manufacturing in america once the heart and soul of the country now just a faded memory of the middle class and that white picket fence will be united states ever be able to reassemble. in anything the department of defense does we do as well to support them so we've been fortunate over the last several years to experience a considerable amount of well despite the us i usually fall out it seems that one industry can still make a killing for jobs of the military contractors the last line of defense for the unemployed. and it's the tale of two princesses the first founder of blackwater now known as the z. and the second the leader of the dobie and as these princes prepare to create an

army for hire in the united arab emirates learn exactly where the contracting loyalties lie. good evening it's tuesday may seventeenth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm lucy catherine of and you're watching our team. now it's no secret that jobs in the economy are on everyone's mind these days as the bad news seems to continue to just pour in a new numbers from the fed today show that u.s. factory output dropped for the first time in nearly ten months and more evidence that the housing market is continuing to slump but these details while useful to read about missed the really bigger trend of globalization which is really fundamentally changing life as we know it something that former british prime minister gordon brown actually noted in a recent op ed writing in newsweek this week brown said this year for the first time in industrial history the combined forces of both america and europe are being

out produced out manufactured i exported and out invested by the rest of the world now a global shift that he says and many economists agree is a more work much more dramatic than any since the industrial revolution and manufacturing jobs used to be the backbone of america's economy but artie's christine preserve our ports these days seem to be more of a relic of the past. at one time it was a familiar scene for so many americans john along the assembly line for millions of men. and women this was a portrait of the american dream like individual vertebrae dotting the nation factories like this together once forms the backbone of this country in some cities and towns manufacturing plants were the sole industry on which everything else rested and according to president obama it's an industry that still alive and

well and central to the american economy america is still home to the most entrepreneurial most industrious most determined people on earth and i love. visiting places where people are actually making stuff america's economy is always going to rely on outstanding manufacturers but for others it's an industry on the brink of extinction u.s. senator jay rockefeller of west virginia says his state has suffered immensely over the last decades as plant after plant has shut down we must redouble our efforts to make it in america. manufacturing is critical not critical apparently to anyone else on his committee the senate commerce committee as they met to discuss the topic manufacturing our way to a stronger future invited to testify mike rowe host of the television show dirty

jobs on the discovery channel. i like your manufacturing used to be the thing that people would drink a toast and now it's not something really that we pay much attention to a trend that worries union leaders like leo gerard we should have a great great chemical engineers are not equal engineers mechanical engineers we should be building things like the rest of the advanced society like the rest of the developing countries an investment that could have kept this country more competitive and a pretty improved america is the legacy we should leave our children and grandchildren not to be crippled and falling infrastructure but that is what you see across this country both in rural towns and urban centers are the only signs of life for the vegetation growing up the sides of unused buildings and perhaps a pigeon that's decided to set up camp if you want or own a minivan there's a good chance that may have been assembled here what is now a one hundred eighty five acre empty field in southeast baltimore but it used to

house a huge manufacturing plant and employ the workers now all that remains is this g.m. bridge going over the highway but for a chosen few like this wonder bread factory in washington d.c. there is a chance for chapter two it's now owned by the relevant corporation and there's talk of it being turned into honda. but most of them look like this camden new jersey has seen one of the worst domino effects in the nation after several factories and a ship building plant shut down leaving much of the city jobless and homeless in america what is made in america is no law. longer the norm in the end we're going to get the color we said we got the clothes we still have everything we need just not celebrated to make it perhaps that's because they are no longer our neighbors or friends instead they live in far away places those cheap flat screen t.v.'s and skinny jeans this recall jeans are nineteen bucks come at the cost of jobs and

industry and what was once the foundation of america's future. christine for example are. not politicians love absolutely love to talk about reviving those manufacturing gigs bringing back made in america campaigning on promises to restore an area where this country was once greatest but promises or promises and numbers unfortunately are somewhat grim in two thousand and nine the number of unemployed americans was bigger than the entire number of people working in the manufacturing sector and over the past decade the united states has lost an average of fifty thousand manufacturing jobs per month i mean is that really something that we can turn around or victims of yet more political rhetoric well with me to break it all down is bill fletcher jr he is the a co-author of the book volatility divided the crisis in organized labor and a new path towards social justice and he also chairs the board of directors for the international labor rights form bill thank you so much for joining us. you know it

