market. going on what's really happening to the global economy with much stronger no holds barred look at the global financial headlines. and also you know you have a candidate for president it is republican primary. and with that the political phenomenon known as ron paul becomes a contender in the race to the white house so will his third run be the charm. and the throes of war once again from an organization that once promised peace so after years of military intervention after the end of the cold war nato is still trying to answer why nato. and solitary confinement in the u.s. a form of invisible torture save for the very worst of the worst criminals or so

you would think will unlock the truth behind who is really forced to live in those tiny cells. that evening it's friday may thirteenth i'm lauren lesser coming to you from here in washington d.c. and you are watching our t.v. while ron paul made it official today he announced he will be running for president in two thousand and twelve and the news was everywhere as a very different tenor than back in two thousand and eight when he was considered a candidate of the libertarian fringe now he's going after the republican nomination but he is a well known libertarian congressman who ran for the republican nomination back in two thousand and eight and ran as a libertarian twenty years earlier so could the for a ron paul candidate be a sign of a desire for a true third party candidate. well before we get to that archie senior broadcast

journalist megan lopez takes a look back at the history of third party candidates and the hurdles that a candidate like ron paul may face. in american politics you have the elephants i'm newt gingrich and i'm announcing my candidacy for president through the donkey's i will be a candidate for reelection and talking to our. i'm going to need each and every one of you to get it all and then there are those dark forces at this moment i'm officially announcing that i am a candidate for president the ones that in the past were such a long shot not even the us needier was willing to take a bet another question about electability. do you have any sir there's always the question of whether he was fired as the race for twenty twelve years up does a third party candidate really have what it takes to cross the finish line if history indicates anything the answer is no from ross perot to ralph nader and even

billionaire steve forbes no third party candidate has made it's number one in one thousand nine hundred eighty the candidate a familiar face. or the first. ron paul ran on the platforms of non interventionism restructuring of the federal budget and a return to the gold standard bold ideas for someone running on tough conservative turf. george herbert walker bush do solemnly swear four years later they're still here we ran our three hundred forty one billion dollars into their billionaire businessman ross perot took center stage wanting to set the record straight on us debt that's our legislators when our president tried to buy our boat this year. we're not that dumb even though ross perot didn't win he was the most successful dark horse to ever run for rose right again in one thousand nine hundred six but there was

a new third party face in the mix wow nader. with that enthusiasm donation was born his hatred for big government earned him the green party ticket think of the hubris here these two parties have spoiled our elections they've spoiled argh. they spoiled our pollsters making him a popular contender but not a champion neither was steve forbes but he did for ever change the third party approach to presidential races using thirty seven million of his own he made it so that money was no object for candidates running outside the well oiled two party system but no amount of money could buy steve forbes or ralph nader the white house that year. in two thousand both nader and forbes were back running this time kim known as the spoiler who paved the way for a george w.

bush victory jump forward to two thousand and eight a decade after his first presidential run ron paul stepped back into the limelight are you running for president. with the tea party joining his stride in the political landscape changing his stance for me in steadfast but america wasn't ready to hear is message you know during the campaign before i talked about the economic crisis that nobody quite understood was coming in the housing bubble burst i think that gave us credibility so we twenty twelve right around the corner from ron paul make his third run for president but charles if the beauty to raise a million dollars in one day is any indication perhaps americans are finally ready to bet on him. now as brian already he's a senior editor at reason magazine brian thanks so much for being with us now i mean the first glaring difference between now ron paul announcing and three years ago is the difference in and media attention i mean this was big news it was all

over the mainstream media today and three years ago it seemed that there were only a you know a few places you can see ron paul one with this channel right here i do have to toot our own horn those giving ron paul attention so what do you think has really changed that now people are looking at ron paul you know seriously and getting a lot of attention. i think what's changed is that a lot of ideas that ron paul has that people considered wildly eccentric or crazy four years ago are now widely seen to actually be correct ron paul was the guy out there saying that the federal reserve policy was creating an unsustainable bubble that was going to lead to a financial crisis and it did the housing bubble burst the dollar continues to sink and world markets his fears of a complete dollar collapse now seem actually realistic he was the only candidate out there saying that our foreign interventions in the mideast were pretty much a useless waste of lives and money and that's an opinion that's a becoming more and more widespread i think even the recent killing of osama bin

