B (28:44)

You want a sunshine of my life that's why I always be around.

A (28:55)

You.

B (28:56)

Are the apple of my eyes yeah, forever you'll stay in my heart.

A (29:06)

Oh.

B (29:07)

I feel like this is the beginning Though I've loved you for a million.

A (29:15)

Years.

B (29:19)

And if I thought I loved once and day I find myself drowning in my own field oh.

C (29:42)

You are.

B (29:43)

The sunshine of my life.

A (29:48)

And that's.

B (29:48)

Why I'll always stay around.

A (29:56)

Welcome back, friends, to the second half of today's edition of Economic Update. I want to jump right in to introduce you to Carol Dansarow. So, Carol, before I tell everybody about you, welcome to the program.

C (30:10)

Thank you so much.

A (30:11)

Carol Dansarow has spent three decades of her life fighting for the environment as an attorney, an organizer and a director of nonprofits engaged in that kind of activity. Her career has included stints with various state and national environmental groups, including a decade with the Seattle based Washington Toxics Coalition and another decade with farm worker families fighting exposure to highly toxic pesticides. Dansarow has been honored with awards from the Washington State Trial Lawyers association and the Pesticide Action Network of North America. She originally received her law degree from the University of Michigan, that's in Ann Arbor, in 1984. And I asked her on the program, having known a little bit about her work, because she also recently released a book called what It Will Rejecting Dead Ends and False Friends in the Fight for the Earth. So, Carol, thank you for all the work you've done and welcome to the program.

C (31:16)

Thank you for having me on the program.

A (31:18)

Oh, my pleasure. So let's start by saying to the audience or telling the audience, you've been doing this kind of work, legal and other environmental action work, for 30 years. Give us some sense of why you're doing this. Why have you done this? Why did you choose to lead a life like that?

C (31:37)

Well, I became an environmental activist because I'm very concerned about pollution and the impacts in our world. Toxic chemicals are contaminating our waterways, other ecosystems, our bodies, our food supply. And I want to end that chemical trespass. I want to end the suffering that it causes. I don't want people to be exposed to things that cause cancer and birth defects and other health problems. I don't want the farm worker families that I worked with for 10 years to keep experiencing these acute poisonings, children included, from pesticides that we don't need to be using.

A (32:14)

Was there some particular moment that some people have that kind of solidified in your mind that this was something you wanted to work on? Was there any particular.

C (32:25)

It kind of gradually grew. I mean, I read Silent Spring before law school and that really moved me. But I became aware of the environmental injustices that were going on all around us. And one of the things that I have Learned from the 30 years I've been doing this is that my sentiments are not unusual. I mean, most people want environmental justice. They don't want the world to be going through what it's going through. And millions of people are fighting for sane environmental policies. But the other big thing I've learned, unfortunately, is that all that caring, all that hard work that I've been doing, that other people are doing, that that's really going to be for naught unless and until we acknowledge that we cannot win under this economic system, we simply can't win. We're not winning.

A (33:16)

I want to come back to that because that's a very important interest of this program generally. But before that, there's a phrase that reappears in your book and in talking to you and I'll quote you. We are losing our fight for the Earth. Tell us a little bit what you mean by that.

C (33:35)

Well, I think a lot of us who are fighting for environmental protections, we keep trying to persuade ourselves that incremental victories here and there are adding up to overall progress. But when you actually stop and look at things, it's very clear that that's not true. So, for example, we can finally win a ban on a really nasty class of chemicals after a couple decades of hard fighting. But by the time we've won that, another class, two or three classes of chemicals have been introduced and are contaminating our planet. So the one constant is that the chemical corporations keep getting bigger and wealthier. And if you look at global warming, people have celebrated that. We now have a president that acknowledges that climate change is real and we should do something. But what's the actual record of that president? We've had a skyrocketing of fossil fuel production under the Obama administration because President Obama has increased, encouraged that. So we're losing on global warming. And if you look at the 90 goals set by the nations of the world at the Earth summit in the 1990s, we've made progress on four of those. We're losing ground on 86, and that's because basically we can't get what we need under capitalism.

