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AMY GOODMAN: On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets around the world in a global March for Science that was endorsed by hundreds of scientific institutions, environmental groups and unions. The Hip Hop Caucus was also a partner. More than 600 events took place, with one on every continent, including Antarctica, where workers at the Neumayer-Station research center tweeted a picture of themselves holding a sign with a quote from chemist Marie Curie. It read, quote, "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."

The first-ever March for Science coincided with Earth Day and comes as President Donald Trump has galvanized scientists, educators and others with his comments calling climate change a Chinese hoax. Meanwhile, the White Houses proposed budget would cut as much as $7 billion in science funding, including the National Institutes of Health, which funds medical research.

Democracy Now! was at the March for Science in Washington, D.C., where thousands braved a stormy day to gather at the Washington Monument to hear speakers. You can watch our full 5-hour broadcast at democracynow.org. Today we bring you some of the voices of the rally. In a minute, youll hear from Denis Hayes, coordinator of the first Earth Day in 1970; wildlife biologist Sam Droege from the U.S. Geological Survey; Mustafa Ali, former head of the Environmental Protection Agencys environmental justice program; and James Balog, the filmmaker and ice photographer who founded the Extreme Ice Survey and is featured in the documentary Chasing Ice. But first we go to Bill Nye, "The Science Guy," the engineer and TV personality best known for the PBS series of the same name.

BILL NYE: Greetings! Greetings, fellow citizens! We are marching today to remind people everywhere, our lawmakers especially, of the significance of science for our health and prosperity. The process of science has enabled humankind to discover the laws of nature. This understanding has, in turn, enabled us to feed and care for the worlds billions, build great cities, establish effective governments, create global transportation systems, explore outer space and know the cosmos.

The framers of the Constitution of the United States, which has become a model for constitutional governments everywhere, included Article I, Section 8, which refers to promoting the progress of science and useful arts. Its intent is to motivate innovators and drive the economy by means of just laws. They knew that without the progress of science and useful arts of engineering, our economy would falter. Without scientifically literate citizens, the United Statesany country, in factcannot compete on the world stage.

Yet, today, we have a great many lawmakers, not just here, but around the world, deliberately ignoring and actively suppressing science. Their inclination is misguided and in no ones best interest. Our lives are in every way improved by having clean water, reliable electricity and access to electronic global information. Each is a product of scientific discoveries, diligent research and thoughtful engineering. These vital services are connected to policy issues, which can only be addressed competently by understanding the natural laws in play.

Some may consider science the purview of a special or separate type of citizen, one who pursues natural facts and generates numerical models for their own sakes. But our numbers here today show the world that science is for all. Our lawmakers must know and accept that science serves every one of us, every citizen of every nation in society. Science must shape policy. Science is universal. Science brings out the best in us. With an informed, optimistic view of the future together, we can, dare I say it, save the world!

DENIS HAYES: Mayor Lindsay had shut down Fifth Avenue, and we basically filled it all up.

FRANK BLAIR: Earth Day demonstrations began in practically every city and town in the United States this morning, the first massive, nationwide protest against the pollution of the environment.

DENIS HAYES: Nationally, Earth Day was the largest demonstration ever in American history, and we had an estimated 20 million across the country.

We are challenging the ethics of a society that, with only 6 percent of the worlds population, accounts for more than half of its utilization of resources.

PROTESTERS: Save our Earth! Save our Earth! Save our Earth!

DENIS HAYES: We are systematically destroying our land, our streams and our seas. We foul our air...

It was a huge, high-adrenaline effort that, in the end, genuinely changed things. Before, there were people that opposed freeways. There were people that opposed clearcutting, or people worried about pesticides. They didnt think of themselves as having anything in common. After Earth Day, they were all part of an environmental movement.

ANDRE LEWIS: Denis Hayes.

DENIS HAYES: OK, this isthis is a science march, so I assume you all knew there was going to be a quiz? This is about last Novembers election. Did America somehow vote to melt the polar ice caps and kill the coral reefs and acidify the oceans?

AUDIENCE: No!

DENIS HAYES: Did we vote to reduce the EPAs research budget by a whopping 42 percent?

AUDIENCE: No!

DENIS HAYES: Did we vote to defund safe drinking water by one-third?

AUDIENCE: No!

DENIS HAYES: Did we vote to eliminate environmental work in Chesapeake Bay and San Francisco Bay and Puget Sound and the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes?

AUDIENCE: No!

DENIS HAYES: Well, thats what we got.

