these are extraordinary times and we face any road narry challenge. and fifty years later john f. kennedy's words hold the same truths so why is it that the united states seems to be having a harder time stepping up to those challenges now than it did back then. the defense budget is not because of the deficit and debt problem that we have as a country this coming from the secretary of defense who once called to slash that very same budget you know defense so as of last week's in office come to an end robert gates makes his final stand. and imagine being spied on for believing in a cause while some americans say it's happening by none other than the f b i so why

is the us government spending time and money spying on activists instead of catching terrorists. and it looks like it's us versus that mainstream media that is the press criticizing our team for being too extreme is there a war in our teeth well today we're fighting back. good evening it's wednesday may twenty fifth i'm laura lister coming to you from here in washington d.c. and you are watching our t.v. now secretary of defense robert gates has just a few weeks left in office before he retires but the man what's seen as talking about reining in the bloated defense budget is now warning against any more cuts he's making a final stand in artie's kalen ford looks into what's behind that change. tripp as

robert gates winds down his time as secretary of defense. he isn't as eager to wind down america's six hundred ninety billion dollars a year in military spending even as the us bases a one point five trillion dollars deficit the defense budget is not because of the deficit and debt problem that we have as a country. once the secretary who denounce no bid contracts and redundant military spending in the war on terror the attacks of september eleventh two thousand and one open the gusher of defense spending that nearly doubled the base budget over the last decade the gusher has been turned off and will stay on use his last weeks in office to warn that too many cuts could spell danger for the united states it is important that we not repeat the mistakes of the past were tough economic times when the winding down of a military campaign leads to steep and unwise reductions in defense he also warned against closing some of the u.s. has more than one thousand military bases worldwide our record of predicting where

we will use military force since vietnam is perfect we have never once gotten it right. there is there isn't a single instance in grenada panama the first gulf war. the balkans haiti. problem military spending increased by twenty point six billion in two thousand and ten and nineteen point six billion of that was the us alone other countries are closing deficits by reducing their defense dollars and the united kingdom for instance has started the process that started the process greece and turkey which had a long time rivalry. have had discussions about mutual reduction. virtually all the countries in europe face this problem. but the pentagon budget continues to grow. the outgoing secretary of just. and also called for a continued u.s.

presence in iraq even as president obama's timetable mandates a total withdrawal by the end of the year i hope they figure out a way to. and i think that the united states will be willing to say yes when the time comes former defense contractor michael o'brien says the gap is likely to be filled by defense contractors we want to keep the number of soldiers was possible because it's a political hot potato but nobody bats an eye one hundred thousand pounds for after school or to the theater of operations. some analysts say america's military spending is too powerful for any defense secretary to control whether he heads into the private sector to be. part of this revolving door culture that we have or not and still i think feels protective towards its interests he also recognizes that. pentagon is big business in the united states as robert gates prepares to head the reins of the pentagon over to leon panetta at the end of june he says quote all of

the low hanging fruit have not only been put they've been stopped and crushed but they think cuts across the board many americans say they want to see the pentagon tighten its belt as well healing for our t. washington d.c. now earlier i spoke with military analyst in archaeologic the libretto here's what he had to say about this. well i mean let me clarify secretary gates he had just a few weeks ago at west point back in january was a point that any any secretary defense advise another president a big army and do it africa asia etc should have his head examined as secretary to libya secretary gates has been very critical of libya he said we should not under his watch we wouldn't be there secretary gates has been very critical of the afghanistan copies also been very critical of the bush administration's decision to lead us into iraq and he has been in my opinion the best secretary of defense ever that we've had in that position however there is a lot of serious concern here because there's nothing that secretary gates can do

or say to stop what we have which is a a a pseudo postmodern empire the united states is an ivy encouraging i mean he said that too many cuts spell danger that's right well i mean because because here's a situation occurring but with the current political system that we have could there even ever be too many cuts in defense politically possible i'll be in the minority i mean personally as i look at the numbers there's all sorts of ways you can say there's also the way you can cut for instance we can get rid of the bases in germany and u.a.e. and japan and he secretary gates even said yesterday and the long term the united states would be better off not having a base in germany he said that but but the thing is that we face that we we face number of problems and it's not the the political will lecture at the house of representatives in the senate because it is is bought out by the military industrial complex is gates but i'm not trying to accomplish that he coming out now saying you know too many cuts pell danger because he's got are tired of the month maybe he wants to consult for some of these defense contractors but it's firms that

