04/15/19 04/15/19 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! >> heard years ago, i wrote the first book on climate change. back then it was a distatant, abststract threat. now we at the point where it is the lived reality for millions of people every single day, the biggest thing that human beings have ever done in the biggest fight that we have on our hands. amy: "falter: has the human game begun to play itself out?"

as democrats push the green new deal, we speak to bill mckibben about his new book in the fight to combat climate change. then w we go to indonesia aheadf wednesday's election. we will speak to investigative reporter allan nairn about his shocking to report on how one of the leading candidates has plans to stage mass arrests of political opponents and his current allies if he wins and restore indonesia's army to the in the played dictatorship. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. one day after reports emerged that white house officials had pressured immigration authorities to release immigrant detainees into sanctuary cities, president trump confirmed the shocking proposal, first via tweet and later as he spoke to reporters.

pres. trump: we will briring the illegal -- i called him the illegals. they came across the border illegally. we will bring them to sanctuary city areas and let that particular area t take care of , whether it is a state or whatever it might be. amy: trump made the remarks at a white house event friday, saying he could enact the plan if democrats don't accept his immigration proposals. trump has long railed against sanctuary cities, which have barred local police from cooperating with federal immigration agencies. democratic seattle mayor jenny durkan responded to trump in an op-ed, saying -- "seattle is not afraid of immigrants and refugees. what does scare us? a president and federal government that would seek to weaponize a law enforcement agency to punish perceived political enemies. this president believes that immigrants and refugees burden our country and burden cities like ours. but he could not be more wrong."

"the new york daily news" published a dedefiant front covr saturday featuring a photo of the statue of liberty with the words "give us your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." president trump again attacked minnesota congressmember ilhan omar, tweeting a an edited video of a speech given by omar, cut with footage of the twin towers burning on 9/11. talk posted the video with the caption "we will never forget." his truth intercut video of the world trade center towers burning with video of omar speaking about the increasing attacks on the muslim american community after 9/11. at an eventaking last month. >> far too long we have lived with the discocomfort of being a

second-class cititizen. and frankly, i am tired of it and every single muslim in this country should be tired of it. cair was founded after 9/111 because they recognized that some people e d sometething and that all o of us were startinino lose access to our civil liberties. amy: congressmember omar's comments were originally taken out of context and circulated by right wing media from the daily caller to fox newsws. in a statement, omar said "since the president's tweet friday evening, i have experienced an increase and direct threat on my life, many directly referencing or replying to the president's video. this is endangering lives. it has to stop." in new york city, yemeni bodega owners announced they were

boycotting the sale and purchase of "the new york post" over its front page attttack on omar. the murdoch-owned daily paper featured an image of the burning twin towerers on 9/11 referencig omar's s comment out of context, "9/11 was some people did something" and the words "here's your something" in large print over the photo. the yemeni american merchants association said the cover provoked hatred and targeted people of muslim faith. the international criminal court announced friday it was refusing to pursue an investigation intoo possible war-cririmes anand cris against t humanity committed by the united states and other actors in afghanistan. the court suggested the u.s.'s lack of cooperation with the investigation was behind the decision. earlier this month, the u.s. revoked the visa of icc prosecutor fatou bensouda, who asked icc judges to authorize the investigation in 2017.

human rights groups condemned the decision. katherine gallagher of the center for constitutional rights said the icc was bowing to president trump's pressure campaign and that "with its decision, the international criminal court sends a dangerous message: that bullying wins and that the powerful won't be held to account." in sudan, the head of the newly installed military council resigned friday, just one day after he was sworn in following the military ouster of longtime president omar al-bashir. the military's chief of staff also stepped down from his post friday. the chief of staff also stepped down on protesters celebrated friday. the news andnd mounted calalls r the creation of a transitional council, rejecting the military's proposal to lead a two-year pre-election transition period. meanwhile, the united nations has called on sudanese authorities to release anyone arrested for demonstrating against the government.

