the. video of. jesus my. mission street. on the. street. there of our time during the hours that we all sort of expect to go with it right up with just the facts well you heard that right forget the white picket fence that fannie and freddie used to represent the american dream is quickly turning into the american nightmare so what caused the system to fail. from the midwest to the mideast and even up through greece the world rebellion seems to be spreading but will politics ever close the gap. and turning from profit into a protest does money trump morals when it comes to p.r.

. tricks good evening it's monday march seventh seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm lucy coughing up and you're watching our t.v. and when it comes to the american dream visions of the white picket fences are front and center but for decades those fences have been propped up by the government largely through fannie mae and freddie mac. now since taking over these emperor to enterprises in the wake of the housing crisis the federal government is now backing ninety per cent of u.s. mortgages but with new proposals the message of the obama administration is sending seems clear this country can no longer afford to prop up the middle class lester explains. the american dream. to be a bar home and provide for your family so we saw by the way picket fence it's that

traditional vision of homeownership central to living the dream like the many people we have in the faberge which is turned into a nightmare for millions of americans who've lost their homes to foreclosure or are facing it now people like retired directions officers contract she didn't want to show her face because of this it's a horrible feeling. in foreclosure you have a family you have children you try to keep things stabilize for them but she feels helpless in the fight against losing their home i think she's in because of a dispute with the banks over the terms of her adjustable rate mortgage and i do feel like there's a right the it should be my right to remain in my home i've been here for nearly twenty years but now americans like sandra may have to kiss the national eat those that says owning a home is a birthright good bye all together in the future people may still aspire to and get the picket fence or they would have a hard time getting the house that we all sort of expect that with it might add up

with just a fence that's because for decades it's been two government sponsored firms propping up homeownership in the country by keeping money flowing to mortgage lenders fannie mae and freddie mac. you may recall them from the financial crisis when their losses led the u.s. government to bail them out to the tune of one hundred fifty billion dollars here in the working class neighborhood of jamaica just outside new york city you can really see what some of those losses from the housing crisis look like this two family home for example before the crisis sold for just over six hundred fifty thousand dollars now not too long ago at a foreclosure auction one hundred seventy five thousand dollars of that debt was auctioned for just two thousand dollars and with the government in control of fannie and freddie. american taxpayers scam behind six trillion dollars in mortgage debt now the government says it has to get out we need to wind down fannie and

freddie and substantially reduce the government's footprint in the housing market it's a departure from past government policies which have treated homeownership as a virtual right and report to congress now the obama administration says the goal is affordable housing not for all americans to be homeowners analysts alternately would hold policies and danny and freddie going by the wayside so too will the white picket fence the dream they helped manufacture it and interest rates are going to have to go up because the risk of lending to own water goes up and fewer parties want to get in on their. homeownership orders and it's not just the us middle class has been to feel it foreign countries all over the world hold billions upon billions of u.s. home mortgages in their portfolios doing away with fannie and freddie could amount to massive losses for these investors and for u.s. clout especially when you consider economists say shoring up foreign investment was

a major reason for fannie and freddie bailout in the first place but america appears unable to afford another option in the face of such massive failure i believe the banks were making. i think it was crude fannie and freddie got out of control they took ridiculous amounts of rest which they didn't properly disclose to the federal government regulators or to their investors who were significantly slammed by their bets adventure and misadventure coming at the cost of the american dream albion apartments and how would i want to be able to buy another home somewhere else it's so many americans and the world. laura lister r.t. new york. now if you filled up your tank this weekend chances are that you felt the pain of a pump and gas prices unfortunately i'm not the only thing that's on the. rice the cost of food is so angry if millions of americans still unemployed and the economy continues to shed jobs and with state and federal budgets in crisis gets what's on