you know a lot of you know former generals go and do some work for well it's an interesting conspiracy theory to see i don't think there's any question well i don't know we'll have to see if he goes to work for lockheed martin or something like that but it's my thing that secretary gates is very wise and very shrewd in a lot of things and the search. only made appropriate criticisms of u.s. foreign policy abroad he's also been very cautious to say if we're going to end the wars in iraq and afghanistan we need to do it quickly and we also need to do it smartly we need to to reduce footprint we need to reduce spending all these troops think the problem is not to go matter what gates says or does the problem is the electorate but the military industrial complex the lobbyists buying out electorate the elected body that continue to keep us in these wars and the and the other brother problem is president obama doing in my case my opinion liberal interventionism nation building mindless programs in libya afghanistan and elsewhere so should we not listen to what secretary gates said because it doesn't

sound like the administration really doesn't know unites and a lot of it is from mark such as that but you know putting a land army to any more country setting forth any more country is going to be to have their head examined i mean while the administration just you know get involved in libya and try well i mean again gates is not the one that sends troops but obama right now i think that we not listen to him because it doesn't sound like the administration is are we looking at the wrong issue so i know i think i think certain very gates had a lot of wise things to say they didn't go into oh of course he's influential it is not him it's i mean but the problem the case is going to be as he said again one of the open market gave a speech yesterday he had said what i've come across in some sort of words he said the the mindset of the pentagon the culture the organizational culture these are the big problems these embedded in by the problems of having a military industrial complex that's the proper catered by corporatism and big corporate big government empire type apparatuses gates has been critical of that but it's gets the people that have promoted that the elected body those that

supported the the culture of of career ism that takes place in the military those are the things that we have a problem with and those things data that adequately tried means in many ways he's been abused but granted he hasn't been perfect but he's done the best job of it we've had criticizing him. and we should hope that the next guy coming in there's an equally as good job should we hope that the next a coming and once that's a lot more defense cuts we'll see who president obama decides he's going to he's going to go we don't we got some rumors we have some ideas but i think i think that it's going to be very tough in the current political crisis to anybody be as good as secretary gates ok and just what yes or no question would too many cuts be dangerous for the country not just no no no we need significant cuts we need we need to cut our defense budget by in my opinion a third why is now they're calling for that by saying it's dangerous why as you do i think rattling the saber is the other direction you go that those decisions are above his pay grade the decisions the decisions of what the budget should be

setting the operational priority that's not that's the president's job enough to care about it and that's the elected body to present that three to five space overseas because the objectives given to him which is why he has a tricky role and he made that point yesterday very clear but let me just say this we spend so much money on defense or a year that you could leave play the entire i was in our highway system the united states with twenty four carat gold right one point two trillion dollars is what we spend so there is a whole lot of waste that can be cut and a lot of cuts that could be made and that was military analysts and our team blogger jake deliberate oh now what imagine something for a second imagine you attend a film screening of a documentary or if you're an activist to talk slogans fear cars on the sidewalk or maybe you're involved in anti-war environmental or peace activism in any way and you find yourself suddenly being spied on by the f.b.i. they seem terrorism charges or talk drawings or having your house ransacked by the feds all in the name of their counterterrorism efforts that's exactly what some activists in the u.s.

allege is going on earlier i spoke with one of them carlos months has a long time to call activist and co-founder of the ground raise the f.b.i. raided his home taking his computer and historical documents earlier this month and he's also a member of the committee to stop after a repression so here is his take on the whole situation. another different view a rise of her profession by the homeland security using the f.b.i. using the federal grand jury not only against peace activists at the announced the us war in afghanistan and iraq but also against. american muslim community here in the united states they've been suffering this repression for many years and now the federal grand jury is being used to expand it to activists who stand in solidarity with the people in the middle east people in colombia who fight for freedom and peace. do you think that you mentioned department of homeland security that of course was created in the wake of nine eleven there's been

a lot of counterterrorism bureaucracy built up in the post nine eleven united states apparatus why do you think they're being very targeted now if you think it's to justify this kind of money being spent. just to justify this kind of money being spent but also to attack us as. being outspoken against the u.s. policy of intervention and u.s. policy of condemning people movements throughout the world the protest movements are directly exposing and challenging the lies that the government the u.s. government put cyle the you know in the two thousand and six we had millions of people marching to stream demanding legalization and to the to the raids two thousand and seven we were attacked by the l.a.p.d. we were press so even though we continue to protest may first of every year we continue to protest on the anniversary of the invasion of iraq we may not have

a million people marching in the street but there are still hundreds of thousands that continue to challenge that policy you know your activism spans a long time and this is something that you've faced at different time periods in your life but i'm curious if you see any difference where just very very. kind of obviously peaceful activists like environmental activists animal rights activists people that attend a documentary or they use sidewalk chalk on the street in order to like write their slogans are now being targeted if there is if we're seeing a new low of what you call. washing descent. no absolutely this new a widespread attack against peace activist environmental activist immigrant rights activists it's a new wave of attacks by the federal government using the grand juries and the f.b.i. to squash descent so war against dissent and whether it's someone speaking at

