01/02/17 01/02/17 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! >> in a few weeks from now, if there is a platform on which i will be privileged to stand and speak, my opening remarks will "welcome to like, the fourth reich." two legendary

champions of social justice. they appeared together on stage in conversation for the first 20that democracy now!'s anniversary celebration. we will air that conversation and noam chomsky's address on donald trump and the dire threat facing our planet. >> at this point, the two major threats to survival can converge. one is an environmental catastrophe and the other is nuclear war. another threat is increasing right before our eyes. amy: today, noam chomsky, a belafonte, and more coming up. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. on december 5, over 2300 people packed into the historic riverside church here in manhattan to celebrate the 20th anniversary of democracy now!

democracy now! first went on the air on the eve of the 1996 new hampshire primary. the date was february 19, 1996. the show began as a radio show on nine radio stations. today, over 5000 episodes later, democracy now! airs on over 1400 public television and radio stations across the globe. among those who spoke at the celebration of democracy now! was noam chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, linguist, and author. he is professor emeritus at the massachusetts institute of technology and author of more than 100 books. courts for the young people you will, special word be facing problems that have never risen in the 200,000 years hard demandingy, problems. it's a burden that you can't

ignore. and we'll all -- you, in particular, and all the rest of us -- will have to be in there struggling hard to save the human species from a pretty grim fate. well, my wife and i happened to 8, thatrope on november fateful day -- in fact, in barcelona, where we watched the results come in. now, that had special personal resonance for me. the first article i wrote, or at least that i can remember, was in february 1939 at the -- it was about the fall of barcelona to franco's fascist forces. and the article, which i'm sure it was not very memorable, was about the apparently inexorable spread of fascism over europe

and maybe the whole world. i'm old enough to have been able to listen to hitler's speeches, the nuremberg rallies, not understanding the words, but the tone and the reaction of the crowd was enough to leave indelible memories. and watching those results come in did arouse some pretty unpleasant memories, along with what is happening in europe now, which, in many ways, is pretty frightening, as well. well, the reaction to november 8 in europe was disbelief, shock, horror. it was captured pretty eloquently in the -- on the front cover of the major german weekly, "der spiegel." it depicted a caricature of donald trump presented as a

meteor hurtling towards earth, mouth open, ready to swallow it up. and the top headline read "das ende der welt!" "the end of the world." small letters below, "as we have known it." there might be some truth to that concern, even if not exactly in the manner in which the artist, the authors, the others who echoed that conception, had in mind. it had to do with other events that were taking place right at the same time, november 8, events that i think were a lot more important than the ones that have captured the attention of the world in such an astonishing fashion, events that were taking place in morocco,

marrakesh, morocco. there was a conference there of 200 countries, the so-called cop 22. their goal at this conference was to implement the rather vague promises and commitments of the preceding international conference on global warming, cop 21 in paris in december 2015, which had in fact been left vague for reasons not unrelated to what happened on november 8 here. the paris conference had the goal of establishing verifiable commitments to do something about the worst problem that humans have ever faced -- the likely destruction of the possibility for organized human life.

they couldn't do that. aey could only reach non-verifiable commitment -- promises, but not fixed by treaty and a real commitment. and the reason was that the republican congress in the united states would not accept binding commitments. so they were left with something much weaker and looser. the morocco conference intended to carry this forward by putting teeth in that loose, vague agreement. the conference opened on november 7, normal way. november 8, the world meteorological organization presented an assessment of the current state of what is called the anthropocene, the new geological epoch that is marked

by radical human modification, destruction of the environment that sustains life. november 9, the conference basically ceased. the question that was left was whether it would be possible to carry forward this global effort to deal with the highly critical problem of environmental catastrophe, if the leader of the free world, the richest and most powerful country in history, would pull out completely, as appeared to be the case. that's the stated goal of the president-elect, who regards climate change as a hoax and whose policy, if he pursues it, is to maximize the use of fossil fuels, end environmental regulations, dismantle the environmental protection agency

-- established by richard nixon, which is a measure of where politics has shifted to the right in the past generation -- and, in other ways, accelerate the race to destruction. well, that was essentially the end of the marrakesh conference. it terminated without any issue. so that might signal the end of the world, even if not quite in the intended sense. and, in fact, what happened in marrakesh was a quite astounding spectacle. the hope of the world for saving us from this impending disaster was china -- authoritarian, harsh china. that's where hopes were placed. at the same time, the leader of the free world, the richest,

most powerful country in history, was acting in such a way as to doom the hopes to total disaster. it is an astonishing spectacle. and it is no less astounding that it received almost no comment, something to think about. well, the effects are quite real. cop21, the paris negotiations, could not reach a verifiable the refusal ofof the republican congress to accept binding commitments. the follow-up conference, cop 22, ended without any issue. we will soon see, in the not very distant future, even more dangerous, horrifying consequences of this failure right here to come to term to address in a serious way this impending crisis.

