Democracy Now!

Democracy Now! is a daily independent news hour hosted by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan González. Visit democracynow.org to watch and listen to the latest interviews, read through show transcripts, search the vast news archive or to make a donation to support our nonprofit news program. Livestream weekdays 8 a.m. ET.

By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan

BAKU, Azerbaijan – COP29, the 29th United Nations’ “Conference of Parties” to the climate convention, convened this year in Azerbaijan, a small, authoritarian petrostate wedged between Russia and Iran on the shores of the Caspian Sea. The worsening climate catastrophe, fueled by the world’s centuries-long embrace of fossil fuels, demands a united, world-wide response from all nations, including authoritarian ones. But does the conference itself have to be held in a country where dissent is criminalized, protests are banned and there is no free press nor right to free speech?

The world’s oil addiction arguably began in Baku. It was here, in 1846, that the first industrial oil well was drilled. As revolution swept through Europe and beyond in 1848, and Karl Marx’s newly-published Communist Manifesto reminded workers that they had nothing to lose but their chains, humanity was busily chaining itself to fossil fuels. More than 175 years later, our ever-increasing burning of coal, oil and gas has heated the planet with a cascade of catastrophic consequences, from more frequent and intense hurricanes and typhoons to wildfires, droughts, and tornadoes – increasing human suffering and driving mass migration.

This crisis will only accelerate unless a comprehensive solution is negotiated, implemented and enforced on a global scale. Which brings us to Baku, and the fundamentally flawed decision to hold these vital talks in a place where speaking freely can get you arrested by the government of President Ilham Aliyev.

“Azerbaijan has had an abysmal rights record for many years, but it has dramatically deteriorated in the run-up to COP29,” Giorgi Gogia of the Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch said on the Democracy Now! news hour. He noted HRW has “documented 33 cases of arrests and imprisonment of journalists, activists, human rights defenders and government critics on various bogus charges…think about what this COP would have been like if they were there to voice their criticism, for their voices to be heard by the globe.” Others say the number of arrests prior to COP29 is closer to 300.

Gubad Ibadoghlu, an anti-corruption economist who’s taught at the London School of Economics, is currently under house arrest. His crime? Demanding greater transparency in Azerbaijan’s oil and gas revenues. In July, 2023 Ibadoghlu and his wife were violently arrested. He faces up to 17 years in prison. Their daughter Zhala Bayramova was also arrested and tortured.

“I’m a human rights lawyer, but I was also working as an activist, observing elections, writing cases to the European Court of Human Rights,” Zhala said on Democracy Now!, from outside Azerbaijan. “As a result of all this torture, I cannot sleep without a neck pillow, as they injured my neck discs. They also crushed my ribs and my kneecaps.”

Zhala continued, “before Ilham Aliyev, it was his father who was also president of Azerbaijan, and during the Soviet Union, a KGB general. And Ilham Aliyev, it seems, is getting his son ready to succeed himself. His wife is the vice president of Azerbaijan. So, it’s more like a monarchy. It’s a family affair, in a sense, and they own everything.”

The climate summit is housed in Baku’s main sports stadium and several adjoining temporary structures, in a secure space dubbed “the Blue Zone,” where the UN controls security and sets the rules. In this Potemkin village, protest is tolerated if pre-authorized and then only at specified locations and times; at one official site, protesters can make noise, give speeches, or even sing. At the other site, only silent protest is permitted, with allowances for soft humming and finger snapping, due to its proximity to meeting rooms, the UN says. But behind the closed doors of those meeting rooms, where the future of the planet’s climate is being decided, the more than 1,700 fossil fuel lobbyists registered for COP29 are able to speak freely, to mingle with government delegations, to influence the course of the negotiations, uninterrupted by the silent protests outside.

Global petroleum production and consumption are at an all-time high, while 2024 is set to be the hottest year on record, trumping last year’s record heat. Science tells us that the worst impacts of the climate emergency still can be avoided, if urgent and ambitious action is taken.

Autocrats like Ilham Aliyev, and aspiring autocrats like Donald Trump, love the wealth and power that flow from oil. Trump has already promised to withdraw from the Paris Agreement…again. Grassroots movements and global solidarity will be needed as people fight the twin threats of authoritarianism and climate change in these coming crisis years.

These difficult times recall the words of twentieth-century philosopher Antonio Gramsci, imprisoned by the Italian fascist Mussolini for twelve years, until his death. In his Prison Writings, translated from Italian, Gramsci wrote,

“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.”

Democracy Now! is a daily independent news hour hosted by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan González. Visit democracynow.org to watch and listen to the latest interviews, read through show transcripts, search the vast news archive or to make a donation to support our nonprofit news program. Livestream weekdays 8 a.m. ET.

Democracy Now! is a daily independent news hour hosted by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan González. Visit democracynow.org to watch and listen to the latest interviews, read through show transcripts, search the vast news archive or to make a donation to support our nonprofit news program. Livestream weekdays 8 a.m. ET.

