pedro sula hunter, it's a 2nd cycle in 2 weeks. it's madagascar bringing strong winds and heavy rain cycling bats that i had average winds of more than 160 kilometers an hour when it made land fall on the eastern coastline. late on saturday. experts say it's a very serious threat, which is likely to inflict widespread damage. queen elizabeth once her daughter in law camilla to be known as queen consort. when prince charles becomes king, there had been suggestions the duchess, the cornwall would be known as the princess consort. queen elizabeth expressed her wish for camilla's new title on the eve of the 70100 or 3 of her accession to the throne. ah, this is down to 0. these are the top stories senior members of the us military have arrived in poland as part of the nato deployment. nearly 3000 american soldiers are being sent to the region. it's in response to russia's military build up on the

border with ukraine. meanwhile, thousands of ukrainians of march through car keith, to protest against the possible russian invasion. the city is 40 kilometers from the border. the ukrainian president law to me as the lensky, as one concave could be the 1st city to be invaded. charles stratford was at the rally in khaki. this usually significantly much people are coming out here and protesting in a show of unity against what they describing as russian aggression. we saw various different members of political policies and activist groups of writing in the rally . and the voices, i say, one very much of unity in the face of yes, what they say is as bullying from blood, reputed. soon as he is presidents, dissolving the supreme judicial council, the body that oversees the independence of judges. the president case said, says the counsel is outdated,

said has severely criticized judges recently. he dismissed the government and suspended the parliament last july. the un secretary general antonio terrors has asked china's president teaching pinged to allow access to the richness and young they met at the paging winter olympics. good terrorist wants an investigation into abuses of the we got minority the final day at the african union summit is taking place on sunday. concerns have been raised about 6 military coups on the continent . in the past 18 mom because the a u is also under pressure to push for a cease fire in ethiopia as northern region of to grey a 5 year old boy who was trapped in a well in morocco. since tuesday has died, morocco king announced ran, didn't survive the 5 day ordeal. rescue was dug up. part of the hillside to reach the child is on your headlines up next is upfront more news in 30 minutes. news

. ah ah. hello everyone, thank you for joining us. for a new season of upfront us democracy is in crisis and at the risk of failing, that's the majority of americans believe, according to a recent hips. those n p r poll from the january 6 insurrection at the capitol, the dismantling of voting rights. deep economic inequality exacerbated by the corporate 19 pandemic, democracy imperiled in the united states. and if so, what can be done to save it? will after world renowned author, dollar and political activists. the

professor chomsky thank you so much for joining us on upfront. pleased to be with you here in the united states professor, you have talked about how 90 percent of the population is basically not represented by political leaders due to concentrated wealth and private power determining the outcomes of elections. 34 laws, restricting access to voting, were passed in 2021 alone. do we have a real democracy here in the united states? we have a mixed form of democracy. in some respects the united states is quite advanced. i don't think there's any country that protects freedom speech to the extent that the united states, those. ready if you're moderately privileged, you're secure, a say from state authority and so on. on the other hand,

the political system does not represent the population there or extensive studies in academic, political science, mainstream. which should ask a very simple question of what the relation betweens, people's attitudes and opinions and the vote of their own representatives. straight forward turns out the for a large majority of the population by some studies up to 90 percent of there's essentially no correlation. there. representatives are listening to different voices and that's understandable. pure elected to the house of representatives of the 1st thing you have to do is get on the telephone and make sure that the donors will be read ready to finance your next

election. other, other studies have shown the theme you can predict election electability with a very hello precision, as simply looking at things like concentrated strategic campaign funding. the. well the legislators calling the him toners lou legislator's office is being floated lobbyists, corporate lawyers, representatives of interest and firms. overwhelmingly. steph. huge amounts or the materials and ends up with them. pretty much writings a legislation which the legislator then science. there's

