOLFF: Well, I think politics is shifting, and the centrists are having to discover that they are centrists because the politics has moved to the left. That’s what Bernie has accomplished. That’s what the young people around him have accomplished. It may be awkward and uncomfortable for people who used to think of themselves as the left to discover they’re not, that there’s a movement to their left. But we’re very proud that that has returned as a kind of sanity of balance in our political discourse.
And so, I’m not surprised that people like Matthews overreact, because they’re being outflanked on the left. They weren’t ready for it. I remember, in 2016, talking to a high official of the Democratic Party, assuring me that Bernie Sanders would never get more than 1 or 2% of any vote, anywhere, ever. And they didn’t know, and they didn’t understand. And it’s a little bit like the old Bob Dylan song, you know, “Wake Up.” There’s things going on that you didn’t foresee and that are shifting the ground on which you stand. But I want to be clear that many of us welcome this.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, Chris Matthews has been on a tear. He recently said, “I remember the Cold War. I have an attitude toward Fidel Castro.” He added, “I believe if Castro and the Reds had won the Cold War, there would have been executions in Central Park, and I might have been one of the ones getting executed. And certain other people would be there cheering,” suggesting, as he was talking about Bernie Sanders, that Bernie Sanders would be responsible for his execution in Central Park.
RICHARD WOLFF: Yeah. For me, this is — all that I hear in all of this is an anguished fear that the politics is moving to the left. These are individuals who made a commitment long ago in their lives not to go to the left, even if they had sympathies there, to stay in the middle, because it was the safe, the wise thing for their future, for the country and for their careers. And that’s no longer the case. And they are outraged, and out come these kinds of comments.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break, then come back to this discussion. We’re talking to two economists. Richard Wolff has a new book out. It’s called Understanding Socialism. And the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has a new book out. It’s called Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “All Your Questions Answered” by McCarthy. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our debate on Bernie Sanders and democratic socialism with Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, op-ed columnist for The New York Times, has a new book out called Arguing with Zombies, and Richard Wolff, emeritus professor of economics at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, visiting professor at The New School. His book is called Understanding Socialism.
So, Paul Krugman, I wanted to go to your — one of your columns that you just wrote, headlined “Bernie Sanders Isn’t the Left’s Trump,” where you write, “I’m more concerned about … the electability of someone who says he’s a socialist even though he isn’t and … if he does win, whether he’ll squander political capital on unwinnable fights like abolishing private health insurance.” Your stance on Medicare for All?
PAUL KRUGMAN: If I could do it, if I could wave a magic wand, or if I had a time machine and could somehow go back to 1947, when we almost — almost — got single-payer healthcare, I would do it in a moment. It’s not the only way to do it. One thing you learn if you study healthcare systems is every other advanced country has universal healthcare, they do it in different ways. Some of them have government provision. Some of them have regulated private healthcare. Some of them have single payer. Single payer is not the only solution, but it’s fine.
The trouble is, there’s 160 million people in America who have private health insurance. You’re saying to those people, “We’re going to replace what you have with something completely different. Trust us. It’ll be better.” It will probably be true: For most of them, it would be better. But that’s a huge political lift. You’re asking people to make a huge leap of faith, whereas we can in fact get to universal coverage through a more — through a public option, through something like Medicare for America, something that lets people buy into Medicare and subsidizes it, without having to waste their time.
And there are so many — you know, that’s not — having the absolute best healthcare system is not the only priority. If I had to say what is the most — biggest gap in America is that we’re not doing enough to help children. And I would like to get another couple percent of GDP spent on helping children in a variety of ways. And I think that the drive for Medicare for All will kill that possibility.
AMY GOODMAN: Interestingly, when you look at the polls in New Hampshire and in Nevada about what people care most about, in both places it’s the same. Number one is healthcare. Number two is climate change. Number three, I think it’s inequality.
PAUL KRUGMAN: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: Number four, it’s foreign policy. And especially in Nevada, Richard Wolff, what’s interesting is you had a very powerful union, the culinary union, where they were offering excellent health insurance to their workers, and yet their workers overwhelmingly, the rank and file, bucked the leadership and said, “Even if we’re getting great healthcare, we have family members who are not, loved ones who are not. And ultimately, we want Medicare for All.” So, explain this discrepancy. Paul Krugman is saying it’s not realistic.
RICHARD WOLFF: Well, I think, again, the politics in America have changed. I don’t think the mass of Americans want to hear the details about what you might get and how careful we should be and what step we should — they want change. They wanted it from Obama, who promised hope and change. They wanted it even from Mr. Trump, who promised a change. We didn’t get the changes that they promised, neither the one nor the other. And so people now want something that will solve their problem, will not respect the old, centrist “Let’s go carefully, let’s do this, let’s not push too hard.” They want the opposite.
AMY GOODMAN: So, how do you get to Medicare for All immediately, or more rapidly than what Paul Krugman is suggesting can be done?
RICHARD WOLFF: Well, I agree with Paul, which surprises probably both of us. But the point is, there are plenty of models out there of countries that have, in a variety of ways, answered the basic human demand: “I want to be careful. I want to know that when I’m born and until I die, if something happens to me in the way of illness or injury, I am taken care of. Like I want a public park and I want public schools, I want public healthcare.” And they don’t want the details and the hesitance. They want that. And any of them would be a perfectly good basis.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s always interested me how people look to other countries to say what would be models, when we have the model right here at home. We have Medicare, one of the most of popular programs in this country.
