says once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. showing corporations rule to. let. let's put aside the moral cumana charity and do good side of what we believe in and let's just talk it out straight reality. so what exactly is that reality well secretary of state hillary clinton gets direct with us foreign policy president obama may not share her notion of reality we'll examine the white house divide when it comes to power versus principle. and the divide between the haves and have nots in america continues to grow but in one u.s. city not divided lives on the same street we'll take you to baltimore maryland for a disturbing look at the rapid b.k.

of the american dream. dirty little secrets in the nation's capital you've heard of sex trafficking and laws to crack down on it but have you heard that it happens just steps away from where those laws are made we'll talk to one woman who broke away from a lifestyle from which she should have been protected. and how far would you go to stick up for your beliefs one environmentalist is going to jail for his care how his high bid for a government owned land kept it out of the hands of big oil and gas company. it's friday march fourth seven pm in washington d.c. i'm christine freezone you're watching our team. well i want to start today my talking about a tightrope this country seems to be walking on more and more on one side politics and power on the other principles and ideals now we live in

a country that has been described by many as a shining beacon of democracy and then he followed his notion including i think it's fair to say president obama. the united states is helping to lead an international effort to defer deter further violence put in place on first then it's a stronghold of the gadhafi government accountable and support the aspirations of libyan people we are also responding quickly to the urgent humanitarian needs that are both but there's also another side this view of real politic that principle should be sacrificed for power and this is not a democrat versus republican issue even within his own administration there seems to be a difference in opinion here secretary of state hillary clinton earlier this week let's put aside the moral cumana tarion do good side of what we believe in and let's just talk it out straight reale politic we are in a competition with china. in

a guinea huge energy find to go to one of senator lugar's very strong points exxon mobil is producing it china is in there every day in every way and joining me now to talk more about this is ohio congressman dennis kucinich and congressman let's talk about this you have hillary clinton the secretary of state on one hand saying you know what sometimes we've got a pretty side that do good or humanitarian stuff and then you are president obama being really firm you know for example with libya we've got to help the people talk about this divide. there's another element called common sense common sense should be aligned with principle and principles are not just the principles of a nation or the principles of all humanity and the truth there's the rest of the power for every one of you and for no one it ought so let's look at how you measure real politic the invasion of iraq was real politic it was also based on lies totally in principle the invasion of afghanistan or the rather the occupation based

on a misreading of history and ultimately in principle the attempt to use covert ops to knock out a government. some might say real politic and principled and all of these things that are in principle guess what inevitably they become self-defeating they are counterproductive so i say that while ideals are star step we can sail by principles are also part of our navigational equipment and day to day living so the minute america starts to set aside its principles we lose our way i think it's really important to bring in countries like iraq and afghanistan but we've got to if we had this discussion we've also got to talk about china you know when we look at competition at the game of success china makes no bones about it they're not here talking about principles and so they have no problem doing business with other countries whose principles they may or may not agree with unlike the u.s. and here's where the u.s. trapped itself we passed a trade agreement with china which went to was devoid of workers' rights the right

to strike the right to collective bargaining the right to join a union right to decent wages and benefits the right to safe workplace it was devoid of prohibitions on child labor and slave labor and it was devoid of any environmental protection so we sacrificed our principles in the name of being able to trade with china and what have we what is what has happened last millions of jobs and china is now setting the rules for commerce internationally instead of the united states sticking by our principles and ensuring that china would have to. not just setting the rules also in many cases dealing with this country footing the bill and i want to talk about sort of hypothetically speaking what would you think would happen if the u.s. said you know what across the world we're going to put principles aside we're going to start doing business with countries that we definitely disagree with countries for example cuba and me and maher. you know in wiki leaks cables there's a u.s. official saying china is playing dirty contrast that the what if the u.s.