it also called on sudan to cooperate with the icc, which issued an arrest warrant in 2005 for ousted leader al-bashir over possible war crimes. sudan's military council said they will not hand over al-bashir to the international criminal court while they remained in power, but instead would put him on trial in sudan. local reports emerged monday that other top officials from al-bashir's government were arrested by the transitional militatary council and could alo face prosecution. in algeria, police arrested over 100 protesters as thousands took to the streets friday, less than two weeks after the resignation of four-term president abdelaziz bouteflika. demonstrators are calling for the removal of interim president abdelkader bensalah and the entire ruling elite that has been in power since the country gained independence in 1962. this is a protester speaking

from the capital algiers. >> ann dowd jury a, we're seeing a soft military coup. in sudan, there was a direct military coup. there is no difference between us and sudan. we are witnessing a process of manipulation. amy: protesters say they will continue to demonstrate until a democratic, civilian transition takes place. interim president bensalah has said elections will take place in algeria in july. the u.n. reported sunday at least 120 people have been killed in libya over the past week and a half as fighting intensifies between general haftar's eastern libyan national army and the u.n.-backed government of national accord. on sunday, haftar met with egyptian president abdel fatah al-sisi, who threw his support behind the renegade general and his libyan national army forces as they continues their offensive on the capital tripoli.

the u.n. warned that outbreaks of infectious diseases could spread quickly as more people flee the fighting and that it only has about two weeks of emergency supplies for hospitals and health facilities. human rights groups are also sounding the alarm for the many migrants and refugees who pass through libya, thousands of whom are currently in migrant prisons. libyans have taken to the streets to protest the escalating violence. >> we're here today in a protest against military rule, against to military-- no rule, yes to democracy, yes to elections, yes to peaceful solutions. amy: in gaza, israeli soldiers shot and killed a 15-year old palestinian teenager friday during the weekly protest at the separation barrier with israel. the killing comes two weeks after palestinians marked the first anniversary of the great march of return and is the first fatality in the second year of

the ongoing demonstration, according to palestinian health officials. in pakistan, a suicide bomb in the northern city of quetta, in baluchistan province, killeded rereported 24 people and injured dozens more friday. e militantnt group lashkar-e-jhangvi i is believedo bebe responsible f for the atta, which targeted the h hazara shia muslim minority. since friday's attack, members of the hazara community have been protetesting the governme's failure to prevent violent attatacks in the region. in south korea, a decades-old ban on abortions has been lilifd after yeyears of campaigning and legal battles against t the law, which included possible prprison sentences for doctors whwho perform abortions, and finines - or even prison sentences -- for anyone who underwent the procedure. south korean activists celebrated as the news was announced outside a courthouse in t the capitital seoul. >> my friend had used illegal drugugs for a ririsky abortion because of the a abortion lawaw.

i also would not have had much of a choice if i had become pregnant. with today's ruling, women like myself and my friend can live by our own free will. amy: in more reproductive rights news, ohio governor mike dewine signed into law the draconian, so-called fetal heartbeat bill, which bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected -- something that typically happens justst six weeks i intoa pregnancy and before many women realize they're pregnant. the billll does not include exceptions for cases of rape or incest. a similar law is set to take effect in mississippi in july, while judges have for now blocked fetal heartbeat bills from going i into effect inn kentucky and iowa. georgia governor brian kemp is expected to sign georgia's abortion ban in the coming weeks. the aclu said it would challenge ohio's new law in court. the non-profit guttmacher institute warns that various types of legislation to ban abortion are currently being considered in 28 states.

house democrats set a new deadline of april 23 for the irs to hand over trump's tax returns, after the agency failed to meet the original deadline set for last week. democrats are asking for six years of trump's tax records. the house ways and means chair richard neal said the irs or the -- and the treasury department were not legally empowered to refuse the committee's request. neal could follow up a second failure to meet the request with a subpoena or file a lawsuit. and in south bend, indiana, mayor pete buttigieg officially launched his run for the 2020 democratic nomination. at a rally in his hometown, the 37-year-old afghanistan war veteran stressed the urgency to act now to correct the policies of preresident trump. >> the principles that will guide my campaign for president are simple enough to fit on a bumper sticker. freedom, security, and democracy. amy: pete buttigieg supports progressive democratic positions including the green new deal, the legalization of marijuana,

and single-payer healthcare -- although, he does not support doing away with private insurance. buttigieg has also been vocal in his support for israel, praising its national security measures as a model for other countries and suggesting some democrats are too quick to judge israel based on media reports. he made the comments after a trip to israel last year amid onongoing protests at the separation barrier in gaza, which have resulted in at least 200 deaths and tens of thousands of injured. is elected president buttigieg , would d become the youngest u. president, as well as the first openly gay president. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. thousands are taking to the streets in london today to demand radical action to combat the climate crisis. protesters with the group extinction rebellion have set up encampments and road blocks across central london and say they'll stay in the streets for