AUDIENCE: Boo!

DENIS HAYES: Forty-seven years ago, on the first Earth Day, 20 million regular, everyday Americans, including millions of angry students, rose up and stormed the political stage and demandeddemandeda clean, healthy, just, resilient environment. Forty-seven years later, to my astonishment, were back in the same spot. Weve got a president, a vice president, a Cabinet and the leadership of both houses of Congress who are all climate deniers.

AUDIENCE: Boo!

DENIS HAYES: They are scrubbing climate change from federal websites and ordering federal employees not to use the words "global warming" in any communication.

AUDIENCE: Boo!

DENIS HAYES: Thisthis is not conservative politics. This is the Inquisition gunning for Galileo. Its now crystal clear that the man who lives right there did not come here to drain the swamp. Hes filling the swamp to overflowing with conflicts of interest, with a White House that reeks of greed and sleaze and mendacity. America has had 45 presidents, but we have never before had a president who was completely indifferent to the truth. Donald Trump makes Richard Nixon look like Diogenes.

We are racing now toward a climate cliff, and our coal-loving president is punching the accelerator, and so millions of us are marching across America and around the world. Our job is clear. Today is the first step in a long-term battle for scientific integrity, a battle for transparency, a battle for survival. So, dont leave here thinking that you came out in the rain, all of you, this awesome crowd, standing in the rain, freezing, and thinking now youve done your part, because you havent. Not yet. Like that first Earth Day, this Earth Day is just the beginning. And in that battle, losing is not an option, because if we lose this fight, we will pass on a desolate, impoverished planet for the next 100 generations. Im old enough that I can remember when people all over the Earth saw America as the worlds best hope. Today, right here, right now, all of you, lets commit ourselves to becoming the worlds best hope again.

ANDRE LEWIS: Ali, Mustafa Santiago.

MUSTAFA ALI: So Im about to take you to Jamaica real quick. I want everyone to say, "Get up!"

AUDIENCE: Get up!

MUSTAFA ALI: "Stand up!"

AUDIENCE: Stand up!

MUSTAFA ALI: "Stand up for your rights!"

AUDIENCE: Stand up for your rights!

MUSTAFA ALI: Its time to stand up, like the legend Bob Marley said: "Get up! Stand up! Stand up for your rights!"

Thirty-five years ago in Warren County, North Carolina, a small but committed African-American community decided to stand up and say, "No more!" They decided to stand up against dangerous PCBs, a cancer-causing substance in their neighborhood. They decided to stand up to protect their lives, their neighbors and the lives of the next generation.

Today, we stand against an administration that places profits over people and tells us that science isnt real, that rolls back regulations that for decades has protected and given people a fighting chance for clean air, clean water and clean land. Today we must stand for community-based programs that give marginalized communities traction to address the disinvestments that have limited their opportunities for positive change. Today we must support our most vulnerable communities on their journey from surviving to thriving. Today we stand up for Standing Rock, to protect and supportthats rightcultures that honor Mother Earth and the lives of our people. Today we stand up for Flint. Today we stand up for Baltimore. Today we stand up for East Chicago, where the devastating effects of lead will have long-term health and economic impacts. Today we stand with 71 percent of African Americans who live in counties that violate federal air pollution standards, and the 68 percent of African Americans who live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant. Today we stand with Latinos, who are 165 percent more likely to live in counties with unhealthy levels of power pollution. Today we stand with the 24 million Americans suffering from asthma and who are disproportionately at risk. Today we hold our public officials accountable. Today we stand for justice and make our collective voices heard. Today we stand up, and we march.

Everyone, join me. Everyone, say, "Get up!"

AUDIENCE: Get up!

MUSTAFA ALI: "Stand up!"

AUDIENCE: Stand up!

MUSTAFA ALI: "Stand up for your rights!"

AUDIENCE: Stand up for your rights!

SAM DROEGE: Hi, Im Sam Droege, the bee guy. I just realized that if all the bees disappeared, theres tons of unemployed scientists who will do the pollination. So, heres how it works. These are all the flowering plants in the world, thousands and thousands of them. They have a relationship, sometimes one-on-one, with thousands and thousands of different bee species. Theres more than honey bees out there. You lose some of these plant species, you lose a whole chunk of bee species. The system works like this. They encapsulate the Earth, the bees and the plants. Without them, you have little to nothing to live for.

