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tv   Democracy Now  LINKTV  July 30, 2020 8:00am-9:01am PDT

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[captioning made possible by democracy now!] ♪ amy: f from new york, this is democracy now. happens when next one comes bototh verys contagiousus and veryy gently?ye are in deep trouble, much worse than t this. amy: as ththe cororonavirus deah toll in the united states tops 150,000, we spend the hour with professor noam chomsky looking at how neoliberal policies left the country unprepared for a public health crisis.
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he w will talk about how cuba hs helped other countries during the pandemic, , israel's threato anannex the west bank and thee upcocoming u.s. election. chomsky: we are in a very over the nextrioiod few months. it will determine the fate of the country and the fate of the species. noam c chomsky, professor, political activistst and dissidt for the hour. all that and more, coming up. welclcome to democracy nowow, democracynowow.org, ththe war ad peace report. i'm amy goodman. the u.s. coronavirus death toll topped 150,0,000 on wednesday -- the highest of any nation by far -- with california and florida reporting single-day records for fatalities. with the virus continuing to spread out of control, -- control in the united states, researchers at johns hopkins university are calling for a "reset" in the u.s. coronavirus
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response, with universal mask mandates, federal support for expanded testing, and a new round of stay-at-home orders in hotspots. and in an open letter published wednesday, the association of american medical colleges writes "if the nation does not change its course -- and soon -- deaths in the united states could be well into the multiple hundreds of thousands." in texasas, president trump was photographed wearing no mask wednesday as he toured an oil rig and attended a campaign fundraiser -- a violation of texas governor greg abbott's statewide mask mandate. in houston, dr. joseph varon, chief medical officer at united memorial medical center, said covid-19 will continue to surge unless people adhere to basic public health measures like mask-wearing. a i am pretty much fighting war against covid and a war
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against stupidity. the problem is the first one, i have some hope about winning, but the second one is becomiming more and more difficult to treat. amy: texas republican congressmember louie gohmert tested positive for coronavirus wednesday, after he consistently refused to wear a mask in the u.s. capitol -- including in a committee hearing tuesday where attorney general william barr gave testimony. gohmert's diagnosis came after he was tested by the white house ahead of a planned trip to west texas with president trump aboard air force one. after testing positive, gohmert returned to his office on capitol hill, where he told a texas tv station he had sometimes wornrn a mask in recen da. if byan't help but wononder keepeping a mask on n and keepet ,n place thahat if i might have some virus on,
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the mask and breathed it in. amy: asked by a politico reporter for comment, an aide to congressmember gohmert wrote "thank you for letting our office know louie tested positive for the coronavirus." the aide added "when you write your story, can you include the fact that louie requires full staff to be in the office, including three interns, so that 'we could be an example to america on how to open up safely.' when probing the office, you might want to ask how often were people berated for wearing masks." the unnamed aide told this to politico. texas congressmember kay granger has gone into self-quarantine after she sat next to congress member gohmert on a weekend flight. congressmember gohmert said he'll be taking hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug that's been shown not to work against covid-19. the drug, which can have fatal side effects, has been pushed by president trump. meanwhile, texas republican congressional candidate wesley hunt also tested positive for covid-19, just hours before he
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was scheduled to greet president trump in midland. house speakeker nancy pelosi h s orordered a a mask bee worn anye in the house chamamber or in-hoe office buildings. house office buildings. inteternationally,y, confirmed coronavirus s deaths have topped two-ththirds of a mimillion, wih more than n 17 million c cases reportrted brazilil reported a a record ony death toll of nearly 1,600 wednesday, even as far-right president jair bolsonaro lifted a ban on foreign travelers and demanded a rollback of other public health measures. brazil's official death toll is 90,000, though public health experts say the true number is likely much higher. in mexico, coronavirus deaths have topped 45,000. president andres manuel lopez obrador continues to resist calls for a mask mandate, even as his government's health ministers urge mexicans to cover their faces to stop the spread of the disease. i the mexican government, as
