09/03/21 09/03/21 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! pres. biden: the past few days of hurricane ida and the wildfires under the west and the unprecedented flash floods in new york and new jersey is yet another reminder of these extreme storms in that climate crisis are here. we need to be better prepared. we need to act. amy: as the death toll climbs

from flash floods in the northeast, president biden pence to the gulf coast for hurricane ida first made landfall sunday. we will go to new orleans, which is still without power in the sweltering heat to speak with malik rahim who helped found the mutual aid, ground after hurricane katrina. he continues to help feed people in need as the city swarms with police, he says help from the federal government is hard to find. then as we move into labor day weekend, we look at "dirty work: essential jobs and the hidden toll of inequality in america." new yorker writer eyal press. >> just to kind of get at what i mean by dirty work and why it is actually similar to the essential worker conversation in some ways, these are jobs that support the prevailing social

worker that we have. amy: we will speak with some of the people profiled in "dirty work" including christophe aaron and dulce castañeda. >> covid really exacerbated the alarming dangerous working conditions that many mtpacking workers were aeady wking in before covid-19, including repetitive motion, stress on the body, head and shoulder injuries, in addition to workers often having no time to sanitize or use the restrm or change their equipment. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the death toll from unprecedented flooding in the northeastern u.s. has risen to

46 after the remnants of hurricane ida left a trail of destruction from pennsylvania to massachusetts. much of philadelphia's vine street expressway completely flooded, resembling a canal running through the city's center. here in new york, the bodies of least 11 people were found in flooded basement apartments. a growing number of poor and working-class people, many of them immigrants, have been forced into illegal basement dwellings due to a shortage of affordable housing. meanwhile, mayor bill de blasio joined governor kathy hochul and senator chuck schumer thursday in demanding congress pass a federal infrastructure bill to help cities prepare for the climate catastrophe. >> what we have got to recognize is the suddenness, the brutality of storms now. it is different. a record set two weeks ago, another now. rainfall like we have never seen ever before.

this is the biggest wake-up call we could possibly get. amy: meanwhile, hurricane ida's death toll along the gulf coast has risen to 16. more than 830,000 customers remain without power, and louisiana officials say critical shortages of fuel are hampering relief efforts. state and federal officials are investigating reports of oil and chemical spills along the gulf coast in the wake of hurricane ida. the investigations come after the national oceanic and atmospheric administration published aerial photos showing miles of oil slicks along the mississippi river and in the gulf of mexico, including spills near a phillips 66 refinery and an enterprise offshore drilling platform. in afghanistan, humanitarian flights by the united nations have resumed in parts of the country. the world food programme warned the currt political upheaval has only compounded the food insecurity brought on by years of conflict and a devastating drought. some 14 million people, or one-third of the population,

faces acute food insecurity and half of all children under age five suffer from malnutrition. western union announced thursday it is resuming money-transfer services to afghanistan. in t western cy of herat dozens of wometook to th stres thursdayo demand t taliban reect their man rights and full participation in afghan society. >> we demand the right of education, empyment, fedom, securityand alsoresence in public forums, politics. we have to take place in litical social, public fields. we have fought for these important rights for years. amy: meanwhile, intensifying fighting between rebel afghan forces and the taliban in panjshir province, located north of kabul, has reportedly resulted in casualties on both sides. this comes as the taliban is poised to announce the formation of a new government in kabul, with reuters reporting recently

returned taliban co-founder mullah baradar will be its leader. japanese prime minister yoshihide suga said friday he will not seek reelection and will resign on september 30, less than a year after he took office. suga has faced widespread criticism over his mishandling of japan's coronavirus response and for pushing ahead with the olympic and paralympic games despite surging covid-19 numbers. japan continues to report about 20,000 daily cases and its overburdened hospitals are turning away thousands of patients each day. in the united states, covid-19 deaths are continuing to rise rapidly, with nearly 3000 deaths reported on thursday. in florida, which recorded a pandemic-high death toll in august, hospitals report more than 90% of all icu beds are occupied, with significant shortages of oxygen. meanwhile, nbc news reports at least 15 million covid-19 vaccine doses across the u.s.

