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hey tom hartman here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture. wealthy british. market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy

with my stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines two kinds of reports. is he he. says.

came. along and welcome across our computer lavelle a world clamoring for change around the globe people are protesting against governments and tyrants can a self defined democratic west learn from the people of the arab middle east and how to create more just society. you can.

discuss of more revolutions are likely elsewhere in the world i'm joined by brendan o'neil in london he is editor of spiked in paris we cross to john locke and he is director of studies at the institute of democracy and cooperation and in phoenix we go to rachel alexander she is coeditor of the intellectual conservative and another member of our house talk team yell on the hunger all right folks this is cross talk that means you can jump in anytime you want to read and if i could go to you in london first. we what we've been seeing in the arab middle east that say let's be very generous over the last two months do you think that the powers that be in the west that have had so much influence in these countries over the last few decades i would say negative have digested the gravity of the change that is occurred in that region and what democracy means to people in the region. i don't think they have i think they underestimate the extent of what's happening in the arab world and i

think they underestimated the extent to which arab people want democracy because what we've seen in these uprisings is that people very clearly want more democratic control over their lives they want more choice they want more freedom and they discovered that they're only going to get that by taking action themselves we can see from iraq and afghanistan and other disastrous nation building experiments launched by america and britain the democracy cannot be delivered from outside by an army it can only be won by a people itself taking action this is what the arab uprisings really show us they show us that the out people want more freedom and they chose that make only they themselves can win that freedom without the intervention of the west john larkin if i can go to you i mean if it were looking at from a european perspective because i know you have a lot to say about the european union and i know you have a lot of opinions about democracy in the european union why don't you reflect on what you have see into going on in the arab middle east in libya in tunisia eccentrics cetera and what's going on in the european union. i very much agree with

brendan about the inability and undesirability of the impossibility and undesirability of exporting democracy i'm not sure i agree so much with the his overall political interpretation of these events but i'm not an expert i tend to think that revolutions or mass movements of these kinds have multiple calls it's there may indeed be elements of the crowds in north africa and the middle east who want political change but there's also an important economic elements in these events and in particular there have been very high rises in the cost of food driven incidentally largely by the quantity of easing the mass production of dollars in america which has caused inflation around the world and particularly in these parts which are now undergoing such massive change so i think that in revolutions you author or at least in big movements of this kind you often have various different factors coming together political ones yes but also very basic economic ones and

that's really the link i think to the events in wisconsin prevents after all are mainly driven by a desire for economic things not so much for political ones ok rachel i'm going to you in phoenix you've heard of range of opinion so far it's only a couple minutes into the program where do you stand on what's going on and focus on the north africa right now is it more driven for the desire of democracy economic hardships that are different vision for society or even anti colonialism where do you stand in all this well as the uprisings have continued and i've been following you know more and more i've been seeing it appears that they are more driven by i desire for stricter islamic regimes then i am for true democratic reforms now i do believe there is some element of you know wanting democratic reforms but what you see the protesters chanting for is they want more government benefits they're not necessarily on demanding a representative democracy being put in place you know like we saw back in the.

nine hundred eighty nine revolutions that swept eastern europe we're seeing a lot of you know calls for. you know things that would turn the country into more of a socialist regime you know what have you and and i think you know this is reflective of a lot of middle eastern countries where they are a it's acceptable to have an autocratic regime as long as the government is providing you with a lot of benefit so i am really concerned that. that the changes that are going to result are not necessarily going to be the kind of you know pro western democracies that you know were hoping for ok great if i could go to you why should we hope for a progress democracy should we just hope for democracy that's what we preach all the time. yeah democracies don't have to be progress and it's up to the people themselves that's the nature of a mock receive they decide what their country should represent but i think rachael is indulging in a fantasy notion here because there is no evidence at all that people are out demanding islamic regimes or islamic theocracy in fact in egypt there were very few