at least a week. it's just the beginning of a series of global actions that will unfold in the coming days, as activists around the world raise the alarm about government inaction in the face of the growing climate catastrophe. a spokesperson with extinction rebellion told the guardian -- "governments prioritize the short-term interests of the economic elites, so to get their attention we have to disrupt the economy." the london protests come just days after school children around the globe left school again on friday for the weekly strike for climate. the movement was started last year when 16-year-old climate activist greta thunberg stood alone outside the swedish parliament to demand her government do more to combat climate change. now kids around the globe have answered her call with their own weekly strikes. the esteemed journal science published an open letter supporting the global youth prprotests last week. it reads in part -- "as scientists and scholars who have recently initiated similar

letters of support in our countries, we call for our colleagues across all disciplines and from the entire world to support these young climate protesters. we declare -- their concerns are justified and supported by the best available science. the current measures for protecting the climate and biosphere are deeply inadequate." this all comes as the push for the green new deal continues to build momentum in the united states. the deal, backed by congressmember alexandria ocasio cortez and senator ed markey, seeks to transform the u.s. economy through funding renewable energy while ending u.s. carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. alexandria ocasio cortez tweeted last week -- "the far right loves to drum up fear & resistance to immigrants. but have you ever noticed they never talk about what's causing people to flee their homes in the first place? perhaps that's because they'd be forced to confront 1 major factor fueling global migration -- climate change."

we turn now to a climate activist and journalist who has been on the frontlines of the fight for the planet for decades. 30 years ago in 1989, bill mckibben wrote the first book ever about climate change for a general audience "the end of , nature." he's just published a new book "falter: has the human game begun to play itself out?" welcome back to democracy now! be with always good to you. amy: "falter: has the human game begun to play itself out?" when i startedd writing about this, it was a distant threat. we were issuing a warning. scientists knew as we burn coal and gas and oil, we were putting carbon in the atmosphere, they knew the molecular structure of co2 trapped heat. we did not know how fast and our party was going to pinch. the story of the last 30 years -- or one of the stories of the

last 30 years, it pinched a hell thanlot faster and harder we feared. the things we are seeing now, the ocean 30% more acidic, half the coral reefs under siege -- these were things we thoughght would hapappen 50, 60, 70 years from now by the planet turned out to be very finely balanced. that was one of the surprises in this 30 years. the other surprise was how little reaction there was in our political system, how slolowly it has moved. in essence, we are done almost nothing is a world to grapple with the biggest problem that we have ever wondered into. are,wo pieces of good news one, the engineers have done their jobs just about as well as the politicians have done there's badly. the price of a solar panel has dropped 90%. we have the technology in a way that we did not even a decade ago to know where we could turn

if we wanted to. and we of cmis rise of remarkable movements -- we have cmis rise of remarkable movements in the last decades. their work areas of time where i felt like -- have you ever had one of those nightmares where you are trying to communicate everybody that something bad is going on but words will come out of your mouth or they can hear you? ththere was a periodod where i t like t that. i no longer feel lonely like that. there are millions of people around thehe world engaged in ts fight. we will see if that is enough power to overcome the wealth and influence of the fossil fuel industry in time or not. amy: talk about how you have divided your book into these four sections, the size of the board, leverage, the name of the game, and an outside chance. methe question that haunts and have since i wrote "the end of nature," " is whether the thg we're doing now is so large that

it fundamentntally alters our prospects as a civilization. climate change is the best example of that. climate change by now has already reached the point, as i say in the f first section, it changes the size of the board on which we are playing this game. , since humans came out of africa, we have been expanding the board on which can play the game. finding new places, spreading out. now things are contracting. now people are beginning to worry very much about the cities they live better near the coast. now we are seeing perhaps -- perhaps you saw the story yesterday about hohow climate change has become the main driver for this immigrants having to leave their homes in guatemala, honduras, el salvador -- not because they want to, because there is such a deep drought that they cannot grow anything there anymore. salvos inthe opening

