Obama to be Sworn in as 44th US President

[Daniyal]

President Obama is in London today ahead of the G20 summit, where world leaders are gathering to discuss the global economic crisis. Tens of thousands of protesters from around the world are gathering in London to demonstrate against the G20 talks and call for economic justice and environmental accountability. Several large demonstrations directed at the failed banking and financial sectors are expected today, April 1st, which some protest organizers are calling “Financial Fools Day.” We speak with Walden Bello of Focus on the Global South

AMY GOODMAN: President Obama is in London today ahead of the G20 summit, where world leaders are gathering to discuss the global economic crisis. It marks Obama’s first trip to Europe since taking office.



At a joint news conference in London with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Obama stressed the severity of the economic downturn.



PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: All of us here in London have the responsibility to act with a sense of urgency, and every nation that will be participating has been affected by a crisis that has cost us so much in terms of jobs, savings and the economic security of our citizens. So make no mistake, we are facing the most severe economic crisis since World War II, and the global economy is now so fundamentally interconnected that we can only meet this challenge together. We can’t create jobs at home if we’re not doing our part to support strong and stable markets around the world.



AMY GOODMAN: While President Obama urged G20 nations to work together on solving the crisis, rifts have already begun to emerge. Earlier, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said France and Germany are not happy with the current draft of the G20 agreement and that he would walk away from the summit if it failed to meet his demands. At today’s press conference, Obama said the nature of the crisis demands an integrated response.



PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I know that the G20 nations are appropriately pursuing their own approaches. And as Gordon indicated, we’re not going to agree on every point. I came here to put forward our ideas, but I also came here to listen, not to lecture.



Having said that, we must not miss an opportunity to lead, to confront a crisis that knows no borders. We have a responsibility to coordinate our actions and to focus on common ground, not on our occasional differences. So, in the days ahead, I believe we will move forward with a sense of common purpose.



We have to do what’s necessary to restore growth and to pursue the reforms that can stabilize our financial system well into the future. We have to reject protectionism and accelerate our efforts to support emerging markets. And we have to put in place a structure that can sustain our cooperation in the months and years ahead.



AMY GOODMAN: Tens of thousands of protesters from around the world are gathering in London to demonstrate against the economic downturn and the G20 summit. Thousands of British police have been patrolling the streets since demonstrations for economic justice and environmental accountability began over the weekend. Five people were arrested under anti-terrorism laws in southern England on Monday.



Several large demonstrations directed at the failed banking and financial sectors are also expected today, April 1st, which some protest organizers are calling “Financial Fools Day.” The London police have reportedly warned bankers to, quote, “dress down” or skip work altogether to avoid being targeted by protesters.



Michael Rainsbro of the anti-globalization group G20 Meltdown described one of the day’s expected actions.



MICHAEL RAINSBRO: We’re be—doing a carnival street party at the Bank of England. And because the anti-globalization movement has been for carnivals, and it’s time for parties, we thought that would be the best thing to do. But we’re adapting it to this kind of a mood, because people are very angry, and we’ve seen it on the four horses of the Apocalypse. We’re saying, by going to the Bank of England, that the Bank of England has been presiding over AIG-style bonuses for years and years and years, and it’s not just a simple problem, that we need to see large-scale structural change in our economy if we’re going to, you know, make it forward in this economic crisis and in this ecological crisis.



AMY GOODMAN: Groups calling attention to the climate crisis and the role of G20 countries in continuing to profit from polluting the environment are gathering for twenty-four hours of mass direct action. Kevin Smith is a spokesperson for Climate Camp, which is organizing the action.



KEVIN SMITH: It’s going to be twenty-four hours in Bishop’s Gate, outside the European Climate Exchange, where we’re going to be highlighting the fact that the things the G20 leaders have on the table aren’t going to deal with the problem of climate change. In fact, in the context of something like carbon trading, which we’re really focusing on, it’s things much, much worse.