So, heres what you need to do. You need to harbor all the natural areas that are the bank of plant biodiversity, with their bees, that keep it together. And, personally, this is what you need to do. Youre an activist. You probably have a lawn. You need to delawnify the world. Lawns contribution is zero to negative. I will do a paper on that later. But you can haveyou can make a difference in just those small different ways. Remember, my favorite quote from Emerson is "The world laughs in flowers." Thank you.

JAMES BALOG: Good afternoon. Im James Balog. I am a patriot. I fight for spacious skies. I fight for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesty. You all are patriots. But I do that by being a photographer, filmmaker and scientist.

We have met here today, where a great battle for the mind, body and soul of this country is being fought. Among other things, it is a battle between objective reality and ideological fiction. My team and I have collected visual evidence of the epic changes sweeping the Earth today. Ive seen how burning coal, oil and gas cooks the air we breathe. I have seen how that altered air heats our forests until they explode in fireballs and homes burn down. Ive seen, through more than a million frames of time-lapse photography, how trillions of tons of glacier ice are melting. Ive seen that melt water enter the seas and flood the coastlines of America. Nature isnt natural anymore. You and I and all seven-and-a-half billion of us are changing the climate. Its what the real-world evidence says.

But, you know, theres good news, too. Each one of us can use our voices and our choices to take us down the road to a better future. I submit to you that we, the people, have an inalienable right not just to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but to clean air, clean water and a stable climate. Our survival demands it, and our children deserve it. And so, empowered by evidence and real-world truth, we shall fight for spacious skies. We shall fight for amber waves of grain. We shall fight for majestic mountains. And we shall march on these streets. We shall never, ever surrender.

AMY GOODMAN: Some of the voices from Saturdays March for Science in Washington, D.C. Among others who spoke was Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who discovered the connection between rising blood lead levels in the children of Flint, Michigan, with the switch to the Flint River as a water source. She says the Flint story is a story of science. And youll hear from many others. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Thats Jon Batiste and Stay Human performing "Higher Ground" by Stevie Wonder at the March for Science in Washington, D.C. To see our whole, full 5-hour broadcasthe performed throughoutyou can go to democracynow.org.

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Hundreds of Thousands Take to the Streets Worldwide for the Global March for Science - Democracy Now!

Protest outside the Hungarian parliament in Budapest against a new law that would undermine the Central European University, a graduate school of social sciences founded by George Soros. Photograph: Laszlo Balogh/Reuters

Tibor Fischer can describe the current state of democracy in Hungary any way he wishes, but he should not be allowed to get away with the assertion that the Central European University has failed to comply with the law (I just dont recognise Orbn as a tyrant, 21 April). For 25 years CEU has worked cooperatively with Hungarian authorities on every issue involving our work here. Our compliance with Hungarian accreditation procedures has been repeatedly confirmed by Hungarian officials and civil servants in the ministries concerned.

We have never sought special privileges that set us apart from the rest of Hungarian academic life. On the contrary, in our fight to defend our academic freedom, many Hungarian institutions, including the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, have given us their public support.

Fischer alleges that there is something irregular about offering American degrees in Hungary if CEU doesnt have a campus in the United States. In fact, CEU is one of more than two dozen American institutions that are authorised to offer American degrees overseas without operating a campus in the US. Mr Fischer is entitled to his opinions, but not to misstating the facts. Michael Ignatieff President, Central European University

Tibor Fischer is correct that media discussion of the Fidesz regime in Hungary would be better informed if more people spoke Hungarian. For readers who do not, Iwould suggest va Baloghs Hungarian Spectrum blog, and Kim Lane Scheppeles forensic analyses of Viktor Orbns constitutional coup in the academic literature, and her account of changes introduced to electoral rules to facilitate his re-election in her contribution to Paul Krugmans blog in the New York Times.

For a Hungarian opposition perspective, two recent publications by Blint Magyar are of interest: his Post-Communist Mafia State and Twenty-Five Sides of a Post-Communist Mafia State, a collection of essays coedited with Jlia Vsrhelyi (both CEU Press). The government perspective on the mafia state, however, is that creating a national bourgeoisie to counterbalance the power of multinationals, Brussels and George Soros is more important than corruption.

Fischer is also correct that there is plenty of critical discussion on TV and radio in Budapest, but opposition platforms keep disappearing, opposition TV and radio is harder to access the further one is from Budapest, and, increasingly, effective opposition comes from Jobbik on the right rather than from parties committed to liberalism or social democracy.