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announced this morning, recommends the use of face masks. but we've also been very clear, and when the explanation comes, some people get upset that we are not going to make it an obligate tory measure from that ory measure from the mexican government. amy: vietnam has reported several hundred new coronavirus cases, after months of recording no new infections.s. in saudi arabia, muslims have begugun the annual hajj pilgrime inin mecca with just 1,000 worsrshipers allowed to attetend under strict social distancing rules. in normal years, 2 million pilgrims attend the hajj. in portland, oregon, federal agents fired tear gas at protesters wednesday as hundreds of black lives matter demonstrators rallied for a 63rd consecutive night outside a downtown federal courthouse. the crackdown came just hours after oregon governor kate brown said she's reached a deal with the trump administration to have federal agents withdraw from portland, calling them "an occupying force". acting homeland security secretary chad wolf disputed her claim, saying the agen would only pull out once federal property is secure, and telling
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-- is secure. on capitol hill, the heads of apple, google, facebook, and amazon testified wednesday before the house judiciary antitrust subcommittee. facebook ceo mark zuckerberg faced numerous questions about facebook's purchase of instagram. newly released internal facebook emails reveal the purchase w was madede to "neueutralize a competitor." hohouse judidiciary chair r jery nadler said google andnd facebok have "greatltly threateneded journalism" due to their dominance in online advertisisi. subcommittee chair david cicilline openly called for breaking up the big tech companies. >> this hearing has made one fact clear to me -- - these companieies as exist today have monopoly power. some needs to be broken up,p, al needs to be properly regulated and held accountable. we need to make sure the antitrust laws first written more than a century ago work in the digital age. amy: congressman cicilline also warned the companies may emerge stronger and more powerful in the wake of covid-19. the hearing came just days after amazon ceo jeff bezos reportedly made $13 billion in a single
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day. the e white house saidid wednesy talks withth democratic leaderes over a new coronavirus stimulus bill have stalled. republicans proposed slashing expanded unemployment benefits to just $200 a week. m mths, tenssour of thousands of unemployed workers received an additional 600 dollars a week in federal benefit, but the program just ended. meanwhile, president trump openly bragged wednesday of his administration's efforts to block a program aimed at desegregating white suburbs. trump tweeted "i am happy to inform all of the people living their suburban lifestyle dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood. your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down," he tweeted. senator elizabeth warren respononded to trump's tweet,t, writing "this is blatant racism from the president of the united states. and it's disgusting."
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last week, housing secretary ben carson announced the termination of an obama-era fafair housing rule that required commumunities receiving federaral funding to adaddress hohousing segregation. around 200 people have been displaced in denver, colorado after local and state police closed down a large encampment where people without homes have been living. no advance notice was given before the wednesday morning sweep of lincoln park. around 150 tents were removed. one member of the denver school board, tay anderson, was hospitalized with a concussion after being knocked over by police while protesting the raid. the pentagon said wednesday it's pulling 12,000 u.s. troops out of germany, after president trump accused berlin of failing to s spend enough on its own defense. this is pentagon chief mark esper. >> i think germany is the wealthiest country in europe. germany can and should pay more to its defense. amy: the troop drawdown drew fire from congressional hawks in both parties. republican senator mitt romney
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of utah called it a "a gift to robert anand senator menendez of new jersey said "champagne must be flowing freely this evening at the kremlin." the trump administration has quietly neutralized a small federal agency focused on preventing industrial disasters. the center for public integrity reports work at the chemical safety and hazard investigation board has come to a halt, with just one voting memember left on the agency's board of directors out of a possible five. without a quorum, the board will not be able to release the final reports from any of its 13 pending investigations. in climate news, new data shows communities in the united states with large african-american and latinx populations will be hardest hit from climate change in the coming decades. according to the union of concerned scientists, u.s. counties with more than 25% black or latinx residents will face far more days of extreme heat than whiter counties by mid-century if the targets of the paris climate accord are not reached. in morocco, authorities arrested journalist omar radi wednesday, on what press freedom advocates
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call "retaliatory charges." radi reported on the role of the moroccan state and big business in dispossessing farmers from their tribal lands. he has spoken out about facing harassment and surveillance. an amnesty international report alleges authorities hacked radi's phone using pegasus spyware from the israeli company nso group. now a court has charged radi with undermining state security by receiving foreign funding and collabororating with foreign intelligence, , and also charged him with rape. the committee to protect journalists issued a statement that "moroccan authorities in the past have plainly tried to make a any chargrge against him stick in retaliation for his work as a journalist" and called on them to "release radi, and investigate any sexual assault charges in a credible and transparent manner." omar radi spoke to democracy now! before his arrest. >> i stopped c cooperating with thee police because they y were