the chopping block and talk about the basic programs that help already struggling americans make ends meet now earlier i spoke with david de graw from am status dot com and i asked him why fannie mae and freddie mac. are living the american dream while the rest of the country is rushing that dream turned into a personal nightmare here's his response to you i mean obviously you know who wants to put some words forward for the system that brought the market down you know i mean it's like you want to talk about online be very you know freddie you know let's talk about on the wrong people who. go jury and when i talk about winding down these are you know sure are gentle institutions that exploded you know. we should be unwinding. freddie as well yeah i mean why aren't we unwinding them you have someone like bradley manning who got in trouble for leaking secrets and is now you know facing potential death penalty who is now spending twenty three hours of the twenty four

hours in a day in solitary confinement and i have not seen a single lawsuit see not a single u.s. official behind bars for essentially running the economy into the ground and how do you reconcile that. well i mean you know it's all one giant mafia racket now wall street's campaign finance is taking control of both urban democratic and republican parties and legalized crippling or i agree just like you know legalize rico racket in that housing market and be that criminals are taking over and they're obviously it will look. the criminals that they have if the criminals have taken over let's talk about the money we have one hundred fifteen one one hundred fifty billion that went into bailing out fannie and freddie from uncle sam i mean somebody got rich from all that crash cash for whose pockets that money go to and where what what i guess the returns on this war i mean there's a look at people like cain also didn't really quite find jamie diamond i mean these

people cashed in on us and paulson was pivotal in every level you know of taking down the u.s. economy you guys were or were a billion dollars now that we know about he probably has twice you know for sure accounts you know these are the people that have to have your assets frozen and we can recoup the money that way i mean one chance or one percent of the u.s. population has robbed everyone blind right now we have one hundred people in the united states we have more wealth than one hundred fifty five million people combined is the most severe inequality of wealth you ever had if americans could just understand how this wealth has been withheld what's it in this one tenth of a certain population then we would have each it. easier and loop to. sweep united states are not a. let's all. now that was author and journalist david to crawl and when you

look at this clear divide this widening gap between the rich and the poor in the united states it seems that there are more and more places in this very country where there are a popular uprisings going on even right here in washington d.c. right now hundreds of nurses are locked out of their hospital they're fighting to hold on to their salaries and for better working conditions and argy correspondent christine for example was there and takes a look at to what extent this anger may translate into action. it is a rising tide spreading across the globe. as the angry the oppressed are fighting back against the oppressors in egypt a leader was taken down in libya he hangs on but barely in greece as many as thirty thousand protesters came out last month angry at the ongoing austerity measures imposed by the government there in portugal it was the same thing and in

this country wisconsin remains at the crux of the fight described by many as the battle between the haves and have nots or the governor wants to take away collective bargaining rights of public workers well it turns out it's not just people whose job it is to protect and serve america. but it's also those whose job it is to care for americans these nurses here work for the largest hospital in washington d.c. it also has a level one trauma unit which means many of the patients they get are in the most serious condition they say the company that runs the hospital medstar is operating on the scene not only not wanting to give these nurses raises but also wanting to decrease their pain if they meds are all just a very understaffed the hospital and in the end it's not just the nurses the patients all the nurses have about six patients expression late night sixty eight patients that's way too many patients cannot move do not get out of bed not walk

around and i think there is a huge problem with safety because. they've been without a contract for nine months and are locked out of the hospital as other nurses had to be bussed in to care for the patients here or here are the are some say the most frustrating thing is the sharp differences in those who run the hospital from the board room and those who actually run it in the emergency room and patient rooms traditionally c.e.o. pensions in and wait. is are about three hundred times the average what the average worker makes and it's the average worker that's put the in the product on the street that's boy that's doing the doing the job and it's just amazing that that corporate profits of comment on a worker fell welfare corporate profits versus worker welfare you could say it comes out most of the major conflicts but at what point are words not enough stunning pictures. even angry lawmakers this is an important moment in history

this is a moment where we watched stand up and speak out and speaking out they increasingly are but will those you know whether in wisconsin in egypt or on the streets of d.c. achieve a fundamental change in the system in washington christine freeze out r t. now the director of a top u.k. university has quit over the institution's links to libyan leader moammar gadhafi regime this after revelations that the london school of economics was involved in libyan donations worth millions of dollars and this is just the latest in a scandal in a string of reports of dirty cash infiltrating the u.k. from dictatorships around the arab world and as a large party's lower emma reports london for p.r. firms are now cashing in on the rest. the influence of p.r. companies in just torching the truth is well known in hollywood movie wag the dog a p.r. agent engineers a war to distract from the president's plan during the to do should not be the