Antisemitism in Fidesz Hungary is heavily coded. To appreciate it fully, you not only have to speak Hungarian but be familiar with Hungarian history: which dates are celebrated, which interwar politicians resurrected as national heroes. Nigel Swain University of Liverpool

As a keen reader of his novels, I was disappointed with Tibor Fischers article. I disagree to varying degrees with all points he raises.

Let me pick out his final point on the so-called Lex CEU, which repeats the government line faithfully, and makes no sense. As both the Hungarian educational authorities and CEU have stated repeatedly, CEU previously fulfilled all Hungarian legal requirements. To my knowledge, the irregularities that were now supposedly found were never specified. Fischer mentions sloppy paperwork; I would like to see his source. If it were but a matter of 27 of 28 foreign universities in Hungary complying with existing legislation, there would be no reason to rush a bill through parliament in an emergency procedure.

This new law makes new requirements, such as the operation of a campus in the country of origin, that would effectively make it impossible for CEU to operate in Hungary. This is what the protests are about (Report, 13 April).

This not only an issue of CEU. What is at stake is the Hungarian governments power to push out an influential university because it doesnt adhere to its political ideology. And thats both an issue of academic freedom and of plurality of opinions, ie democracy. Dr Felix Jeschke Prague, Czech Republic

To claim that Orbn isnt an enemy of democracy omits his assault on civil society. Orbn intends to extrude critical NGOs in 2017 and target their foreign funding. Fischer says people living west of Vienna dont understand whats happening in Hungary, but tens of thousands of people who rallied in Budapest against the closure of the CEU certainly do, and see the attack on the university for what it is: an attempt to shut down academic freedom and critical thinking.

Fischer says Orbns illiberal democracy is still a democracy because it has elections. But European freedoms are about much more than holding regular votes they also require encouraging robust and critical civil society institutions, not smothering them. International human rights organisations know how to spot an authoritarian regime in the making. Orbn and his apologists can call whats happening in Hungary what they like, but if it looks and swims and quacks like a government undermining democracy, it probably is. Brian Dooley Senior adviser, Human Rights First

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Can Yascha Mounk Save Liberal Democracy? Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription) I t hasn't escaped Yascha Mounk's notice that the decline of liberal democracy has been good for his career. "It's a very bittersweet moment," Mounk says over coffee at a Washington, D.C., cafe. "I'd much rather that my work continue to be obscure and ...

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Can Yascha Mounk Save Liberal Democracy? - Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription)

He proposed a religious test on immigration, promised to open up U.S. libel laws and revoked press credentials of critical reporters. He called for killing family members of terrorists, said he would do a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding terrorism suspects and suggested that a U.S.-born federal judge of Mexican heritage couldnt be neutral because of his ethnicity. He whipped up animosity against Muslims and immigrants from Mexico, branding the latter as rapists.

When protesters interrupted his rallies, he cheered violence against them. He told a political opponent that if he won, he would get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, adding youd be in jail. He threatened not to respect election results if he didnt win and, in Idi Amin fashion, made the claims of a strongman: I alone can fix it. He publicly expressed admiration for authoritarian Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Cherished notions of religious freedom, a free press, an independent judiciary and the rights of minorities took a beating from him. The prospect of mob violence in his defense and imprisoning of political opponents found favor.

With all that, Donald Trump became the nations 45thpresident in an election marred by stealth interference from a foreign adversary, Russia, and with the support of millions of voters who survey data show were influenced by the toxicity of racism.

How did a pluralistic nation that propounds democratic values and practices come to this?

This not being the authoritarian in the White House who dismisses basic constitutional principles as if they were annoying gnats, but this an electorate that looks past the disrespect shown toward democratic ideals.

That haunting question has occupied the minds of Richard D. Kahlenberg and Clifford Janey, two education scholars and writers who began to take a hard look at this fundamental domestic challenge long before Novembers results came in.

Janey, former superintendent of schools in our nations capital, as well as Newark, N.J., and Rochester, N.Y., and now senior research scholar at the Boston University School of Education, traces the problem close to home: public schooling. So, too, does Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, author of six books and editor of 10 foundation volumes.

I sat down with both this week to discuss what they regard as an American democracy under severe strain. Kahlenberg observed that public education that ought to help prepare students for citizenship in a democracy is coming up short. He cited a recent survey in which two-thirds of Americans could not name all three branches of the federal government; only a third could identify Joe Biden, who at the time was the vice president, or name a single Supreme Court justice.

Janey observed that U.S. schoolchildren educated in what are essentially apartheid schools divided by class and race get a mixed message about equal political rights and American values.