A (34:50)

All right. How did you get to that perspective, in other words? Let me spell it out very briefly. For many years in this country, people who became active on something that mattered intensely to them, the way you have around ecological or environmental. But people who, for example, were concerned about racial inequality or discrimination, people who were worried about or concerned about gender discrimination against women, and a whole host of they have, in general, until recently, felt that it was very important to keep narrowly focused on whatever got them going and not to raise the bigger economic questions. You're really going in a different way. You, in a sense, have concluded that there's no way to keep going without doing. Can you tell us a Little bit about how you got to that.

C (35:40)

Right. I want to talk a little bit about the dynamic in the environmental movement and how that shapes things. But first let me just say that, you know, I went into the work and I kept fighting for better rules and laws and enforcement of things. And when I finally realized it wasn't adding up to overall progress, it was a pretty quick step to realize, you know, this system is rigged against us because we were doing everything you're supposed to do, and we couldn't put in place things that the vast majority of people want. And that was happening everywhere. So I started to try to figure out, wow, how come the system is stacked against us? And my first instinct was, oh, it's that big money is buying elections. So I actually helped form a campaign finance reform group and thought, well, we'll get money out of elections and then we'll be able to get the environmental reforms we want. But as I kept fighting in the trenches, I started realizing, you know, money in elections ain't the half of it. It's hardly anything that we're dealing with. We're dealing with this reality where the chemical corporations have their tentacles in everything, and public discourse is basically the basically completely distorted. So if I could give some examples, please. For instance, every year thousands of scientific studies are published that are funded by the chemical industry. And guess what? They always exonerate the toxic products. Meanwhile, independent research is rarer and rarer, and independent scientists find it hard to do the research because the chemical industry stymies them. So if you want to study, for example, what's the impact of genetically modified agriculture, you have to get the GMO seeds from the chemical corporations and their permission to do the research, and they won't grant it. If you're a scientist or anybody and you start making statements or publishing findings that could threaten corporate profits, you're taken down. And I write about all this stuff in the book. You're taken down by smear campaigns, by other attacks, and these are generally led by organizations and experts that seem like they're independent and they're speaking out of the public interest, but they're really on the corporate payroll. So all this stuff is happening. Education, you know, K12 education. It's flooded with money from Exxon and Dupont and Dow for curricula and things like that. The university situation is even worse. I could tell you about Dow and its cozy relationship with my alma mater, the news media. You know, basically, the truth is that I started to realize is that the chemical corporations pollute every aspect of every realm that feeds into how we make decisions. So there's this insane script that's being followed where people aren't at the table, the corporations are pulling the strings. And, you know, as I gradually stepped back and looked at that big picture and wrote what it will take, I realized this isn't an anomaly. It's on all the issues, all justice and survival issues. And I realized that it's not an accident. It's how capitalism works. Because the major industries are privately owned and privately operated for profit. Even though they're making decisions that are determining the fate of humanity. Moreover, they can. So we're just supposed to try to steer things from outside, and we can't. We're subject to extortion because jobs are controlled by those few corporations and individuals. The money that workers produce, that's not ending up in our coffers for the environmental programs we want. And the real kicker, which you talk about all the time on the program, is that money's going to the 1%. So the corporations and their owners have that money and they use it to subvert science education. They have smear campaigns, spies. So the whole system is polluted because our economic system sets it up that way. And, you know, I'm in this work for the justice. I'm also in it because I don't think we're going to survive as a species. And we have to look at why, if we want our children to have a future.