what is going to be a century of shrinkage. think about what we saw in california last fall. literally, in an hour, he said he called caret ice turned literally into hell. everybody who watched it can imagine dying in a car, trapped in a road as they tried to get out of a forest fire. if california, the place we have always identified with the kind ease, is now in a paranoid sense of fear for much of the year is a look over their shoulder for the next fire, well, that is another thing in which this board has begun to shrink. a second part of the book is more political. answer for my own purposes the question of why we .id so little for so long

and i think it has everything to do with the ascendant, political ideology of this period, this sense that laissez-faire capitalism that markets alone would solve problems. that happened to be the dominant political philosophy in the most important country in the world at precisely the most important moment. it is no accident that people like the koch brothers, our biggest political players, are also oil and gas aarons. barons.. going to, if we're solve it, we're going to have to take joint action as societies to do so. takesird part of the book a turn into silicon valley and asks the question, if having ended nature were also on the verge of ending human nature.

the same libertarian ideology, clubame ayn rand fan exists, too, a at the top of the heap of silicon valley where everyone pays homage that they should be left alone by the government. left alone and this case to do things like genetically engineer children so that we had in october, the first two designer babies born on this planet in china. as we learned in yesterday's newspaper with help from professors at places like stanford. that future should frighten us in all kinds of ways. that future of ever larger ai, of evermore -- amy: artificial intelligence. >> perhaps you saw the story of today's papers about how the chinese have weaponize ai and can now identify in any crowd, in any place in china, anyone

who has the facial features of a uigher muslim and be able to track them by camera automatically. we're talking about tens of millions o of people in a county of billions of people, something out of a science fiction story, except it isn't. minorityuigher muslim population in china. >> exactly. the fourth part of the book asks, is it too late to do anything about this? if we wanted to, what could we do? here i allow myself a little more hope. i have had the privilege over the last decade since we started 350.org of watching this climate movement arise. it has been a great joy to see that happen and to see it join with other movements for justice against inequality in a kind of progressive coalition. greatk there were two

inventions of the 20th century that might just save us in the 21st. the first was the solar panel. it is magic on a kind of hogwarts scale, amy. you point the sheet of glass at the sun and out the back flows light and communications. to get to see it being installed for the first time in remote parts of africa, say, i did a launch a few years ago. it was a fantastic joy. to watch people who had never had a cold drink in her life, suddenly because of the solar panels come able to do so, reminds us how much h we take fr granted. the other invention of the 20th century that holds out little hope is this invention of .onviolent social movements the suffragettes, from gandhi, from dr. king, from people learning how to take, well, how to take the power, the many and

the small, to stand up to the mighty and the few. climate change is perhaps the most dramatic example of this there will ever be. as you know, we lelearned a lotn the last few years about the nature of the fossil fuel industry, about the factt they knew everything there was to know about climate change back in the 1980's, everything and believed it. exxon began buiuilding all of is trolling rigs to compensate for the rise in sea level they knew was coming. they just did not tell the rest of us. and that theyey devoted billions of dollars to developing this architecture of deceit and denial and disinformation that has kept us locked for 30 years and it utterly sterile debate about whether or not global warming was real, debate that both sides from the start -- one of them was willing to live. now we're at the point where we have no choice but to hope we can build movements big enough, loud enough, beautiful enough,

to challenge that power. that is why, for me, it is incredibly moving and incredibly exciting to see the young people doing the green new deal work, to see greta thunberg and her comrades, 12-year-olds, out of school and talking articulately about these questions. i don't know if we are going to win, but we definitely are going to have a fight. amy: we have a lot to talk about. of 350.org.n his new book is called "falter: has the human game begun to play itself out?" ♪ [music c break]

amy: this is democracy now!, i'm amy goodman. president trump signed two executive orders last week to facilitate the approval of pipeline projects that -- at a federal level, limiting states' ability to regulate such projects. the move is intended in part to clear the way for permitting on the northeastern constitution pipeline, which has stalled

after new york invoked the clean water act to reject the project on environmental grounds. this is president trump speaking on wednesday from crosby, texas, where he signed the orders. pres. trump: the order will speed up the process for improving vital infrastructure on our nation's borders, such as oil pipelines, roads, and railways. it will now take no more than 60 -- a vast improvement -- and the president, not the bureaucracy, will have sole authority to make the final up.sion when we get caught amy: in response, we spoke to tell school to come organizizer with the indigenous and terminal network. i asked him to explain the pipeline executive order signed by president trump. >> what we're seeing right now with the executive orders are in an act of aggression against the authority for the state of protect their homelands, to protect the residents of their states and the lance within the