laden while it's not being seen that way should actually be seen as a feather in ron paul's cap because he was the only one advocating that sort of targeted going after the particular people we wanted to get rather than waging first giant full scale war the nation building as a tactic so i think more people are seeing that ron paul is not i'm not here on paul is actually someone with ideas that are extremely important for americans to consider ok ideas that's an interesting word that you would you would you think it's fair to say that these ideas and idea that were once considered friends have now live mainstream. yeah i think that's unquestionable i mean the notion of jabbing against a federal reserve was extremely fringe and eccentric and now there's a national mass movement consisting of you know people in the streets chanting and the fed to us from all over the spectrum are recognizing that federal reserve policy contributed to the crisis well ron paul now heads the subcommittee in the house that actually you know covers the federal reserve is right on that issue has

been amazing and you have a point in years ago nobody knew what the federal reserve was and now i mean most people yeah absolutely no one intended using it or at least know that that is a term that exists that's had something to do with the economy hopefully they know a little bit more than that but that set aside from the ideas that could ron paul be a viable presidential contender. well we're seeing some reason to believe. a c.n.n. opinion poll this is actually kind of staggering from last week actually showed when they matched up against obama the republican candidates ron paul actually was doing the best of all of them against obama still losing by seven points but doing the best in a recent new hampshire poll he came in tied for second it was a distant second to mitt romney but card for second he pulled a million dollars on one day last week on the day of the first debate but the fact that the media still insists on treating him like a marginal or hopeless candidate is absurd i mean he ran in two thousand and eight he actually have thirty five delegates going into the convention how many delegates

of you know temple empty or you know michele bachmann or any number of people treated somehow is serious i have ever heard ron paul is absolutely as strong a potential candidate at this day you know long before any votes have been cast as anyone that said you do have members of the more mainstream republican party that i've interviewed that say you know in reality he's probably not. you know nominee for the republican party and even you know as a fan of his from reason he was saying that he isn't a likely that he would be the nominee so how do you overcome that you know why would he decide then in this situation where some of the media is still treating him as friends and where some republicans are as well why would he decide to run for the republican nomination as opposed to running as a third party candidate. well for all the reasons we have up is that you're talking about your last segment running as a third party candidate is really a fool's errand in this country ron paul actually did the politically sensible thing by running as a republican because there are all sorts of americans who just are not going to go

outside the two party reservation it's just been ingrained in their heads in childhood that anyone who's not a republican or a democrat is some sort of fringe lunatic so with his ideas already outré ron is absolutely doing the right thing by saying ok i'm a republican you guys understand that and why he's doing why he's running at all even though he is winning is unlikely which i do grant i'm merely saying that there's no reason to write him off entirely is because go back to the idea of ideas ron paul has a set of ideas that he has been pushing in public life for decades now that he considers are vital to the survival and freedom of the united states and he's realized that running for president as a republican is absolutely the best way to get those ideas out there i mean in two thousand and eight he built up this unprecedented and unexpected huge mass of people a lot of them skewing young and skewing towards being willing to give him a fair amount of money to spread his ideas and i think he believes and rightly so

that he can do even better now with the groundwork that he's already laid have that really increased because he's known for having just a very very dedicated following at d.n.c. that has increased exponentially as. and i certainly think that ruben and so. you know he there's this activist group called campaign for liberty that is pushing explicitly ron paul style ideas there two thousand and nine you pulled in was usually higher than there are two thousand and twenty probably and so you know there's there's no sign that the momentum that grew around ron paul in the last campaign has shrunk there's a lot of signs that it's grown and you know none of us can predict the future but he thinks and i think that it's time to take it to the next level so it's growing or obviously at some point i just want to really quickly bring up this i want to talk more philosophically about the third party the press for third party candidate or this is a reason and we have to consider you are a libertarian organization but i found that eighty percent of people would consider