did that would do you think would happen but we shouldn't have principles that say that we shut ourselves out from the world we need to view the world as an interdependent interconnected and then all of humanity has a common claim to the progress and the survival of the world if we proceed from that then we have trade that's based on equality and then we're not trying to crush other countries or add to their dad or force them into military purchase of military equipment what we need to do is to take an approach that makes it possible for all nations to survive and we have to look at our monetary systems as well which frankly we're in the united states moving towards a predatory predatory type of capitalism which is crushing people here at home and then we're exporting it abroad i'm curious on your take on what's going on right now you know as you and i said here in libya some different notions about how the u.s. is responding should respond how does this play into the argument of power versus principle well all over the middle east and north africa you see people rising up

and challenging their government the right of self-determination is an inherent right but it because it doesn't become self-determination or become something else of any nation intervenes on one side or the other so the fact of the matter is there are times that intervention is not called for no matter how we much we'd like to do it because if we intervene then what we're going to be doing is let's say we intervened on those who were challenging mr gadhafi then he could point to that and say this is the united states trying to knock me off and try to then create more intrenchments which would. cause at least. half of libya to be lost in oppression how does this end in libya i'm just wondering i mean president mubarak step down i could ask is a different situation he is making no attempt to show the world that he's going to step down those two possibilities either he'll regain control in a bloodbath or he'll be ousted in a bloodbath either way there's unfortunately going you know they're going to be a lot of people who are no question about it now you were talking just

a few moments ago about people rising up and this is not that's going on around the rest of the world this is going on in our own country and in your state the state of ohio we just saw some huge protests this week especially in light of what happened in ohio on wednesday when the state senate passed legislation that strips collective bargaining rights from three hundred fifty thousand workers there i know this is headed to the statehouse the governor has said he would sign it what's your position on all this well i'm absolutely opposed to any attempt to take away collective bargaining rights from public workers or any workers it's an inherent right of democratic society people should have the right to be able to negotiate for their wages for their working conditions and for their benefit and the minute that you take that away from people the minute you say the state says you'll earn what i say you'll work under these conditions these are your benefits that changes the nature of the relationship and changes to something that is profoundly

anti-democratic we're seeing this going on at the state level in your state in wisconsin i wondering you know you're here in washington what's the discussion with you and other colleagues in terms of how this plays out in terms of you know this deficit that we're in people's keep saying these these greedy union members they just want more money but we're too strapped right now what do you guys talking about behind closed doors the wealth of americans accelerating up towards the back of that affected wall street while streets recovering we have a jobless recovery we have wall street making profits again and paying huge bonuses again. and yet we have workers whose wages are frozen or they're falling behind what's happening is that there's a form of class warfare going on in the united states right now in the middle class is getting destroyed so members of congress have to be painfully aware of what's happening back in their districts where people are fighting to protect their jobs if they have one they're fighting to save their homes this is a time of great economic stress and frankly unless our economic system is

structured become more just where people have jobs where they have health care where they have retirement security their children can go to schools and people can protect their homes unless we can assure that our economy we are failing and in our responsibility to help people enjoy this mythical american dream because the american dream is already gone how can we reclaim it and say we want to make sure everyone can survive in this economy that's not happening yet important question and you always fighting the good fight congressman dennis kucinich on the state of ohio well it's just about a half hour drive from here but in many ways it's a city it's worlds away talking about the city of baltimore maryland is starting to crumble under the weight of foreclosures layoffs and budget cuts are you kalen for takes us there and gives us a firsthand look at a clear disparity in the way people live. every day leonard gray used to leave this house in west baltimore to come here

a job a living and a piece of baltimore's million dollar harbor revival until one day he and the other one hundred sixty employees of disney's e.s.p.n. zone were told they had been laid off effective immediately worked here. yesterday as well for six and a half years and well notice they just gave us. they were about like we was just a paper cup and that whole inner join the ranks of baltimore's unemploy it's a crowded place with eleven point four percent of the city's residents right now struggling to survive struggling to pay her bills so it was a vile you know you would go to the market to be but business is booming in the inner harbor a luxury retail and dining district that this city has sunk millions at you and made its model of economic development people very dead in the harbor had to go looking for ways but they don't know with girl behind the scenes i mean people are being disrespected but like much of america where the richest twenty percent own