so, say, take the country of bangladesh. within a few years, tens of millions of people will be fleeing from the low-lying coastal plains simply because of the rise of sea level with the melting of the huge antarctic glaciers much more quickly than was anticipated and the severe weather associated with global warming. that is a refugee crisis of a kind that puts today's crisis, which is more a moral crisis of the west than an actual refugee crisis -- it will put this current crisis into a -- it will seem like a footnote to a tragedy. and it's -- the leading climate scientist in bangladesh has reacted by saying that these

migrants should have the right to move to the countries from which all these greenhouse gases are coming. millions should be able to go to the united states -- [applause] united states and, indeed, the other rich countries that have grown wealthy, as we all have, while bringing this new geological epoch -- bringing about this new geological epoch, which may well be the final one for the species. and the catastrophic consequences can only increase. just keeping to south asia, temperatures which are already intolerable for the poor are going to continue to rise as the himalayan glaciers melt, also destroying the water supply for south asia.

in india already, 300 million people are reported to lack water to drink. and it will continue both for india and pakistan. and at this point, the two major threats to survival begin to converge. one is environmental catastrophe. the other is nuclear war, another threat that is increasing right before our eyes. india and pakistan are nuclear states, nuclear -- states with nuclear weapons. they were already almost at war. any kind of real war would immediately turn into a nuclear war. that might happen very easily over water -- over struggles over diminishing water supplies. a nuclear war would not only devastate the region, but might actually be terminal for the species, if indeed it leads to nuclear winter and global

famine as many scientists predict. so the threats of survival -- to survival converge right there, and we're going to see much more like it. meanwhile, the united states is leading the way to disaster, while the world looks to china for leadership. it's an incredible, astounding picture, and indeed only one , piece of a much larger picture. the u.s. isolation at marrakesh is symptomatic of broader developments that we should think about pretty carefully. they are of considerable significance. u.s. isolation in the world is increasing in remarkable ways. maybe the most striking is right in this hemisphere, what used to be called "our little region over here" -- henry stimson, secretary of war under roosevelt, "our little region over here," where nobody bothers

us. if anybody gets out of line, we punish them harshly. otherwise they do what we say. , that's very far from true. during this century, latin america, for the first time in 500 years, has freed itself from western imperialism. last century, that's the united states. the international monetary fund, which is basically an agency of the u.s. treasury, has been kicked out of the -- of south america entirely. there are no u.s. military bases left. the international organizations -- [applause] the hemispheric organizations are beginning to exclude the united states and canada. in 2015, there was a summit coming up, and the united states might have been excluded completely from the hemisphere

over the issue of cuba. that was the crucial issue that the hemisphere -- on which the hemisphere opposed u.s. policy, as does the world. that's surely the reason why obama made the gestures towards normalization, that were at least some step forward -- and could be reversed under trump. we don't know. on a much more far-reaching scale, something similar is happening in asia. as you know, one of obama's major policies was the so-called pivot to asia, which was actually a measure to confront china, transparently. one component of the pivot to asia was the tpp, the trans-pacific partnership, which excluded china, tried to bring in other asia-pacific countries. well, that seems to be on its

way to collapse, for pretty good reasons, i think. [applause] but at the same time, there's another international trade agreement that is expanding and growing. namely china's -- what they call , the regional comprehensive economic partnership, which is now drawing in u.s. allies from peru to australia to japan. the u.s. will probably choose to stay out of it, just as the united states, virtually alone, has stayed away from china's asian infrastructure development bank, a kind of counterpart to the world bank that the u.s. has opposed for many years, but has now been joined by practically all u.s. allies, britain and others. that's -- at the same time,

china is expanding to the west with the shanghai cooperation organization, the china-based silk roads. the whole system is an integrated system of energy resource sharing and so on. it includes siberia with its rich resources. it includes india and pakistan. iran will soon join, it appears, and probably turkey. this will extend all the way from china to europe. the united states has asked for observer status, and it's been rejected. not permitted. and one of the major commitments of the shanghai cooperation organization, the whole of the central asian states, is that there can be no u.s. military bases in this entire region.