country. think of and sometimes truth is stranger and much more damaging than fiction spin has been crucial in middle eastern politics for many many years i mean spin is what took britain into the iraq war for example crass headlines about weapons of mass destruction and in forty five minutes p.r. industry experts reckon the majority of the arab states in turmoil bahrain egypt have some kind of representation in a london p.r. firm and the reason they come here and that kind of regulation while in the us if a p.r. company takes on a foreign government it has to register the fact that the department of justice in the u.k. does no such rule. if you're a foreign government looking for representation in london yeah ok then that would constantly be in the building behind me although very cagey about who it's my dog

is believed to represent the level of bahrain bellaver used and exiled russian tycoon bodies but he's guilty the fact is also you've been writing to journalists in recent days on behalf of the member of the libyan oil leak and it's all based certainly representing government elsewhere in the region bellport injured declined to give us an interview for this story but they've assured r.t. in the past that p.r. can influence questionable regimes for the better a country frequently modify. its policies in order to free. what they sometimes. but that doesn't always happen libya for one has used london's p.r. machine before with misleading results in one thousand nine hundred five u.k.p. . c. was paid four million pounds to try and subvert the evidence that pointed towards libyan involvement in the lockerbie case and this is what has led to all sorts of

alternative theories about lockerbie although of course the lives instead point to the fact that on the ground he in a loving female were actually responsible so even knows how to play by these these rules they know how to play the game and it's transparency that's lacking in the u.k. p.r. information appears in the media but people have no idea who put it there and the only way one can be really sure about all the information that will be bombarded with on a daily basis is where does it come from and is that person partial or impartial and in that way we get a much clearer idea of what it is that we're being told although there is a new body in the u.k. designed to regulate the p.r. industry declaring clients is still voluntary london's soho is the heart of the p.r. industry in the capital where images of burnished and the unpalatable becomes palatable to london's top p.r. firms are known to be working under closer to some of the world's most unpopular regimes but their expertise could be being used to shape the future political

landscape of a vulnerable region nor abbott's r.t. london. now when gadhafi began trying to improve his image in the west here announced weapons of mass destruction and over suspects in the lockerbie bombing and hired us spend afters to lobby congress and sway american opinion and that office wax on k. street had included the livingston group and also the law firm white and case but should we really be surprised km equitorial guinea to saudi arabia k. street lobbyists are unbuffed tarnished reputations with saudi p.r. so does money really trump morals when it comes to political relations earlier i posed this question to graham wizner attorney with the firm patton boggs. there are certain people out there who do seek help in washington from lobbyists and oftentimes their human rights record is so tawdry that it is impossible to cleanse them and no one wants to get involved in that game as well if you go into the state department and make a case for

a human rights abuse or and don't fully revealed the depths of those problems you would be laughed out of the state department so you have to recognize that there are certain ranges in which you can operate now other countries larger countries that have very large commercial and other interests are much more appealing to a lobbyist he has the ability not only to improve the image of the country in the in front of congress but also to try to find new markets try to open up all sorts of joint ventures between the united states and that country but again you know you can't paint a pig by a different color and expect that you're going to trick anybody in the state department saudi and other countries that have a long term relationship with the united states frequently do come under criticism we all make mistakes in the saudis have done so in the past and you just try to face up to the truth of the accusations and shut understand them try to understand

what congress the question is congress is asking and bring it back to riyadh or bring it back to another capital in and see if you can find a common ground in which people can understand each other i do not take the representation of countries which have blood on their hands i know that there are every country including our own has made mistakes in the past and they deserve as we say it in court congress and their staff on capitol hill are very shrewd and they can tell in a second if i am overplaying my cards how it helps out but you know if you look at . example the difference between i don't know a terrorist and a freedom fighter is really just p.r. right and in this world of mass media image is everything image becomes perception becomes reality and we've seen with corporations for example constantly being able to really shift their image regardless of what sorts of crimes are committed and so