have gone to waste, representing about 3% of all doses delivered. democrats say they are preparing to fight against texas's new law essentially banning abortions after the supreme court refused to halt it. house speaker nancy pelosi said the house will hold a vote this month on the women's health protection act, which could help protect abortion rights. but the legislation is unlikely to receive a 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority in the evenly divided senate. president biden slammed the unconstitutional chaos unleashed by the texas abortion ban, vowing to deploy a "whole of government" effort to respond to the attack on roe v wade. meanwhile, in texas, abortion providers say they're having to turn away distraught patients, many of whom will now have to leave the state if they can afford it in order to access abortions. pandemic-related unemployment benefits are set to expire this labor day weekend for millions of people across the u.s., even as many states endure their worst outbreaks of the pandemic.

about 3.3 million people who've exhausted state unemployment assistance will lose their pandemic emergency benefits. also expiring is a program that provided aid to about 4.2 million jobless gig economy and self-employed workers. nearly unemployed people will 3 million lose a federal $300 weekly benefit added to state-level benefits. the cutoff comes after the biden administration repeatedly declined to ask the democratic-controlled congress to extend unemployment benefits. west virginia senator joe manchin called on fellow democrats thursday to pause plans for a $3.5 trillion spending bill, citing the bill's price tag and the risk of inflation. the measure would create millions of well-paid, union jobs in a civilian climate corps to combat the climate crisis. it would also expand medicare, extend the child tax credit, and would provide funds for universal pre-k and tuition-free community college. the bill is unlikely to pass without manchin's support in the senate, where democrats have a razor-thin majority. arizona democratic senator

kyrsten sinema has also said she wants a smaller package. know your congresswoman -- new york congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez tweeted in response -- "manchin has weekly huddles with exxon and is one of many senators who gives lobbyists their pen to write so-called 'bipartisan' fossil fuel bills. it's killing people. our people. at least 12 last night. sick of this 'bipartisan' corruption that masquerades as clear eyed moderation." the environmental protection agency warns in a new report the climate crisis will impact communities of color the hardest. the epa found black americans are 40% more likely to live in areas where extreme temperatures will drive up deaths, especially if the world warms by 2 degrees celsius. on thursday, president biden said hurricane ida and western wildfires were yet another reminder that the climate crisis has arrived. but during the same speech, biden said his energy department has authorizing the release of 1.5 million barrels from the

strategic petroleum reserve to combat fuel shortages in louisiana following hurricane ida. mr. biden: that is why we are not waiting to assess the full impact of the storm will have on oil production and refineries. removing already, quickly, to increase the availability of gas and easing the pressure on gas prices around the country. amy: president biden is traveling to louisiana today to tour damage from hurrica ida. a federal judge has ruled against u.s. government's practice of blocking asylum seekers from applying for refuge at the u.s.-mexico border. the policy, known as "metering," was first enforced by the obama administration, and it caps the number of people who can seek asylum at ports of entry and cross into the u.s. while their claims make it through the courts. president trump later expanded metering across the southern border, forcing thousands of asylum seekers who were placed on long waiting lists to be stuck in mexican border cities for months.

lawyer stephen medlock, who argued the case on behalf of asylum seekers, said in a statement -- "the very government officials that should have been welcoming and assisting victims of persecution and torture were told to turn them away from the united states. the district court found that to be unequivocally illegal." in georgia, a former district attorney has been indicted on misconduct charges for her role in interfering in the murder investigation of ahmaud arbery, the 25-year-old black man who was chased down and shot to death while out for a jog last year. a grand jury is accusing former prosecutor jackie johnson of covering up for the three white men involved in arbery's killing and shielding them from criminal charges. johnson had previously worked with one of the men, greg mcmichael, who is a former police officer. johnson asked police officers not to arrest mcmichael's son, travis. the father and son, as well as their friend william bryan, are facing numerous charges in georgia, including felony