a speech by a government official or someone demonstrating. and i wore rally or immigrant rights for a rally the immigrant rights movement has been repressed has been attacked physically and you know there's a rise in deportations of immigrants in this country so this is definitely an increased attack against people who are challenging u.s. policy and speaking out and after sizing our right of freedom of speech and the right to protest the f.b.i. is trying to stop our movement but we're not letting them we have a national mobilization we formed a committee against f.b.i. repression all right and we've had demonstrations so it's good that they're trying to stop us but we're not going to let him do it and interesting he said he interestingly he said he's gotten more support after having his house raided from activists he feels like it actually fueled the movement that was carlos nonces

co-founder of the ground raise chicano movement now fifty years ago on this very day some very important words were spoken you could argue a speech that was given changed everything or least it set the stage is unify the country to take what was coined a giant leap for mankind now today where is that unity what happened to the nation's ability to roll up its proverbial sleeves and tackle challenges and we'll get to that we have a guest but first let's take a little look back at history. for the right. are. a mission accomplished for the united states. that hatched from a plan that began. a lot about. eight years earlier i believe that this nation should commit itself. to go before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the occult from a u.s.

president that came fifty years ago to this very day a speech asking congress to invest and train fantasy into reality it came in the wake of the cold war in reaction to the soviet union except the name of cosmonaut into orbit it reminded the us the sputnik in ninety seven of the stakes in the space race that inspired nasa and increasing u.s. spending on scientific research and education and a legacy channel by leaders in modern day half a century ago when the soviets beat us into space with the launch of the satellite called sputnik. we had no idea how we would beat them to the mall and now the us is faced with a new enemy of economic decline marked by rampant long term high unemployment in industries drying up are being shipped overseas the country is looking for a plan to make one giant leap forward this is our generation's sputnik moment but

looking at the current debate in congress over cutting spending the bipartisan bickering over the budget leaders seem to have no agreement over how to get this country back on track and logic is at the nation's discretionary spending the country's defense and its wars do not rally the unity that they once did as seen back on this date number. one the bombing of pearl harbor. according to then president franklin roosevelt a date that launched f.d.r.'s calls for production of hundreds of thousands each of planes tanks and guns over a few years to fight the war factories were converted and the nation got the job done. most. a sight unseen in response to today's challenges i think that right now. the

country is in a state of paralysis and we keep saying somebody else has got to step up do it the people who are coming in to build things are the japanese and the germans over the decades the challenges may change but the country has always faced new ones who are extraordinary times and we. grow. that question fifty years after kennedy said those words as if a country can still rise to meet them. lauren lyster r.t. washington d.c. . now earlier i spoke with chris chambers a professor of journalism at georgetown university about what happened to this there was a dancer. a lot of it has to do unfortunately with the media but let me let me just put all that in context we're going to grow wrote a book about the decline of american exceptionalism this stuff goes way before the world war two the man on the moon you know the first days of this republic people the government sat down and said we need to build canals turnpike roads railroads

we need to open up the west we need to develop our ports build our cities the civil war some people say that slavery aside that was a war to drag the south kicking and screaming into the twenty twenty one thousand nine hundred centuries at least our modern times. to continue that exceptionalism we have teddy roosevelt the panama canal i mean none of that stuff could get done today why because i think in the sixty's the media began to chip away at that consensus of of this is what we can do and we can get the job done that is very cynical time it minutely there were reasons for that but when those that consensus broke down and everything was looked on with sinister motives you know both on the right in the left the consensus for doing great things broke down now we come to today where the media has come back together and what have they done rather than build consensus because of technology because of fragmented audiences and corporate media ownership now we can do with each little interest group that does not want to

have a hand in building or doing no matter how bad the infrastructure is the economy you know exploring space exploring the oceans who cares we don't have the money for that because we're exceptional why are we exceptional we don't know it's just a fantasy we have but we don't want to roll up our sleeves and do anything because it might hurt our little interest group and the media panders to those fragmented old ways of thinking ok so let's back up looking back to when. we're leaders able to say more be more controversy because there was not a multitude of press that was going to slaughter them. you criticized were there if you were going to say is there too. much fear of the rise against us yeah i mean the traditional media traditional newspapers magazines and network media back then there were fewer voices and you don't even pundits with a few of them that just started were really i mean they were looked upon almost as

gods people or james reston etc i mean they actually helped forge a coalition and again you know we're going to back the man in the moon why we have a cold war to win i mean that's part of it we're going to back civil rights why would we like black people know but we just don't do this because we're americans it's going to hurt us abroad and it hurts our chances of being continuing to be a great nation i know because it's a moral good and right those consensuses were no matter what you think of what's underlying them were built up by the traditional media and now it's fragmented and ironically but fragmentation when you look at fox i mean there's an article came out in new york magazine that said you know fox had turned the republican party into a circus and now they regret it but when you have a circus is just pandering to this kind of audience obviously nothing's going to get done and you cannot build a consensus to build anything so i mean it's going to panama canal right now we would never be able to pass that because people would just have an interest in