border of the state, mainly targeting the clean water act. what trump wants to do is take a with the state's ability to enforce the environmental regulation against pipeline projects or other infrastructure am a fossil fuel projects. and give that power solely to the federal government. absurd trumpof thing representative khanna figurehead of the republican party, wholeheartedly endorsing an ideology that the federal gogovernment has the final say over what happens within the borders of a state will stop the state has very little recourse to address these issues. are two executive orders. that is the first one. the second one specifically focuses on the cross-border -- the border crossing a pipelines. in thiss regard, talking about keystone xl, enbridge linene the was also one of f those pipelins that had to deal with crossing the border from canada to

transport tar sands oil. what the president is trying to do, and he did this a couple of weeks ago by approving keystone xl a second time, is saying he as the president has thehe sole power to approve these projects and is encouraging the state department to say -- to be acting only as advisors to the president to sign these projects. something really assiduous and dangerous about this that is a continuing part of trump's legacy foror overreaeaching his executive powers i is that the president has stated that because he is the president, he is not a federal agency, therefore, he is not a holden to any environmental regulation that federal agencies have to follow. in particular, the national environmental protection act, parts ofof the clean water act, saying as the president, i actually don't have to follow those because i am not a federal

agency. and that is very, very dangerous precedent to start here, especially as we look toward a rapid expansion of fossil fuel development in this country at this current moment and what we're trying to fight against in the protection of mother earth and the sacredness of the land itself. any code that is -- any code that is dallas goldtooth. you can visit our website to see the full interview with dallas. still with us, bill mckibben, global climate organization 350.org founder. his new book is "falter: has the human game begun to play itself out?" in crosby,ave trump texas, one of the leading indigenous activists responding. talk about your response last week. >> first of all, it was great to see dallas, who is one of the savviest organizers and the whole world and has done an immense amount. i feel much the same. what trump is tried to do a short circuit this really

effective protest movement that has been built up around pipelines. i took itanother -- almost a little personally, these executive orders, because part of one of them also took aim at the divestment campaign, fossil fuel divestment campaign. amy: explain where that is now. >> we started the year after some of us started this keystone resistance, it which turn into a big resistance against pipelines and fossil fuel infrastructure in general, following the lead of indigenous people in alberta. the next year, a bunch of us started this fossil fuel divestment campaign to get institutions to sell their stock. well, it worked better than we thought it would and has become, by some measures, the largest anticorporate campaign of its kind ever. i think we're at a trillion dollars worth of an endowments. a tolleginning to take

on the industry. earlier this year, shell said in its annual report that divestment have become a material risk to its business. a couple of weeks ago, the heads of many of the biggest coal firms in the world were at a houston energy conference and were quoted by politico they could not find capital anymore for new coal projects. to may have been scared off. that is why trump is trying to push back on that and pipelines. i think so in doing, he has done innocents as a favor. it is pretty much like he is providing the blueprints to the climate death star and saying, here are a couple of places you might want to push really hard because it clearly hurts. amy: tell me if you think this will add to that movement. president trump coming under fire earlier this month for falsely claiming windmills cause cancer. he made the remark in a speech and t touted u.s. oilil on gas chchilling while mockiking renee energy.

amy: if you ever windmill anywhere new your house, congratutulations, your hohoe jt wewent down 7575in value.. they say the noise causes cancer. amy: iowa republican senator chuck grassley called trump's remark idiotic saying "i wish his staff would tell him i'm the father and now the grandfather of wind energy tax credits." > trump is obviously a ludicrous buffoon and honest every situation, but never more so than here. his dislike of windmills dates to his desire for a scottish golf course were no golfer would have to see one in the distance. the reason grassley is standing up for it is because places like iowa now make a a ton of money f the wiwind. it is not like anyone is going to defeat these technologies.