i guess the question is should we really be surprised at the end of the day you know p.r. and lobbying and these efforts to rejig someone's the image take place and often incorporate governments that we may not be. perfectly friendly but well i don't suppose you should be surprised that governments that have a bad image do come to the united states and they look for lawyers who will take their case but as i've said before those of us who are serious about the business are in it for the long term and so we're not going to associate ourselves with people who have records which just can't be explained there are other countries which have mixed records and some of them are coming to the united states to understand how to get out of trouble washington is a five dimensional chess game there are many power brought brokers in this town and foreign governments frequently don't know who's really on first base is the defense department is the state department and therefore in many ways you're holding their hand through this labyrinth of power. that was graham wizner attorney with the firm

patton boggs and when it comes to the unrest in libya it seems that the facts are few and far between there are conflicting reports on the number of killed on airstrikes by gadhafi forces even the number of cities controlled by the opposition pretty much everything that's been reported seems to be in doubt now last week we saw a wave of correspondence which suggested that the opposition was in control of the entire country and that went off it was doomed archies oksana boyko went to the opposition held event ghazi to find out why and how these exaggerations came to light. they are. war in comprehensible as it sounds it's present in any conflict just days ago these parents fear for their children's lives today they're taking their pictures in front of the tanks it is dire to be captured laughing in the face of danger is even stronger in the of journalists and the conflict in libya is providing a perfect setting for

a moment of good duffy is striking back now we're hearing reports of war planes bombing opposition camps in eastern libya forces loyal to libyan leader moammar gadhafi appeared to be advancing east into areas held by his opponents on t.v. screens have been ghazi may look like the center of the rebel resistance but in reality it's more like a seaside resort than a conflict zone who told the fully booked with journalists and residents go about their daily lives here boys are looking for new things to play with toy guns are careful supply some reports sent from god the referred to the treatment in eastern libya as war not a conflict zone where rebels are engaged in sporadic and honestly beach battles with pro get out the forces but an all out war i don't have any fear mike is going on institutional it's ok none research it's one of the first reporters to arrive in ghazi for several days she's been traveling with the rebels about two hundred

kilometers west of the weekly some points the pro-government forces opened fire at her through a focal point of the record there is a war going on and where the real like it or not there is that there is a frontline you know and there are people with guns and there are two sides fighting she's channels know the gunfire and explosions snakes are strong disease but they also can help to blow things out of this recession that giordano's does leave cancer research freely from tripoli and all the good of you controlled parts of libya son can find themselves stuck this is. but the rebel side of the story just opening up to journalists they just love them and. just whenever they take one city we go with them and then we go into into the other city the reporters need to travel to here in the opposition's press center and because the internet access isn't restricted and because the available twenty four hours that nothing is on the wall and sometimes finds its way into reports if you put

a prize each in the square so. we are really. because we don't trust the drivers we have to be within the horsemeat circle so you as a human being you tell me how could you be i mean it's a given here is human rights with rebels professing their readiness to fight good after his regime to the bitter end no wonder news reports a caring predictions of in an uncivil war yet as the rebels inability to mount a fully fledged offensive becomes more apparent so is the imbalance nature of the coverage media meet called the delusional but in their assessment of the band's lead they don't show a full grasp of the situation either. many people think that being a booker responded takes a lot of courage and hard work but actually. it's much easier and far more enjoyable than routine journalistic assignments especially when they were sitting

sideways so accommodating the problem here in the big idea is that some reporters became not only part of the story but in its main driving force and instead of hoping that full blown confrontation and bloodshed good very thing that almost calling for a summit like art see in god. now joining me now from more to talk about the weapons of mass distraction as war correspondent keith harmon snow keith thank you so much for being here this evening and now what is your general take on why there is so much misinformation and conflicting reports when it comes to libya. well it's basically a psychological operation this entire wing of the pentagon in the state department that's dedicated to psychological operations perception management is the goal and term the previous one was propaganda psychological operations to convince the american public we're in english speaking world in english news concerning world