that their party candidate for president in two thousand and twelve so where's the disconnect between i don't like this and what you're saying where you're saying the real block from having at third party candidate are breaking away from the two party system and that people simply won't vote for a third party candidate wasn't asking yeah our poll results were amazing and they may be a sign that something has substantially changed america certainly never in the past has there been that level of willingness to for people to vote for a third party candidate you also have to understand that beyond the ideological barriers there are enormous financial and legal barriers for third party candidates to succeed merely getting on the ballot if you're not hooked up with the republicans or democrats are going to cost you a stunning amount of money a stunning amount of volunteer labor it's a huge barricade that the two parties have created towards opposition i was excited by the results of our recent poll i must say i'm a tiny bit doubtful that we'll see that payoff in in two thousand and twelve and also because i'm not sure who this third party leader on the horizon would be i mean the most interesting guy out there seems to be who we're talking about ron

paul and he is seeking other republican nomination right now if he doesn't get it will he make a third party right he's always said he doesn't intend to but that doesn't mean that there's no chance that you know. all right well interesting conversation to be having with ron paul looking like this you know political phenomenon and maybe the political system phenomenon being this discussion that's becoming very real and much bigger of a third party candidate and criticism of the two party system and any case i want to thank you for your insight that was brian doherty senior editor at reason magazine now from avid military noninterventionist ron paul two arguably the globe's largest interventionist nato the secretary general of that western military alliance meets with the u.s. president barack obama in washington today and he's also going on a bit of a speaking tour in the u.s. this week and one big stand out the north atlantic treaty organization has continued plowing forward with missions in the decades after the cold war while continuing to try and find and explain to the world

a raise and pray but as the allies continue to enter into wars are they still trying to find one. several decades and wars and later it's still the question that's top of mind when it comes to the world's largest military alliance any people likely to they wonder if to the other the key. lo and behold radius it is busier than ever. set up to counter a perceived threats from the soviet union the north atlantic treaty organization has plowed ahead without an enemy after the end of the cold war. some folks that the alliance lost its reason to exist instead what happened in fact and in violation of even the accords and the agreements at the time was nato aggressively expanded. and a larger alliance that once promised peace is instead pledged bombs in troops to

afghanistan going on a decade. and in its latest endeavor the air strikes into libya the fight uniting a new strategic goals back in november libya has launched the allies is that discord some countries don't want to actually you know shoot ground targets some. air targets which are not. i mean it's the infighting it's unclear what motives are really behind the planes flying in the name of nato over the african country is that the personal aspirations of a leader the french quarter. is it a friend or is it a sarkozy. tried to do to convince the. leader of the. france was among the first to push for intervention and also get in on what i call the imperial condominium a really kind of africa is it

a showcase in a new arms race military buyers love to have weapons that are tested in war if your weapon system does very well in the war you can count on sales going up in fact the only two planes now in contention for a ten billion dollar order of one hundred twenty six planes from india are the euro fighter typhoon and the french are felt the very ones french and british allies have been flying over. is it the opportunity to oust the khadafi regime that is u.s. policy but that often leads to go and prop up one more favorable to us foreign policy . interests try to. shake loose. of course disprove. a so-called humanitarian intervention that critics argue was never warranted but which now may be causing a humanitarian crisis we didn't stop