seems to me like almost every single week we see the president visiting some nice factory in the middle of america somewhere where he promises to work really hard to keep those jobs from going overseas but at the same time the facts show that those jobs are going overseas i mean we lost something five point five million manufacturing jobs that's nearly thirty two percent of america's total have gone abroad since two thousand is this rhetoric or are these politicians actually working to change this trend well some are and some aren't i mean first of all this decline in manufacturing is something that you begin to see in the late fifty's actually. reach a crisis point it really is and has been you know increasing ever since the problem . he would do with a globalized economy. we're dealing with politicians who are more concerned about deficits than putting investment into the creation of new infrastructure and new

manufacturing so as long as the main discussion is deficit's you're not going to see any policies that really focus on the creation of manufacturing jobs but what's to blame for that i mean. these jobs are well first of all you talked about in an investment infrastructure i think there's a recent report that says something like two trillion dollars it would cost to get our our infrastructure to be on par with the bric countries brazil and china and india. but it's very difficult for a politician it seems to decide hey i'm going to spend more money on something now that's going to give me a long term benefits when they are running for office every few years that's true but part of what we've noticed over the last number of years is the rise in the importance of finance and finance has eclipsed manufacturing so there's more. money that's been produced for the for the rich through the manipulation of money investment speculation etc as opposed to thinking about long term investment and

when you have companies that really put down the long term and really looking for immediate turnaround of profits there's no incentive for management to think about ok route we're going to look at is we building camden new jersey and what will that take and maybe we will not get the kind of super profits in for another ten years so you need a very different approach towards economic development and in the united states this is almost allergic reactions of your idea of pioneering which is what we really need we need a manufacturing plan that looks not just the the currently the press there is but historically depressed areas and as soon as you say something like that on the mainstream networks they're like well if china five year plan my goodness you're communist socialist how dare you bring that up but i mean isn't this a session also missing the broader point which is it's not that these kind of. these are bad guys who are just seeking a buck i mean you and i or myself i mean i don't want to pay a lot of money for this i don't want to pay a lot of money for the t.v.

screens and all of the goods that are made cheaper abroad aren't we as consumers in a consumer culture responsible for gold the strand yes and no i mean i don't mean to equivocate but the reality is that we are in this race to the bottom so what we find ourselves in a situation where you and i are looking for cheaper goods we which is logical but in looking for cheaper goods we're were looking for goods that are produced in places other than the united states for the most part we're not thinking about what that's going to mean what the ripple effects are for our local economies until it has an effect on us and so we lose that are the point because we're buying cars from somewhere else where we lose a type star plant because they've moved to the dominican republic of china and it hasn't had that effect already aren't we there and that's why it's getting worse and until we have a situation where we have political leaders that have the courage to say we need

a plan we need to rebuild our camden's arbitrary it's are you saying it was until we have politicians and saying we're going to do that to spite the opposition from wall street we're going to see a continual slide well i'm not to hold my breath until they see that unfortunately but you know you also hear a lot of these folks say that there's a shortage of skilled labor in the united states right and i want to have thoughts on this i mean isn't it kind of just a euphemism for i don't want to pay more for certain jobs i mean if i don't want to pay nine dollars ninety cents for diamonds it doesn't mean that there's a shortage of diamonds so part of the issues that we're not really willing to compensate workers justly necessarily for further for the arts absolutely and also what happens is that the owners are looking for how can they produce without putting the investment in to bring into. or would new workers you know the kind of preparatory work it's like in baseball it's easier for baseball i want to say we're