a bit of a caricature but not too much, something like that is essentially the way much of the system average. so it's, it's a democracy in many respects as a lot of freedom. but the representative system is constrained, constrained. another thing that comes up and this is the kind of constraints on the electrical system influence power money. all the things that you're speaking about is the actual preservation of voting rights. there been efforts to pass some reforms and voting rights lately in the united states. most recently, the freedom to vote act and the john lewis voting rights, advancement act, these whatever stored vital voter protections. and they were prevented dist districts from changing voting laws in a way that systematically. disenfranchise is minority populations. both bills killed in the senate. can you explain how vulgar suppression disenfranchisement are

predominantly impacting minorities in the united states and why voting rights which are a pillar of democracy, could be under attack? in its 21st century? will 1st of all, the united states used to have 2 political parties, democrats and republicans. from another point of view. they were 2 factions of the same party, the business party, the business for the business world is overwhelmingly dominant and both of them. nevertheless, they were, they had been somewhat different with some overlap. in the last 30 or 40 years, one of the is the republican party has simply drifted off the spectrum. it's not a political party in the traditional sense about 10 years ago

to leading political analysts for the conservative american enterprise institute to thomas man. norman ornstein wrote an article in which they describe the republican party of 10 years ago. as in their words, a radical insurgency that has abandoned any interest in participation in harlem entry politics. what do you think causes this radical departure from the values and the position that the republican party was in even 10 years ago? much less 30 or 40? there's always been an ideological difference in divergence. but as you said, they seem to fall off the map almost by over the last 10 years. why? i mean, this goes back to richard nixon, actually 50 years ago. nixon who was told and statesmen understood that the republicans who are more oriented than the democrats

towards corporate power and private wills cannot win elections on their own programs. you can approach the electorate and saying, i want to stab you in the back. enrich the rich and empower the corporate sector doesn't work. so they had to turn to other issues. what are called cultural issues . nixon begun it with what was called the southern strategy. democrats had been supporting johnson's civil rights that caused great resentment among the deeply racist. so the democrats nixon recognized the ending yet enough to say it in words and doing that the republicans would become the weights of premises party hagar went over the

democrats. there was a southern strategy were pretty will then they moved other issues by the midden news. republican strategists recognized that if they pretended stress pretended to be opposed to abortion, they could win. the huge is angelica over 25 percent of the population, northern catholics. so they all switched on a dime, reagan, george, h, w, bush, sure. always been what we call pro choice, but all of a sudden they began passionately anti abortion next to gun next. other things. trump was extremely curry. this is after the comment, or is it mentioned on the road at gl insurgency. but trump could brilliantly was

able to tap the poisons that were on right below the surface in american society and their migration. the professor think of this idea of an insurrection and trump. i mean, we had an actual attack on the capital in january 6 of 2021, which you describe as an attempted coup. some have said the united states is still witnessing a slow motion insurrection by republicans, and that they're using a election after their lead the plotting election. according to the states united democracy center last year, at least $262.00 bills were introduced in $41.00 states that will interfere with elections. is our democracy being subverted through the electoral process? and what relationship does it have to to trump? and this right wing insurgency that you're talking about, well, trumpet, managed to mobilize a popular cult. oh, those worshipful followers. anything he does,

they support those who are sickly, taken over the republican party, or what used to be the republican party, republican leaders or grovelling notice, feet afraid to offend him in any way. a truck was made it very clear, more clear in the last few days that he does not believe that the united states should have a functioning democracy. is to explicitly that the vice president, mike pence could have overturned the election and failed to do it. it was fences failure, his fault that the election was not overturned and handed over to trump. he said it quite explicitly over in congress to the constitution happens to be rather vague about this. nobody in the last 250

years, really thought about the possibility that one of the, the political party could arise which wants overthrow the democratic system. so the laws are a little bit obscure. and there is, there are debates going on right now in congress as to whether to sharpen the rules to make it clearer, the voters, oh, shouldn't be in charge, not elect, not officials want to overturn the vote trumps against it. and it's not clear how the republican party will done this, but you're correct for hundreds of bills in state legislatures, republican ones working on various ways to ensure that they can become a permanent dominant minority party by excluding the road. so the wrong kind of people. ready present chomsky i keep