islamic people on the demonstrations the muslim brotherhood was completely sidelined and taken by surprise by the mass outpouring of desire for change in tunisia they've had demonstrations in favor of secularism they've had demonstrations saying we want the government to be more secular we don't want islamism in this country so i just think lots of people in the west the looking at these uprisings they see strange looking brown people demanding change very loudly and very roundly and they think they must want an islamic regime like they have been iran and elsewhere that's not the case there's no evidence for it people want change they want control over their lives and i think we should support them in general maybe continue on their premier high jump and go right ahead rachel this is crossed are going to be you're supposed to go ahead i just want to jump in and say that's not true that there is not you know hard line clear it's that or instigating a lot of these demonstrations on friday it was the shiite religious leaders that organized the protest that day in that was in bahrain so it wasn't the primary

opposition it was it was it hardline clerics ok you know get to the extent to the extent that islamists are involved there on the back foot they're riding on the coattails of these demonstrations they're not leading and they're desperately hoping to make some mileage out of them i hope they don't all i'm saying is that this is being led by mask groups of people not particularly well organized with no clear idea of what they want to the end but they are leading it themselves the islamists might be following but i believe they will be left behind john locke when are we going to have to change our definition the way the market is kind of going on what you are saying here rachel in if you don't agree with you to jump in but john. i mean the what rachel kind of really repeated kind of is something we've heard for a long long time to democracy is equated with the west i mean we do see a divergence in that right now because that may not be the case as we move forward and i think we would all agree even though we disagree on many points what's being

played out is going to take a long long time i think it's one of the most certain signs of intellectual the intellectual bankruptcy of the west and particularly of the united states that indeed the phrase pro western democracy is regarded as a clear nasm it is regarded as self-evident that any democratic country will be pro western or to make to put the point in even more in an even worse light in the light which i think it deserves countries are judged to be democratic to the extent that they are pro-west in other words their foreign policy orientation is sufficient for them to qualify as democratic and that is obviously nonsense as brandon says people can choose whatever policy orientation they like so let's hope that indeed out of this in kate out of these encourage movements which will lead we don't know where there may indeed be a collapse in this conceit that the west is superior and that all other countries are inevitably rather as marxists used to believe about the dialectical materialism

inevitably marching on a path to one for ordained goal rachel would you like to reply to that. well i'd like to point out you know and actually this is probably more in response to brennan but you know a recent zogby poll of egypt found that sixty five percent of them want religious clerics to have more of a role in political government so to say that you know the people don't really know what they want and you know these demonstrations really are me out but you know you hardly maybe rachel that means that most americans want to have a more christian driven america i mean it does that mean it's going to be run by priests and and pastors like that could be one interpretation of the whole. i cannot see a pawn america finding that sixty five percent of americans want to have more of a role in the same i didn't say that what i'm saying is that when you could be closing your he's going to bring in i mean we have

a christian nation isn't being run by a priest ok but have values that's what i'm getting at here i think what's important here is to understand why relatively speaking islamicists have a lot of influence in arab countries and one important reason why is because secularist democratic left wing movements were destroyed in those countries a long period of time and they were often destroyed with the backing and the approval of the west in particular washington by ambassador that for example in egypt who are least islamists to take on secularist movements because he considered them the threat to his rule no wonder in these countries these lists have a lot of influence is because they do they do so by default not because they have the passion that support the people but because the kind of movements that people could support have been have either withered away or been destroyed cynically by western intervention and by west supported dictators so let's get that into perspective having said that this is a relative issue islamicists are not all powerful they are not going to take over

in these countries and i think we have to get into perspective the fact that even a country like iran is no longer like iran was in one nine hundred seventy nine so the idea that egypt which is a very different place altogether will become like a rat in once that is just a fantasy born of western nightmares rather than eastern reality john if we go from there you before we go to break here again are we conflating we have to change our discourse because if you have a country where the predominant religion is islam then i guess it means we can't be democratic i mean we have to break that one is well. well iran has been mentioned although there's no time old iran now as far as we know iran precisely is the most democratic muslim state not familiar with the political structures of indonesia but among the middle eastern states it is by far and away the most democratic and it of course is never classified as that because it has a foreign policy which is basically opposed to that of washington so indeed this is a dream that we have to this is a truth that we have to get rid of all right i'm going to go to

a short break here and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the pro-democratic mood around the globe state party. in touch.

welcome back to your love remind you we're talking about the revolutionary flew around the globe.