A (39:47)

I have two comments. As an economist, I'm always intrigued when I circulate, which I occasionally do in the 1%, and I discover that a good bit of their wealth is used to escape the very pollution that their money creates. They live in special houses with filtered air and filtered water. In other words, they themselves live out the need to escape what they are doing to the world. There's an irony and an absurdity here that you would need a more theatrically equipped person than me to capture. And the other one is, you know, in the logic of capitalism, it makes perfect sense. If you're a company that wants to make a lot of profit off of a product, you've got to do the best you can to make that product look good, to squelch people who suggest the product isn't good. That's just the logic of how business works, which is why, in a sense, you're reporting on the net outcome of the successful effort of these corporations to do what corporations do. By the way, I want everyone to know, because it's a French spelling. My family's a bit French. So I wanted to mention Carol Dansarow is spelled D A N S E R E A U. Carol Dansarau attorney Carol Dansero is my guest. Tell us a little bit, as you were saying you were going to, about how the environmental movement struggled with a more or less systemic approach or critique.

C (41:21)

Right. Well, it's obvious that we're not going to get the environmental reforms we want with the deck stacked against us. But environmental groups arose because of what was happening to the world. And really we should have morphed into an anti capitalist movement. We really should have gone in that direction. But what we've got instead is what a lot of people call the nonprofit industrial complex. And this is part of the whole trying to figure out why we're losing our battle for the earth. Why we're not going to survive as a species is understanding how we've been fighting. And there's always been this dynamic in the nonprofit groups that I worked with, where you end up building your organization instead of building a movement because you're in competition with other groups for funding and attention. But that has gotten that whole dynamic of not examining what we're up against and not having tactics and strategies that are based on that and then get us beyond capitalism. It's gotten worse because for the last 30 years there's been pressure for nonprofit groups to think of themselves as businesses, to operate as businesses, to have brands and other things like that. So it's getting worse and worse. And we have to understand that the whole world of environmental groups is shaped by the very big money forces that are creating the environmental problems that we're dealing with. So a lot of environmental groups, they get their funding primarily from big foundations and major donors. So who are those people? Those are people that have done really well under capitalism. And for the most part they are not funding anybody who identifies capitalism as a problem or will rock that boat. And you talked about, you know, rich people getting away from pollution. There's a whole dynamic. If you look at any environmental issue that's facing the planet, you go down to the source, you know, where's it happening? Where are the pesticides being released to the environment? Where are they being the chemicals being manufactured? Where are we mining the fossil fuels? You will almost always find a low income community and usually it's a community of color. These are called environmental justice communities because of the injustice they have. So in a rational world, these would be the groups that would be in the driver's seat in the environmental movement. They're suffering the biggest damages. They'll be able to recognize what's a real solution, what's the band Aid. But they get. The environmental justice groups get about 4% of the environmental Foundation World's funding every year. You know, the groups that get the money are big groups that are not dealing with those issues, not led by those groups. And we have to deal with that and recognize that working within the nonprofit industrial complex as it now exists, many of us are getting diverted into dead ends instead of using our energy for what we should be using it for.

A (44:09)

All right, Your very comments lead to the next question. What are the prospects, in your judgment, for a reorientation of the environmental movement to confront capitalism, to say that to solve the environmental problems we need to be part of a movement that changes the economic system. So we have a different system, different way of organizing production and distribution of goods and services that will be more likely at least to take seriously the saving of the earth than the capitalism we live with, as you have shown, doesn't do that.

C (44:46)

Right.

A (44:48)

Well, I guess I want you to give our listeners also a bit of hope. Yes, that's right.

C (44:55)