AMY GOODMAN: For some analysis on why so many people are protesting the G20, what’s expected to happen at the summit, I’m joined now by Walden Bello, senior analyst at Focus on the Global South, professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines. He argued recently the United Nations, and not a group of the world’s twenty richest countries, should decide the fate of the global economy. Walden Bello joins us now from Manila.



Welcome to Democracy Now!



WALDEN BELLO: Hey, Amy.



AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the G20. Can you start off, Walden, by explaining exactly who the G20 are? What’s the history of this grouping?



WALDEN BELLO: OK. Well, first of all, thanks, Amy, for having me on.



The G20 is a creation of the G7 club of rich countries. And the idea in 1998, 1999 was, you know, for this so-called larger body to come up with a proposal to create a new global financial architecture because of the Asian financial crisis. And I think the relevant point here is that the G20 has never been recognized globally as a representative body, and secondly, that it totally failed to really come up with any sort of recommendations for, you know, controlling capital flow so that they wouldn’t create the same sort of financial crisis that they did in Asia. And they just bought into the private sector and the private banks’ mantra of self-regulation. So—and the point right now is that this body, which excludes 172 other countries, is definitely not seen as, you know, a legitimate body to be the one to come up with a solution to the global crisis. And the point that I made here was that it’s trying so hard to be exclusive at a time when any kind of this approach to this current crisis would necessitate, you know, as inclusive an approach as possible through a legitimate umbrella. And the only umbrella at this point that would enjoy a great degree of legitimacy would be the United Nations and a special session of the United Nations.



But, you know, so I think what’s happening in London is really a lot of show. They’re trying to do in one day what, you know, an earlier memorable conference that set up the postwar multilateral order, the Bretton Woods meeting, took twenty-one days to do. And I think that the nations that are coming there, the governments that are coming there, are really, really in a bind, because they don’t really know what’s going to work. So, you know, this is the kind of uncertainty, this is the kind of fright that they’re trying to hide by putting on a show of seeming coordination.



So that’s—and, of course, I think people are very, very upset, because what has happened so far has been so much paying attention to, you know, saving the banks, bailing out the banks. And I think that with the big bank bailouts and the bonuses that have been going to bank executives, I think there’s just a lot of popular anger throughout the world, you know, that the responses of the G20—you know, that they focus mainly on how do you bail out the current financial system. And, in fact, that’s in fact what the focus is at this point.



AMY GOODMAN: Walden Bello, I’ve just come from Seattle. And, of course, they’re coming up on the tenth anniversary of the Battle of Seattle. It was interesting to speak to the former police chief, Norm Stamper, who today feels that he was wrong in how he dealt with the protesters and, when he describes their goals now, sounds like one of the protesters themselves. What about what people were saying then in Seattle, protesting the World Trade Organization, and what people, the tens of thousands of people that are in the streets now of London, are demanding of G20?



WALDEN BELLO: Well, you know, I mean, I think there’s a direct hereditary line between Seattle and London, because what we were saying in Seattle then is that globalization, you know, this process of trade liberalization leading to more and more integrated global economies and the removal of restraints and barriers to the flow of finance capital, that this was going to bring about, you know, disaster. And we’ve just seen—you know, heard President Obama basically say that economies have become so interlocked, you know, that countries basically are going down together. And this has been what the Seattle protesters and the London protesters have been warning all along, that globalization, corporate-driven globalization, was in fact leading to a situation whereby when the economic boom would stop and the decline would occur, that countries that had their markets so tightly integrated would basically spiral down together. And this is, in fact, what is happening right now.



So, between London and Seattle, I think there is a very direct line of a movement, which—the global justice movement, that basically we’ve been trying to get heard for ten years, but—since Seattle, and even before that, but this was a movement, a popular movement, whose warnings were not heard or ignored, and because of that, we now have this crisis of globalization brought about principally by one trade, the liberalization of trade, and also the absolute lack of regulation of finance capital.



AMY GOODMAN: And the calls to include climate change in the G20 agenda?



