much about them despite evidence and calls that this trial was a miscarriage of justice for these five men earlier i talked to william norris he is attorney for one of the cuban five luis and the dean and i asked him his thoughts on richardson's visit to cuba and if we can talk about freeing an american from cuba without talking about extradition for the cuban five. i don't see how you can there are really two sides to the same question i have of course no personal knowledge of mr gross's case but the cuban government decided that he was engaged in activity which is illegal under the laws of that country and they tried him and convicted him and sentenced him and for my clients you mentioned luis medina that was his cover name to protect his family his real name is ramon not a nino he was accused and given a trial and sentenced initially to life in prison that has subsequently been

reduced to thirty years but still a very substantial satins when you think he has died at the same question what is that question. the question is that if someone is engaged in an activity which tends to further the interests of their own country and they're doing that in a foreign country do they thereby become evil people without paying any attention to what their motives and their objective and indeed their methodology is for achieving that in mr lobban in us case in the case of the other five they were tried in in in miami florida in a media market that. was answer the call to a fair resolution of their case so are you saying that they were convicted and the court of public opinion by the media. absolutely and beyond that we use

a sense learned that the united states government was paying something on the order in the range of thirty four to thirty seven million dollars a year on the office of cuban broadcasting which was paying journalists to. do to being the messages in to cuba. with the idea of on the seeding the current regime i think the commonly used phrase now is regime change and of course that that that media message was being disseminated in the very community that my client was tried . and indeed these so-called independent journalists who were writing in the newspapers of miami were being paid to participate in a propaganda campaign against the cuban government speaking of propaganda what do you think of the mainstream media's coverage as something like richardson visit to

cuba which talked about him being rebuffed by cuban has him protos saying you know i don't know if cuba really wants to improve relations with the u.s. is this one sided. well i think that it is i could give you examples. from from other matters which are somewhat beyond the scope of this discussion but you know for example i saw in the media that richardson had been invited by the cuban government and yet it seems to be the opinion of at least president al are gone from things that i've read and other sources that richardson is coming as a private concerned citizen so what is it as easy as a fish or easy foul you know that's certainly beyond my knowledge but it is a matter that that i think is significant to evaluating the the purpose and the

scope of his reason mr richardson is being there and certainly then the question of what's appropriate or inappropriate for the cuban government to respond i think if a former cuban politician came to the united states and demanded to see my client the government would would not respond very supportive lee. that request we become victims of our own propaganda and certainly when for example a voice of america was set up in the in the days following the second world war congress recognized that and took very very careful steps to insulate the american public from the propaganda message that we are broadcasting abroad is it is it terribly surprising that they come to believe the very message that they were transmitting but the question is are those grievances still the the appropriate way for us to to develop and execute our foreign policy yes or no are there.

is there absolutely legitimate grievances that there is there is no question but if if every person or you know my own family came to the united states because of the irish potato famine the irish potato famine doesn't drive our foreign policy with respect ireland to say that was william m. north attorney for defendant luis medina now fifteen activists faced a criminal trial this morning for staging a peaceful protest to expose the school of the americas now called the western hemisphere institute for security studies that aside one of the defendants reports all charges against the activist arrested in the white house were dropped but our fee scale in florida shows you more of the background about why you should care about their arrest and also what they were protesting. on the day

one of the intangibles pocketwatch a man hero and never seen a tampon the entire twenty seven activists laid down were used. to stand up to the u.s. army school of the american sometimes you just have to put your body where your strong police concerns are facing criminal charges fifteen activists came to court in washington to put the school on trial instead. of confounded during the cold war the school of the americas with design to teach latin american soldiers how to fight communism that's what its graduates did with their quote counterinsurgency training made them infamous for murdering jesuit priests and massacring a thousand villagers in el salvador to torturing dissidents in colombia to overthrowing democratically elected government in chile argentina one hundred. eighty insurgency tactics being those that are taught to latin american military to