wind and sun are free, that is why they're coming so fast. fossil fuel industry, with trump is one of its helpers, what they want to do is slow that transition down, stretch it out so theirir current business model can last a couple of more decades. the problem with that is if we don't get action really soon, if we let it stretch out, t those e the decades that will finish the work of breaking the planet. it is why the urgency of something like the green new deal is so crucial. amy: on sunday, the seychelles a british ledted science expedition exploring the depths of the indian ocean. from there, he gave an impassioned speech on climate change inside a manned underwater submersible, 400 feet below the ocean's surface. >> the oceanan is huge,e, covera mumust 70% -- almost 70% of our planetetbut we havee m maged to

seriouslsly impact t this vast environment with climate change. acicification, overfishing, plastic, and other pollutions and other threats from thesese depths. i can see the incredible wildlife that needs our protectition.. and the consequences ofof damagg th h huge ecosystemem thahat has isted forr millennia. we must act accordingly. this issueue is bigger than allf us. and we cannot wait for the next generation to solve it. we are running out of excuses to not t take actionn and running t of t time. amy: that is the seychelles president speaking 400 feet

below the indian ocean surface. >> it reminds me so much of watching the maldives, take his whole cabinet down in scuba gear for a cabinet meeting to send message decade ago that we had to get back to render 50 parts per million. it is now, at this point, the leadership of those most vulnerable states, the low-lying island states, places like bangladesh. i mean, the hair on fire is much too subtle an understatement. they understand the absolute survival of the places where they live in the oceans around them is now at stake. they are the canaries in the coal mine if it wasn't such a horrible metaphor at this point. they are on the cutting edge. remember, it is their citizens who are really on the forefront of this movement everywhere. i dedicate this new book to our

colleague in fiji who was one of the greatest activists we ever met. amy: going from them and from the seychelles president to , thear-old greta thunberg, swedish climate activist who has inspired this global student strike. she was speaking just a few weeks ago for a call for more action on climate. generation has failed tackling the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced. when we say to them that we are worried about the future of our onilization, they just had her head saying everything will be fine, don't worry. worry.should we should panic and by panic, i don't mean running around screaming.

i panic i mean stepping out of our comfort zones. amy: that is greta thunberg speaking of berlin was you first alone for three weeks and front of the swedish parliament and mps were telling her to go to school. she said, we have done our homework. and that is why i'm here. >> she is an amazing force. her basic point is if governments cannot be bothered to prepare the world for climate change, it is a little rich to demand that i sit in school preparing myself for the future. it is a message that is amplified and resonated. there were millions of schoolchildren out on march 15. to now it is time for adults heed the call. those kids were saying, and one rally after another, we need adults backing us up. watch over the next few months theeople try to organize adult equivalent of those

strikes, getting people out of their businesses for a data time. it, they're disrupting education as usual. we need to disrupt business as usual because it is business as doing us and.ly, it is the fact that we just keep doing, going on doing what we're doing, notot changing in any dramatic way at a moment when the world demands trtransformation. amy: people are more active than they have ever been on climate change. talk about the change in understanding across the political spectrum in this country -- this country so important because it is historically the greatest greenhouse gas amid her. but you also say, look at me here with my computer or my hands, and extension of the human body. >> we're in a climate moment now. that is good news. -- the ipc see report last fall that gave us 10 years

to make a change. the fires in cacalifornia. the rise of the green new deal. somehow these things have finally captured people's attention. as we enter this presidential cycle, s say, as you know,w, whd to threaten and complain because they never asked a question at any presidential debate about climate change. that is going to be one of, if not the biggest question, candidate after candidate announcing for president saying this is the most important issue that we face. people do judge said it yes -- pete buttigieg said it yesterday and felt been. that is really important. the question now is, can we commit people to moving quickly enough? this is one of these places where i have to country string myself from saying, oh, if only you had listened to me when, because -- amy: 30 years ago. >> 30 years ago we could do things that were not very hard. if we made fairly small

adjustments, put a price on carbon or something, we would be on a very different trajectory now. having let the fossil fuel industry delay action for three decades, we are now at the point where everything is hard and it is going to be for even the bravest politicians, a real stretch. amy: you talked about this being a climate moment. it is in everything moment for 2020. you see this in the democrats, for example, close to 20 now are running for president, jay inslee of washington state, the governor running, saying climate change is his only issue. >> what is interesting this time , the way we're thinking about it at 350 action and i think a lot of environmentalists are thinking, we need all 20 of them to be climate candidates. what we're playing for now is less a set of policies, though the green new deal is what we're we'reto need -- what

