is post and pre painted in the countries colors even hair. i don't mind faces and lips ryan's in the neighborhood with hes come from than a girl is celebrating their party. the team is expected back on monday. the find an entire nation out on the streets to welcome them home. i said bake. i'll jazeera darker. now take a look at this. a rare spectacle of the skies of northern mexico. this trail of bright lights was spotted above baja, california state video of the event posted on social media where it made quite a fuss was unclear. what caught what was caught on camera. it's believe to have been space gabriel. perhaps a beecher right. ah, it is good to have you with us. hello, adrian finnegan. here we go,

all the headlines and al jazeera, more us soldiers have been arriving in poland as part of plans to increase nato's presence in eastern europe. while german and french officials had you to meet ukrainian leaders later on monday, a you and report says that north korea used cyber attacks to finance it's nuclear. ballistic missile program. report indicates the pyongyang stole at least $50000000.00 of crypto currency. over the past 2 years, chinese tennis star punch way has met the president of the international olympic committee after concerns about her well being. she says that a post she made accusing a chinese official of sexual assault was misunderstood. katrina year reports from aging. the i or c confirm that punctual. i actually met with the head of the osi thomas back on saturday night that they had dinner together. and following that me saying a partial, i attended several winter olympic events and also that she was invited to the iris the headquarters to visit switzerland. now during

a press conference on monday morning, the i r c was asked about her situation, asked whether they believed that she was not speaking under duress of this, she was indeed safe and well accustomed zombie has strongly condemned an attack which killed at least 5 of its soldiers, they were short from across the border in afghanistan by pakistani taliban fighters . australia is fully reopening its borders nearly 2 years after the government closed the country off to the rest of the world. from february 21st fully vaccinated travellers can enter the country. that means that tourists can finally return. tropical cyclone that made land fall in madagascar on saturday. as left at least 10 people dead. tens of thousands have been displaced. the 2nd major stormed to hit the country of 2 weeks. 4 winds of up to 180 kilometers an hour for costa rican, president jose maria figures has taken an early lead up to sundays national election . he's trailed by the conservative fabrizio alvarado. the vote is expected to go to

a roof in april. those, the headlines for these continues here now to sierra after upfront. next compelling, the journalism we keeping our distance because it's actually quite dangerous. ambulances about the explosion inspire program making. i still don't feel like i actually know enough about what living under fascism was light. how much money did you make for your role in deliverance? i made that al jazeera english crowd recipient of the new york festivals broadcaster of the year award for the 5th year running. hello everyone, and thank you for joining us for a new season of upfront us democracy is in crisis and at the risk of failing. that's what a majority of americans believe, according to a recent tips. those n p r poll from the january 5th insurrection at the capitol for the dismantling of voting rights and 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 to

protect freedom of speech, to the extent that the united states, those if you're moderately privileged, you're secure, say, from state authority and so on. on the other hand, the political system does not a, represent the population there or extensive studies in academic, political science, mainstream. which should ask a very simple question of what the relation between people's attitudes and opinions and the vote of their own representatives. straight forward turns out the for a large majority. ready of the population by some studies up to 90 percent of there's essentially no correlation. their representatives are listening to

different voices and that's understandable. your 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 selection. other, other studies have shown the theme. you can predict election electability with very hello precision, as simply we're looking at things like concentrated strategic campaign funding. are the well, the legislators calling the donors, the legislators office is being floated with lobbyists, corporate lawyers, representatives of interest and firms. overwhelmingly. steph,

huge amounts or the materials and ends up with them. pretty much earned writings, ear legislation, which the legislator then saw and there's a bit of a caricature, but not too much. something look good is essentially the way much of the system operates. so it's, it's a democracy in many respects as lot of freedom, but the representative system is constrained, constrained. another thing that comes up in addition to 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. 1 there been efforts to pass some reforms of voting rights lately in 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 voters depression? 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. well, 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 have been somewhat different with some overlap. in the last 3040

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 and to, 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 at 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. the nixon who was told and statesman understood that the republicans who are more oriented than the democrats towards corporate power and private wealth 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

along the deeply racist. so the democrats nixon recognized that hinting good enough to say it in words heading that the republic since wouldn't be come though it's a premises party. haygood. when over the southern democrats, there was a southern strategy, were pretty will then they moved other issues by the mid 7 is 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 should always been what we call pro choice, but all of a sudden they began passionately anti abortion. next to guns and 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, the 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 overturned and handed over to trump.

he said it quite explicitly. no, ever 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 political party could arise which wants overthrow the democratic system. so the laws are a little bit obscure. and there is there or debates going on right now in congress as to whether to sharpen the rules to make it clearer, that the voters should 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 can be put on the, on the democrat to have enough 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 functional democracy. 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, they were not going to be supportive, were people anymore. that were going to become

a party for affluent professionals. and wall street, the kind of people incidentally, who showed up that obama was extra thing and parties, truck schumer, that smell, the senate majority leader said street out that we can maybe will lose a working class in western pennsylvania, but will pick up to fluent suburban votes so that's what we'll do. and the last effort of the report of the democrats to serve were getting people was in 1978 the home free, and hawkins full employment that did pass. congress, president quarter didn't the, to it, but he watered it down so that it had almost no boy. when the

democrats basically handed the working clothes 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 actually have measures of this. the rand corporation super respectable, 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 have 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 they are 2 political parties, both dedicated to the benefit of the population. what you and i have just been discussing, and you can find, hence of it here and there was a 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?

winged recruits, and since congress is 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. they're 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 been 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. and 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 through. that's the undertone. and somehow those people who are, who are worthless and a worker taking it all away from us. it's an old technique to troyer. divert the attention of people away from their true oppressors, to people that 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 of the country. get them to hate black people who are even worse

off than they are taken. make them think will. 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, night 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 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 it. the organized, organized militias called 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 san decent, honest commitment to

a better world. he saw it pretty dramatically as for 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, beaten 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. very good. they're not. they don't have wilf concentrated power. media support,

but they're there and they can become the wave 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 as tenses intensify along the russian crane border. u. s. presidential bypass threatening president pollutant this severe economic sanctions saying a conflict of hers. it could be the largest invasions this won't work. 2 kinds of nomadic talks. a few possibilities. what we live from moscow to bring the latest development on al jazeera, examining the impact of today's headlines. there are threats to peace and security that don't appear on the tv screens. setting the agenda for tomorrow's discussions

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