RICHARD WOLFF: Yes, by all means.
PAUL KRUGMAN: Oh, yeah. We have socialized medicine for everybody over 65, and — although it’s interesting. If you look at it, we also do have private insurance. We have not abolished private supplemental insurance for older people in America. So, it is, in a way, a bit of a compromise system. The actually existing Medicare that we have for older Americans is not as radical as the Medicare that Bernie Sanders is proposing for everyone.
But look, yeah, the United States contains multitudes. We have pure socialized medicine. The Veterans Health Administration is actual government provision of healthcare, and it works. We have regulated private markets and Obamacare. I mean, people trash Obama a lot, but, you know, given the constraints he was under, he got 20 million people health insurance who didn’t have it before. I personally know people whose lives were saved by Obamacare. So let’s not dismiss it as nothing. And we have single payer. But, you know, that, in a way, is telling you that there are many ways to achieve it. And we should look at — every other country does it for everybody. The problem is, we have a safety net that’s got huge holes in it.
AMY GOODMAN: Interestingly, this Yale study just came out in the medical journal Lancet. It said Medicare for All would save the U.S. $450 billion and prevent nearly 70,000 deaths a year. You have Bernie Sanders recently saying that he wants people in the movement to say, “I’m willing to fight for someone I don’t know.”
RICHARD WOLFF: Yeah, I mean, I could match Paul’s argument in his little model of somebody whose life was saved by introducing him to people whose life was lost, or at least their relatives, because they didn’t have the coverage that Mr. Obama was unable to get.
PAUL KRUGMAN: Right.
RICHARD WOLFF: And for someone who kept saying, “I could do more, if only I had a groundswell of support,” we do have to remember that when that groundswell developed, called Occupy Wall Street, Mr. Obama wiped it out with his bulldozers in Zuccotti Park and everywhere else, undercutting the very groundswell he had earlier used as an excuse for not doing more.
But my response is, whether it’s healthcare or a decent college education for Americans that does not saddle them with tens of thousands of dollars of debt, the demand is now out there, and that’s what’s fueling Mr. Bernie Sanders’ support. They don’t want the middling bit, old, this change, that. They want these problems, that — Paul is right — have existed in this country for many years, they want it finally solved. And they want a politician who they can believe might actually do it, as opposed to those in the middle who have been saying it and promising it and belaboring the difficulties, and basically not getting it done.
AMY GOODMAN: One of your columns, Paul Krugman, you talk about — the headline is “Have Zombies Eaten Bloomberg’s and Buttigieg’s Brains?”
PAUL KRUGMAN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain.
PAUL KRUGMAN: OK. That was mostly — so, my book is Arguing with Zombies. And one of the zombies is this obsession with public debt and the belief that we should be terribly scared of government debt, and we can’t do anything because of deficits. Eek! And that’s the way Buttigieg talks now, at that very moment when mainstream economics, if you like, centrist economics, has concluded, “Hey, these debt worries were way overblown.” You know, the president of the American Economic Association gave this presidential address saying debt is just not nearly the problem people think it is, and it’s not a constraint. And, of course, Republicans have pulled one of the greatest acts of policy hypocrisy in history. You know, deficits were an existential threat as long as Obama was in office; they don’t matter as soon as Trump is in office. So, I really don’t want to see — I mean, if we did get a Democratic centrist who bought into this deficit scaremongering, that would be a really bad thing. That would block any kind of initiative.
AMY GOODMAN: And as we begin to wrap up, there is a mayoral — there is a presidential debate coming up on Tuesday night in South Carolina. Two of the seven candidates are billionaires.
PAUL KRUGMAN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Richard Wolff, your thoughts?
RICHARD WOLFF: Well, for me, it is always an astonishment to observe this inequality getting worse and worse. I’m one of the people, even though I wasn’t alive then, who celebrated that during the 1930s we compressed the inequality in this country by means of an unusual president, whose politics are remarkably like that of Mr. Bernie Sanders these days, and we actually did something to lessen the inequality. And as soon as the war was over, we resumed, we undid the New Deal, and the inequality began to get to the crazy levels now. It is an abomination that one person — for example, Jeffrey Bezos — disposes of $100-plus billion deciding what is to be done with all those resources. That’s not democratic. That excludes the mass of people from the needs that could be met if that money was used differently. And he can hardly consume it himself. It’s an extraordinary critique of capitalism that it allows this kind of concentrated wealth, which, of course, protects itself by trying to control the politics of our country, so that they don’t have the power in Congress to undo the inequality in the first place. So, for me, declaiming against that, right on, Bernie Sanders.
PAUL KRUGMAN: I mean, I don’t think billionaires are inherently evil, but there is something wrong when two guys who really don’t have any kind of national political base are in this debate only because of their money. A peculiar thing is, of course, that Steyer may well make Bernie Sanders the nominee by drawing support away from Biden. But no, this is — I mean, as these guys go —
AMY GOODMAN: Ten seconds.
PAUL KRUGMAN: Yeah. Bloomberg is not evil, but he shouldn’t be in this race.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to leave it there for the moment, but of course we will continue to cover all of this during this 2020 election year. We will be doing a five-hour special on Super Tuesday night, from 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time right through midnight. I want to thank Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, op-ed columnist for The New York Times. He is the author of numerous books. His latest, Arguing with Zombies. And thanks so much to Richard Wolff, author of the new book Understanding Socialism.
That does it for our broadcast. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much.