another step toward isolation may soon take place if the president-elect carries through his promise to terminate the nuclear weapons -- the nuclear deal with iran. other countries who are parties to the deal might well continue. they might even -- europe, mainly. that means ignoring u.s. sanctions. that will extend u.s. isolation, even from europe. and in fact, europe might move under these circumstances towards backing off from the confrontation with russia. actually, brexit may assist with this because britain was the voice of the united states in nato, the harshest voice. now it's out, gives europe some opportunities. there were choices in 1990, 1991, time of the collapse of the soviet union.

mikhail gorbachev had a -- what he called a vision of a common european home, an integrated, cooperative system of security, commerce, interchange, no military alliances from the atlantic to the pacific. the u.s. insisted on a different vision. namely soviet union collapses, , and nato remains and, indeed, expands right up to the borders of russia now where very serious threats are evident daily. well, all of this, these are significant developments. they are related to the widely discussed matter of decline of american power. there are some conventional measures which, however, are misleading in quite interesting ways.

i will just say a word about it because there is no time, but something to seriously think about. by conventional measures in 1945, the united states had reached the peak of global dominance -- nothing like it in history. it had perhaps 50% of total world's wealth. other industrial countries were devastated or destroyed by the war, severely damaged. the u.s. economy had gained enormously from the war, and it was in -- and the u.s., in general, had a position of dominance with no historical parallel. well, that, of course, couldn't last. other industrial countries reconstructed. by around 1970, the world was described as tripolar. three major economic centers -- a german-based europe, a

u.s. base north america, and the northeast asian area. at that time, japan-based, now china had moved in as a partner, conflict then partner. by now -- by that time, u.s. share in global wealth was about 25%. and today it is not far below that. well, all of this is highly misleading because it fails to take into account a crucial factor, which is almost never discussed, though there's some interesting work on it. that is the question of ownership of the world economy. if you take a look at the corporate -- the multinational corporations around the world, what do they own? well, that turns out to be a pretty interesting matter. in virtually every -- this increasingly during the period of neoliberal globalization of the last generation, corporate wealth is becoming a more realistic measure of global

power than national wealth. corporate wealth, of course, is nationally based, supported by taxpayers like us, but the ownership has nothing to do with us. corporate ownership, if you look at that, it turns out that in virtually every economic sector -- manufacturing, finance, services, retail, and others -- u.s. corporations are well in the lead in ownership of the global economy. and overall, their ownership is close to 50% of the total. that is roughly the proportion of u.s. national wealth in 1945, which tells you something about the nature of the world in which we live. of course, that is not for the benefit of american citizens, but of those who own and manage these private -- publicly

supported and private, quasi-totalitarian systems. if you look at the military dimension, of course, the u.s. is supreme. nobody is even close. no point talking about it. but it is possible that europe might take a more independent role. it might move towards something like gorbachev's vision. that might lead to a relaxation of the rising and very dangerous tensions at the russian border, which would be a very welcome development. well, there's a lot more to say about the fears and hopes and prospects. the threats and dangers are very real. there are plenty of opportunities. and as we face them, again, particularly the younger people among you, we should never overlook the fact that the threats that we now face are the

most severe that have ever arisen in human history. they are literal threats to survival -- nuclear war, environmental catastrophe. these are very urgent concerns. they cannot be delayed. they became more urgent on november 8, for the reasons you know and that i mentioned. they have to be directly and soon if the human experiment is not to prove to be a disastrous failure. amy: m.i.t. professor noam chomsky speaking december 5 at riverside church as part of a celebration marking 20 years of democracy now! after a short break we air a , historic conversation between noam chomsky and harry belafonte. this is democracy now! back in a minute.

♪ [music break]

amy: that is patti smith speaking at democracy now!'s 20th anniversary here in manhattan at riverside church. this is democracy now!, the war and peace report. i am amy goodman. we turn now to noam chomsky and harry belafonte, together in conversation for the first time, recorded at democracy now!'s recent 20th anniversary celebration at riverside church. noam chomsky is a world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author who gained fame in the 1960's for his critique of the vietnam war and u.s. imperialism. he is institute professor emeritus at massachusetts institute of technology, where he has taught for more than 50 years. harry belafonte is a longtime civil rights activist who was an immensely popular singer and