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asking empty questions and questions that do not protect the presumption of i innocence,o i am not playing this game. ifif they have e something, then just arrest me and send me to the prosecutor and to trial, but i am not playing this q&a game with the police that just want me to confess that i was something i never was. amy: journalist omar radi's lawyers deny all the charges against him. he is reportedly being held in a prison in casablanca that is a covid hotspot. we'll link to our full interview -- full interview with omar radi on our website, democracynow.org. former president barack obama will give the eulogy for congressman john lewis, former presidents bill clinton and george w. bush are expected to attend. president trump is skipping the funeral, and also refused to pay respecects to john lewis when hs
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body lay in n state in the u.s. capital. anand those are someme of the headlinenes. this i is democrcracy now,w, democracynow.orgrg, the war anad peace reportrt. i'm amy goodman. when we aree back, we will bebe joined by y noam chomsmsky for e hourur. ♪ amy: t this cellisist, playing together with his siblings, sheleltering at t home. this i is democracy now. democracynow.orgrg. the quarantine report. i am amy goodman. the u.s. coronavirus death toll topped 150,000 on wednesday --
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the highest of any nation by far. the hardest hit states per capita are florida, louisiana, arizona, mississippi, alabama, nevada, south carolina, texas, idaho, tennessee, and georgia -- a list that includes all seven of the original confederate states. today we talk about covid and so much more as we spend the the with noam chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, lininguist, and auth, professor emeritusus at massachusetts institute of technolology, where he taught fr more than 50 years, now laureate professor in the department of linguiuistics at t the universif arizizona. author of more t than 100 books. prprofessor chomsky spoke withh democracy now's nermemeen shaikh and i last thursday, from his home in tucson, arizona. we shouldsky: understand the roooots of this pandemic.. if we do not undererstand thee
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roots, there is going t tbe anotother worse one. so far we have been kindnd of lucky. there are coronavirus that are veryry serious, a and there a are many popossibilities. so far, a all the onenes that he happppened in the last 150 year, has been veryus deadly but not very contagious, like ebola, or very contagious but not very deadly, likike covid-19 so what happens when the next one comes along that is both very contagious and very deadly? we are in deep trouble.. deep. much worse than this. much worse than the so-called "spanish flu." the kansas be called
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flu trumps -- by trump's logic, it originated in k kansas one cecentury ago. we might b be facing something much worse. there are always ways with dealing with it. 2003,the sars epidemic in the scientists knew w that anotr one was very likely. presented policies that could be carried out. they were routed out in part because of deep institutional path ologies. who are thepanies obvious candidates for dealing with itt can't, , by strict capipitalist logic. to try tospspend money prevent aatastropophe 10 yeyears from now. what you try to do is make money
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tomorrow. that is the logic of the system. pharmamaceuticalal companies wee ruled out by capitalisist logic. the government in many events does most of the basic research for vaccines and drugs, almost all of them. they have laboratories and plenty of unlimited resources, but they are blocked by y the neoliberal plate. government isn -- the problem, not the solution, meaning we have to take decision-making and action out of the hands of government, whole, is somewhat reresponsive to the population. we have to shift it to unaccountable, private tyr ranies, which are unaccountable
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through the population. that is the meaning of reagan's slogan. that is the fundamental prprinciple ofof neoliberalism. the woworld has been suffering from it for years. nevertheless, there were things the e government could do. when the obama administration took office in the firirst few daysys, obama calllled the presidential scientific advisory boboard, which had been establishehed by george h.w. b , the first bush, who had some respect for science. obama called it, he requested that they put together a pandemic reaction program. a way to deal with a pandemic if itit comes. they came up with a report a
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couple weeks later. it was implemented,, it was in place until january 2017. trump came into office, first few days, dismantled the whole system. that's part of the general wrecking ball that destroyed everything that obama did. we have to wreck everything because it is the only way to look like you are e doing something. there were programs of u u.s. scientists workiking in china wh chinese colleagues to try to detectct and identifyy coronavi, as most of them are deep in , very dangerous work. but they were finding them and identifying them and testing them.