murder. in the occupied gaza strip, israeli soldiers killed a palestinian man during a protest thursday at the separation barrier. at least 15 others were wounded, including a child. gazans have been holding nightly demonstrations against the israeli blockade and the ongoing violation of their human rights. and in el salvador, hundreds of people took to the streets of the capital san salvador earlier this week, protesting the adoption of bitcoin as an official currency, making el salvador the first in the world to do so. the law, spearheaded by president nayib bukele, takes effect next week. critics warn of the risks of drastic fluctuates in value and and say bitcoin is often used for money laundering. opponents also worry of the economic impacts on el salvador's poorer communities, many of which don't have access to bank accounts or smartphones. this is a salvadoran union leader. >> the technologymplemented for the use of this coin is still very expensive for

salvadorans, especially our older adult. it's high-end technology that is needed to handle this virtual currency. amy: and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the death toll from the remnants of hurricane ida that led to flash floods and tornadoes in the northeastern united states has now topped in a speech 46. thursday, president biden addressed natural disasters across the united states. pres. biden: people of louisiana and mississippi are resilient and resourceful. we will stand with you for as long as it takes to recover and allow you to rebuild. and to the country, the past few days of hurricane ida and the wildfires in the west and the unprecedented flash floods in new york and new jersey is yet another reminder of these extreme storms in the climate crisis are here. we need to be better prepared.

we need to act. amy: this comes as a new report from the environmental protection agency details how people of color in the united states will bear the brunt of the climate crisis. nearly one million homes and businesses in louisiana and mississippi are without power after hurricane ida made landfall sunday. nearly a week later, most of the city of new orleans remains in the dark. reports are coming in of tragic scenes, including in independence, louisiana, where four nursing home residents died and nearly 800 more were rescued from a warehouse after they were taken there to ride out the storm from seven nursing homes, all owned by the same baton rouge businessman. they spent six days there, and several officials described the elderly living in inhumane conditions -- some calling out for medicine, others stuck in diapers full of feces. meanwhile, the city of new orleans remains under a curfew imposed tuesday by the mayor and new orleans police chief shaun ferguson, who spoke tuesday.

>> effective today, eight :00 p.m. tonight, we will be enforcing our curfew ordinance. meaning we are expecting everyone to comply. we also continue to enforce our anti-looting deployment which the mayor mentioned. the louisiana national guard, lsp will be here with us as well. the sheriffs office is also assisting with this deployment. so we have more additional capacity to address the needs of our cities since -- citizens. amy: for more, we go to new orleans, to the neighborhood of algiers neighborhood of new orleans to speak by phone with malik rahim. we spoke to him extensively during hurricane katrina. ida hit on the 16th anniversary of katrina. we spoke to him during katrina and the aftermath when he was the co-founder of the common ground collective, which helped bring thousands of people from

all over the world to help rebuild the city. he is also one of the founders of the louisiana chapter of the black panther party. in 2008, he was a congressional candidate for the green party. malik, welcome back to democracy now! i spent a lot of time with you walking through algiers and now you are there continuing to help people. talk about who is not there and just the condition of where you are right now. >> first of all, amy, i am honored once again to be able to do an interview with you. i am in -- can you hear me? amy: we can hear you perfectly. we did not want to bring malik on skype or anything that would use more energy because of the complete power outage. thank you for joining us by phone. >> it is an honor to be on your show.

before i go any further, first i have to give praise to my lord and savior. praise jesus. to the god of abraham. from there, amy, i'm going to tell you, this is deja vu. this is truly deja vu. by that, i mean it is happening again. same thing. that means in less than a month, we have another hurricane coming here. this is nothing new. this happened in lake charles. it was hit by two category 5 hurricanes in little over a month. if this is deja vu, then we need to start gettipared.