actor. he was one of dr. martin luther king's closest confidants and helped organize the march on washington in 1963. democracy now! one gonzalez and i interviewed them on the stage at riverside church. now, i just want to start off by saying that you have just witnessed an historic moment. is this the first time harry and noam, that you have met? >> it's not the first time we've met, but it's the first time that we've shared a platform together. [applause] it's beautiful, a little bit intimidating to sit with so much knowledge and sensitivity. anyway, it's nice to be with all of you. amy: so we have this opportunity to talk with the two of you at

this critical juncture in u.s. history and the world. harry, back in 1940 -- before war you wereo , banned from the copacabana as an african american. you come back and you're headlining there as one of the world's great entertainers and musicians. you marched in selma with dr. king and were one of his closes confidantes. noam, you marched against the vietnam war. you thought you would be spending years from maybe decades in jail even as you were , rising in your academic career at m.i.t. -- willing to give up everything. you two giants of so many movements your thoughts today in , the age of donald trump?

>> i defer to you -- [laughter] you're much more eloquent. >> i must admit that i have far more commitments to the belief that in the final analysis that no matter how extreme things might be in america, eventually our citizens will rise up and righteously stop the enemy at the gate, if not, in fact, put them in retreat. certain events took place, we met the horror and terror of not only -- i referred to some before i , noticed when i mentioned the

fourth reich wasn't really sure , what i was talking about. just for clarity, as you know, the last great global moment was -- torment was the nazi era -- it was called the third reich. i thought we had thoroughly cleansed ourselves of that encounter. and that we would be much more resilient. i think to a degree we do reveal some resilience, but the real test has not yet come until the inaugural transfers have taken place. and what concerns me is that beyond the mischief of trump and all those in his cabinet -- and the people he's appointed into

roles of leadership -- i'd never quite understood that we had another severe, unattended enemy in our midst. our species , or weakness, in the face of absolute greed. i think we have failed to come to certain solid conclusions -- [applause] have been so contaminated by possessions and power that we've forgotten that we have destroyed our children or set the tone for that. i would welcome professor chomsky's point of view and i hope he says something that will make me dance out of here. [laughter]

>> well, i should say that i was somewhat immunized to the trump electoral college victory -- of course, not popular victory as you know, by the fact that my wife was the only person i knew who even before the republican primaries, had predicted that trump was going to win. just looking at the country from the outside. she is from brazil and felt that somehow she had her pulse on a large part of the country and was somewhat confident this was going to happen. so i wasn't all that surprised. or -- i think it's very dangerous in many ways that i mentioned and others that you're familiar with. on the other hand, there are plenty of opportunities.

we should bear in mind that the country has become much more civilized in the past 50 or years. 60 a meeting like this couldn't conceivable in 1960, 1970, the kinds of commitment and engagement that you and many others are committed to is quite new. there have been many advances and achievements -- women's rights, civil rights generally, rights of gays, opposition to aggression, environmental concerns that didn't even exist at that time. there has been tremendous progress. that means that struggles today start from a much higher plane than they did not many years ago -- at the time when harry was

marching in selma it was a much , harsher world than it is today. the reason is that plenty of people did commit themselves to constant, dedicated struggle and there were plenty of achievements. and that goes back in american history. no need to review it. but the earlier period is one of total horror. after all, the country was founded on two incredible crimes, unbelievable crimes -- the one, virtual extermination of the indigenous population. a kind of mignt crisis of the kind we don't think about today. and a form of slavery, which was the most vicious in hiory and is, in fact the basis for a , large part of the wealth and economic development of the

united states, england, france, and others. that is history. when donald trump talks about making the country great again, for many people, it wasn't that great. quite the opposite. [applause] but the point is, there has been plenty of progress because people facing much harsher conditions than we do didn't give up. that's an important lesson. furthermore, even the election itself suggests major opportunities. for one thing, as you know, the democrats actually had a considerable majority of the vote. and if you look at the younger voters, the people who will shape the future, they were overwhelmingly anti-trump and

even more overwhelmingly pro-sanders. [applause] we should also bear in mind what a remarkable phenomenon the sanders campaign was. [applause] is somebody unknown, came from nowhere, practically no one in the country new who he was. he was using words like "socialism," which use to be a real curse word. no corporate support. no media support. no support from the wealthy. everything that has always been crucial to winning elections -- mostly, we had bought elections -- and had none of it but practically took over one of the two major parties. and could've taken it over if it