democracynow--2020-02-24--"A Stupendous Victory": Bernie Sanders Wins Nevada After Heavy Organizing in Latinx Communities

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : Senator Bernie Sanders scored a decisive victory Saturday in the Democratic presidential caucuses in Nevada , riding a wave of support from young voters , union members and Latinx voters , who strengthened his status as Democratic presidential front-runner .
In the third state to vote in the Democratic primaries and caucuses , former Vice President Joe Biden finished second place , with former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend , Indiana , in third and Senator Elizabeth Warren trailing in fourth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supporters at a campaign event in San Antonio , Texas , Saturday night , after he was declared the winner in Nevada .
AMY GOODMAN : Entrance polls showed Senator Sanders picking up the most votes across many demographic categories , in particular among Latinx voters , where he received over half the vote .
His win shows their potential to reshape the next stage of the Democratic presidential race .
In the next four weeks , six more of the 12 states with a large Latinx population will vote in Democratic primaries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ California and Colorado go to the polls .
Arizona , Florida and Illinois will vote on March 17th .
For more , we ’ re joined by two guests .
In Phoenix , Arizona , Erika Andiola , chief advocacy officer for RAICES Action , the advocacy arm for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services .
And here in New York , Cristina Beltrán is with us , associate professor , director of graduate studies at New York University ’ s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis , author @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Latino Politics and the Creation of Identity .
We welcome you both to Democracy Now !
Cristina Beltrán , let ’ s begin with you .
Talk about the level of organizing that went on in Nevada and the significance of this win , with Bernie Sanders — the corporate media has been saying he doesn ’ t have the support of communities of color — winning more than half of the Latinx vote .
CRISTINA BELTRÁN : Yeah , it was a stupendous victory for the Sanders campaign .
And I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — I ’ m a political scientist by training and study Latino politics , and we have been talking about the issue of the way the Democratic Party treats Latino voters in terms of mobilizing Latinx populations in a very instrumental way , where they sort of talk about wanting this electorate , but they never put in the resources , they never put in the time .
It is so — they typically kind of drop people in to do stuff at a very quick level .
And so , one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is , this is one of those experiments of , like : What if you actually did the things that organizers and political scientists who think about mobilization and turnout — if you actually did what people have been talking about ?
Which means that they went into grassroots organizations ; they didn ’ t just hire Democratic Party folks .
They actually went into groups like Mijente .
They went into groups like Take the Road — Make the Road .
And they actually drew out those activists to tap into the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they put in the resources .
I mean , they — I think something like every Democratic registered Latino was texted or emailed .
They knocked on thousands and thousands of doors .
So , that kind of mobilization , I think , was just so critical .
And I think the other thing that ’ s really important about it was the youth element of this , is that young Latino voters , Latinx activists were able to talk to their families and parents .
And I think that also was really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turnout , was you had voters who were actually also really talking to their families and having a collective conversation — the kind of Tamales for Tío Bernie , the soccer events .
They did this on sort of just a broad-based level that took seriously the activist and organizing energy of the community , not just seeing them as in an instrumental way , but as seeing them as activists and organizers themselves .
AMY GOODMAN : So , let ’ s talk about that , that idea of investing in organizers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much trouble with .
AMY GOODMAN : We ’ re going to have Chuck Rocha on the show tomorrow , who is the Mexican-American main organizer of the Bernie campaign in Nevada .
AMY GOODMAN : But this idea of investing in organizers almost will have parents be proud if their kid says — AMY GOODMAN : — when they say , “ What are you going to be when you grow up ?
” “ An organizer.
” AMY GOODMAN : But what that means to organize on the ground ?
CRISTINA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ means really understanding the variety of issues — right ?
— in a kind of lived way .
But I think it ’ s also understanding — you know , often I think one of the biggest problems for Latinx communities is that they get described as monolithic .
They get described as if they ’ re all one thing .
They get described — and so you hear these characterizations that they get targeted for just around the question of immigration , when it ’ s really important to think about immigration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ obviously have citizenship .
So , you ’ ve got to talk about that as a solidarity question around mixed-status families .
So I think that organizing people really does involve people on the ground who have a deeper sense of the issues that affect these communities , people who really have a deep sense of those questions .
So , I think a lot of it is about recognizing that there ’ s a deep history of labor organizing in these communities , the labor movement historically in this community .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the long history of Latino and Latinx labor organizing , from people like Luisa Moreno in the pecan shellers ’ unions in the 1930s , all the way to Cesar Chavez , to auto workers .
There ’ s just a long history of deep — and having activists who understand and know that history , and then can mobilize it , is deeply powerful .
People need to feel like they ’ re seen in all their diversity , in all their difference , in all their practices .
And I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ understood that , and they didn ’ t try to , I think , micromanage that .
One got the sense that they actually let organizers think on the ground with what they thought made sense in terms of how to reach out to communities , and so both trusting organizers and mobilizing organizers .
And it takes money and resources to turn nonvoters into voters .
Right ?
So you have long — and you have big chunks of Latino , Latinx communities who have been voting , but you have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s a young population .
It ’ s a population that is a more working-class population .
Those are communities that take real resources to turn into voters .
And it takes multiple touches to do that .
And they did that .
AMY GOODMAN : And also , you have a kind of bucking of the leadership of the culinary union — AMY GOODMAN : — which represents thousands of service workers .
I think Senator Sanders took something like seven of the eight casinos .
And we ’ re talking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and thousands of workers , that the rank and file disagreed with the leadership , who didn ’ t endorse anyone .