hearing this word party. i hear republican i hear democrat a lot and i have to ask you, i mean, is it too much focused on parties too much focus on party affiliation and partisanship? it seems like people might be caught up in this idea of winning at any cost rather than creating functional democracy, functional government, and safeguarding the protections that we're supposed to have in our society. is that an accurate assessment? well, if you go back to the days before the republican party drifted off the spectrum, there was cooperation between the parties and i voted for republicans moderate republicans. but by no, that's just inconceivable. republicans have just become a denial list party. i see this procedure, trump, when prison obama was elected. and mitch mcconnell, senate leader for the republicans,

and may be the most influential person in the party. when obama was elected mcconnell said street that i, that the republicans have one goal, make sure that he cannot achieve anything, make sure that the country is ungovernable. and then the blame couldn't be put on the, on the democrat to happened f power. and republicans can come back into office doing exactly the same thing. know when joe button was elected and mcconnell, senate minority leader said very explicitly, our goal is to ensure that he can achieve nothing will harm the country as much as possible. and we will then blame it on the democrats, and we'll come back to power. that's not a political corte, that's a radical insurgency, no interest and see,

but is there any room for critique of the democratic party as well? i mean, the rise of the right in this way, in some ways has to do some would argue with the democratic parties, failure to address the needs of working people in that capitalism itself is part of the problem. and because democrats are fully on board with the system, that they are as complicit in culpable in our failure to have a ineffective function of democracies. anybody else which says could hear it. and this goes back 44 years, president quarter by the time the late 19 seventy's, the democrats, there were not gonna be the party of working people any more that were going to become a party of affluent professionals. and wall street, the kind of people into italy who showed up to obama's extravagant parties,

chuck schumer, that is now the senate majority leader said street out that a week ago, maybe with a loser. we're close road in western pennsylvania, but we'll pick up to a affluent suburban vote. so that's what we'll do in the last effort of the report of the democrats to serve. working people was in 1978 or the humphrey hawkins full employment. it did pers congress prison carter didn't veto it, but he watered it down so that it had almost no boy. when the democrats basically hand the work in close over to their class enemy, the republicans are the bitter enemy of the working class. or democrats handed it

over to them. reagan came along, his 1st act was to smash labor unions opening the door to the corporate sector to do the same initiated programs, which has severely harmed the working class in the middle class. we are of measures of this, the rand corporation super respectable. i recently did a study on how much wolf had been transferred from the lower 90 percent of the population were in class middle, close the poor. how much will had been transferred to the super rich during the last 40 years, and reagan, their estimate is about $50000000.00. wow, that's a, that's a, that is a staggering. now that is a staggering number because even on the issue that you're raising, where there is

a considerable shift in a direction that might be in some estimation, anti democratic. there's still a lot of americans who are lined up in support of policies that often may be, undermine their own best interest. you wrote a seminal book manufacturing consent and you talk about how leaders sometimes can't necessarily control people by force, like in a dictatorship. but be control people thinking they control how they act and this often results in people operating against their own interests. talk to me a little bit about the media. what role does the media play in manufacturing consent? what role does the media play in undermining democracy in the united states? well, for example, one thing they do is not discuss what you and i have just been discussing. they act as if there are 2 political parties, both dedicated to the benefit of the population. what you and i have just been

discussing, and you can fund hence of it here, and there was the public doesn't see it. and insert this. the effects are very striking to take congress right now. one of the main legislative programs that button put forth as a build back better program the to program, which would greatly benefit working people, poor parents, children very beneficial to the population. republicans, of course, are 100 percent opposed to a few democrats are opposed. right. linda carrots and since congress has split, can't get through. take a look at public opinion 1st striking when you, when the public is asked about the individual provisions of this program that

are medical care, child credits and so on. there in favor of it. when the rest, what they think about the program, they're opposed to it. when you ask, do you know what's in the program? no, they don't. it's an interesting collection. they are in favor of the individual measures . they do not know that those are in the program. they're opposed to the program because it's being presented on fox news other right wing media as a government attack on you, which is just gonna raise the deficit and it won't be able to pay for it, but it's just going to the undeserving poor. there's an undertone there that says, well, there are these people who don't want to work. the ones who reagan calls the the