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the main center for investigating this, trump canceled the program. there were simulations run of a 2019mic as late as october warnrning of whahat would d hap. no attention. the trump administraration isn't inteterested. ,hen the epidemic finally hit the united statates was singulay ununprepared. after that comes a s series of grotesque inactions and actions. for a gross couple of months, trump refused to admit it was happening while other countries were doing things. asia, oceana, australia, new zealand -- they were reacting. south korea, one of the first place hit, you never had to go to a lot down -- lockdown
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because they dealt with it rationally. they dealt with the places that were hotspots, controlled them, tested, trace people for contact . deaths has reported zero , and apparently that is taken quite seriously by leading u.s. specialists, the don hopkins -- the johns hopkins group [inaudible] deaths from vietnam, which shares a 1400 mile border with china. soututh korea, taiwan, new zealand, australia are doing quite well, and europe, t they delayed in quite a way but they did finally act. as you mentioned, the curve has sharply reduced since march for most of you.
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some of you -- norway, germany, doing quite well in this respect. people are traveling through southern itataly almost like normal. extreme that,so as you know, europe has been american -- banned american visitors. americans are not permitted to go to other countries. this is kind of mimicked in a horrible way in brazil, [inaudible] millions are strong. we don't care. these right-wing bolsonaro supporters dancing in the virus, and spreading the
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and one of the really world shaking crimes that is being carried out i is the destruction of the a amazon. that affects the whohole wororl, nojujust brazil. scientificic predictions are tht the current course of the amazon 15 yearst in about from being a net carbon sink to a net emitter of carbon dioxide. that's devastatingng for brazil,
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in fact the whole world. down the road, the amazon u under thehe current coe will tururn into t the savannah. no forest anymore. devastating for brazil anand the other countries. devastating for the world. one of the main oxygen producers of the wor.. at every level, we are racing mamadly towards total catastrope under the leadership of sociopopathic fanatics.s. is as if some evil demon decided to take over the human species and drive themem to self-destruction. much of the world is trying to counter it, almost all of the world, but the united states and brazil are the extreme cases of racing with the dedication
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towards disaster, going back to this election. that is the reason why it is the most dangerous, the most significant election in history. fact -- this in may sound outrageous, but it's true -- trump is the most dangerous figure in human .istory the republican party today is the most dangerous organization in human history. o,u can compare trump t, hitler, with his declaration in 191942 that calld , not killing all the jews izedroying human society. the republican party, wewe knoww how w they shifted.
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so,go bacack just a decade e or john mccain, 2008, was running for president. weakrogram had some pretty , but t some policies directed o global warming. congress was beginning to contemplate global warmingng, policies toto restrict globobal warming. ch brothers, a superrich paidy corporation, attention to this. one of the koch brothers died anently, but they launched incredible campaign to make sure that the republican party would turn to denialism.
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bribe senators, intimidated others with the threat of money, counter campaigns against them. huge lobbying campaigns. , a massiveampaigns .uggernaut the party shifted and dropped all of its efforts to deal with climate c change. sts.rty led by deniali amy: as you talk about the denialism and science with president trump holding a daily coronavirus press briefing without the scientists, you have anthony fauci throwing out t the first ball at the washington nationals infectioushiefef disease scientists, who will not l with the white
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house so he is not in the coronavirus breathing. you have dr. birx, who president trump says is right outside, but is not part of this briefing. do you think reporters should refuse to be there unless scientists are there and unlnles president t trump wears a m mas? yes, i ththink so, and i think they should do much more. they should be pointing out constantly what i just said, revealing with the most dangerous figure in human history, backed by the most dangerous organization in human history -- here is the fact. the much more serious threat of is aonmental disaster
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growing, very sesevere threat of nuclear war. newspaperion, every should have on the front page the doomsday clock. you know all a about this,s, but evevery january,y, the committee of e economic scientis gather scientiststs, political analysts to try to give an estimate of the security and state of the world security, started shortly after the atom bomb. it has been going on for 75 years. movedminute hand is midnight,farther to depending on how dangerous the world situation is. midnight means we are finished. every year that t trump has been
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in office, the minutute hand has moved closer to midnight. two o years ago, it reached the closest it had ever been. ups january, the hours gave minutes, then moved to seconds. 100 seconds to midnight. since january,y, trump has made every one of the issuess that they have e brought up worse.. there were three major issues. one isis the threat of nucuclear , secondnd, the threreat of environmentalapacity, third, the deterioration of democracy, which does bebelong, becaususe s ofy with a vibrant democracy informed, engaged public that we can have any hope of escaping from the existential crisis. since january, trump has