Democracy Now! is a daily independent news hour hosted by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan González. Visit democracynow.org to watch and listen to the latest interviews, read through show transcripts, search the vast news archive or to make a donation to support our nonprofit news program. Livestream weekdays 8 a.m. ET.

Democracy Now! is a daily independent news hour hosted by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan González. Visit democracynow.org to watch and listen to the latest interviews, read through show transcripts, search the vast news archive or to make a donation to support our nonprofit news program. Livestream weekdays 8 a.m. ET.

Democracy Now! is a daily independent news hour hosted by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan González. Visit democracynow.org to watch and listen to the latest interviews, read through show transcripts, search the vast news archive or to make a donation to support our nonprofit news program. Livestream weekdays 8 a.m. ET.

By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan

President-elect Donald Trump’s long history of vilifying immigrants is reaching a dark and likely violent escalation as he nominates to key White House cabinet and staff positions a slew of “America First” extremists and white supremacists. One of Trump’s central campaign pledges was to deport at least 12 million people, who he refers to as “illegals.” Trump’s election win drove up the stock prices of private prison corporations but it has also triggered grassroots mobilization to confront Trump’s cruel plans.

“The United States is now an occupied country…nine days from now will be Liberation Day in America,” Trump said at his racist rally at Madison Square Garden (MSG) on October 27th. “On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out…kick them the hell out of our country as fast as possible.”

Except for Trump himself, no one in his circle spews anti-immigrant hate with more zeal than Stephen Miller, Trump’s nominee for Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. At that MSG rally, Miller warmed up the crowd, bellowing, “America is for Americans and Americans only!”

Miller was the architect of the anti-immigrant policies during the first Trump administration, like the Muslim ban and family separations. He’s had four years to plot, and has developed a broad plan to deliver mass deportations. Miller detailed his plans last February, speaking at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference:

“Seal the border, no illegals in, everyone here goes out. That’s very straightforward [with] a series of interlocking domestic and foreign policies…You have ‘Remain in Mexico,’ finish the wall. You have robust prosecutions of illegal aliens. You do interior repatriation flights to Mexico, not back to the north of Mexico. It’s very important. You reimplement Title 42.”

“Title 42” refers to a 1944 public health law that allows the president to restrict immigration and deport anyone deemed a health risk. It was deployed by Trump during the COVID pandemic and continued by President Biden into 2023.

Miller continued, “The travel ban authority…You would bring those back and add new ones. You would establish large-scale staging grounds for removal flights. So you grab illegal immigrants, and then you move them to the staging grounds, and that’s where the planes are waiting for federal law enforcement to then move those illegals home. You deputize the National Guard to carry out immigration enforcement.”

“Staging grounds,” not to be confused with concentration camps.

Trump’s also named a so-called “Border Czar,” Thomas Homan. Homan was Trump’s acting director of ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He’ll be in charge of Trump’s planned mass deportations.

In an interview with 60 Minutes’ Cecilia Vega, Homan dodged the price tag of mass deportations:

Vega: We have seen one estimate that says it would cost $88 billion to deport a million people a year.

Homan: I don’t know if that’s accurate or not.

Vega: Is that what American taxpayers should expect?

Homan: What price do you put on national security? Is it worth it?

Vega: Is there a way to carry out mass deportation without separating families?

Homan: Of course there is. Families can be deported together.

Homan was referring to deporting children who were born in the US, thus legal US citizens, with their undocumented parents.

Trump also nominated South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to be Secretary of Homeland Security. She has scant national security experience yet several times deployed the South Dakota National Guard to the U.S./Mexico border in Texas.

Trump, who plans to use the US military to mass deport, has nominated Pete Hegseth, a Fox News’ weekend host and military veteran, to be Secretary of Defense. Hegseth is known to have numerous white supremacist tattoos including a Christian nationalist “Jerusalem cross” inspired by the Crusaders.

People are organizing across the country in advance of this coming wave of raids, roundups, concentration camps and mass deportations. Alejandra Pablos is a reproductive justice community organizer and storyteller based in Arizona, who successfully fought against her own deportation for a decade.

Speaking on the Democracy Now! news hour, she described her efforts with a rapid response network, “working with people on the ground, trying to inform folks on their rights and what they could do to protect each other.”

The ACLU has prepared for a year, and has teams of lawyers ready to fight Trump and his deportation team in court.

Trump, Miller, and Homan have tried mass deportations before. They were met with massive resistance, in the streets and in the courts. The opposition forced Trump to reverse an executive order, halting the separation of families.

The challenge now is for people with the privilege and protections of US citizenship to act in solidarity with the millions of our threatened, undocumented neighbors, and confront Trump’s planned mass deportations with disciplined, sustained mass resistance.

Democracy Now! is a daily independent news hour hosted by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan González. Visit democracynow.org to watch and listen to the latest interviews, read through show transcripts, search the vast news archive or to make a donation to support our nonprofit news program. Livestream weekdays 8 a.m. ET.

Democracy Now! is a daily independent news hour hosted by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan González. Visit democracynow.org to watch and listen to the latest interviews, read through show transcripts, search the vast news archive or to make a donation to support our nonprofit news program. Livestream weekdays 8 a.m. ET.