playing for most now is a change in the zeitgeist. a sense of what is natural and obvious and normal going forward. if we can get that change, then the legislation will follow rather easily. the point is getting that across, taking us from the place where we weren't playing attention to climate to the place where understanding it is the issue of our time. amy: it is part and parcel with the inequality in this country, the power of these economic giants. you have, for example, seattle activist who recently rallied against chase bank, their investment of fossil fuels. close they shut down 44 branches. amy: and jpmorgan's and wells fargo response t to this. >> the financial community, we need to havthem step up. momost othe e ise -- she reports

eyey carabouout clate e chge, but theyeep the ney spigot open for the fossil fuel indust.. that is why people are able e to ilild pilinenes cause e ople keep lending them ney. increasingly, ere is pressure on the bankiking secr and the other r place we a are o of f th momo and more of it is presse onhehe iurance sector. they he more meyey tha anody. and they shld know better. they are t ones wh the actuiaial taes demonstrating just wt t hot ter r were in, yet they connunue to l lend mony thehe fsil l fu industry, to their pressure othese guys to stop a change their ways is only going to grow more intense. this who cplex of e fossil fuel iustry and the finaners o backedhem, they are the phillip morr o of today. the ly diffence ishere phillimomorrisook us o onene smoker at a time, xon is figuringut how ttake us out one planet at a time. and that is why the resistance is growing more vocal.

amy: and finally, the green new deal. this paradigm shattering approach that a mcconnell tried to humiliate the whole idea by ,aking a vote at this moment when even those who supported it did not want this to happen. the power of this new congress, people like alexandria cortez, and with the green new deal means to you? personal it is great appreciation. the kids who are doing it, the sunrise movementnt, which is a wonderful outfit, an awful lot of them, maybe most of them, cut 13th on college campuses as part of this divestment movement. it is a reminder of how movements grow. now they have introduced this legislation that is the first time we have had the answer to climate change that is on the same scale as the problem itself. tot is why it is important get the scale right and it understands that at this point we have to address it alongside

inequality, alongside economic insecurity that people suffer from, that this is an e enormous crisis but also o an opportunity to remake not just a broken planet, but a broken society. amy: bill mckibben, cofounder of 350.org. his new book "falter: has the , human game begun to play itself out?" we will do part two of this discussion and really look at artificial intelligence and why that is so significant to him, the threat he is talking about, and we will post it online at democracynow.org. when we come back, we speak with investigative journalist allan nairn in indonesia on the elections taking place there and what he is discovered about one of the leading presidential candidates, prabowo. his plans to make mass arrests of political opponents. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, i'm amy goodman.

wednesday's national elections. -- we turn now to indonesia ahead of wednesday's national elections. indonesianan president jokoko widodo, , who is bteter known as jokowiis u up re-electioion. his chief rival is p prabowo susubianto, a foformer special forces military commanr r and the foformer son-in-n-law of indodonesia's s longtime dicictr suhaharto. it is a rematch of the 2014 election which jokowi won by almost six percentage points. investigative journalist allan nairn has just uncovered shocking plans made by prabowo if he wins the presidency. according to minutes o of a strategy session obtained by allan nairn, prabowo has made plans to stage mass arrests of political opponents and his current allies. nairn reports prabowo has also wants to restore indonesia's army to the role it played in the u.s.-backed suharto dictatorship, w which lasted frm 196767 to 1998. allan nairn joins us now from indonesia.

he has just published his latest report on his website allannairn.org. welcome back to democracy now! talk about the significance of this election on wednesday and what you have just uncovered. >> good to be with you. who has al prabowo, real chance to be elected president, is the single most notorious massacre general in indonesia. he has been associated with or mass killings of civilians than any other officer. he is also the officer who was the closest protege of the u.s. govevernment, workikingirectly during his cararr with the u.. fense inintelligence a agency ad u.s. spepecial forces.s. he told d me this in n 2001 whee had to do long discussions between advererries. he discscsion about h how

brought in u.s. troo i into indonesia and h h they use the portunity y indonesia to do whwhat he called d recon for the ininsion consisiders thehe, namy they used the chance prprabowo gave them to make contingency plans for theoretical the gentle u.s. invasion of indonesia in the future. that claimim of his was s backep by pentatagon documentnts. anand prabowooaid to me, i was the amamerans fear h boy. inwas wasngton's man jakartforecades. whoaer gener suharto, it consolidated his power by massacring anywhere from 400,000 to one million civilians with direct u.s. support, after suharto was finally ousted in na democratic u uprising in 1998, general prabowo was no longer useful to washington and they just don't him o overnightht afr he lost inin interernal power struggle with anotheher general.