that something's going on that may or may not be actually happening and that's what we're seeing a lot of with respect with you but you don't think it's maybe and some heartburn the nature of the news business itself i mean we know the pictures tell the story we know the conflict seems to be on it right now so do you think that there are some you know sort of more accidental forces at play where journalists are going out there and trying to find the most exciting thing that they could put on and because they only have access to one side of the story they may be sort of sizing the wrong the wrong size and putting iraq wrong kind of information out there and we think the example of rwanda in one thousand nine hundred four what happened in the so-called hundred days of genocide was covered by journalists traveling with one in so-called rebels who are in power today they committed genocide in rwanda and that believe it was the opposite side it was a psychological operation there's no shortage of words on to go to today where people are dying and fifteen hundred people a day in eastern congo journalists go in and out of there but it's not been reported in or same thing with sudan there's conflict going on in certain regions

in sudan the conflict in afghanistan but what we're getting is a pro u.s. wrote anything on one sided picture of a situation which fills the media with the idea that there's freedom fighters involved in libya and that there is a government regime there and atrocious terrorist government for the last since one nine hundred seventy roughly this is nonsense libya was an established government whether we like them or not just north korea and he ran our established governments but we like him or not or the civilian government and what's happening against him is a war of aggression with the media serving one side to portray the idea that could happen is a terrorist all these people have been killed in freedom fighters involved freedom fighter language freedom fighter hasn't been you. jabs against the countries against you know if you need more remember a grade of the taliban used to be the freedom fighters right back in the eighty's and another example. i'll give you works i'm glad you brought up the example of congo because i mean this is

a conflict that since one thousand nine hundred eight has killed more than five point eight million people and i wonder what your thoughts are i mean is it really government psychological operations or is there something more going on why is it that we have this selective attention span when it comes to which conflicts we're going to pay attention to the congo doesn't seem to be very sexy or invokes a nobody in the mainstream media covers us but libya suddenly the next best thing since sliced bread everyone seems to be flocking to the country even though they don't seem to have the actual facts. it's a combination is some accidental stuff going on or some it's mostly self censorship on the part of journalists to go and report something but there is a lot of government sponsored propaganda pentagons pumping stuff out it's going to a.b.c. news nightline c.n.n. and the congo for example the world began in one thousand nine hundred six when the us invaded and the number of dead in congo is over ten million it's not around five or six million and it's not being covered because there's american multinationals all over the place killing it calling it diamonds in a crime you can't write and that and the other raw materials including oil like we

have coming out of. congo and people in america don't believe that we have any hands our hands into the oil in in in in not when we start libya in fact the oil massively are huge and all concessions are huge and it's a massive oil operations going on with the support of the involvement of italy france and britain since the one nine hundred seventy since nine hundred fifty nine when he was once covered the u.s. hasn't had a piece of that part and the idea is to convince continue to convince the american public that genocide is happening in libya which is absolute nonsense and therefore we need to take it you know the all powerful right american role is to go out there and save somebody that needs saving and actually were involved in the killing because we're i believe we're supporting the rebels in libya i love a genocide only one of politically convenient i guess and after the problem journalists i mean have you seen have you seen any sort of a change in terms of maybe your reports being that they're finding more home market for your reports and more of an interest in alternative sources of media. the story

that i wrote about libya has been picked up and read a lot because there's nobody out there who's really getting into the details behind it propaganda so many americans even the left wing leftists or progress in four alternative media depending on how you define him are pumping out some version of the propaganda this week released by the state department which is today i think committed terrorism he shot down the pan am flight over lockerbie the lockerbie flight that that was not a khadafi operation it was a false flag operation so the idea that can obviously career terrorist needs to be removed course that argument gets a lot of play a big cherubs and the biggest terrorists in the world are getting away with murder it's very moment then and they don't even know in the media like movies temples and all right can't well hopefully people will get some sort of an interest and start trying to find this information on their own sense lord knows the mainstream media is not picking up on it that is where correspondent keep harmon sal and.