a bloodbath but we are prolonging and perpetuating the suffering of civilians in libya suffering that is now washing up on the shores of nato allies by the boatload of refugees as nato is leader comes to u.s. shores the nato secretary general meets here with the keeper of the keys in washington president obama now though the united states has seemingly stepped back from libya the u.s. is the number one contributor to nato and therefore many would see the u.s. really as being nato now this comes at a time when the conflict in libya on the ground more and more people are calling a stalemate and it's the allied infighting as well as rising costs in every sense that same question people have been asking for decades comes to mind at the end of the. nato lauren lyster artsy washington d.c. . now we have much more analysis on nato later in our show and eight pm but i do want to talk a little bit about military spending because it's something we hear so much about in the united states and in fact we heard the secretary general of nato in his

speech in washington yesterday to a group of students talking about how the cuts to defense budgets in europe is an issue and beseeching the united states for more help in the way of sharing technology in r. and d. so i want to take a look at what some of the european countries that the source that we got this from characterized as as military freeloaders spend on their military and look at that in relation to its g.d.p. let's look at germany first for germany as a country that spends let's say three point six percent what their g.d.p. growth is three point six percent they spend just one point five percent of their g.d.p. on defense that spending is forty two billion dollars now meanwhile germany is a country that has fared the financial crisis very well and it also has cut its unemployment down to six percent it's one of the largest exporter so that's kind of looking at the strengths now let's look at denmark this is of course where the nato secretary general is from he's a danish politician they spend again just one point three percent of g.d.p.

on defense just two billion dollars two point five billion well denmark is known to have a very very high quality of life for its citizens they live very well it's known to be a wealthy country moving on to luxembourg very small country but also known for its high per capita g.d.p. income it spends just point nine percent again on defense three hundred fifty one million dollars big group three point two percent as an economy in two thousand and ten as i said pretty high quality of life there now if you compare those countries to the united states which spends you know depending on how you slice it and dice it as a part of the discretionary budget something like six hundred billion dollars on its military this is four point seven percent of g.d.p. and what we see the staggering unemployment and the struggles of this it. to me you have to look at you know the difference in priorities between some of those countries that are spending on military and those like the united states that are so that's

a question i want to pose tonight at eight pm kubrick rose off and talk more about what some of these trade offs are and if there is any coalition any correlation that's all you have to look forward to as we have to tune in for and still ahead right here on r t in this show it's an act of invisible torture right here in the u.s. we'll take you behind the walls of those forced to live in solitary confinement and it's not the people you may think. you know sometimes you see the story and seeing so. you think you understand it and then something else here's some other part of it and realized everything. i'm sorry is a big. welcome

back today amnesty international released its annual report of the state of the world's human rights now highlighted positive movement in places like egypt and tunisia but outlined harsh criticisms and dozens of other countries and in this report criticism of the united states stems from detentions they kuantan of obey and criticism of afghanistan policy but it mentioned very little about a form of punishment that is becoming more and more wide spread the use of solitary confinement r t correspondent christine for the took a look at solitary in america and what she found may really surprise you take a look six. nine. twelve the measurements of a box of a house and for more than twenty five thousand people in america the measurements of destiny. it is a space reserved for the most dangerous criminals in the world but also.

for many like robert king who are innocent locked up for a robbery he did not commit king spent thirty one years behind bars twenty nine of them in solitary after prison officials discovered he was a member of the black panthers and he says pinned a murder charge on him not to murder the troopers were. now cleared but you can be advocates against the use of solitary confinement. but innocent or guilty the conditions are harsh many say even cruel and inhumane and often results in permanent psychological damage self mutilation and even suicide told us one mendez the un special rapporteur tour on torture slams the

widespread use of solitary confinement for long periods of time. it's not the same to put somebody in solitary confinement for one day and to put him or her there for months it's common for those placed in solitary to be there for twenty three hours a day over the last two decades the number of supermax prisons in this country has grown to more than fifty david forty director of the a.c.l.u.'s national prison project says the boom was not a result of higher crime what happened in the mid one nine hundred ninety s. was there was really a wave of hysteria about super predators and predictions of a wave of fire alarm that never really materialized what did materialize hundreds of millions of dollars devoted to the business of building prisons if you look at how these places came to be built in many states it wasn't a corrections professionals it was the politicians politicians and presidents often have close ties this prison is owned by the corrections corporation of america