going to grab a pick a picture from cuba who's been brought up in the cuban system we didn't put any money into the training but we're going to grab them and bring them into our system so that our team succeeds as opposed to saying what are we doing in the streets of new york and san francisco to produce younger players it's again it comes back to the short term turnaround we've got to get the profit now as opposed to saying oh this is a long term commitment to go back to the cuban player analogy and we also have a shortage of the skilled worker visa so we're not necessarily helping this country develop a canonically in that sense to exactly and so what they do is they'll bring skilled workers from other countries where and it's not to put down skilled workers from other countries but it is a say that there are many workers here that would love the opportunity to work in the computer and for example but when you have the climbing schools and when you have a phil you put money into public education you're not going to have the kind of workers

that you need for twenty first century economy or as unfortunately a dire situation remains to be seen whether we can turn around thank you so much for the treasury thank you as bill fletcher jr the coauthor of solidarity ivan now before the military industrial complex there was simply the industrial complex heinously called the arsenal of democracy by then president franklin delano roosevelt and while america's industrial output may be down the fans' contractors aren't exactly in the red moreover at a time when unemployment continues to soar those same contractors are in some cases helping americans make ends meet it's a cycle that makes any serious cuts in military spending a lot more difficult artie's killing forty that's not. it's career day and for one industry business is booming business has been great as a small business a hundred percent per revenue increase since two thousand and four we're now going into this year with a significant revenue increase defense contract. with missile defense maker

northrop grumman to chemical and biological weapons producer patel. to work fighter supporter be a all of the big names are here at charlottesville community job fair business is very good for be a systems currently we're the second largest defense contractor in the world. in anything the department of we do as well to support them so we've been fortunate over the last several years to experience a considerable. risk here but. can it be us is more than one thousand military bases worldwide we are located ever sees iraq afghanistan germany south korea so we have a lot of opportunity in the united states as well as overseas charlottesville itself is home to one hundred sixty one defense contracting for making more than nine hundred nineteen million dollars from two thousand seven hundred thirty seven

contracts in the last two years. there we go. and with the pentagon budget of over six hundred eighty five billion dollars in two thousand and eleven there are plenty of defense dollars to go around northrop grumman is the second largest defense contractor in the united states with nine point nine billion dollars in contracts in two thousand and nine alone be a systems one point nine billion dollars in contracts with the defense department in two thousand and nine as well and was six point two percent of virginians out of work more and more people here in charlottesville so they don't mind taking a piece of that defense contracting pie i'm a pessimist but i have a realistic to me sometimes war is necessary just because we want to be peace listen you know people. more than one point six million americans work in companies that supply the military with everything from bombers the forks and they aren't wrong to think a defense job it's a good job when even in tough economic times more than fifty percent of taxpayer dollars go to the pentagon i mean the government. known as i was

a major others to the u.s. presence in iraq and afghanistan as negative at all with their to help you know what a lot of them do don't they don't know to just look at america like a you know we are tyrants but we're not would there to help realestate it by there michael o'brien went to iraq as a defense contractor to do just that help but i realized after i'd been there you know nearly a year i was there fourteen months i was just a warm body to collect fees for my company o'brien became disillusioned the corruption and mismanagement they were taking land from iraqis without securing title and i brought this to their attention i said we're going to build a house in the united states on a piece of land that you didn't know i got can we have it on the hill o'brien says americans won't see the end of defense contractors anytime soon without a draft the military depend on hundred thousand contractors to support its two wars

abroad and the defense contractors are raking in the do. and you know when dwight eisenhower talked about the military industrial complex in one nine hundred sixty one there now analysts say that without the defense industry america's nine percent unemployment rate would stores to eleven point five percent in piecing those odds for many insurance bill military contracting the best defense illinformed r.t.s. charlottesville virginia. will say to charlottesville for just a little bit let's hear now from someone who's helped bring the so-called local military industrial complex to lights david swanson is the author of the book war is a lie and he joins us now from charlottesville david welcome back on the program over here always great to have you so what's your biggest concern about this issue i mean these companies are at the end of the day helping some americans stay off the unemployment rolls i mean is not a good thing given the current economic picture. well i don't think that's true