now as for what is lacking? what is lacking is the understanding, once again, the poor was left. those who have wealth, they left. those who had any kind of income when ida came -- i locked their second and third car up in their yard and their driveway and then left. they did not worry got giving food away. they know it was going to go bad. they just left. that is the reason why once again people start looting.

because once again, spending everything you had on school supplies. now you are stuck. now you're stuck in a city that has a heat index of 105. and the thing that really got to me that was lacking up until yesterday was ice. because if you did not have any money because you are broke and you were waiting on the first, you cannot even go and buy bag of ice. and if you bought on walking in the seat back to your home, you lost at least one third of it. so you have people like this and the frustration when they had

money in their accounts but they cannot access it. but there is a saying, and i love what president biden said because he has the experience. he witnessed what happened during katrina. he was in govement then. national disasters happened. by that i mean he has experience. an experience said, we need to get prepared. can't be no one-sided preparation. in the aftermath of katrina, we served over half a million people. this has been acknowledged by

groups all over the world. with the exception of the city of new orleans. i mean, the international coalition of social conscious has designated not me, but my house come as an international site of conscious, recognized in over 65 nations -- but not in the city of new orleans. the thing that is needed is emergency disaster teams made up of people of their community. they could work in conjunction, especially with the fire department, and make sure that their community is taking care of.

and if this was going on, then we could be better prepared. we would be hit with -- you would not catch us in the same dismal situation where we have to force people to go to shelters. then we could prepare for it. the thing that is needed that is happening now, amy, is the fact that now we have this going on -- this going on right now. and look at where the need is. you know what i mean? this is going on during a pandemic. nobody is talking right now how about what is going to be the next impact we are going to get hit with? with all the roofs that are leaking were the only person who

can afford to get the roof repair is the rich and the only person right now that is able to afford somebody to put a tarp on their roof is those with some kind of money. amy: on tuesday, new orleans mayor latoya cantrell imposed a citywide curfew for all the residents from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 in the morning. the police chief said the louisiana state poce and national guard are supplementing police patrols. have you seen these troops? have you seen the national guard? how are they being used? >> i'm going to tell you one thing right now without -- at least until he enforce this anti-looting bill, we were

working together like we didn't work during katrina. they were paying people -- it is heartbreaking when you see a woman with three kids in a house with no air conditioning, no fan, with nothing. not even ice. when you see people fearful of taking the medication because they feel it has gone bad because, again, there is no ice. the thing we have to look at is the next wave about to hit the city. evy house that got water in it will suffer with mold infestation. are we prepared for it? yeah people bleaching their

walls and killing themselves. they're trying to rid their homes of mold. because that is the next thing that is going to happen. mold abatement is got to be right there on top of it. and then the next thing is the gulf coast, our wetlands. our wetlands was hit. these people took the brunt of this, but they also sit right there in the petroleum industry. we have thousands of abandoned oil rigs in the gulf of mexico. we have thousands of. -- we have thousands of them.

we need groups like greenpeace to come down here and above. and not just -- how can we work together? how can we work together with companies that have the reputation of doing the work during these type of crises? amy: president biden is coming to new orleans today. what message do you have for him? >> he came yesterday. i thought he came yesterday. if he is coming today, the only thing -- again, i am not one of the privileged few that would be able to see him most of but my message to him would be, work with the community. the community is a strong community. they don't need nobody to lead

them. they know what to do. work with the faith-based institutions. we have three movie studios in algiers that have produced movies for over the last 10 years, have made billions of dollars. none of them have contributed nothing to this community that making it now unaffordable for you to even rent. that is the reason why the crisis in new orleans is so bad. people here cannot rent in new orleans. they can't afford it. not the working poor. they are already making half of what the average white family here is making. i know they can't afford it. every time there is a lot that is empty, you see a house, big beautiful home built in there but nobody is helping the poor