about more than sixty prisons like us around the country and spend millions of dollars lobbying to build more politicians in turn bring jobs to their district and their reputation as being tough on crime still other politicians fight the system well i don't know any place in the world. people are held in. solitary confinement for over three decades china russia. eastern block. dictatorships you know are america's most famous prisoner bradley manning spent more than eight months in isolation suspected not convicted of leaking military secrets to wiki leaks in a letter the former army private tells of being stripped of his clothes his prescription eyeglasses and on the rare occasions he was allowed out his hands and feet are shackled this is not something anybody should be subjected to except in

the most extreme. and there is no evidence and also housing is not a problem which is you can unify all you can get and. it is yet another example of solitary being used punitively rather than for safety reasons for more than ten years kendall gibson has also been in solitary he refused to cut his dreadlocks because he says they represent his roster far in faith a decision that at the time violated virginia law it stated that inmates must not have beards or where their hair below their color may be most disturbing are the hundreds of children in solitary cells kept there to protect them from adult prisoners with little concern for the consequences in the words of robert king you may leave solitary with solitary never leaves you christine for south r.t. . very emotional words now earlier artie's christine for that interview lynne paramour's

a fellow at the roosevelt institute and founding editor of the new deal two point zero blog she said the irony is that using solitary confinement for safety backfires the irony is it doesn't control violence at all in fact some of the prisoners become more violent after being put in solitary confinement and the danger is also if you when they're released back into society if they have been subjected to this treatment which has left them mentally deranged in some cases more agitated more prone to violent behavior they become more dangerous to society i think elaine it's really important to point out and to make clear that it is a question once in a while solitary use because you don't know what to do with violent prisoners but so often more often than not i believe this is not used to keep violent prisoners away from the rest of the population when the rest of the prison population this is used as a form of punishment and and here's the thing that i find so interesting

a lot of times it's used as an interrogation method but let's think about this if you want to interrogate somebody to get the truth out of them putting them in solitary confinement is going to make their mind less able to answer questions less able to work properly if i want to interrogate somebody i want them to have ten hours of sleep have a meal in their belly so they can talk to me. you're exactly right it's a form of torture is the way to arranging and mutilating a human brain and the results of interrogating prisoners who've been tortured are widely understood to be unreliable and you know one of the most disturbing things is that as you say it's often not used for violent criminals many times it's the mentally ill who are housed in facilities and put in solitary confinement because there's nothing else to do with them maybe the mental health resources in the community are such that there's no place for them there and putting a prisoner a mentally ill prisoner in solitary confinement is like putting somebody with

pneumonia out on an arctic tundra i mean it is a really dangerous medically medically devastating thing to do and it turns doctors into participants in something which is actually damaging to a patient's health so it brings up the question of medical ethics we still have an idea i think in the back of our minds that you know we're going to put these people out of sight and out of mind and torturing them in this way really is a mark of shame on our society is something that i think that people are going to look back on in future times and and you know judge us according to how we've been treating these people but they're not getting certainly not getting better in solitary confinement and in many cases they're getting worse and they may you know what may have been a temporary condition may turn into a permanent condition is that as you said suicide is a problem you know in the case of bradley manning it was interesting because he was put on suicide watch actually against the recommendations of the psychiatry is that

the brig in quantico and as a result of that he was subjected to all kinds of deprivations he was not allowed to sleep with a pillow and a blanket he was forced for a period of time to stand naked in front of the guards in the morning and this by. the way is his treatment you would never see in a mental health facility that that would have been absolutely unthinkable and yet he was exposed to it and finally you know it got to the point where there was a public outcry and international outcry and this one person thank goodness has been moved to a different kind of facility but you know again there are so many that are suffering from this kind of treatment whose names we don't know and whose faces we don't know and they're locked away and it's our shame can think of all is very much thinkable here in the united states when it comes to solitary confinement that was lent her more.