WALDEN BELLO: Well, I mean, you know, there is some nod to the climate issue in the G20 agenda. But, you know, basically I think what they’re really, really focusing on at this point is the financial crisis. And this was something that we had a debate on in the Hague, you know, about ten days ago, and I was debating the head of the European Commission on Finance, in which basically he was saying, you know, that “Let’s worry about big issues like climate change later on. We just need now to fix up the financial system.” And basically, what we were saying is that, no, I mean, the short term and the long term, the way you fix things up now must also bring in the long term, which is, you know, dealing with climate change. And this is a very basic difference between the governments assembled there and the people’s movement.



And basically, what people are saying at this point is enough of the separation between short term and long term, enough of the separation between finance and the ecology. People are basically saying that they’re looking for fundamental integrated solutions at this point. And the G20 governments are not giving that, because they really are not capable of giving that at this point in time. You know, this is really, you know, because—mainly because I think their analysis is really so limited. They’re basically thinking that, oh—you know, they’re basically limited to two things. One is stimulus, stimulus, stimulus. And secondly, it’s some sort of light financial regulation so that things are not too deregulated. And that’s the kind of very narrow gauge kind of solutions that they’re bringing to this massive crisis that has financial, trade, ecological and governance dimensions. So, you see, if you leave it up to a small body of governments like this to come up with a solution, you’re really going to—you’re really going to have solutions that are very narrow and that are very [inaudible]—



AMY GOODMAN: Walden Bello, we’re going to have to leave it there. I thank you very much for being with us, senior analyst at Focus on the Global South, professor of sociology—



WALDEN BELLO: OK, Amy. Thank you.



AMY GOODMAN: —at the University of the Philippines. Thanks for joining us from Manila.



Democracy Now!.org

[Oscar Namechange]

They want to save the world......... Look at the carbon footprints of all those 500 FBI agents with Obama flying into London.

Britain is a NO gun country. 200 of Obama's agents are walking the streets of London with loaded weapons. Their act is illegal yet it's allowed.

[gmc]

oscar;1167548 wrote: they want to save the world......... Look at the carbon footprints of all those 500 fbi agents with obama flying into london.

Britain is a no gun country. 200 of obama's agents are walking the streets of london with loaded weapons. Their act is illegal yet it's allowed.


blame gordon brown

[abbey]

oscar;1167548 wrote: They want to save the world......... Look at the carbon footprints of all those 500 FBI agents with Obama flying into London.



Britain is a NO gun country. 200 of Obama's agents are walking the streets of London with loaded weapons. Their act is illegal yet it's allowed.I saw lots of our police in London that were armed!

[Daniyal]

By GREGORY KATZ, AP

posted: 4 HOURS 30 MINUTES AGOcomments: 1385filed under: Political News, The Obama Presidency, World NewsPrintShareText SizeAAALONDON (April 1) – It's not every day the American president's driver is told to move his bulletproof car.

But Queen Elizabeth II's handlers made the request Wednesday after President Barack Obama's reinforced Cadillac limousine was found to be blocking the garden entrance driveway at Buckingham Palace.



After it was moved, Jaguars carrying Prince Charles and other members of the Royal family pulled up for the queen's reception for leaders attending Thursday's G-20 summit.

Obama and his wife Michelle — wearing a black and white dress, pearls and a black coat — were two of the first dignitaries to meet the queen, who wore a salmon-colored dress and her trademark pearls.

During their private meeting, President Obama and first lady gave the queen a personalized iPod with video footage of her 2007 visit to Washington and Virginia. She was also given a rare songbook signed by composer Richard Rodgers.

In return the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, gave the Obamas signed portrait of themselves.

Queen Elizabeth has met with 11 of the last 12 U.S. presidents, including a meeting that took place with Harry Truman when she was a princess, according to Buckingham Palace spokesman David Pogson.



The only president she did not meet was Lyndon Johnson. His widow later met the queen after the president's death .



The queen and her husband entertained the Obamas in her private audience room, which overlooks the palace gardens where thousands of daffodils and other flowers were in bloom.

The room, which is part of the queen's private quarters, is frequently used for private meetings with visiting leaders. Recent visitors included the prime ministers of Canada and Australia.