Together, they spelled out the scope of the challenge in their joint Century Foundation report released in November, Putting Democracy Back into Public Education. The report was boiled down in an article in the Atlantic, Is Trumps Victory the Jump-Start Civics Education Needed? published at the same time.

Simply put, Janey and Kahlenberg argue that our schools are failing at what the nations founders saw as educations most basic purpose: preparing young people to be reflective citizens who would value liberty and democracy and resist the appeals of demagogues.

They said todays schools turn themselves inside out trying to prepare college-and-career ready students who can contend with economic globalization and economic competition and find a niche with private skills in the marketplace.

As for preparing them for American democracy? Raising civics literacy levels? Cultivating knowledge of democratic practices and beliefs with rigorous courses in history, literature and how democratic means have been used to improve the country? Not so much or maybe not at all, they suggest.

The authors point out that in 2013, the governing board of the National Assessment for Educational Progress dropped fourth- and 12th-grade civics and American history as a tested subject in order to save money.

Its okay to test kids crazy in math and reading. Civic education? Fuhgeddaboutit.

Watch as jaws drop at these findings from a 2011 World Values Survey, which Kahlenberg and Janey noted in the Atlantic: When asked whether democracy is a good or bad way to run a country, 17 percent said bad or very bad, up from 9 percent in the mid-1990s. Among those ages 16 to 24, about a quarter said democracy was bad or very bad, an increase of one-third from a decade and a half earlier.

Skills for the private workplace? Essential. So, too, the skills for workplace democracy.

But the declining civic portion of public education, maintain Kahlenberg and Janey, is a threat to our democratic values. It must be addressed, and now. Only a demagogue would argue with that.

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We're teaching our students not to care about democracy - Washington Post

The protests following President Donald Trumps inauguration and recent protests calling for the president to release his tax returns have this in common: his the-rules-dont-apply-to-me behavior is a presidential style rejected by both our tyranny-fearing founding fathers and the majority of voters in last Novembers election.

To guard against an autocrat in the White House, our ancestors in 1787 replaced the political power once held by sovereign monarchs in Europe with a popular sovereign, placing the nations political power, collectively, in the hands of the people.

With this power shift, each American now shares responsibility for the manner in which political power is wielded and a civic obligation to challenge abuse of power in Washington.

Historically, engaged Americans have aimed their anger against major close-to-home issues, not anti-democracy presidents. Tax protests in the late 18th century were followed by abolition, womans suffrage and workplace conditions protests in the 19th century.

Citizen activism took off in the 1800s, so much so, that some observers warned that the spread of popular sovereignty fever was endangering democracy itself.

By the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville, in his famous "Democracy in America," wrote, In America the principle of the sovereignty of the people is neither barren nor concealed, as it is with some other nations . If there is a country in the world where the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people can be fairly appreciated and where its dangers and its advantages may be judged, that country is assuredly America [where] the people reign in the American political world as theDeity does in the universe.

But Tocqueville also tempers this glowing account by pointing out some dangers associated with Americas rush toward mass democracy.

It is a constant fact that at the present day the ablest men in the United States are rarely placed at the head of affairs I hold it to be sufficiently demonstrated that universal suffrage is by no means a guarantee of the wisdom of the popular choice. Whatever its advantages may be, this is not one of them.

Fifty years later, Princeton University professor Woodrow Wilson sized up the hectic late 19th century period of social and political change by declaring that government by the people was not working, that an elite public workforce was needed to make democracy work.

There is, he wrote, scarcely a single duty of government whichwas once simple which is not now complex; government once had but a few masters; it now has scores of masters. He declared none other than the founding principle of popular sovereignty of the people was standing in the way of a more efficient government.

The very fact that we have realized popular rule in its fullness has made the task of organizing that rule just so much more difficult An individual sovereign will adopt a simple plan and carry it out directly But this other sovereign, the people, will have a score of differing opinions.

The protests matter because they are a reminder that with the election of Mr. Trump we are once again, as a nation, engaged in a tug-of-war between autocratic efficiency and popular government.

Efficiency has never been the foremost goal of our democratic government. Rather democracy is designed to be responsive to the values and traditions near and dear to liberty loving citizens. Public officials who do not understand the difference do not understand democracy.

And, because it is a dangerous step toward tyranny, the office of the president is no place for an autocrat.

Ronald Fraser, Ph.D., of Colden is the author of "America, Democracy & YOU: Where have all the Citizens Gone?" He can be reached at fraserr@starpower.net

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Protests help keep American democracy alive - Lockport Union-Sun & Journal