You know, my book has not been out very long and little publicity has happened so far. But I've already gotten a lot of feedback from people within environmental groups that they're very glad I've written it. They've been wrestling with these questions. And I think that the trajectory that I've been on is one that a whole lot of people within environmental groups and people who don't align themselves with environmental groups are on this trajectory. I think that more and more people are realizing that we need systemic change and what that means. I think a lot of it is under the surface, we've only made baby steps forward so far that are visible. But under the surface, people I talk to within the environmental movement are devastated by the reality that they can't hide from anymore, that we're going to go down as a species. We're not going to have justice, we're not going to even have survival. So people are grasping that I personally have a lot more hope than I did. We need to be organizing an economic democracy agenda movement. And some people, when I tell them about the book and they just hear the first part, you know, we're losing. It's documented. We're up against this really big multi tentacled beast and we're not fighting effectively. People say, isn't that a recipe for despair? But actually it's not at all. I was feeling despair. And people feel despair when we pretend we're winning. And we know we're not or we don't understand what's going on. And when you face into things, the path forward is quite obvious, as is our power. If we do what we should be doing, which is talk like we're doing right here and talk everywhere about what we're actually up against and a vision of the alternative. There is an alternative way to organize things. We also see that we have the power because we are the 99%. We turn the wheels of society. And when we're on the same page, when we don't get diverted into these dead ends, we can rapidly turn things around. And there are solutions for all of the world's environmental problems. They're sitting there waiting to be implemented. You know, we have the renewable technology, we have, we have sustainable agriculture alternatives. It's sitting there. And I think people are searching and I think we are gradually as individuals becoming aware of the need to change how we're thinking. And I think we're going to take that leap as a movement quite soon.

A (47:17)

I was struck in your book that it was in fact very smooth how you showed the reader time and again that a good initiative, a good objective, was being stymied by a corporation that was doing what corporations do, trying to make money and shape the environment to be a profitable enterprise. So that as you went through it, I thought it was very effective how you were teaching your reader the very things you've come to understand yourself, which is what a good book does, save them the time, because you've kind of done the experience and done the writing up of the experience so that they can see that if you care about the environment, then being a fighter for fundamental economic changes is a corollary. It's as logical for the pro environmental person to be anti capitalist as it is logical for the capitalist to be anti environmentalist in those industries where their profits depend on muddying all the water and muddying all the comprehension and sending all the groups that they feel threatened by off into the things you call dead ends.

C (48:37)

Right? And you know, the water is muddied. And when you're in there in the trenches and you're fighting, it's easy to be confused. But when you step back, and that's what I try to do with the book, and you look at the big picture, it's pretty clear. And the thing is, even though the waters are muddied, people are beginning to see, you know, you can only hide it so long. And so you have things you've talked about on the show where, you know, big Percentages of young people and even people who are not very young are now talking about socialism and would vote for a socialist candidate. You know, despite the taboo and everything that has been done to prevent that conversation, you know, people are talking about that stuff. People are independent, not Democrat or Republican. And there's just a we're at this do or die point, we really are. But people are out there fighting for justice, not just on the environment, but on all these other interrelated issues and doing amazing work, Amazing work.

A (49:37)

Give us a couple of examples that maybe come to your mind that people.

C (49:41)

Well, you know, the farm worker community that I worked with, you know, we're told time and again, well, drift isn't a problem. So, you know, people got air monitors and got scientific training and set up the monitors and proved what everybody knew, which was pesticides were drifting. You know, people are doing things in.

A (50:00)

The air and in the wind, in.

C (50:01)

The wind, coming from plants onto children playing at daycares. You know, that's just one example of all the extraordinary things people do. And when we, all of us start talking with each other about how this is all great, we need to keep trying those things. But you know that brick wall we keep running into over and over again, it's a brick wall and we need to take that wall down. We need to get beyond capitalism to an economic system that is compatible with democracy. Because basically we don't have democracy. We don't have any influence over these decisions that affect humanity's fate.

A (50:37)

That's really the way you began today's interview, by talking about your sense from your 30 odd years of work that the majority of people you've encountered are clear in their minds that they want clean air, clean water. They want all these things that they know enough to be skeptical. Let's say that they're getting those things. And if a majority wants something and they're not getting it, then the definition of democracy, which is that the majority rules that what it wants is at least the order of the day, protecting minorities. Nonetheless, then the case in a sense is made that it is not a democratic system. Because the results may be good for profits and for the rich who control the industry, but they're not good for the majority of the people. So a commitment to democracy, like a commitment to the environment, pretty soon moves you to a position of being critical of a system, of a capitalist system that seems to create that wall that prevents democratic desire from being realized.

C (51:40)

Right? And we need to just stop being diverted into the dead ends by false friends. We really do have the power to change things if we acknowledge that and start using that power. And that's what I talk about in the book.