hadn't been for shenanigans we know about. [applause] and it was primarily driven by young people. all of these are very hopeful signs. there are plenty of things that can be done. there are opportunities that can be grasped -- no time to run through them, but there are plenty of them. it's very much in our hands and among the younger of you in your hands to carry us forward in this long path, long, arduous path towards trying to create a civilized society and a decent world. amy: professor noam chomsky. we will return to our conversation with noam and harry belafonte in a minute. ♪ [music break]

amy: that is tom morello at democracy now!'s 20th anniversary event at riverside church. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org. i am amy goodman. as we return to our historic conversation between m.i. professor noam chomsky and the world-renowned in a retainer and activist harry belafonte. they had never before appeared on stage in conversation before our 20th anniversary celebration on december 5. democracy now!'s juan gonzalez and i interviewed them together. juan: well, i'd like to ask both of you there's been a lot of , discussion in recent weeks of -- of thef workers working class in this election, of trump's supposedppeal to white workers. harry you know the civil rights , movement as it was growing and

developing, needed and was fueled as well by progressive unions like 1199 that the auto workers and others that gave it strength and organization and resources. i'm wondering how you are looking at this issue. known, as you mentioned, all of the young people. the problem is, the young people, the so-called creative classes are increasingly .oncentrating in the big cities there in seattle, chicago, new york, and then the issue is, what happens in the rest of the country? back in the 1960's and 1970's, we still say you have to go back out and organize, organize in the communities in which you came from. how to see the whole analysis of the "loss of the working class" the progressive politics that we're hearing the commercial and corporate press? >> take a look again at these last few elections. many of the trump voters among

the white working class voted for obama. they were deluded by the slogans of the campaign, you may recall that 2008 campaign was based on slogan "hope and change." well, many people voted, rightly for hope and change. the working class has suffered, not disastrously, but severely from the neoliberal policies of the past generation from 1979. whatthe 2007, the peak of economists were calling the economic miracle right before the crash. 2007, american workers had real lower lower, considerably

than in before these policies 1979, were instituted. to alant -- listen greenspan, who during the height of euphoria of economy was called saint alan, the greatest economist of all time. he testified to congress explaining basis of success for the economy he was running. he said it was based on growing worker insecurity. growing worker insecurity. meaning if workers are beaten , down enough and intimidated enough and ifheir organizations, their unions are sufficiently destroyed, that they can't ask for higher wages and for decent benefits, then it is good for the economy, creates healthy economy by some measure. has happened,his

and the working class has suffered from it. they had a real need for hope and change. well, they didn't get hope and they didn't get change. i don't usually agree with sarah palin, but i think she nailed it when she asked at one point, where is all this hopey changey business? there wasn't any. no hope, no change. it showed very quickly in midterm in future elections. this election a con man came , along and is offering hope and change and they're voting for it. suppose people like you, people who form the sanders movement would present an authentic, , constructive program for real hope and change. it would win these people back.

i think many of the trump voters -- [applause] many of the trump voters could have voted for sanders if there had been the right kind of activism and organization. and those are possibilities. it has been done in the past in much harsher circumstances. organing white working people in indiana is a lot easier than what the freedom riders tried to do in the south 60 years ago. much easier. it takes work but it can be , done. my feeling is that a core part of a progressive program is to rebuild organized struure of

whichbor movement, throughout modern history has , been at forefront of progressive change. that is not impossible, either. it's been beaten down severely in past generation. but it has been worse before. you go back to the 1920's, the period not unlike today, gilded age, you know, the labor movement was virtually destroyed. woodrow wilson's red scare practically wiped it out. there had been militant activist labor movement. there was almost nothing left of it in 1920's. by the 1930's, it revived. overcamelabor action, racist conflicts, laid the basis for the new deal. programs, which were highly beneficial, to the extent that they remain -- they remain beneficial. that can happen again. no reason why it couldn't.

amy: i wanted to wrap up with harry. democracy now! originally came out of pacifica radio, which was five stations. wbai in new york, kpft only radio station in the country whose transmitter was blown up. it was a few weeks after they went on air in 1970, blown up by ku klux klan. when they got on their feet again, the klan blew it up again. strapped 15 times dynamite to the base of transmitter. it took months to get back on the air after that. i can't remember if it was the grand dragon or the exalted cyclops, because i often confuse their titles -- [laughter] but he said it was his proudest act because he understood how dangerous independent media is for people to speak for themselves. that's a story of history though.