that economists tend to agree that you put the same dollars into nonmilitary factories infrastructure we energy education and we produce more jobs and better paying jobs and broader impact on the economy so while it's true that there are people getting jobs making weapons and working for the military and the whole complex there will be more jobs but in those same dollars in just about anywhere else and in fact get done right tax cuts for working people will produce more jobs so it's actually worse than nothing there is there's quite a bit of deception here but david my friend i mean that would take foresight and planning by our elected leaders and i'm not sure that we should really be holding our breath for that but for example this morning i was leaving for the paper and i saw this headline defense cuts hit nearly one thousand workers in the d.c. region and so we have general dynamics north of grumman lockheed martin all these huge firms that had to lay off workers because of the announced what was it one

hundred billion hundred fifty billion dollars in defense spending cuts so when a politician or let's a lawmaker sees this kind of thing and they say hey if i cut military spending my constituents are going to be out of work how's that going to allow them to ever consider changing the system. well there haven't been any defense spending cuts there haven't even been any military spending cuts as of course most of this has nothing to do with defense and these people who are proud to go to work in whatever wars the u.s. government might approve of have to understand much of what this industry they're getting a job in does is provide weapons to foreign dictators they teach they have to be happy to be provided the weapons to countries we will be fighting future wars that yes we are a big arm or all of the world and these cuts they get talking about including in state of the union addresses are cuts to dream future budgets they're not actual military spending in this country has gone up even in my town in charlotte or in across the country year after year after year and while there may be some cuts

happening in some location those same period for years you name are it's been a full page color added every day this week in the charlottesville daily progress of another another john fair well i don't disagree with you that their profits are up at the end of the day these dream cuts obviously have real implications of this for these thousand guys so i mean as a ploy by the contractors to scare lawmakers out of dream defense cuts or real defense cuts. wouldn't surprise me but i have no idea so i shouldn't say but in the we're out of picture of across the country there are there are not any cuts happening there are cuts being talked about we might see cuts in the coming years but we haven't seen any yet and when we do those same people who would be given jobs there and in fact we're not cutting and we ought to be cutting we could cut eighty five percent of this machine and still have the world's biggest military we know we don't need to throw people out of work we need to convert we need to convert these industries to peaceful industries

a factory that makes weapons make trains make solar panels there's no reason we can't do better economically in other words all the things which we arguably desperately need as a country but you know if you look at the actual individuals for example some of these folks that were applying for jobs in charlottesville that yourself have have talked about i mean these are decisions that they're making for their families as individuals i mean your family guy if you had to choose between unemployment and feeding a family or the moral ugliness of working for a contractor what would you try is are we find some other way to feed myself and my family no matter what it was going to work for a machine that is dedicated to killeen people in huge numbers in the illegal wars and again to providing huge surprise and weapons to brutal dictators around the world are some of whom we later switch sides and turn against unethical war with others of whom we have to arm against their neighbors who need our arms it is

a eight hour siege it is going to destroy us all and our own children's children if we don't rise up well serious serious issues you brought up here david and i really want to thank you for for calling these issues tonight always appreciate your time as they the science and author of war as a line. now earlier in this program we talked a little bit about how the united states simply isn't making as much stuff as it used to but thankfully it looks like certain individuals have stepped up to the task there's glenn beck who recently announced plans to hold yet another restart encourage a rally this time guess where in jerusalem of all places exporting his unique ideology to a part of the world that probably could do without it and then there's air prince the man who founded blackwater a company probably more famous for slaughtering iraqi civilians than anything else where he's taken his mercenary expertise to the united arab emirates according to new york times reports the crown prince of abu dhabi is now working with erik prince to set up

a private for profit army that essentially all governments in that region put down any pesky reports the kicker this army of mercenaries has a strict no muslims hiring policy at former american soldiers and special ops commandos are busy training hired guns from colombia south africa and elsewhere in a deal that is reportedly given prince half of a billion bucks so far so what could possibly go wrong right where for more on this let's turn to someone who's quite familiar with the shady world of private security contractors horton is a contributing editor of harper's magazine and actually joins us live from moscow of all places scott great to have you on the program i know it's kind of late over there so we appreciate your time as always you know i understand that reinventing oneself is all the rage these days but this isn't the artist formerly known as prince coming out with a new cd album i mean this is the former head of one of the most notorious mercenary armies serving a brand new venture in a car country far out of three each of us last but what's your reaction well it's fascinating on