A (51:54)

Do you have a comment on the Republican and Democratic parties? Have they been. And I don't mean one or the other, I mean sort of both of them, because in our system, we alternate government from one to the other. Sort of like musical chairs. How would you assess the role of the Republican and Democratic parties over the last 30, 40 years since Rachel Carson and all of the consciousness around the environment emerged?

C (52:20)

I think we have been getting further and further away from both parties are getting further and further away from representing the interests of the 99%. Both are heavily funded by the 1%, and both have agendas that reinforce capitalism. And I think with the Democrats, you get more of the rhetoric of, oh, yes, we really care about the environment. But as I gave with the example with President Obama and what's happening on global warming, the rhetoric is not matched by action. The Democratic Party, just like the Republican Parties, are serving a few corporate interests, including the corporations that are destroying our planet. And in terms of the current electoral scene, it's very interesting and encouraging. I think, that so many people are rallying behind someone who calls himself a socialist, whether he is or not. And I believe on the Republican side that a lot of people that are rallying around Trump are doing so because they feel so disgusted with our system and they're so abused by it. So I think, you know, what's happening in this bizarre electoral season is, is we're seeing people want real change. You don't get that by rallying behind candidates and voting every four years. You get it by organizing for economic democracy. And you certainly don't get it with Democrats or Republicans. Ultimately, we need an independent working people's political party. But that's part of this bigger thing of let's step back together in workplaces, unions, civic organizations, environmental groups, programs like this. And let's say, let's see what are we actually up against. And it's not, you know, money in politics. That's a symptom. That's a symptom of how the economy is set up. Let's see what we're actually up against. Let's envision an economic system based on democracy, and let's acknowledge our power and stop wasting it. And that's what we need to be doing. And that's why I'm so grateful for the chance to be on this program, which is an absolutely great program for fostering the kind of conversations we need to be having.

A (54:24)

And nothing is better as a feeling for me than to know that this is helpful to people doing, as you put it, in the trenches. Those fights around all the major issues that are damaging people's lives. I mean, it's what I try constantly to generate. Let me end this interview because we're running out of time. I want to go back and pick up something. You said you have hope. Tell us a little bit what that's based on, how you come. Given all you've seen and the dead end and your sense of we're losing this struggle, you nonetheless have a hope. I think that's a very important thing for people to relate to.

C (55:04)

Well, the first piece of it is there are actually solutions. We have enough food to feed everyone. We have the environmental solutions sitting right there, and it is just a matter of empowering ourselves to put them in place. That's one piece of it. And then the other piece of it is that there are these signs all around us that people know that something is terribly wrong with how our democracy is working. It's not a democracy. And you have the shifting, you know, you have the polls showing how mindsets are changing en masse. So the hope comes from. It also comes from having worked with people who work for no pay as volunteers, trying and trying and trying to make our world better. And I think that if we have these conversations with each other, the caring for our world and our children's future is there and the knowledge is catching up with that caring. You know, it's touch and go. I'm not going to lie. We are at a do or die point. We really are. But right before the New Deal happened, the New Deal was a stopgap thing that just treated symptoms and it got undone over time. But right before that, people really didn't know that a couple years down the road we would have some pretty major changes this time around. I'm hoping through conversations like these and through what we've just lived through over the last decades, that we will make that jump to real systemic change so that we can really get where we need to go and save our planet.

A (56:45)

I hope so too. Folks. You've been listening to Carol Dansero, her book what It Will, Rejecting Dead Ends and False Friends in the Fight for the Earth. We've come to the end of our program. I want to remind you that the whole point of this is to partner with you with the efforts you're making, like those of Carol Dansarow and the folks she's been working with, make use of our websites rdwolf with two Fs.com and democracyatwork.info There are loads of ways there to do that, we urge you. Not only do we want to thank you for your listening, we also want to thank truthout.org, that remarkable independent source of news and analysis. Check them out@truthout.org use our websites, talk to us about what you'd like this program to do, and I look forward to talking with you again next week. Change, change, change Things gonna change.