,who would have thought in 2016 we'd be talking about the ku klux klan today? when donald trump was asked whether he would disavow david duke's support, you know, he hesitated. he said he would have to find out more from david duke or -- you know, exactly who it was who was supporting him. maybe the only time he hesitated before he spoke. what was it, which klan chapter he wanted to know, and the united states it was to make a decision? but what about this? , the kuut donald trump klux klan, and the messages that he is constantly putting out to lure more voters and support? -- i believeen

trump and bringing a new energy to the realization of the vastness of the reach of the ku klux klan is not something that basicen out of the purview of thought. the ku klux klan, for some of us, is a constant -- has a constant existence. it isn't until it touches certain aspects of white america , that white america all of a sudden wakes up to the fact that there's something called the klan. and that it does its mischief. [applause] what causes me to have great thought is something that is

most unique to my experience. as i said earlier tonight, at the doorstep of being 90 years of age, i thought i had seen it all and done it all, only to find out that at i knew nothing. 89, but the most peculiar thing to me has been the absence of the black presence in the middle of this resistance. not just the skirmishes that we've seen in ferguson and black lives matter -- and i think those protests and those voices being raised are extremely important. [applause] but we blew this thing a long time ago.

when they started the purge against communism in this country and against the voice of those who saw hope in a design for socialistheory and for the sharing of wealth and for the weality of humankind, when abandon our vision and vigils on that topic, i think we sold out ourselves. [applause] the group of young black students in harlem just a few days ago asked me what at this point in my life was i looking for. and i said, what i have always been looking for -- where resides the rebel heart? heart, the rebellious

people who understand that there's no sacrifice you can make that is too great to retrieve that which you have lost, we will forever be distracted with possessions and trinkets and title. and i think one of the big things that happened was when black people began to be anointed with the trinkets of this capitalist society and began to become big-time players and began to become heads of corporations, they became players in the game of our own demise. [applause] and no i believe that professor chomsky's evaluation is valid

thought, i for great am looking at the victories that we're having like the ones we just received a few days ago, our native american brothers. [applause] the fact that our native american brothers and sisters stopped the engine for a moment -- [applause] is really a call for us to be reminded that the engine can be stopped. [applause] and therein i find solace.

therein i find the capacity to really do things and crea things that will make a difference to where it appears -- it appears where we are headed. we have to be more adventurous. the heart has to find greater space for rebellion. [applause] we pay a penalty for such thought. i was just recently reminded of schwerner, goodman, and chaney. they sit particularly close to my own feelings and thoughts because i was one of the voices , that was raised in recruiting those young students to participate in our rebellion.

amy: david goodman, andrew's brother, is here today. >> i'm sure of it. he's always at the right places. but i think that there are those kinds of extremes that will be experienced in the struggle. the real nobility of our existence is, are we prepared to pay that price? and i think once the opposition understands that we are quite prepared to die for what we believe -- [applause] that death for a cause does not just sit with isis, but sit with people, workers, people who are genuinely prepared to push against the theft of our nation

and the distortion of our constitution. and for many of us, no price is too great for that charge. [applause] and we have great history to call upon. i mentioned a few before, but we still got a few left. i want to take this opportunity because i know we are winding down to just say to you amy, and to you, john, that i've been through much in this country. i came back from the second world war and while the world rejoiced in the fact that hitler had been met and defeated, there were some of us who were touched by the fact that instead of sitting at the table feast, at that great victory, we were

worried about our lives because the response from many in america was the murder of many black servicemen that came back. d you were considered to be dangerous because you'd learned the capacity to handle weaponry. we had faced death in the battlefield. and when we came back we had an the victors, we came back knowing that, yes yes, we might have fought to end hitler, but we also fought for our right to vote in america. [applause] and that in the pursuit of such rights, came the civil rights movement. well, that can happen again. we just have to get out our old coats, dust them off, stop

around and just chasing the good times and get down to business. , there's some ass-kicking out here to be done and we should do it. [applause] amy: thank you very much. amy: harry belafonte and noam chomsky in a historic conversation recorded at riverside church in manhattan before over 2300 people will stop to watch our full 20th anniversary celebration with glover,d noam, danny patti smith, tom morello, and many others, go to democracynow.org. that does it for our broadcast. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

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jacques: everyone wants to be thin. it means beauty, desirability, success, and yet 60% of us are overweight. i'm jacques peretti, and in this series i've investigated the men who made their fortunes out of our desire to be thin. in this final episode i'll be meeting america's most controversial diet guru. so, kevin, how do you feel about people who say that you're a shyster selling snake oil? do i let those people affect me?