After her meeting with the Obamas, the queen held a reception for all the world leaders attending the summit.

They gathered in the palace's picture gallery and were served champagne, wine and canapes of chicken with zucchini on skewers, mini Cornish pasties, smoked quail eggs, foie gras and tiny rolls of duck filled with melon.

The queen chatted with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi while French President Nicolas Sarkozy held an animated discussion through an interpreter with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Prince Charles shared a joke with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva while his wife, Camilla, held a long talk with Michelle Obama.



It was a wonderful visit," Obama shouted to reporters as he and his wife left the palace. "Her majesty is delightful."

Several hundred people gathered outside Buckingham Palace and cheered as soon as they saw President Obama.

Earlier in the day, Obama used a press conference with Prime Minister Gordon Brown to say how much he and the First Lady were looking forward to meeting the queen, praising her as a model of "decency and civility."

Brown and his wife, Sarah, were holding a dinner at Downing Street for all of the leaders attending the summit.

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver was cooking dinner for the G-20 leaders. The main course was slow-roasted Welsh lamb accompanied by wild mushrooms, asparagus and potatoes from Jersey in the English Channel. Vegetarian leaders were being offered potato dumplings and asparagus.

Appetizers include baked Scottish salmon with vegetables and goat's cheese from Hertfordshire with roasted shallots. Bakewell tarts and custard is on the menu for dessert.

France's Sarkozy, who had hinted he would walk out of the G-20 if leaders didn't agree to concrete plans on tighter financial regulations, was the last to arrive for the dinner.

Obama sat next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel — who has joined in Sarkozy's calls — while Chinese President Hu Jintao sat between Brown and Sarkozy.

AOL NEWS

[Daniyal]

GOODMAN: At today’s news conference at the G20 summit in London, President Obama also spoke about the situation in Afghanistan.



PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We also discussed the progress that was made yesterday at the Hague, where more than seventy nations gathered to discuss our mutual responsibilities to partner with the Afghan people so that we can deny al-Qaeda a safe haven. And in the days ahead, we’ll consult further with our NATO allies about training Afghan security forces, increasing our civilian support, and a regional approach that recognizes the connection between the future of Afghanistan and Pakistan.



AMY GOODMAN: After the G20 meeting, Obama is heading to Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany, where he will take part in a major NATO summit commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the alliance. Afghanistan is expected to be at the top of the agenda, and Obama is expected to ask for NATO’s support for his escalation of the war. Obama has said he plans to send an extra 17,000 soldiers and 4,000 advisers to Afghanistan.



Congress member Jim McDermott recently traveled to Afghanistan as part of a congressional delegation. He’s a Democratic [representative] from Seattle, joining us now from Washington, D.C.



We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Congressman McDermott.



REP. JIM McDERMOTT: Hi, Amy. How are you?



AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Well, we hear that there was a secret meeting between the House Democrats and President Obama before he left, the topic being Afghanistan. Is this true?



REP. JIM McDERMOTT: I was not in the meeting, so I don’t know if it occurred or not.



AMY GOODMAN: Well, you just came back from Afghanistan. What is your assessment of the Obama administration’s policy to expand the war there?



REP. JIM McDERMOTT: Well, I think it’s almost larger than the Obama policy, but I am very worried about any escalation that we do in Afghanistan. We went roaring into there nine years ago and dropped bombs all over [Tora Bora] and did all kinds of things and put on this big effort, and then it didn’t work. We didn’t get rid of Osama bin Laden, and we didn’t get rid of the terrorists. And so, we moved onto Iraq and just left it to fester.



Now we’re coming back, eight years later, having continued to kill civilians and create enormous animosity toward Americans. And the history of the Pashtun people—there are 40 million Pashtuns who live in an area that straddles the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan—they threw out the British on two occasions in the 1800s, and they threw out the Russians a few years ago. And my belief is that we are going into something that we really don’t understand.



AMY GOODMAN: What is that?