now prabowo, w who is been csociated with at least two oup attempts and whoho told me when i spoke to him years ago that indonesia was not ready for democracy and that he thought, dreamed about seizing power and being called a fascist dictator, he now has a real chance to win the presidency. and in the report i put out the minuteserred to of the meeting, which took place inone of prabowo's homes jakarta on december 21 of last year -- this was a meeting with prabowo and six other generals, several admirals and three of his sibling operatives -- at least those who were named in the minutes, which leaked out military police and intelligence system of indonesia. according to that, they made

specific plans for what they would do if prabowo was in power. one of them was to stage mass arrest of f political opponents. they specify the political parties that were anti-prabowo that would be targeted. the second was more novel, that theyey would also view mass arrests of allies of prabowo. twoe seem to be motivations. one to consolidate power in eliminateown hands to rivals, illuminate other leaders, both in the opposition and in the camamp that now supports them. to be targeted for arrest according to these minutes were the democrat party former also the islamist forces, ranging from the fpi,ical party to the

islamist militia groups, and other kinds of organizations. these groups would also be targeted for arrest. with othercord motivation, which was to curry favor with the united states. according to these mininutes and discussionons i haveve had with peopople from the prabowowo cire and verifying this document and the material for this article, prabowo is very eager to get back in good graces of washington. and so he is seriously talking about arresting these islamist groups that are now the driving force of his campaign. on the ground, they are the ones - -- giving itgy energygy and structure. inin my opininion, giving him al chancece to win on w wednesday d defeat president jokowi.

what they'y're talking about isa politicacal nightht of long knis re both opponents and allies from outside p prabowo's own p y would be cast asaside, eliminat, locked up. inin order tdo t this, thehey td about deploying the e attorney thehe new prabowo, chief of pololice, ostensibly te independent c corruption eradication, and also the intetelligence agency which has- the state intelligence body, which has a liaiaison with h a relationonship witthe cia and sometitimes does assassinations. in fact, perhaps best known for its arsenic assassination in 2004 of a great human rights hero who was a friend of mine. also, in this meeting, according to the minutes and my

discussions with people who are familiar with it, they also talked about restoring the indonesian army to the role of playayed during ththe new order suharto dictatorship. this was the time of the mass slaughter and a time when the army was the ultltimate arbiterf politics, even d down to the neighborhood and village level. this general prabowo wins election, and he has a real chance, the consequences would ofvery severe for the chance any future organizing activism or movement toward anything resembling a real democracy in indonesia. there is a great irony here because if this does turn out to be a close election, as i believe it will, there is a

chance that it is the very victims of general prabowo and their families, their descendents, the descendents of their families, and those who admire the great struggle of many of these e victims, they could be the ones whwho and up giving prabowo the v victory. becausus preredent jokowi, w who defeateded prabowo in 2014, has disappointed the activist community. many ofhe would bring these generals, mass murdering generals come to trial. he did not. he is clearly afraid of the army. he has brought some of these ,enerals into his circle according to his theory, to protect them from the rest of the army -- which he doesn't really have control over. so in their disappointment, many activists talking about abstaining from voting. there are indications this vote

or not vote to be rather significant. if it is close, it could put prabowo over the top. amy: in the last minute, if you could talk about the role of one of the largest gold and coal mines -- copper mining operations in the world based year in the united states. >> they operate and was popular, which is defective occupied by the security forces of indonesia. they strtrped the mountains, spoiled the streams, done billllions of dollarss in envirn mental damage. generaral prabowo in this campan rails against f foreign corpororations and t the extctin ofof indonesia's wealth, but t n fact, , privatately prabowo intervenened to help freeport. accocording to the vice-chaiairn of his own political par, , who told me how prprabowo intervened to k kill a workrker's rightsts lawsuit againstst freeport.

in terms of the elelecti, i -- used this election, could prove to be a turning point for indonesia. , thank you forn being with us, activist and award-winning investigative journalist. to see his coverage of indonesia, go to democracynow.org. speaking to us ahead of indonesia's wednesday elections. indonesia, the largest muslim population in the world. there been reporting from for decades. that does it for our broadcast. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your commentsts 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!]