eighty four percent of the wealth baltimore's ferber is split along class lines know how to know what the workers who work in these restaurants can't even eat what they're cooking because they charge the same price seven dollars for a hamburger and hours wage and racial lines yes you can face a class thing but ironically enough most of people that are pushed out by this new development happen to be black or happen to be latinos the inner harbor is baltimore's jewel its model of economic development generating hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue a year but just a few blocks east or west the reality is much different i thirty crumbling under the weight of foreclosures i'm crushing economic crisis it was against this backdrop that president obama announced one point one trillion dollars in cuts the budget will mean cutting things that i care deeply about. for example community action programs in lower income neighborhoods and towns. and robert block grants

that so many cities and states with water on the domestic spending chopping block with thirteen point nine billion dollars in cuts to food stamp programs in maryland alone more than half a million residents depend on food stamps that's a thirty three percent increase since two thousand and eight. and that means more hardship for a place like baltimore where a staggering twenty percent of residents live below the poverty line. and. six percent more than when obama stuff here just days before his inauguration in two thousand and nine this is what i believe baltimore but you know. this belief. now crowd wants more of the people who want this gun control but residents in these blocks and blocks of abandoned row houses haven't been able to change the spreading poverty threatening to engulf more and more of baltimore with home see far close by

and jobs green the area in many ways west baltimore is a microcosm of the rest of the united states and when schools like these are closed little hope remains in this neighborhood for what the future might look like for the artsy baltimore maryland as a whole certainly of the house and have not and it's fair to say what's going on in baltimore is going on in cities all over the country but in baltimore it's also in many ways magnified earlier i talked to a long wait staff writer for the washington post she told me income inequality is inevitable in a free society but what's concerning is how big the gap really is between the rich and the poor. right now you're seeing something like the top ten percent of households keeping home fifty percent of the nation's wealth and so the question becomes what are the social obligations is that in terms of does that breed unrest does that breed invitee among other income levels and also where the economic

implications of that does such a large amount of wealth being concentrated among the top tiers american households does that it's that single it economic growth that trickle down to other economic classes so what we're really grappling with is not a sort of the fact of income inequality but the magnitude of income income inequality i think that's an important point and i have you i want to kind of pick your brain on something that you know what little more about that a lot of people and that is food prices i know that some interesting information i think just out today is that a new record was set at least for as long as the u.n. food and agriculture organization has been keeping tabs on this and that is the food price index went to two hundred thirty six points last month and that was an increase of troops point two percent from january a record let's bring the price of food and kind of relate it to this income inequality discussion so one the one thing to consider when you talk about rising food prices and also rising commodity prices in general not just through the energy

costs gasoline acts that are is that you know lower income households spend a large proportion of their income on food on these statements recipes and that leaves them less money to spend on discretionary items which is one thing that actually helps drive the economy and also reduces the amount of product that they can actually buy in fact in january in the u.s. we found was that even though we received a payroll tax cut you know all workers received a two percent benefit to their paychecks that money was actually eaten up by inflation by rising food prices are rising gas prices so that some things that are going to talk or look the paycheck. actually little better doesn't go quite as far exactly and so that's something that is really important to think about when you look at ways to stimulate the economy in particular ways to help the most vulnerable consumers you know i've got to bring this up because it was just kind of shocking to me a few days ago here in our two we did