REP. JIM McDERMOTT: Well, we have some idea that we’re going to make it a peaceful, quiet place that it has never been. There has been fighting in that area for over a thousand years, and the tribal areas are so tumultuous that Pakistan has never tried to exercise any governmental control of those areas. They’ve just ceded it to the local tribes. And for us to think that we’re going to go in there and be more successful than the Pakistan government is, when we don’t speak Urdu and we don’t speak Pashto and we don’t speak Balti and we don’t speak all the languages, we don’t know the customs, is simply to get us enmeshed in another quagmire, similar to what we got into in Vietnam, when we didn’t understand what we were dealing with.



And I think that the issue here—if you read a book called Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, he talks about how you get to know the people, how you sit down, how you learn, and he winds up building schools. He’s built more than a hundred schools for girls in that area. But it requires listening to the natives, not coming in with a fixed idea that as an American you know what’s best for them. And I’m afraid that our leadership is barging in there again, thinking we know what’s best for them, and this is how we’re going to do it. And every time a drone bombs a wedding party, we make more enemies for ourselves.



AMY GOODMAN: Congressman McDermott, you took a trip to Iraq in 2002 before the invasion, which you were criticized for by those who supported the Bush administration. You were opposed to the war in Iraq. So was President Obama. He spoke out in 2002. Why do you think he has taken this different tack with Afghanistan?



REP. JIM McDERMOTT: Well, I think the President of the United States is always caught in the pressure between what might be good public policy, seen from a civilian side, and what the military says is a good policy. The President of the United States has the responsibility to protect the American people. That’s his first, first responsibility. And as happened to John Kennedy, they got him in office, and they said, “Hey, look, we’ve got this problem in Cuba. Let’s go down there, and, you know, in an afternoon, we can wipe out the Cuban resistance and get rid of this guy Fidel Castro.” That led to the Bay of Pigs debacle.



And the military answer that Americans tend to favor, that is, if we have strong arms and we have bombers and we have all this kind of stuff, that somehow that will prevail, has proven wrong over and over and over again. And the only way we’re going to really solve these situations is with soft power, that is, with diplomacy and economic aid.



And I think that President Obama is right now listening to those military advisers in ways that I think are, in the long run, not going to be good for the country and not good for his presidency, frankly. I worry about him. I want him to succeed. I want him to be the best president we ever had. But I’m worried that he’s listening to the wrong people. He’s not listening to enough people who say, “Take a cup of tea and listen to these people and figure out what needs to be done.”



AMY GOODMAN: You’re not far from the Canadian border, when you’re back home in Seattle. President Obama’s first foreign trip was to Canada. Canada is pulling out their troops from Afghanistan. Then he met with Gordon Brown, the prime minister of Britain, in the White House. Many were surprised they didn’t hold a joint news conference. They sat there taking a photo op and ended up extending it to more than twenty minutes. It looked like it was sort of a sort of flub of the Obama administration, since the British leader had always been treated differently in the past. The Brits are very much—the population—opposed to war in Afghanistan. Why do you think it is Obama is taking this different tack? I mean, when it comes to the other countries in the world, it seems that the US is once again, as with Iraq, trying to pull other countries along, and they’re resisting, they’re pulling out.



REP. JIM McDERMOTT: Well, I think the President, when he came into office, one of the charges that was constantly railed against him was he’s not going to be a good commander-in-chief, he’s not going to be strong, he’s not going to protect us, he’s going to be weak, he’s going to capitulate to our enemies. And again, as I said about John Kennedy, John Kennedy was under the same kind of criticism as he came into office. And I think the President is responding to that by trying to be a strong leader. And if you listen to his speeches, he keeps talking about protecting the American people, protecting the American people.



George Bush, in his attacks on Iraq and on Afghanistan, did not make us safer in the long run. We have two festering wars now in the Middle East and maybe a third one in Pakistan, if you want to look at it that way. And that kind of advice that your answer is to march out and bomb people and use guns and tanks and all this military hardware is hard for a president not to react to. Otherwise, we’ll call him weak, and we’ll say, “Well, he gave in, and he lost the first war,” all that kind of stuff. And a president doesn’t want that kind of image. So I think the President is caught in a very tough situation, and I think it’s important for him to know there are people like me and many of my friends in Congress who are interested in supporting him in adopting a much more diplomatic approach to what goes on in Afghanistan.