families trying to keep -- amy, for over 12 years, i have been living in this house without water. i haven't done no repairs. my garage just about done fell down. the need is -- i am going to tell you, if something isn't happening, don't happen -- we are reorganizing common ground with the assistance of mutual aid and others. maybe they cannot come down, but they know what is needed. to help us. we are looking for respirators. we are looking for gloves and boots that can be used so that we could help people when they have to got out their houses, how to correctly do it and do

the mold remediation. but then at the same time, we have to look at the golf -- gulf. i heard you mention the oilfield. during katrina, we're going to have deja vu again because i am calling for environmental conference to be built here in new orleans. we can come together to make sure safeguards are in place. and assure the gulf is kept as clean as possible. amy: malik we, will come back and touch base with you. i want to thank you for spending this time and electricity in your phone. malik rahim in the algiers neighborhood of new orleans. we first met him during hurricane katrina and its

aftermath when he cofounded the common ground collective, which helped bring thousands of people from around the world to help rebuild new orleans and the surrounding areas. he is also one of the founders of the louisiana chapter of the black panther party. he was a congressional candidate for the green party. be safe. again, we will talk to you soon. next up, the head of the labor day weekend, we look at "dirty work: essential jobs and the hidden toll of inequality in america." a former drone operator and family member of meatpacking worker. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. this monday is labor day, and today we spend the rest of the hour looking at "dirty work: essential jobs and the hidden toll of inequality in america." that's the title of a new book by "new yorker" writer eyal press. he profiles the workers like prison guards and oil workers,

and two people we will speak to in a minute -- a drone operator and the daughter of poultry plant workers. we begin with eyal press, who also has a new opinion piece for "the new york times," headlined "america runs on 'dirty work' and moral inequality." he joins us from buffalo, new york. welcome back to democracy now! you begin your book with this quote from the great writer james baldwin, "the powerless must do their own dirty work. the powerful have it done for them." talk about what that means and what you mean by dirty work. >> so i don't mean the common cool girl expression which i think -- colloquial expression that leads people to think garbage truck workers who do something that is physically dirty. dirty work in my book means unethical activity that society depends on and passively

condones but does not want to hear too much. so it is work that is certain shadows. we think of the work of conducting targeted assassinations in the drone program or the work of running the mental health words in america's jails and prisons -- which, by the way, are the largest mental health institutions in this country. or work of manning the kill forth in industrial slaughterhouses. all of those things i argue in the book are quintessential to our existing social order to the american way of life. really can't imagine fast food, the american industrial food system without the slaughterhouses i write about. you can't imagine the never ending wars without the drone program. but we very rarely hear from this work is largely hidden and we rarely hear from that people on theront lines those were delegated to do it and to go

back to the baldwin quote, the book is an about inequality. the powerful and the privilege don't do the dirty work in america. they not only don't do it, they don't see it. i am particular really honored to be on this show because you have invited some of the people i have written about to tell their stories. we don't hear those stories enough and also the family members of the people who do this work. amy: let's go to one of the workers in your new book "dirty work: essential jobs and the hidden toll of inequality in america." christopher aaron, a former intelligence analyst for the cia's drone program. a 2018 article that described his job opened like this -- "in the spring of 2006, christopher aaron started working 12-hour shifts in a windowless room at the counterterrorism airborne analysis center in langley, virginia. he sat before a wall of flat-screen monitors that beamed live, classified video feeds

from drones hovering in distant war zones." christopher aaron joins us now from tucson, arizona. christopher, welcome to democracy now! describe the work you were doing in this faraway windowless room. what i mean by that, far away from your targets in afghanistan. >> yes. first of all, amy, thank you for having me on the show today. if i could just take one moment -- i have done this personally in the past, but i would like to take a moment now that the war is officially over to offer an apology to the people of afghanistan, from not only myself, but from the rest of our society as americans. i think there needs to be somewhere in this dialogue a place for the human emotion of