tearing it down just for the sake of tearing it down oh ok well let me ask you this though you know you talk about fox and as have you seen representations of kind of the left and the right you see those different debates playing out any time that democrats or republicans come out with a proposal or trying to work together on anything but how much do those really make an impact because we've seen an era where many people there that we interview on these shows argue that money is what really talks lobbying private interest groups gracious now they can funnel money and their citizens united so i mean how can we really blame the press when there are other forces that seem to be so much stronger than them with the media critic well i mean you know the citizens united case and. that blew the doors off mostly for corporations and that and then engelman the union angle it's kind of that's kind of a drop in the bucket but still there but they can bring that power to bear when they look at it in their best interest now you're starting to see that and i will admit that when you're looking at say republican governors who are vetoing

infrastructure projects that are needed tunnels bridges right light rail fast rail systems like they have in japan and they're and they're pandering often to tea party interests but then you have some corporate interests coming in construction people etc etc you know labs are doing maglev studies for these well it trains they're going in their lobbyists and so it's kind of all a war of the giants on this level but the people are sitting there wondering what's going on and they and we tend to want the most simplest explanation and what was going to give that we were back then so we were if we needed a bullet train from say orlando to tampa but the governor vetoes it you know we're going to buy into whatever weird explanations that he and his minions have put on fox news rather than really say what i really said on this interstate for six hours to go sixty miles. no you need a high speed train professor of journalism at georgetown university.

it is time now to ask this is there a war on r.t.e. now everyone has a right to their opinions we would never deprive anybody of that we would never decry anyone for that but we here at r t go that it's time for us to address some of the criticism that has been directed against us to correct the misinformation that has been put out there for example politico has called us a russian propaganda arm and we'll get to that but first today i want to address criticism that centers around our guests who we have on our shows southern poverty law center says are too frequently quotes u.s. extremists as authorities on world events or interviews them at length and other criticisms in the new york times says ratings have risen at russia today as reports on controversial topics on the fringe of mainstream news have risen and they cite a report in which we interviewed

a league zusha gaza national chairman of the new black panther party so using a gas as an example of what they call you know fringe coverage and moving along to the next slide we have jonathan sanders now he is a c.b.s. former c.b.s. correspondent he says if the names of american guests on our tier are unfamiliar to many americans there is a reason see it jonathan their guests are people on the fringes of respectability and cranks. all right now that was a global media war as some columbia journalism students kind of clubby a university journalism students did that project and then they were interviewed on n.p.r. and had many of the same criticisms but back to the matter so yes we are friends we have friends gas that you are never going to see anywhere else mainstream respectable news stations would never be interested and any of our own respectable extreme gas it's ok you know what let's take a look at some of these fringe and respectable extruding miscasts that we regularly

have on the show called tape. to get immediate feedback. or think at this point we're all trying to scramble to find all the facts. we sure are if you notice anything did you notice what i noticed three cats are everywhere there not just our team here on c.n.n. stocks and most of you see you can't escape so right away you go watch out. now our

t. isn't a mainstream channel we believe in bringing on a variety of points of view which you're not going to see on the mainstream stations that is kind of the point of our existence and we believe in that but come on nobel prize winning economists presidential hopefuls whistleblowers that literally rocks the international media scene i think those are pretty qualified guests to speak on a news program and i just want to point out that we pursue and we have on our shows many of these guess before the mainstream media ever shows any interest maybe they're taking a page from our playbook who knows but that's speculation but that's our we were doing interviews with ron paul back in two thousand and eight long before every mainstream channel was inviting him on about his presidential run like we saw earlier this month when he made the announcement so you saw him he was everywhere good morning america all of the cables everywhere that was not the case back when we were interviewing him in two thousand and eight the new york times blogs the new york times which just us actually picked up our first interview with julian a son julian assange of wiki leaks because at that time not much press would talk

to him that was back in april of two thousand and ten and jake ugur of the young turks he was coming on our t.v. long before m s n b c it's now up to fill in a seat on their anchor chair so that's something to consider we'll continue to do what we do but we are going to continue to seek to address some of the allegations that have been made against us and with that that's going to do it for now but you can always follow more of our stories online at r.t. dot com slash usa and also on our you tube channel at youtube dot com slash r t america and you can follow me on twitter at lauren lyster and i will see you for more news shortly. we. i think.

we never got the says. safe get ready because their freedom. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decision its considerable breakthrough it's already been made who can you trust no one who are a sham deal with a global missionary see where we had it state controls capitalism it's called session so when nobody dares to ask we do our t.v. question more.