a story about. the left of the items in new york i'm talking about one hundred seventy five dollar burger it's a burger with you know kobe beef and. i'm in there is something like. this is on sale at a cafe on wall street surprisingly ten thousand dollars martinis are popping up one thousand dissolve one thousand dollars desserts do you think that we're going to continue to see more and more things like this things that only the wealthiest wealthiest people in the world can afford you know as more and more people are using food stamps and going to the food pantry is i think the one thing that's interesting about the income gap in america is that it's really driven by tremendous games at the top of the spectrum so it's not necessarily that the lower income people are making less money but that the richest are getting phenomenally richer than the rest of us. that was the stuff writer for the washington post. well it's a horrific crime and it happens in many countries around the world i'm talking

about sex trafficking and there are in fact various reports put out with facts and figures of how many evil leaders allow it to happen on their soil but guess what turns out it's also going on right here in this country and the numbers and the stories are shocking according to some reports trafficking minors for prostitution is the third highest moneymaker for organized crime in the united states telling only behind gun and drug sales teenagers are often recruited in the malls in arcades concerts even schools earlier i spoke with tina front the founder and executive director of courtney's house a nonprofit that helps girls who have been victims of sex trafficking she was also a victim herself here's her story. you know unfortunately my stories very similar to what we hear today when i was thirteen i met a man who was fifteen years my senior who you know didn't kidnap me or throw me into anything he'd be for and to me it's six months and months and so i gave my

trust and then the trafficking situation started just like the girls now and it's still happening here today well unfortunately this is nothing new so this has been going on for fifty years here we labeled it a different name and we thought of prostitution and we said that hey this is what the girls want to know about the choice but for fifty years on the same blocks it has always been trafficking controlled always and so with that it didn't go away the crime says that there are numerous men take part of it or could be congressman include again marketers it can be businessman it's many men take part in the big mess is that you know these girls are eighteen and they choose the average age of course prostitution is eleven to fourteen so yes we may see girls when they're eighteen and nineteen years old but they actually were started when they're eleven twelve and thirteen years ago and that's the truth and that's a reality that. what kind of things you know your advice to people out there who do

want to make things better what needs to change when you said change is what we called trafficking anytime anyone takes their money they deeds or some of their under age eighteen you actually don't have to prove it so what a role is parents need to be aware of and they need to educate their children on the older man who they are dating because this does not just happen in d.c. happens and happens and centerville and it happens to kids in two parent home houses as well where you know honestly how it usually happens is manipulates the child and that's it was one of the cases that we worked with over twelve zero this man who was forty eight years old he started the twelve year old firm of my hair he followed her to school she didn't. i know this this is what traffickers do that's the trafficker did my situation then he made his kind of available all hey how you doing here and there once you've already warned her behavior so this is what these men do they are kind of powerful that's label with a miscarriage where they actually wait and watch the child without very bright

moment to know and force them into prostitution and that's what we should be really afraid of you know we don't have enough glasses protect our children it's kind of really the world or some a house in front of congress and i actually asked congress to have laws that protect those of us are already there so i ask them to have laws to put a man who trap and children on the part of lives so that they are actually on a such register to you know that that doesn't happen does not half so you're telling me that an eighteen year old who has sex with his sixteen year old girlfriend who can sense but then changes her mind and gets him put on the list is put on the list over somebody who psychologically trapped a young girl and trafficked her and raped her and sells her every single day we put this word prostitution on it immediately we go there is never the choice and then we arrest and charge the child who's twelve and thirteen for it then we do so now here in this area go after traffickers there has been no better real case where

there is a man who bought sex from a child who has been put on facts registry no federal case. that was king of france founder and executive director of court house. well it was meant to be a parting gift from president george w. bush to the oil and gas industry in the final weeks of his presidency the bureau of land management held an auction to sell for rights to drill for oil and gas on federally protected land in utah an area of wilderness described as pristine and beautiful and here into the auction or number seventy a twenty seven year old economics student at the university of utah he bid on several parcels of land more than twenty two thousand acres at the cost of nearly two million dollars it was money he didn't have and he's now been convicted on two felony counts for disrupting a government action and could place ten years behind bars earlier i spoke to that