but first let's see what russians think is behind the arab revolutions uprising xfer other as protests week the arab world toppling routines should other governments worry about the same fate some speculate that chen it is concerned the democratic happening in the middle east may soon visit its more doors others observe such worries are overblown the russian public opinion research center asks citizens who is behind them as demonstrations across the arab world thirty three percent say it is the entire population of the country alone think the protests are bad by those fighting for their rights eight percent see the poor speaking out. garner six percent and the five so could they then send the arab middle east have far reaching implications. ok brennan i can go to you again and london i

mean where do we go from here because a lot of people in north america right now at least these are protests in their various from country to country they're not overtly anti-american or anti western you can certainly see some elements of it maybe just as many islamic elements of my morton minority opinions right now but if there is a western intervention to try to determine outcomes now because a lot of people on the ground say western powers determine those outcomes for forty years we could see a growing anti western side coming to grow as they develop their democracy whatever it means to them. i think it would be a disaster if we had western intervention because what's happening in libya in particular but also in egypt in tunisia before it is that people have made themselves into historic subjects they've made themselves into the subjects of history if we have western intervention we will turn them into the objects of western pity will turn them into objects of washington's real politic and that would be a real disaster it would steal the democratic initiative from the people who want

to hold khadafi and others to account and it's only them who can do that but i think more importantly than that these are the best thing about these uprisings is they have exposed the mind blowing hypocrisy of the west and of western leaders and western commentators because for ten years western leaders and many commentators told us that we had to deliver democracy to the arab world we had to bring it to them because they were incapable of doing it themselves and now that they are commanding to markets they were all saying oh no you can't go too far please calm down go home or you'll turn into another iran so western intervention will take a long time to recover from this because it has exposed the extraordinary hypocrisy and double standards of the western intervention that claim to be for democracy but is in fact allergic to it when it arises when you think about that regional i mean the is the western critical united states have to start from scratch and really kind of really learn what the word democracy means because the democracy is the only way you can bring it to our countries through invasion maybe the west needs to rethink well i mean come on look at you know how well we did in japan i mean you

can't say that japan is now what driving democracy you know i pay any district manager can i should pay any half the united states japan attacked the united states and then these historical references ok didn't attack the united states well . ok you know a lot of these countries are hotbed for terrorists you know and they're helping contribute to producing these terrorists and i think that the u.s. does have a self interest in protecting ourselves we don't want to you know foment more but it was a great. grant is the common weal know in iran for forty years the united states actually perpetuated terrorist groups developing in the greater middle east because of its policy don't you have it in reverse i do believe i do i blew do believe that the united states and its own self-interest which is entitle to protect has tried to pick and choose the least worse of a volatile situations and sometimes in hindsight you look back and you say you know

i didn't really we didn't realize that you know these people's weight it would turn out the way they did and a lot of times it's a gamble but what are you going to do when you want to you know prevent another nine eleven with three thousand americans killed from happening again ok john you want to feel down there because i guess i didn't make my point go ahead i guess the united states well my country the world of interest go ahead. no i think that there are we've discussing the relation between these events and what's happening in america as if they were opposites but you asked us at the beginning peter to reflect on whether america has anything to learn from these movements and i think it does because i believe that these movements are at least in part a symptom of the collapse of the world financial system i mentioned the quantitative easing in other words the massive printing of dollars a few moments ago and this has had an inflationary effect this is driven up food

prices. that's one of the reasons why people are rioting in north africa by the same token in wisconsin we're seeing public sector workers being asked for actively take pay cuts or the removal of various privileges because the culture of debt on which the united states and like most western states has lived for so long now is coming to an end the chickens are coming home to roost the bills are having to be paid so we're seeing an unraveling of the really the entire post-war financial international system here and that's why i think these events are actually linked in a way which people probably haven't even thought about running you want to feel down one that's an interesting way of looking at it here because it is it is trying global finance and your poll politics together it. well i don't go as far as john i think where i disagree and i mean i think the economic problems that would have to be a trigger for some people but they triggered more profound underlying unresolved political question was the which was