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succeeded in making all three crises worse. i mention the nuclear weapons issue, considerably worse thanks to trump's actions. the environmental crisis of course getting worse, as he continues to press for maximize nation of the use of the most dangerous fossil fuels -- ion of the use of the most dangerous fossil fuels. obviousy, it's pretty -- the executive branch has been cleansed of f independent t voi. nothing but psychopaths. we were sentnt by god s save israel.. the inspectors general who are
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imposed by congrgress, by the repupublican congrgress to monir malfeasancnce of the executive rged.hes, pu trump went out of his way to humiliate the senioior republicn senator, charles grassley, who spent much of his career imposing these monitors. the attorney general of the district of new york looked into the trump swamp. turned by mcconnell, it used to be called the greatest delivered a body in the world. now it is a a joke. now it does not do any deliberation. it does essentially nothing excecept try to ra t through as many a appointments of young, ultra-ght judges as possie so they can pack t the judiciary for a generation.. the otheher thing it does is figure outut ways to pour money into the buckets of the rich,
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like the tax scam. proposals come from the house for legislation, mcconnell just cans them. that is not the role of the senate. going back, that's why they should be puttingng them doomsdy clock o onthe doomsday the frfront of every newspspape. show the united states what it is doing to the world, too itseself. that should be the front of everyone's attention, and t thee are many other things that should be done. there have been major protests useevery week against the of military force to occupy american cities and to crush peaceful dissidents . this is intolerable in a functioning democracy.
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cannot let it happen, let it proceed step-by-step until we reacach real catastrophe. amy: p professoror noam chchoms. when we come back, he talks about israel's threat to annex the west bank, the upcoming u.s. election and more. [music break] "swept away" by the roots. one of their founding members, malik b, has passed away at the
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age ofof 47. ththis is democracy now.w. democracynow.org. this is the quarantine reporort. we turn n now to t the interviei did with nermeen s shaikh with professor noam chomsky. amy: professssor chohomsky, i wt to ask about one of the leleadig crises we are facing. many scienentists b believe t ta vaccccine will be possible for this virus. coululd you talk a a little bit about what you hope will happen in termsms of acaccess to this vaccine? of f all,sky: firirst whether a vaccine will be available is an open q question. there are some pretty favorable mentrts, but the develop of a safe vaccine is a pretty slow process.
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the ruian vaccine has dangers associated with it that may be that couldde effects be dealt with by slow development. the racing through his raising these problems. virus,he spreread of f the we have to do whatever can be done. to your question, how is it distributed? -- kind ofent society in which we live, it will be distributed pretty much the way the stimulus money is being distriributed, or the way -- and 2008 was distributed. that was the obama administration, not the administstration of a psychopat. obama?is it done under
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congress passed the legislation bailout forts, the the perpetrators of the crisis, the big banks, the ones that played games with derivatives and so on -- let's bail them out. the other part was to provivide support for the victims, ththe people who lost their homes under foreclolosure -- let's do something g for them. progrgram was an active,e, the firspart, then the inspector general fofor the treaeasury d departmtment, was o outraged, he was s writing articles, he wrote a book about the scandal. that was the good guys, the obama administration. now we are talking about the bad guys, the trump administration, off the spectrum. that is what has been happening
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with the stimulus funds. one of the major funds, 80% of it went to people who earned over $1 million a year. the gave the figures before about the cornucopia that is flowing to the superrich. that will be the way the vaccine if we retaind too our current social order. we don't have to do that. maybe trump was sent by god to earth, but the system we live in is humanly designed and can be changed. and readily be chahanged. the comingng election ululd lead to a changee if there is real
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dedication to getting rid of the malignancy in the white house that is destroying us. and changing the former political party, still called a that can berty, tamed and turned d into sometetg like it was, get a stable government run by people who care somewewhat abouout the population. if popular activism continues, which has made a big impact, the sanders campaign was a and sandersuccess, joined the planning of the biden campaign, that could have a big impact on the program. it is the most progressive candidate iny recent history, maybe as far