what we have all been through. and i words are wholly insufficient to do that, but if anyone is listening on the others of the planet, we all apologize for what we have just done. my work as an intelligence analyst, as the article says, we were behind video screens. there's a lot that was classified that i can't it into. i began my career working for another intelligence agency and then transfer over to this fusion sell at the cia headquarters. this was my career out of college, as a product of the 9/11 generation. i wanted to do something for my generation tha matted, where i could do some good to try to help the world. we were behind the screens for 12 hours three to four days a

week on rotating shifts all hours of the night and day. after a few months, i had the opportunity to go to afghanistan and i served 26-month deployments. one in 2006 and one again in 2008/2009. i was able to see with my own eyes both the human toll, the resource toll of these wars, as well as the policy of dropping "guided missiles" at people from remote control airplanes was not allowing us to actually win the war. so all three of those sides of things were failing in my view. amy: chris, as the u.s. was pulling out of afghanistan and they talk about over the horizon capability, precisely what you're talking about, that the troops may not be there on the ground but drone strikes -- well, in the last days of the

u.s. presence in kabul, that drone strike that killed a family of 10. seven of them children. some under five. your feelings as you watched that unfold? >> it is just horrific. to see this happening as we are withdrawing, you know, i don't want to say this was commonplace throughout my time in the wars, but it certainly happened. for every kill that we had of a "extremist" or "terrorist" it is impossible to say but there were certainly innocent casualties the entire time. we would often see in the streets the next day, we would be going after one person with a targeted strike and the next day we would see two or three coffins being carried through the streets. there was just this attitude at the time amongst the military or in the intelligence community

like, well, this is the cost of war, this is what we have to do to get the taliban, terrorists, al qaeda, etc. you start to put the pieces together and look at the cause and effect. for example, with the drone strike just last week, it is not only the humans that were killed, but what about their brothers? what about their sisters? what about their classmates in school? so where as maybe you did successfully kill one extremist or one terrorist, you now have 5, 10, 15, 30 new ones to take their place. it is a failing policy. it is as simple as that. amy: and as the war comes to -- this chapter of this forever work comes to an end, how representative are you in speaking to your colleagues, the other people who are in the room

-- if you still do -- and the corporate media they have soldier after soldier saying if we are pulling out now, what do we do this for? questioning the pullout not so much just the critical point of that question, "why do we do this for?" >> it is a wonderful question. i began to ask myself that in 2006 and certainly after coming back in 2008, 2009. i saw it with my own eyes that not only of course thwasted resources, the human toll on both sides of the fence, including the soldiers who i worked with who suffered tremendously from ptsd -- which is something i am passionate about as well -- but the loss of areas of control of the country in 2008, 2009. the entire region, southern afghanistan of kinda hard, this

might sound silly -- kandahar, this might sound silly, but i had thanksgiving dinner there in 2006 as we were flying into some of the remote bases. by 2009, we cannot return there. i was like, wait a minute, this was in 2009, we can't go back to a base that we formally controlled. why were we there the entire time? there are others. i'm not the only one who has spoken out about this. there is brain o'brien, lisa ling, and daniel hale, who has just been imprisoned a month or two ago. however -- amy: for releasing information about the drone program. >> correct. there were one or two pieces in there that were classified, something i'm very careful about , however, that is what they got him for under the espionage act. ultimately, what were we therefore?

i am unable to accept that me as a 29-year-old effect in 2009 that something that was so obvious to me about the failing of the trajectory of the wars, i am unable to believe that my military superiors and the politicians way above me were not able to see the same thing. so when faced with those facts, and thinking person has to say, was there not perhaps a policy in play to keep us in a state of war for one reason or another? amy: do you think ptsd, posttraumatic stress disorder, that the questioning of what you were doing this -- i mean, the apology you made at the beginning of this conversation -- contributes to the horror you experience afterwards?