a number of different scores that i think we've seen but due to the nature of the major american motion picture you know certainly every parent star themselves and very very deep trouble in the united states it was a bigger it is the name of the number of grand jury investigations that were going on there were a number of prosecutions brought against blackwater other. company was forced to change its name and reincorporate and he himself became a target and decided to bail out of the operation entirely and in fact told us he was going to the globe told us he was going to. abu dhabi we didn't have a very clear sense before of exactly what he's doing he says and there i score right yes he. was going to do that but i'm sure we is but i have to say hats off to mark mazetti has done an excellent bit of forensic reporting here and really got the story and i think it's also fascinating in this sense in the arab world in the muslim world there is a long tradition of using christian mercenaries they were the mamelukes in egypt

for instance the janissaries and dissemble this was one of the hallmarks of some of the great lawn in the city's response was in that part of the world and now we see this same idea being reintroduced and in the twenty first century it's fascinating yet nothing of concern there at all what's your sense in terms of the potential reach of the army i mean what what are they going to try to do what have they been trying to do what's the stated goal and your p.r. offensive the real goal and i know. you've been following news since the middle of february you know the arab world has been swept with people from morocco to game and to bahrain and in fact it's it's largely people that's focused on the graphic rulers now most people have identified the ugly dopy in the

emirates as what may very well be the single most stable stately entire arab world i think that's probably correct but nevertheless i think the rulers there are very concerned about these troubles and how they manifest themselves there and what we've seen in the gulf now with many of the states and the goal is a. to mercenaries to outside soldiers who have no emotional ties to look at the little population that may be rising up and therefore who can be can be counted upon absolutely to follow the commands. of the rule of the leader in fact we can think of one country in the world where this is going on and a very brutal way and that's libya for us but the moment the capias propped up his regime drawing heavily on mercenaries who'd been brought out of sub-saharan africa you don't say that new market hockey is doing something similar that one of our citizens that's my goodness. at the end of the day i mean we heard the state

department on sunday say that they were supposedly investigating this issue and we know that the u.a.e. is a close ally of the united states what's your sense about the legality of the thing do you think that the state department or the us government knew about the scent and is it even legal hard to imagine that the state department didn't know about the course of the core of his contract relationship with the u.s. government was in fact with the state department and he's had a number powerful supporters there back i did some research earlier and other johns like manna spend number of other countries in which i found u.s. diplomats have been out actively peddling. eric prince's wares trying to persuade local governments to hire and use him so that may have even been the genesis of this relationship and i was dobby now as to the legal side it's a very complex situation we have a new trial a teac going back to the early days of the american republic that the sensually

american citizens are not too important selves in military matters in conflicts outside of the united states other than in connection with the united states and u.s. armed forces that's the law it has sanctions on the other hand us or some of the law has been highly selective so there is a number of cases in. asked where the u.s. has given its. frequently its affirmative blessings to all but us soldiers there was very contractors working with foreign governments and i think one thing that we should see here is a little bit more of a road into this relationship between your friends and the u.s. and the role of the state department u.s. government has played in it that's right and of course we have to keep in mind of the story just broke over the weekend i'm sure they'll be a lot more details coming out about the story over the coming weeks and would love to have you back on to chat about all that thank you so much for your time as always scott horton contributing editor of harper's magazine. now yesterday evening

you may have caught a rather interesting collusion of two worlds on television jon stewart the so-called america's most trusted newsman appeared and bill o'reilly show to be one of the country's most pressing issues it wasn't the economy or the wars to get it wrong you know the hot topic of the evening was a rapper's appearance at a white house pro-choice slam now all the debate may have been amusing to watch and certainly good for ratings it does raise some serious questions about where the u.s. media is feeling its viewers tune in the next hour for my thoughts on what can happen today now unfortunately that does it for now for more on the stories that we've covered this what r.t. dot com slash usa and check out our u two pages you tube dot com slash r.t. america and as always please feel free to follow me on twitter it's at newcastle have one word and hopes you're right back here in half an hour.