man bitter bitter number seventy whose real name is tim de christopher i asked him why he was willing to go through all this trouble to protect the land. of the auction ahead of time there were a lot of concerns about the legalities of your actions so. it's a complicated lockout of the decision making process for public lands and just the sort of climate change those associated with this deal now think later consolidate was so clearly part of this auction. so i was i was aware of it and learned to do something to stand in the way of this auction and also to leave things long enough for the administration to come in and are simply overturn the option which are. they had already indicated to. you and your times it's time yeah yeah i wanted to make sure our viewers know know that you know in doing this you did indeed prolong the process the obama administration has since taken this land back it seems to me

a tim you've gotten quite a following over the course of this last year i want to play really quick a scene from outside the courthouse out after the verdict was announced yesterday. and we'd all. know i have to go to prison window to know that's the reality that's just a job that i have to. swallow like the many before me is gone to jail for justice and if we're going to achieve our vision then he asked me what happened join me at twelve. yet ten some even calling you the nelson mandela of the environmental movement your reaction to the verdict and also to this wave of support people saying they join you in jail. well the verdict itself wasn't very surprising. how limited archetypes was we actually were able to tell that your doctrine was overturned anyway we weren't able to tell the truth

that the government admitted they weren't following their old rules. we were unable to tell them i did read the initial payment and offered it to the p.l.o. . and they refused to accept. the way to raise this money when you were able to raise it for fundraisers so you actually were able to offer that money for the land yes within about two weeks of the auction we operate. the initial payment but they said it was doable. but they refused to take it on the grounds that i wasn't a normal bitter. our defense team was only allowed to talk about what happened on that day of the auction and just under ninety two thousand eight we warmed up a lot to talk about the legitimacy of the state is not doctrine that it is article one that we weren't allowed to talk about actions that i took after that or the government took after that. all we're allowed to talk about was that specific day when this auction happened. you know initially we do want to use what's called

a necessity defense which is the argument i was at the not necessity to prevent her harm which i certainly saw it is that if this actually was delayed and i was totally wrong. it was a small boy and i would have done things. but it wouldn't have been allowed to go forward it would have created irreparable damage i'm wondering i you know i know that you were given the option of a reduced sentence or he pleaded guilty to one of the charges but you refused i guess talk to me about why you decided not to plead guilty. well i think that is a jury is a really important part of why our legal system in this country and even though the jury wasn't allowed to hear most of the information. even though even though the the jury was told that they weren't allowed to question the wisdom of the decision i still photos important the jury. serve some sort of role in this process

i think it was was really important that. we have that reminder that peers are supposed to be the conscience of the community and and they sort of an important part of our legal process well i see an absence of justice i don't know how much that particularly bothers me or surprises me. i think it's simply the rules that we play. i mean i think i think we need to acknowledge that our opponents in the struggle for a healthy and just world are those who are in power today the corporate power structures and our country and. then we should realize that if we're going to work for a healthy and just world we're up against the forces they control our country and so we're going to suffer consequences from that. and those that are on their side of increasing that corporate power are not going to suffer consequences at the hands of the very government that they control. but i'm wondering you know i mean

you face up to ten years behind bars i guess i'm wondering do you think about what actually happened or what do you think the sentence will be and whatever it is i mean do you think you're going to be able to do good behind bars as opposed to being out. i think the did it will serve some good for for me to serve my time i think it's something that is the next step for the climate movement in this country we need to realize they're. spending a little future will be legitimate sacrifices there we will actually have to pay some real consequences for us. and then we will probably have to go to church you know every successful social movement is that people go to europe some of them for extended periods. and i think that's something that we need to some degree get comfortable with and and that's just the role that i have placed before me.

i was eco activist tim de christopher and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to r.t. dot com slash usa check out our you tube page you tube dot com flash r.t. america and christine. i think. the point is well. we never got to show their face. because their freedom.