AMY GOODMAN : It ’ s not like they endorsed Biden , for example .
But they did say they weren ’ t for Medicare for All .
CRISTINA BELTRÁN : Right .
And I think that — AMY GOODMAN : Because they provided a healthcare — they provided health insurance themselves .
CRISTINA BELTRÁN : Right , right .
There ’ s good union healthcare there , and there ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in terms of what could get lost and what could be gained .
I think what they don ’ t understand , and I think this is something that Sanders has been really successful at , is he combines an ability sometimes , at his best — right ?
— to talk about very material , concrete things that people need , alongside a social justice agenda .
Right ?
And that combination is powerful .
And so , I think two things happened .
One , I think , is that you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are thinking about things beyond their healthcare .
They ’ re thinking about college education .
They ’ re thinking about mass incarceration .
They ’ re thinking about the deportation regime .
So there were a lot of other issues to mobilize those voters and to make them feel like that was the candidacy they wanted to support .
I think the second thing is , a lot of those union workers have a lot of family who are in nonunion jobs and have really precarious healthcare .
And so , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ isn ’ t just about the kind of narrow self-interest of protecting one ’ s own quality healthcare , but a larger sense that there ’ s a healthcare crisis beyond themselves , and trying to think about what ’ s going on with their children , their cousins , their grandchildren , you know , and all the people around them .
So , again , it ’ s a combination of a kind of interest group and solidarity politics that I think he tapped into , that allowed people to ultimately @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might have imagined .
AMY GOODMAN : I wanted to bring in Erika Andiola and ask you about the protests that erupted at the end of last week ’ s debate in Las Vegas .
This was Wednesday night , just as former Vice President Joe Biden was giving his closing remarks .
Erika , you and Lucia Allain , both of RAICES , shouted at Biden , “ You deported 3 million people !
” — a reference to the record pace of deportations under President Obama — and “ No kids @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as well as “ Don ’ t look away !
” — “ No kids in cages !
” as well as “ Don ’ t look away !
” as you were escorted from the auditorium .
I wanted to play the clip of you that night , Erika Andiola , just after the protest .
AMY GOODMAN : So , that ’ s Erika Andiola on Wednesday night .
Erika , you ’ re back in Arizona , also an extremely significant state , but you were in Nevada , organizing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Talk about the response to your protests , and why you were there protesting in the Democratic presidential debate .
ERIKA ANDIOLA : Yeah , of course .
I mean , one of the biggest reasons why we were there is because there has been a growing frustration among a lot of us who have been organizing around immigrant rights for a really long time , and even within the community , that immigration doesn ’ t come up as one of the issues that is debated or that is really hashed out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should look like , what candidates want the policy to look like , at a time when we have news from the Trump administration almost every week about a change that has happened that ’ s going to affect the community .
And to us , I mean , it ’ s scary , just because we have had a Democratic president — before Donald Trump took office , we had a Democratic president who was promising immigration reform , who was — you know , his slogan was ” Sí , se @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we can.
” And at the end of the day , you know , he deported a record number of people .
And many people said after the protest , “ Well , why don ’ t you go to Trump ?
Why don ’ t you go protest Trump ?
He ’ s the one doing all these things to kids , to families.
” Well , we have been fighting against Trump for four years , almost four years now .
We ’ ve been really fighting against him .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ability to change the debate on immigration within the Democratic Party .
And what Bernie ’ s win showed in Nevada is that you can talk about a moratorium to deportations — he ’ s one of the candidates who has that in his platform — and you can still win .
And that ’ s one of the things that the Democratic Party has been really pushing back and really telling candidates and not really allowing for candidates to talk about the issue , because they ’ re so afraid that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a losing strategy for Democrats .
And we don ’ t think that that ’ s the case .
You can win .
Bernie showed it in Nevada .
And I think it ’ s important that we continue to organize the community .
And I completely agree with your other guest that it ’ s about organizing .
It ’ s about talking to people on the ground and not taking Latino voters and immigrant voters for granted .
AMY GOODMAN : I wanted to ask you about this report in BuzzFeed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrote , “ Bernie Sanders ’ campaign reversed one part of his immigration platform : a blanket moratorium on deportations pending a policy audit .
Instead , Sanders ’ campaign manager Faiz Shakir argued that while the moratorium on deportations 'would affect 99 % of the people living here , ' it would not be absolute .
The moratorium , he said , would not apply to 'violent criminals ' and that some people serving time in prison would have a deportation decided 'on a case by case basis . '
” If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
ERIKA ANDIOLA : Yeah , I was actually in the room when that happened in Nevada , when all the surrogates and Tom Steyer were there , you know , to talk about the issue .
And first of all , it was — you know , again , it was disappointing to see that the only — you know , one candidate showed up , and the rest of the folks were surrogates .
No candidates decided to show up .
And there hasn ’ t been a real conversation about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s at the debates or whether it ’ s outside of the debates , there hasn ’ t been an actual policy discussion within the candidates of what this issue should look like .
And really , the devil is in the detail .
This is exactly what we need to hear from the candidates , what they actually will do on immigration .
And , you know , it ’ s easy to say we want a moratorium on deportations , we want no kids in cages .
Right ?
Like , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to say , but if we don ’ t hear policy , you know , if we don ’ t really hear what the plans are , it ’ s hard to know what that ’ s going to look like .
I hope — I hope that we are able to continue to hear from the Bernie campaign of how — you know , how that looks like and that we ’ re not coming back again to the same narrative that Obama had , that , you know , you had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ justice system is also broken .