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back as roosevelt. the climate change program is not what i would like, not what you would like, but is better than anything that has been proposed by anyone. tially written by the activists of the sunrise movement. activists strongly endorse it. if the activist movement continues, we can make sure it is highly probable that these programs will be enacted and improved.. thatat's the key. that's real politics. keep pressure on daily, not just er every four years. that has an effect.. we can e escape frfrom this cri. there are ways to deal with an environmental crisis. there arwaways to deal with a pandemic [inaudible] asy are not insoluble, butut
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far as distributing the vaccine is concerned, we will be facing real problems. inequality inical the society -- we are just t gog to push the more wealthy and privileged to the front. that has to be stopped. the vacacne should d go to those who need it, who are mostly the poor and vulnerarae. they arere the ones that are suffering most. they should be up front. the concentration camps not far from where i l live, on the southern b border of mexexico, e pandemic is raging there in the prprisons, raging. all of these have to be dealt with. we're going to facece another thrust, the anti-science
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of this administration has accelerated the tendency in the scienceto be opposed to . very strtrong. a strong anti-vaccination movement.. we can't take vaccines. they are too danangerous. s sae probably seen story circulating that the pandemic was created by y bill to try d georgege soros control the world population -- very widesprpread. a recent investigation by a pew research center -- by pew research center found rerepublicans who are familiar wiwith the stotory, which isis t many, almostst 60% believe it. these are people who listen to
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-- rush limbaugugh, trump's favorite radioman, just got an award. government, media, academia and thrive on- they deceit. tens of millions o of people hee that kind of thing. they see what you describe in the white house witith thee scientists pushed to the side. we don't wawant science.. ok. i believe it. not surprirising. that is what people are inundated with, a and coming bak to the distribution of the just take the vaccine. a person who refuses to take the
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vaccine is not only harming him or herself, it is like a person who says my god, i have an assault rifle. i don't want to registry. that is what it means to not wear a mask or not to takake the vaccine. amy: if people have reason to be afraid, professor chomsky, about a vaccine that has been developed in, in trump's words, the name of the program "warp speed." with his deregulation to g get a vaccinine, which so manyny peope wantnt around the worlrld, that there would be a danger r in the original vaccine? if vaccines are is alwayshrouou, there a daer. it means many of the possibilities simply haven''t been tested. that's what hapns when you rurush things through..
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the balance of cts and benefits says you should do it anyway but atat aree e gointo d do? we a a talking about the united stat, , how disistrute a vaccinin what about aicica? at about yemen what abo latin ameri and the huge mass ofeeply imp ind, whatple in going t happen to them? most of the population of the world. they will geget some relief from the world health organization. it hasn't been discussed at far as i know, but something pretty shocking just took place. from this flailingng around to find some scapegoat to cover up the fact that he is r responsibe for killing thousands of
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americans. secondnd, trying to destroy it - to tensns ofs mean thouousands if not millions of poor people in africica? the world health organization is what provides them with medical support and treatment for the many diseaeases that they face l .he time now it's getting worse under the virus. what about yemen, the worst humanitarian crisis in the world , thanks to our providing saudi arabia with arms and intelligence so that they can or a large country, part of it. the population, they have a terrible pandemic raging.
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the world health organization is one of the few organizations providing medical support, so let's withdraw it. pulling out of the world health organization, defunding it is threatening the lives of huge, uncountable numbers of people. it is shocking what we are overlooking. going back to the distribution of the vaccine, we should be doing something for it. at least one country in the world is showing genuine internationalism, providing medical aid and support for those who need it. when there was a pandemic in northern italy, a serious pandemic in northern italyly,
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there were some rich c countries to the north, germany, austria, which had it pretty much in control, they didn't send doctors. doctors were sent frfrom cuba, that theor countries united states has been trying to crush fofo60 yearsrs ththey werere able to send d dos to n northern italy and e elsew. not the rich couountries. it's called the e european unio. well, that is the kind of world that is sometimes covered and discussed in the u.s. media. what it has done is accused the cuban government of using slave labor to enrich themselves. that is what it means for cuba to send d doctors to work in dangerous places [inaudible]
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it's true that the cuban of theent takes part funding to use for their medical system, their remarkable medical system. turn that through the u.s. propaganda system and it becomes using slave labor to enrich themselves. this is the country that we are crushing, starting with a terrorist war and vicious economic strangulation. the whole world is opposed to it, and it comes up in the united nations every year. the world votes unanimously against the united states. one exception, israel, which has to go along with the u.s. everyone else opposed. who cares? we're the global pariah -- - we don't care about anybody else.