go back and will press their own people in the interests largely of u.s. corporations in the oligarchies at these u.s. corporations support sixty nine congressmen recently sent a letter asking president barack obama to close the school permanently citing the pentagon's refusal to disclose the names of graduates and instructors shedding authorities would also save american taxpayers one hundred eighty million dollars over the next ten years most us people don't have a clue as to what's being done in their name and being done with their tax tax dollars under pressure the school was closed briefly in two thousand and six before the pentagon reopened it as the western hemisphere institute for security cooperation changing the name was like pulling for you on a toxic dump activists say closing the school would send the right signals to latin americans lost their respect closing the school i think would help them to be our neighbors and. it is our enemy until then those hears they will continue to fight

many of the activists on trial here in washington they will put their bodies on the line yet again outside the gates of the school of the americas in fort benning georgia this november risking arrest once more to call attention to what they call the school the assassins kill in fort artsy washington d.c. and that we're going to leave you that does it for now for more of the stories we covered go to archie dot com slash usa and we'll see you tomorrow it's gore for more news. question is that so much of it. i mean i think we're in a real strain it's. a currency in crisis and an unknown future is there a silver lining. i tell marvin here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

the latest in science and technology from. the future of coverage.

wealthy british scientists some time to let. the market. find out what's really happening to the global economy with my stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines kaiser reports. the for.

more news today violence has once again flared up the film these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. the day. the kooks. three couldn't take three. three. three. three. three. three braun to video for your media project free media don carty touched on. it.

oh in the welcome to cross talk i'm people of the euro a currency in crisis in an unknown future but is there a silver lining. ok let's take the german if there is a silver lining to the euro crisis and i'm joined by jeffrey summers he's an associate professor at the university of wisconsin milwaukee also we have michael hudson he is president of the institute for the study of long term economic trends and matthew and he's a financial journalist ok gentlemen this is crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want i'm going to be very contrarian we hears all through the media with the of you. the euro is already been written we're waiting for the funeral ok let's turn it all upside down let's take a look at some virtue out of tragedy number one this crisis could actually create a real european central bank it has limited tools now now give it

a lot of tools what do you think about that guys matthew first just empower it absolutely the next thing is the right beginning the year is in deep deep trouble and i have to do something to try to save it and i think they will i mean the demand of political capital which our entire generation of european leaders are put into this project means that whatever they can do they. i mean the next are going to do is they're going to call me your bones that are trying to have a single person of authority and yet how do you give the. a lot more viable in the market whether that's a good thing is much more debatable whether they're going to work i don't think it will work maybe it will be it will be a step i mean it's a needs political will to do it but if you're going to keep the euro go all the way because what we've seen over the last two years because it could basically last few months is just half measures a lot of political leadership no one really wants to make a political move but that's what is necessary political leadership. there's a false way of looking at the problem so far of course europe should have

a central bank that can create credit commercial banks create credit all the time on a computer keyboard the central banks were founded to create credit to fund government deficits that's why the bank of england was founded that's why the federal reserve was founded but the banking interests in europe crippled the central bank they didn't want a central bank to create credit they say we want governments to come to us and pay us interest and we want to rip off the economy don't have a central bank don't have a public option let us raise your cost of doing business give us the business so of course there should be a central bank unfortunately the way in which you just mentioned the central bank to be perform a function is what it looks like it will be the central bank is not to create employment not to run the government deficit not to help the people but to give more money to the banks to bail them out that is rotten that is central bank lobbyists and that shouldn't happen and if that's so they create

a central bank then good for the europeans for saying to hell with angela merkel well. i have to concur with michael on this i mean i think essentially what we see is continued rent seeking ever since the lisbon agreement to really what we've seen is really going back to maastricht is an attempt to liberalize into privatized credit creation so we have this rent. from the real economy to the financial sector and i don't see things changing now i think all of this to a certain extent is just the water the real problem the underlying structural problem that has not been fixed is how do you really recycle capital through the system from rich countries to poor countries and how do you do that in a way but again that wasn't the purpose of the euro zone of course it was it should be now we need to go back to keynes and we need to understand that in order to have any kind of meaningful either international trade or real european wide each trade you need national development or you guys are jumping ahead of me michael you want