>> it does. i know for me, and not only for me but for a lot of other people who i am in touch with through veterans retreats -- and to be fully upfront, again, two-state it for the record, i'm not technically a veteran. i was a dod civilian. the question of where your paycheck comes from, dod civilian with a gun in a war zone, working on the drone program. but anyway, i am in touch with a number of people who are also -- who have suffered in this way. it is a different kind of ptsd. there is no way i can compare what i went through some of the people who saw their brothers in the military blown up in front of them or who themselves lost limbs or senses. i'm not try to compare what we experienced to that. but at the same time, there is something that we experience and

people who volunteered for this program because we love this program, we love what this country stands for as far as the freedoms we have and then when you're faced with the reality on the ground through the video screen that what is actually happening on the ground is not what is being reported in the mainstream media and is not what the higher-ups in the military structure are telling us is going to win the war, you start to feel an immense sense of regret. that is what i spoke with eyal about extensively leading up to "the new york times" article, what they call moral injury or moral regret. it is for real. amy: eyal, if you could talk about what you decided to include chris, a drone operator for the cia, in your profiling of essential workers. in your book you say "the truth

is, the drone program doesn't just serve the interests of military contractors." talk about who it serves. >> well, i think it is so appropriate that chris began with that moving apology. and he made a collective. he wasn't just saying he is sorry, that he is part of the society that has chosen to fight wars this way. that is why i have focused on him and other people in the drone program. after iraq and afghanistan, the ground invasions, america was exhausted by those wars, disillusioned, and did not like the price tag -- both in terms of casualties and resources. and so what happen? well, under obama first, then under trump, drones -- fighting from a distance without any

physical to our site. keeping the same right to target and kill people even in countries which were not formally at war, but doing it in the shadows. doing it out of sight, out of mind. and the fundamental theme of my book is that those acts are not just the militaries and they're t just chris aarons and they're not just the current people in the drone programs. they are ours. we own with the impact of that is, with theegal repercussions and the moral repercussions. i am struck that i the beginning of the drone programthere were so much talk about this being antiseptic and it would be like playing a videogame. but then as i researched it and also looked at what the military itself has found, you have huge rates of burnout in the program

and analysts and drone operators who quit or who just are mentally and emotionally and psychically distressed. why? why? it is not because they evaded roadside bombs in the sense of injuries and ptsd that soldiers on the ground have had, it is because they are seeing intimately day after day, shift after shift, violence unfolding on screens from a distance for which, in some cases, they feel responsible for things that go wrong, for things -- for a strike that happens and ey are not sure who was hit. this term moral injury kept coming up not just in what i was reading, but when i visited some bases and talk to some psychiatrist ons. i think that moral injury doesn't belong just to people who experience it or see what it has done, but it belongs to all

of us, to the society that decided this is one of the ways we will continue fighting our wars. amy: finally, very quickly, chris, were you what many called a joystick warrior? and where these so-called joystick warriors drone operators treated differently than soldiers in the battlefield? >> >> i was not a joystick operator. we communicated with them directly. there is a whole series of intelligence sources that come together to ultimately decide whether or not a strike will happen, a missile will be launched from the drone or a soldier will go in. so where i fit in that chain was as an intelligence analyst. we essentially were providing the raw assessment as to what was happening on the ground. our their people -- let's say we

have the target that would be let's say the extremist inside a building that we are watching from the drone, and in the military commanders would come to us and say, "are there women or children in that building as well?" based on the answers we would give to them, sometimes a minute later we would see a bright flash on the screen and you are then counting how many dead bodies in fact do you see after that strike. i was not the joystick operator myself, but that information is basically driving what the joystick operator does. amy: i want to thank you, christopher aaron, for joining us, former intelligence analyst for the cia's drone program. eyal press, please stay with us, author of "dirty work: essential jobs and the hidden toll of inequality in america."

we are also going to link to that p0 in "the new york times" and we're going to speak after break to another person profiled in "dirty work," dulce castañeda . stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. monday is labor day and we are spending today's show with "new yorker" writer eyal press and some of the people he profiles in his new book "dirty work: essential jobs and the hidden toll of inequality in america." this labor day comes amid a new search in the pandemic. the virus has been deadly for many so-called essential workers who are often low-wage workers and people of color. meatpacking plants have been deadly covid-19 hot spots. these workers and their families are profiled in section of the book called "on the kill floors."