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i wanted to ask you about israel. thousands of people have been protesting the way prime minister benjamin netanyahu has dealt with the coronavirus pandemicic. alalso protesting his corruption -- this comes as the united nations warns israel's threat to annex parts of the west banank s hinderered palestinian efforts o control the pandemic. the u.n. special envoy made the remarks today after the day after authorities demolished a coronavirus testing center in a local city. can you comment on what is happening there, but the coronavirus pandemic and netanyahu's expressed d attempt, any dayy now, to annex the west bank? prof. chomsksky: what's happenig with the virus i is pretty horrible.
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the records of the main israeli human rights group, they actualllly report cases in which settltlers, what's called the hilltopp youth, extremist right-wing, ultrareleligious settlelers in the settlements tt even [inaudible] someone did have cororonavirus d these young, crazed militants broke in the palestinian villages to try to spread the virus. that is an extreme, destroying those centers as you described is an illegal part of it. israel is trtreating the palestinians, and has for a long , pretty much the united
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states -- the way the united states is treating immigrants in virtual concentration camps. the annexation, which they are holding off for the moment, policies formalizes that have been implemented over the last 50 years. these are major political groupings. muchabour party has pretty disappeared, but it used to be the major party. ,nder the labour party [inaudible] under the labour party as under the -- based coalition, the same policies have been carried out, trying to create a greater
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israel, which takes over everything in the west tank that ,s valuable and integrated integrates i it into israel's and ofstructure projects course, you can draw it from structure built mostly during the clinton years east of jerusalem. you can ride from there to tel aviv without even seeing a palestinian on the superhighway. important, buts avoid the population centers. israel does not want to bring palestinian populations into the greater israel construct. that is what is called the
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demographic problem. there are too many non-jews in to jewish state, so we want avoid the population centers, don't take over the population centers, take over the areas that are of value to us. areas of the palestinian population and try to get rid of them as much as possible and make life unlivable, or else unviable --,in almost 200 of them in areas israel is taking over where people are cut off from their fields, from their olive groves, they have to pass through --ckpoints to cross the road
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they try to limit the population and take over what is valuable. palestinian populations have some ofeen removed, but , if, military firing zones you got the palestinians and build a huge settlement, the same w with the green parart ano on. that is the policy for the l lat 50 yeaears. it would slowly sort of under the radar, so outsiders could pretetend they don't see it, but that is what has been happening. annenexation w will essentially formalize e it. amy:y: ianted toto ask what you wowould likeke to see happeneren ththe u.s. in the months leading up to this elelection, whicich u have said is the mostt i importt
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in human historyry. what should happen here in the country in the u.s.? what should d people be doing to organize? they should be doing anythihi they can n thinkf -- demonstrations, protests, political organization, pressure on every pressure point you can think of to try to block the very transparent effort of trump , backed by his party, to set up major military confrontations, which will be an excuse for trying to either eliminate the election or to affect its results so that he does not have to leave t the white house. fact that weg the , then a major crisis
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pandemic is the immediate crisis -- meanwhile, the environmental crisis is growing seriously, has to be addressed now. we cannot wait. theset put into practice to mitigate the crisis and overcome it. to get off fossil fuelels. to get to zero net omissions onshin -- zero net emissi in a short time. we have to act constantly to try to prevent the crazed lunatics in the w white house from carryg out nuclear weapons tests. that's the next thing on the agenda, breaking down the comprehensive test treaty, the newo renegotiate
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start treaty. if democrats win the election, they'll do it, although it might be too late to get anywhere. all of these things have to be done right away. don't let u up. we a are in a a very dangerous period f for the n next few w m. what happens determines the e fe of thehe country, ththe fate ofe species. chomsmsky, world-renowned pololitical dissidents, linguist and author joining us from tucson, arizona, where he is sheltering at home in the midst of the papandemic with his wife. old, hemsky is 91 years is professssor emeritus at massachusetts institute e of technology, where he tauaught fr more than 50 years, now lori professor in the department of linguistics atat the universityf arizizona, tucsoson. to see part one ofof our intervw we broadcast last week, go to democracynow.org.
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this just in, the u.s. economy contracted by a record 33% in the second quarter and 1.3 filed forople unemememememememem
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announcer: on this episode of "earth focus"... we vivisit oil-rich communitiesn california's san n joaquin vavay and along alaska's arctic slope, where residents are asking tough questions about the consequences ofof fossil fuel extractction. it's been t the bedrock of their economicic livelihoods for deces but is now fracturing communities and threatening the planet. [camera's shutter advancing]

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