And so , we can ’ t just continue to say that without really giving the details of how that ’ s going to look like .
Who are those folks that they ’ re calling criminals , if it is people who have actually done really violent crimes or if it ’ s people who really just have a criminal record because they crossed the border or because they did something 20 years ago and it ’ s still on their record , even though they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yeah , we need to hear more details , and that ’ s why RAICES Action is continuing to pressure .
And that ’ s why we disrupted the Democratic debate , because we need an actual debate on immigration from all the candidates .
AMY GOODMAN : Well , I want to thank you both for being with us .
Also adding that when it came to the African-American vote in Nevada , Vice President Biden got 39 % of the vote ; Sanders , 27 % ; and Steyer , 16 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this is extremely significant , because 60 % of the Democratic voters in South Carolina are African-American .
I want to thank Erika Andiola , chief advocacy officer for RAICES Action , speaking to us from Phoenix , Arizona , and Cristina Beltrán , associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University .
When we come back , we host a debate on Bernie Sanders and democratic socialism .
We ’ ll be joined by two economists : socialist economist Richard Wolff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ York Times op-ed columnist and economist Paul Krugman .
Stay with us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Bernie Sanders scored a decisive victory Saturday in the Democratic presidential caucuses in Nevada, riding a wave of support from young voters, union members and Latinx voters, who strengthened his status as Democratic presidential front-runner. In the third state to vote in the Democratic primaries and caucuses, former Vice President Joe Biden finished second place, with former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, in third and Senator Elizabeth Warren trailing in fourth place. Senator Sanders addressed thousands of supporters at a campaign event in San Antonio, Texas, Saturday night, after he was declared the winner in Nevada.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: We are going to win across the country, because the American people are sick and tired of a president who lies all of the time. They are sick and tired of a corrupt administration. They are sick and tired of a president who is undermining American democracy, who thinks he is above the law.
AMY GOODMAN: Entrance polls showed Senator Sanders picking up the most votes across many demographic categories, in particular among Latinx voters, where he received over half the vote. His win shows their potential to reshape the next stage of the Democratic presidential race. In the next four weeks, six more of the 12 states with a large Latinx population will vote in Democratic primaries. On Super Tuesday, Texas, California and Colorado go to the polls. Arizona, Florida and Illinois will vote on March 17th.
For more, we’re joined by two guests. In Phoenix, Arizona, Erika Andiola, chief advocacy officer for RAICES Action, the advocacy arm for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. And here in New York, Cristina Beltrán is with us, associate professor, director of graduate studies at New York University’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, author of the book The Trouble with Unity: Latino Politics and the Creation of Identity.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Cristina Beltrán, let’s begin with you. Talk about the level of organizing that went on in Nevada and the significance of this win, with Bernie Sanders — the corporate media has been saying he doesn’t have the support of communities of color — winning more than half of the Latinx vote.
CRISTINA BELTRÁN: Yeah, it was a stupendous victory for the Sanders campaign. And I think that, you know, as — I’m a political scientist by training and study Latino politics, and we have been talking about the issue of the way the Democratic Party treats Latino voters in terms of mobilizing Latinx populations in a very instrumental way, where they sort of talk about wanting this electorate, but they never put in the resources, they never put in the time. It is so — they typically kind of drop people in to do stuff at a very quick level.
And so, one of the things that’s so amazing is, this is one of those experiments of, like: What if you actually did the things that organizers and political scientists who think about mobilization and turnout — if you actually did what people have been talking about? Which means that they went into grassroots organizations; they didn’t just hire Democratic Party folks. They actually went into groups like Mijente. They went into groups like Take the Road — Make the Road. And they actually drew out those activists to tap into the political energy of these communities. And they put in the resources. I mean, they — I think something like every Democratic registered Latino was texted or emailed. They knocked on thousands and thousands of doors. So, that kind of mobilization, I think, was just so critical.
And I think the other thing that’s really important about it was the youth element of this, is that young Latino voters, Latinx activists were able to talk to their families and parents. And I think that also was really critical to creating this sort of multigenerational turnout, was you had voters who were actually also really talking to their families and having a collective conversation — the kind of Tamales for Tío Bernie, the soccer events. They did this on sort of just a broad-based level that took seriously the activist and organizing energy of the community, not just seeing them as in an instrumental way, but as seeing them as activists and organizers themselves.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about that, that idea of investing in organizers, that the DNC has had so much trouble with.
CRISTINA BELTRÁN: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have Chuck Rocha on the show tomorrow, who is the Mexican-American main organizer of the Bernie campaign in Nevada.
CRISTINA BELTRÁN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: But this idea of investing in organizers almost will have parents be proud if their kid says —
CRISTINA BELTRÁN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — when they say, “What are you going to be when you grow up?” “An organizer.”
CRISTINA BELTRÁN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: But what that means to organize on the ground?
CRISTINA BELTRÁN: Right. I think it means really understanding the variety of issues — right? — in a kind of lived way. But I think it’s also understanding — you know, often I think one of the biggest problems for Latinx communities is that they get described as monolithic. They get described as if they’re all one thing. They get described — and so you hear these characterizations that they get targeted for just around the question of immigration, when it’s really important to think about immigration as a solidarity issue, because voters obviously have citizenship. So, you’ve got to talk about that as a solidarity question around mixed-status families. So I think that organizing people really does involve people on the ground who have a deeper sense of the issues that affect these communities, people who really have a deep sense of those questions.