a democratic one who controls these countries and in whose interests so people might have been pushed out into the street because they can no longer afford another few days to be in the past but they soon came face to face with a much more historic and profound issue which is the one i think they are now fighting over i agree with john that what we are witnessing is something really extraordinary which is the final unraveling of the last existing post-war order you know all the other post second world war all this fell apart the division of europe the division of africa amongst western supported strongman those things fell apart over the past twenty years the arab regimes were really the last existing thing that came into existence after the second world war so what we're witnessing here is something extremely historic and profound and it's been driven by ordinary people not by western governments really you said in hindsight we can learn some things what do you think that the what were the mistakes of western powers made in north africa and what should they avoid in the future. well i mean

you know i was worried it was a story. well right i mean i mean i mean propping up the taliban in the one nine hundred eighty s. i mean we can all look back and say was that such a good idea i mean you know that that's a clear example of where you know we might have been wrong but i you know i just want to jump in and argue with john comparing the wisconsin union protests to the middle east uprisings i mean that's outrageous i mean come on the united states we're one of the richest wealthiest countries in the world that we were very well off here and you know the unions are protesting because they want more socialist benefits they want to turn the united states into more of a socialist country and they're you know they're being very greedy with their demands because we can't afford it this isn't all tied into you know the reason in the middle east people are protesting that that those people lot of those people really are suffering and so you know to try to compare that to the only similarities are you know the people in wisconsin protesting and the people in the

middle east they both want more government benefits but they're in vastly different situations and you know the united states we're not you know on the verge of collapse unless we. you know accede to their demands and continue to pay these over inflated government government benefits that we can't afford ok john you want to go there because it looks to me the united states is about bankruptcy i don't see where all the wealth is well i wasn't quite sure where the rotation is saying these protests in the middle east want more socialism or whether they want more freedom. you can compare in the thing you can compare apples and pears and decide that they're different and point was that they are connected to these events whether they are the same comparable or very different is are not that is another issue i'm saying they're connected they are causally connected they're connected by the basic bankruptcy of the american backed international financial system with quantitative easing the united states as it has attempted to export it's probably. pumping the world full of dollars and one of the effects is rising food prices and one of the

results of that is these protests brendan if i go back to you in london i really find very i was an academic historian before i went into this line of business i find it very interesting what you what you were saying about through the last part of the world that is being put into place into the post post post war era how do you think it's going to play out geopolitically i mean when we look at the influence of western powers they have had and in these countries that could radically change what do you see next happening here what kind of realignment or some kind of you know a third way we're bait you know they're not going to side with anyone they're going to have their own trajectory. i think that's the thing that's up for question that's the thing that's unclear what will happen next once these regimes are ruffle and the more they are ruffled the better in my view there's the question of what will happen to israel what will happen with iran my instinct is that iran will try to assert some kind of control over the vacuums that might appear in this region and try to become

a dominant player even more so than it is that will be an interesting dynamic i think there will be some kind of regional interaction between the new governments that rise to try and create a kind of arab bloc and i think the west's intervention in this part of the world will be severely weakened by this it will be more difficult for the west to interfere and to direct things in its own interests that is a good thing but what i hope is that out of this peace demonstrations there is more ordinary people's control over their every day affairs i disagree that they are seeking more government benefits and more state intervention into their lives what i see when i look at these uprisings is of people who want to live more economically comfortably but also who want more freedom and choice who want freedom from state intervention and state regulation and authoritarianism and want to be able to determine their own affairs that is a very very positive thing and i think it's really dangerous for us to look at it as just the outpouring of the islamic hotheads that's not what it is at all ok

rachel i'm going to give you the last word on this program here democratic processes that are going on and you want to have a good use of a good thing for the world or a bad thing in the world. it could be a good thing if they really are about democratic reform and i just want to point out in yemen all men and jordan demonstrators there demanded more government benefits and all three leaders responded by giving them more expanded benefits so that's not not accurate and i just want to say to peter you say that the u.s. is not wealthy come on we all we can we all get a go to college education we all have air conditioned houses we have brand new cars i mean we're grateful the problem is there's a high speed chase with the country can't keep paying the way it is been doing because it can't continue this process unfortunately we've run out of time and i would have liked you to reply to many thanks to my guests today in paris london and in phoenix and thanks to my viewers for watching this here r.t. see you next time and remember. the you can see. the such.

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