for more, we go to crete, nebraska, to speak with dulce castañeda, founding member of children of smithfield, a nebraska-based grassroots advocacy group led by the children and family members of meatpacking workers. still with us is eyal press. dulce, welcome to democracy now! can you update us on what has been the situation at meatpacking plants and help immigrate come essential workers have been impacted by the pandemic? talk about your own family. >> thank you, amy, for having me this morning. to start out, i guess i will say in april of last year 2020, we re entering a crisis worldwide . it was a situation in crete, nebraska, we are beginning to see a lot of our public

locations beginning to close down, shut down, government buildings are beginning to close. while all of this was happening, things that crete, smithfield plant se to be remaining as usual. nothing was really changing. my father who is a meatpacking worker and works at the plant, i was hearing from him and other community members, sort of the working conditions they were facing. they really were not being provided any kind of covid-19 protection. so they were being given hairnets to wear on their faces instead of face masks. instead of proper social distancing sanitizing stations, what they were being given was chips or cookies at lunch to thank them for the work. like it was a situation where ty were not receiving the protections they needed.

often these workers don't have the means to advocate or the time. i am my father's daughter. many of my colleagues who are like me were worried about the health and safety of their parents, decided to form together and speak up and speak out about the conditions they were facing. that is how i got involved in this work. amy: talk about nebraska. with children of smithfield packing plant. in nebraska, almost 7000 covid-19 cases were traced back to meatpacking place. 11% of the workforce is made up of undocumented people. can you talk about the conditions in the plant that your father, that so many people

face? during the trump years, you had republican governor after governor standing with trump saying they would not let the meatpacking plants close even as we heard of the number of people sick and dying. do you know what that number is? >> unfortunately, in nebraska, our governor decided to stop allowing health departments to release that information. so that information is not public -- stopped being public in may 2020, very early on. meanwhile we were seeing more than 100 cases were already reported at the creek smithfield plant and the number after that, there was a number that we can no longer trace back. we had aggregate data at the state level from the department of health and human services but

there was nothing traceable back to certain locations or certain facilities. so you would start to hear about people becoming sick or dying from word-of-mouth. all of a sudden, this person was missing on the line and you did not know why. you can make assumptions. but people began to stop showing up for work for one reason or another. amy: how easily were the workers able to get vaccines? >> so they started vaccinating out at the plant -- this year i believe in march or april. my father was fortunate enough to be vaccinated at the plant. i know the recently restarted ccinating or having those

available out of the facility within the last month. amy: just for people to understand, what is produced at smithfield your dad works and what message do you have for is country as we move into labor day? >> it is a pork processing facility. my father has worked there for more than 25 years now. he is proud of the work he does. he has always enjoyed his work. he is a very hard worker. but i would say they are the forgotten jobs, folks -- we forget they are the backbone of our local economies and our national economy. i would say if we really are thankful for the work essential woers have done, especially in sustaining our societies in such a moment of crisis, what better way to thank them and to start

thinking critically about the access to different resources that they have or they don't have and how do we make sure that they can access them in the future. amy: finally, eyal press, who put together this wonderful enlightening, painful book "dirty work: essential jobs and the hidden toll of inequality in america." what surprised you most in your research? you have 20 seconds. >> well, i think just the incredible dignity of the people i wrote about, including dulce and chris, it is a dark oak and a hard book to read, but i think it is so important as we approach labor day but also beyond it, to hear their voices, to know his work is connected to all of us. we shaped the conditions. we shape the harm it causes. we have to think about that and own it. amy: eyal press, author of

"dirty work: essential jobs and the hidden toll of inequality in america." and dulce castañeda with children of smithfield, speaking to us from nebraska. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or

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