So, I think a lot of it is about recognizing that there’s a deep history of labor organizing in these communities, the labor movement historically in this community. And we don’t talk enough about the long history of Latino and Latinx labor organizing, from people like Luisa Moreno in the pecan shellers’ unions in the 1930s, all the way to Cesar Chavez, to auto workers. There’s just a long history of deep — and having activists who understand and know that history, and then can mobilize it, is deeply powerful.
People need to feel like they’re seen in all their diversity, in all their difference, in all their practices. And I think, you know, the Sanders campaign understood that, and they didn’t try to, I think, micromanage that. One got the sense that they actually let organizers think on the ground with what they thought made sense in terms of how to reach out to communities, and so both trusting organizers and mobilizing organizers. And it takes money and resources to turn nonvoters into voters. Right? So you have long — and you have big chunks of Latino, Latinx communities who have been voting, but you have a lot of new young voters. It’s a young population. It’s a population that is a more working-class population. Those are communities that take real resources to turn into voters. And it takes multiple touches to do that. And they did that.
AMY GOODMAN: And also, you have a kind of bucking of the leadership of the culinary union —
CRISTINA BELTRÁN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — which represents thousands of service workers. I think Senator Sanders took something like seven of the eight casinos. And we’re talking about thousands —
CRISTINA BELTRÁN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — and thousands of workers, that the rank and file disagreed with the leadership, who didn’t endorse anyone.
CRISTINA BELTRÁN: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s not like they endorsed Biden, for example. But they did say they weren’t for Medicare for All.
CRISTINA BELTRÁN: Right. And I think that —
AMY GOODMAN: Because they provided a healthcare — they provided health insurance themselves.
CRISTINA BELTRÁN: Right, right. There’s good union healthcare there, and there’s a debate about what that means in terms of what could get lost and what could be gained. I think what they don’t understand, and I think this is something that Sanders has been really successful at, is he combines an ability sometimes, at his best — right? — to talk about very material, concrete things that people need, alongside a social justice agenda. Right? And that combination is powerful.
And so, I think two things happened. One, I think, is that you have a lot of culinary workers who are thinking about things beyond their healthcare. They’re thinking about college education. They’re thinking about mass incarceration. They’re thinking about the deportation regime. So there were a lot of other issues to mobilize those voters and to make them feel like that was the candidacy they wanted to support.
I think the second thing is, a lot of those union workers have a lot of family who are in nonunion jobs and have really precarious healthcare. And so, I think there was a sense that it isn’t just about the kind of narrow self-interest of protecting one’s own quality healthcare, but a larger sense that there’s a healthcare crisis beyond themselves, and trying to think about what’s going on with their children, their cousins, their grandchildren, you know, and all the people around them. So, again, it’s a combination of a kind of interest group and solidarity politics that I think he tapped into, that allowed people to ultimately vote in a broader way than people might have imagined.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring in Erika Andiola and ask you about the protests that erupted at the end of last week’s debate in Las Vegas. This was Wednesday night, just as former Vice President Joe Biden was giving his closing remarks. Erika, you and Lucia Allain, both of RAICES, shouted at Biden, “You deported 3 million people!” — a reference to the record pace of deportations under President Obama — and “No kids in changes [sic],” as well as “Don’t look away!” — “No kids in cages!” as well as “Don’t look away!” as you were escorted from the auditorium. I wanted to play the clip of you that night, Erika Andiola, just after the protest.
ERIKA ANDIOLA: We decided to interrupt. We’re not sorry. The immigration debate today — immigration became the last issue that they talked about, and they didn’t even have time to talk about the issue. This is not OK. We are being the most attacked by the Trump administration, and we deserve a conversation about how our lives are going to look like if any of those people get elected.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Erika Andiola on Wednesday night. Erika, you’re back in Arizona, also an extremely significant state, but you were in Nevada, organizing there, as well as protesting. Talk about the response to your protests, and why you were there protesting in the Democratic presidential debate.
ERIKA ANDIOLA: Yeah, of course. I mean, one of the biggest reasons why we were there is because there has been a growing frustration among a lot of us who have been organizing around immigrant rights for a really long time, and even within the community, that immigration doesn’t come up as one of the issues that is debated or that is really hashed out as far as like what the policy should look like, what candidates want the policy to look like, at a time when we have news from the Trump administration almost every week about a change that has happened that’s going to affect the community. And to us, I mean, it’s scary, just because we have had a Democratic president — before Donald Trump took office, we had a Democratic president who was promising immigration reform, who was — you know, his slogan was ”Sí, se puede,” or “Yes, we can.” And at the end of the day, you know, he deported a record number of people.
And many people said after the protest, “Well, why don’t you go to Trump? Why don’t you go protest Trump? He’s the one doing all these things to kids, to families.” Well, we have been fighting against Trump for four years, almost four years now. We’ve been really fighting against him. But in this particular occasion, we have the ability to change the debate on immigration within the Democratic Party. And what Bernie’s win showed in Nevada is that you can talk about a moratorium to deportations — he’s one of the candidates who has that in his platform — and you can still win. And that’s one of the things that the Democratic Party has been really pushing back and really telling candidates and not really allowing for candidates to talk about the issue, because they’re so afraid that talking about immigration is going to be a losing strategy for Democrats. And we don’t think that that’s the case. You can win. Bernie showed it in Nevada. And I think it’s important that we continue to organize the community. And I completely agree with your other guest that it’s about organizing. It’s about talking to people on the ground and not taking Latino voters and immigrant voters for granted.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about this report in BuzzFeed. “On Thursday,” BuzzFeed wrote, “Bernie Sanders’ campaign reversed one part of his immigration platform: a blanket moratorium on deportations pending a policy audit. Instead, Sanders’ campaign manager Faiz Shakir argued that while the moratorium on deportations 'would affect 99% of the people living here,' it would not be absolute. The moratorium, he said, would not apply to 'violent criminals' and that some people serving time in prison would have a deportation decided 'on a case by case basis.'” If you could respond to that, Erika?