will for cheats. black mothers going and limousines to the social security office to rob your will. fair. that's the undertone. and somehow those people who are worth, listen, the worker take it all away from us. it's an old technique to try to divert the attention of people away from their true oppressors, to people who are even more disadvantage than they are. that's one of the ways in which the white working class was kept down for a century and much the country. get them to hate black people who are even worse off than they are taken. make them think, well, i'm better than those guys. then you can exploit them and repress them spin of familiar technique of crushing or close organization. we're going people move this

incidentally, you take a look at a great labor movement of the 19th century nights of labor. norma's labor movement bitterly opposed to industrial capitalism. their 1st organizing effort. first one was in louisiana black workers working in the cotton fields. they've been driven back to something that are truly like slavery. so the knights of labor began to organize among them was very successful. black and white organizing together. local officials, local people. in this town, in louisiana table to louisiana, they heard about the organized, organized militias, cold in the state. oh, state troopers carried out a huge massacre. we don't even know how many people were killed because nobody,

even the chick thing was devastated to try to block this blackwood, organizing effort, brutal, vicious massacre. well, there was the 1st went on and many others goes on. many other ways. i go back to my childhood, the early 19 thirty's, the labor movement was revising. celia was organizing those through workers. black and white workers were working together. when they were joined in the labor action, they asked grace conflict dissolved just as in the early efforts of the major labor of the employer wants to stop that always, professor, i have just a few minutes left and i have to ask you, you've been writing about capitalism, power and democracy for decades, given where we are right now, the state of our democracy. do you see

a way forward? are you still hopeful? there's always reason to be hopeful. we have a political the, i've just mentioned briefly impact of 40 years of new liberal attacks on the population. it's caused extreme social breakdown and disorder fertile terrain for a demagogue like trauma or de santis of florida or tucker carlson, myrtle live or come next. but there is a revival of sin, decent, honest commitment to a better world. he saw it pretty dramatically after the george floyd murder, huge uprising, black and white. biggest in american history,

calling for an n 2 violent repression against americans. norma support. well, came under attack back still, there are other young people organized, active working very hard to overcome the most serious crisis that humans are ever faced in their history destruction of the environment. there are other groups working for racial justice for recognition of human rights. they're all over for who they are. not. they don't have wilf concentrated power. media support, but they're there and they can become the weight of the future. so to us to support them, participate with them. kathy, thank you so much for joining us on up right now. to play it. all right,

that's our show up front. we'll be back with ah, diets define who we are. but who are we? if we don't know what we're eating in a disturbing investigation into globalized food fraud, people and power reveals long hidden scandalous practices to def, infiltrated international wholesale markets and supermarket chains, and asks what's really on our plates. food in glorious food on al jazeera al jazeera sets the stage. this is a type of animal you could ever imagine thing a flaw in a bundle of well floss programming. we need that global sort of got into and shut

it in. of vaccines designed to inform, motivate, and inspire. why are journalists under attack? because democracy at center. you are the truth tellers. see the world from a different perspective on allergies you pick, take the ships to democracies, activists to corporations, control of the message is crucial. oil companies have become very good at recognizing ways to phrase what they want into here. we care about the environment you do to you should buy our oil cleared for public opinion or profit. once you make people afraid, you can use that to justify stripping away basic civil liberties. the listening post examined the vested interest behind the content you consume on al jazeera stories of life, and inspiration. as series of short documentaries from around the world that celebrate the human spirit against the

odds with al jazeera, select change makers. ah . the 1st u. s. troops meant to reinforce nato allies arrive in poland as russia continues to mobilize near the border with you crate. ah, hello and welcome on pete, adobe. you're watching al jazeera alive from our headquarters here in doha, also coming up calls for justice, a congolese migrant who was beaten to death, sparks nationwide demonstrations in brazil. i'm she ever talk for all your time.