AMY GOODMAN: And how much access do you have to President Obama?



REP. JIM McDERMOTT: Well, at this point, they’re sailing in one direction. But I think as they go down the road and need votes, they’re going to have to listen to people who don’t agree with them on the idea of expanding the war. I mean, 17,000 troops and now 4,000 troops, that’s mission creep, in my view. We’ll have everybody that we take out of Iraq in Afghanistan if we’re not careful, and we will have not brought the troops home, which I think ought to be our main goal, and we will not have established peacefulness in that area.



So, I think as things develop—remember, the President has only been in office for sixty days. So let’s—I’m willing to give him some time. I’m worried, but I’m willing to give him some time to get his feet on the ground and figure out what’s going on and actually assess it for himself, because he’s very smart and very thoughtful and asks hard questions, and I don’t—I haven’t given up at all on him. I think he’s going to be a good president. But it’s—I just worry, from my own experience.



I mean, I was in the Vietnam thing. I was a physician in Long Beach who took care of casualties coming home. So I know what war is about. And war is never glorious. It’s never an exciting thing to get involved in. It seems exciting when you’re a long way away. And all those chicken hawks in the Bush White House looked at war in Iraq and in Afghanistan as somehow glorious and wonderful, and we’ll just go over there and whop ’em. And, of course, it didn’t work out that way. And that’s what always happens to people who have not had the experience of being in it. Now, President Obama has not been in the military, but he can learn from some of us who’ve been there and understand what the real costs of this are going to be. And I think there’s a better way to make the American people safe than to use weapons of destruction all over Afghanistan.



AMY GOODMAN: Congress member Jim McDermott, I wanted to turn to another key issue of our day. It’s the issue of healthcare. You’re a doctor. I mean, in the lead-up to the March 5th healthcare summit at the White House, in the corporate media there was almost no mention of single payer, which in some polls is the number one approach that Americans support, except a mention by those who slammed it. You are one of the advocates of single-payer healthcare. So is Congress member John Conyers. You’ve both introduced bills. What are these bills? What is single payer? What are its chances?



REP. JIM McDERMOTT: Basically, a single-payer system, which is what every industrialized country in the world, except the United States, has adopted, is a system in which you guarantee a set of benefits for every citizen of the country. No matter how much money, where they live, what color they are, what ethnicity they are, whatever, everybody is entitled to the same generous benefit package. And that’s true in France, and it’s true in Germany, and it’s true all over the place. The French, for half the money that we spend, are getting, by the World Health Organization, the best healthcare in the world.



Now, the second thing that you have to have besides a generous benefit package is a single-payer system. And you can put the money together through the government, or there are a lot of different ways it’s done in all the countries of the world, but when a patient goes into a hospital in Canada, they hand a card in for the national plan, and that’s the end of it. And you are not threatened with bankruptcy in Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Japan, Italy, Spain. None of these countries can a citizen be bankrupted by their illness. But it is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States, because we have put the emphasis on individuals doing it.



A single-payer system is a common good way of dealing with risk that none of us know when it’s going to hit us. And I think that it’s what this country needs, but unfortunately, we have a large health insurance industry that is fighting back, tooth and nail, to prevent that from coming into existence. It’s going to be a tough battle. This is not going to be something that’s easily put together.



AMY GOODMAN: I want to play what President Obama himself said about single payer before his presidential campaign. This is what he said back in June of 2003, before he was elected even to the US Senate.



STATE SEN. BARACK OBAMA: I happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal healthcare coverage. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent—14 percent—of its gross national product on healthcare, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim’s talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out: a single-payer healthcare plan, universal healthcare plan.



AMY GOODMAN: Well, there you have it. That was the state legislator Barack Obama speaking in 2003. Congress member Jim McDermott, he has now said, at least those in his administration have said—Max Baucus, the leading senator on healthcare, along with Senator Kennedy, have said that it’s off the table. It took a lot of pressure to even get one single-payer advocate. And then, finally, it was two at the healthcare summit. Then it was John Conyers.