ERIKA ANDIOLA: Yeah, I was actually in the room when that happened in Nevada, when all the surrogates and Tom Steyer were there, you know, to talk about the issue. And first of all, it was — you know, again, it was disappointing to see that the only — you know, one candidate showed up, and the rest of the folks were surrogates. No candidates decided to show up. And there hasn’t been a real conversation about the issue again. Whether it’s at the debates or whether it’s outside of the debates, there hasn’t been an actual policy discussion within the candidates of what this issue should look like. And really, the devil is in the detail. This is exactly what we need to hear from the candidates, what they actually will do on immigration. And, you know, it’s easy to say we want a moratorium on deportations, we want no kids in cages. Right? Like, there’s things that are easy to say, but if we don’t hear policy, you know, if we don’t really hear what the plans are, it’s hard to know what that’s going to look like.
I hope — I hope that we are able to continue to hear from the Bernie campaign of how — you know, how that looks like and that we’re not coming back again to the same narrative that Obama had, that, you know, you had felons versus families, because our criminal justice system is also broken. And so, we can’t just continue to say that without really giving the details of how that’s going to look like. Who are those folks that they’re calling criminals, if it is people who have actually done really violent crimes or if it’s people who really just have a criminal record because they crossed the border or because they did something 20 years ago and it’s still on their record, even though they have changed their lives. So, yeah, we need to hear more details, and that’s why RAICES Action is continuing to pressure. And that’s why we disrupted the Democratic debate, because we need an actual debate on immigration from all the candidates.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us. Also adding that when it came to the African-American vote in Nevada, Vice President Biden got 39% of the vote; Sanders, 27%; and Steyer, 16%. Going into South Carolina, this is extremely significant, because 60% of the Democratic voters in South Carolina are African-American. I want to thank Erika Andiola, chief advocacy officer for RAICES Action, speaking to us from Phoenix, Arizona, and Cristina Beltrán, associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University.
When we come back, we host a debate on Bernie Sanders and democratic socialism. We’ll be joined by two economists: socialist economist Richard Wolff and the Nobel Prize-winning economist, New York Times op-ed columnist and economist Paul Krugman. Stay with us.


democracynow--2020-02-24--Headlines for February 24, 2020

Headlines for February 24, 2020

Bernie Sanders won the Nevada caucuses by a landslide , earning just over 47 % of the vote , with 88 % of precincts reporting .
He more than doubled Joe Biden ’ s vote count , who came in second at 21 % .
Pete Buttigieg came in third with close to 14 % , and Senator Elizabeth Warren placed fourth with 10 % of the vote .
Entrance polls showed Sanders picking up the most votes across many demographic categories , in particular among Latinx voters , where he received over 50 % of the vote .
Senator @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speech in San Antonio , Texas , Saturday night .
Sen. Bernie Sanders : “ In Nevada , we have just put together a multigenerational , multiracial coalition , which is going to not only win in Nevada , it ’ s going to sweep this country.
” Earlier on Saturday , Sanders visited the memorial outside the El Paso Walmart where 22 people were killed and dozens wounded in a mass shooting in August .
Former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson endorsed Bernie Sanders following his Nevada win .
She wrote of her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ capitalism without conscience — corporate elites and their errand boys in government — have created the inevitable blowback in the form of a political revolution .
That revolution is the one that Bernie Sanders now leads.
” Williamson previously endorsed Sanders ’ s 2016 presidential bid .
Seven presidential hopefuls will square off in another debate Tuesday in South Carolina , ahead of the state ’ s primary on Saturday .
Two billionaires will appear on stage : former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer , whose rising numbers in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eroding Joe Biden ’ s support .

Bernie Sanders won the Nevada caucuses by a landslide, earning just over 47% of the vote, with 88% of precincts reporting. He more than doubled Joe Biden’s vote count, who came in second at 21%. Pete Buttigieg came in third with close to 14%, and Senator Elizabeth Warren placed fourth with 10% of the vote. Entrance polls showed Sanders picking up the most votes across many demographic categories, in particular among Latinx voters, where he received over 50% of the vote. Senator Sanders addressed his supporters at a victory speech in San Antonio, Texas, Saturday night.
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “In Nevada, we have just put together a multigenerational, multiracial coalition, which is going to not only win in Nevada, it’s going to sweep this country.”
Earlier on Saturday, Sanders visited the memorial outside the El Paso Walmart where 22 people were killed and dozens wounded in a mass shooting in August.
Former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson endorsed Bernie Sanders following his Nevada win. She wrote of her decision, “A 40-year-old trend of capitalism without conscience — corporate elites and their errand boys in government — have created the inevitable blowback in the form of a political revolution. That revolution is the one that Bernie Sanders now leads.” Williamson previously endorsed Sanders’s 2016 presidential bid.
Seven presidential hopefuls will square off in another debate Tuesday in South Carolina, ahead of the state’s primary on Saturday. Two billionaires will appear on stage: former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, whose rising numbers in the state’s polls appear to be eroding Joe Biden’s support.


democracynow--2020-02-28--Elementary School in NJ Latinx Community Fights Displacement by New Cancer Center & Gentrification

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This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We end today’s show in New Jersey, where hundreds rallied at the New Brunswick Board of Education meeting Tuesday night, protesting plans to demolish a public school to make way for a Robert Wood Johnson Hospital and Rutgers University to build a new cancer center. Protesters included families and more than 30 children, who held signs reading “Save our School!” and “Stop Gentrification.” If approved, 760 third-through-eighth-graders at Lincoln Annex School would be moved to a former warehouse building, converted into a school, on the outskirts of town, as they await construction of a replacement school. Even worse, the proposed replacement school site is located on a “brownfield site” with possible contamination from hazardous chemicals. This is one of the parents at Tuesday night’s school board meeting.
PARENT: [translated] Since September, we have been in this fight. We don’t want our schools up for sale. It’s our school. It’s our kids. It’s our community. … And if we want to leave New Brunswick or for our kids to go to school far outside the city, we want it to be of our own accord, not because we are being pushed out. … Our dignity, our school is not for sale.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Organizer Sherry Wolf with the local Rutgers professors’ union blasted the plan as “racist gentrification.”
SHERRY WOLF: We understand that the students of New Brunswick are our future students. We have skin in this game. We pay taxes here. We live and work here. And at levels much higher than the rest of the American population, we vote here. …
And I am going to make you a promise: We will do everything in our power as a union — we are well resourced — to help organize politically and on the ground the community, in solidarity, to stop this destruction of a thriving school, to stop the racist displacement of a Latino community, under the pretext of a cancer institute.
We have no beef with the cancer institute. We do have a beef with racism. We do have a beef with gentrification. We do have a beef with lying. We do have a beef with people saying they are doing something in the best interests of children, and then ignoring the children and their families. And the performance earlier of throwing people out, who simply want to speak, is precisely the kind of arrogance that is going to win you even greater opposition.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Rutgers organizer Sherry Wolf. After closing off the public comment at Tuesday’s New Brunswick school board meeting, members of the board went into a closed session, after much of the public had left. They came back into public session and voted to begin the process of closing down the Lincoln Annex School, the New Brunswick elementary school, and moving forward with their plan. Juan, you’ve been deeply involved with this story. Can you talk more about it?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, Amy. I think what is important to understand is that this is a community battle that really has national implications, because all over America, in lots of urban areas, there are healthcare institutions or universities, whether it’s the University of Chicago or Columbia or NYU or Johns Hopkins — all these universities and these health institutions located in downtown areas are always seeking to expand and to grab more land and more territory.
And in this particular case, this is a David-and-Goliath battle that has erupted, and it’s going to get even bigger in the weeks to come. And it’s just erupted in the last few weeks, where you have a poor immigrant community — the city of New Brunswick has 50,000 people. Half of them are Latino, most of them Mexican immigrants. And they occupy the downtown area of New Brunswick, right around Rutgers University and the healthcare industry — Robert Wood Johnson Hospital, there’s St. Peter’s Hospital. There are all of these hospitals and healthcare institutions right around. And, of course, New Brunswick is the corporate headquarters of Johnson & Johnson, which is also downtown.
And so, last summer, suddenly, Robert Wood Johnson and Rutgers announced that they’re going to build a new $750 million expansion, a new standalone cancer center. But they didn’t say where they were going to build it. They announced it in June. And the president of the New Jersey Senate was there, the president of the Assembly — all the political forces of New Jersey made this grand announcement. Then, only a couple of weeks ago, after parents kept saying, “Hey, our school is across the street from the hospital. Are you going to take our school?” And they kept saying, “No, no. Those are only rumors. It’s not going to happen.” Suddenly, the mayor came out with an announcement saying, yes, the hospital wants to buy the Lincoln Annex School, 750 children, 94% of them Latino.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s really a center of the Latino community.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Right, and it’s the best-performing school in the city of New Brunswick. And it’s a school that the city just spent $22 million to renovate and reopen a few years ago. So it’s only been open for three-and-a-half years now. And now they want to sell it to Robert Wood Johnson, close it down, send the kids a couple of miles away to a converted warehouse on the outskirts of town for several years, while they wait for a new school to be built. And, of course, the site for the replacement school, as we mentioned in the lede, is on a contaminated brownfield site.
So the parents started organizing. And they said, “What are you doing? You know, we love our school. Find another place to build your hospital expansion.” And they’ve been marching in the streets. There have been protests in downtown New Brunswick. They’ve been appearing at Rutgers Board of Governors meetings. They’ve been appearing at the Board of Education. No one is listening.
So, what’s happened increasingly now is that the entire Rutgers University community, which is how I got involved, the faculty are behind the parents. All of the student organizations — the Muslim students, the Mexican students, the NAACP chapter of Rutgers — all of them are behind the parents. And they’re going to continue this fight to insist that the healthcare industry find another place to build this hospital.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet the school board voted to sell the school.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the school board’s not listening.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what happens next?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, what happens next is that they’re going to continue to fight, because it’s not done yet. LatinoJustice, the civil rights group, has gotten involved. There are going to be lawsuits, and there are going to be even more escalating protests over the next few days.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Rutgers University Professor Juan González, thank you so much for that analysis. And, of course, Democracy Now! co-host.
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