REP. JIM McDERMOTT: Well, clearly, the economic forces, the medical-industrial complex in this country, is bigger than the military-industrial complex in this country. And people don’t recognize that, but it is a huge industry that is resisting change. The medical-industrial complex basically wants to keep the system the same, except for the fact they want to shift some of the cost off onto the government.



And I think that the fight is going to be around a central issue when we get to the debate in the Congress, and that is whether—because the President has said, “We’re going to keep the private insurance industry as it is. If you’re in it, fine, don’t worry about it. You can stay right where you are. You’re not going to be forced into anything. But we’re going to give you a public option, and you can move to that public option.” Now, the question will be, is that a good public option? Is it a less expensive public option? Because it should be less expensive than something provided by the insurance companies. And if it is, will people move into that ultimately, and we will wind up with a basic system that’s run through a public option?



AMY GOODMAN: Like Medicare for all?



REP. JIM McDERMOTT: It could well be Medicare for all. That’s what—you know, Pete Stark and John Conyers have been talking about that for a long time, and that’s one way to do it. There are a number of ways. But a public option, some people say it should be the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program, the program that I’m in as a federal employee. I put some money in, the government puts some money in, and that provides my healthcare benefits. And we ought to open that up to everybody in America. Let that work—



AMY GOODMAN: A new—a new development now is that Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced the American Health Security Act of 2009 in the Senate. Is this your bill from the House?



REP. JIM McDERMOTT: It’s exactly the same. Bernie called me up and said, “Jim, do you mind if I put my bill—your bill in in the Senate?” And I said, “Of course not, Bernie.” It’s good have allies, because Bernie is a good advocate. And this issue has to be on the table. Right now, we spend—in our healthcare dollar, about sixty cents of every dollar is federal money in Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, military benefits, Indian health, public employees. All this is already paid for in the public. So it’s not as though we don’t have a public option. We have just kept people out of that public option and kept them out there either on their own or in their employment insurance. And we’ve got to open it up to let them into the federal system.



AMY GOODMAN: Finally, you’re going to be a columnist for now the online Seattle P-I, Post-Intelligencer, which folded recently. Now, Seattle Times, the only major paper in Seattle. You have said that newspapers should be bailed out like AIG was bailed out. Your position now?



REP. JIM McDERMOTT: Well, here’s my feeling. The thing that we lose with newspapers are investigative reporters. We don’t need the editorial page, where they tell us what they think or what they, who they think we should vote for. What they need are investigative reporters who go out and probe and find out what’s going on.



The blogosphere helps some, but the fact is that you need people who will go and stick their finger in the chest of people like me and say, “Why are you doing that?” and make us say, so that the people can make an informed choice. Democracy is based on an informed electorate. And as you lose those investigative reporters in newspapers, the people will be more and more in the dark, and they’ll be subject to television news coverage, which is a minute and a half at the most on any subject, and you do not get any in-depth view of what’s going on. So we need newspapers from that standpoint, and I don’t know how we get them, but that’s—I think that we ought to be thinking very much about losing our democracy.



AMY GOODMAN: Do you support this approach to have them—this new nonprofit option that has been introduced into Congress?



REP. JIM McDERMOTT: Yeah, Ben Cardin from Maryland has put a bill in in the Senate. I looked at that. The Manchester Guardian is a nonprofit, and so is The Independent in Great Britain. So it is possible to run a newspaper as a nonprofit. They would have to give up their editorializing about which candidates you should vote for. That kind of stuff would have to go. But otherwise, I think it’s a good option, and I would like to see some of these newspapers take that role. Unfortunately, the corporations who own them have a viewpoint that they want to go through the editorial page, and it would be hard for them to give that up. So it’s going to be a real test of whether newspapers are for getting people information or influencing public opinion.



AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Jim McDermott, I want to thank you for being with us, Democratic congressman from Washington state, also a doctor and now a columnist for the online Seattle P-I.



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