to go where you want to have your say if there were a need to have fiscal fiscal unity we have to have one fiscal policy for the entire years and that's the only way that's going to happen should that happen jeff used the word rent seeking and your audience may not be familiar with that because it's a technical term rent seeking that means you get a free lunch or a privilege right now some troll but commercial banks can create credit on a keyboard and they say let us know what you're responsible but if a government does it they said look at nineteen twenty one nineteen twenty one and the hyperinflation happened because of german reparations and it was international . the europeans who have let the commercial bank lobbyists shape the discussion into a kind of fake mission fictitious don't work here let us make the whole killing off the government ok we think that's a good judgment. but with this i take it now this is a there's a there's

a lot in there but i think it could be it too much for an american perspective you're talking about you're talking about a lot of them but i think the world economy in general has a problem its financial sector and its banking sector and that's true pretty much we have you know that through the years that mr and u.k. history the united states but there's particular problems in the in the year as i have which is that because he put together in a dysfunctional way because it does it it doesn't want it it's not particularly up . about commercial banks ripping off the rest of the population that may be carrying on as it goes on in the rest of the world i mean it's a poem about it that a bit of currency itself is dysfunctional but these economies are not convergent and you have too much that in the peripheral countries have too great you know the trade balance is in the darfur development is on equal in the different countries and the money as a journalist will physically. run by the banking sector you will have the most right wing government you will turn europe into a banana republic if you have fiscal unit they run like ecuador and like but i really want to empower the central bank shouldn't be isn't it better to have fiscal

unity here's the problem the central bankers are brainwashed with tunnel vision to do what's good for the commercial bankers and if you have a simple bank who wants to screw the economy to help the commercial banks then you don't want them to have power you want to take them out in the backyard very politely say there's nothing personal but we've got to show you it will be very personal jeffrey with just getting back to matthew's point he actually inadvertently return to my point which is that we have this divergent development you're absolutely right between the south and the north for the most part and the only way that you're going to address that is to figure out how you're going to meaningfully develop as you just you just hit the point that i want to know that baseball disaster is on the mediterranean they thought they could solve this problem by just ignoring it by looking the other way and have germany and france and the scandinavian countries dump their surpluses into the south maintain reasonable levels of employment and that somehow they would eventually be able to repay the debts that were taken on the platter you know how do you get their message to go to ok matt thatcherism on the mediterranean i think we all would

agree with that here but i don't know what the time frame would be a decade two decades but you would have the same he would have this going we don't even have it's very slow you have to have a slippery slope right there so you would have ok find over the next twenty years you're going to help us clean up our debt our infrastructure issues can you change their cultural attitudes i mean. i agree with that it gives the time because the time frame for the mediterranean countries to get their act together but should someone be paying for that uni i mean you know it's kind of a fast op where you say you need the greek economy structural reform of course in the structural form anyone can see that that's been true for a long time it was very very grease and see if you can you can do it at a time when you have an economy contract to get six or seven years to suppress what i you know i grew up i grew up in the u.k. we had real factories and you know the visual version and it was great wasn't that much from really did the economy a lot of good for the economy was a good track you had a couple of years that economy was contracting but on the whole the economy was expanding price i think you really had better ism under tony blair we carried out

we carried out a bit but we still have a we we kind of all right go by point is you can have factories and you can have that kind of structural form an economy has three hundred sixty six percent said yeah i just i just think it's impossible it's too but it's too much to ask of a population you can have it a problem that you can have an economy that's growing to victory people say and yet it's still a big ask it's tough for people people lose their jobs people have to change the kind of work that they're doing industries have to change it's very very difficult it's easy to sit around a t.v. studio and say you have structural form is actually hard on the ground but to have it in that kind of intense contraction just because it's not that is that matthews point is a good one though again about diversion development but the problem is that unlike england you can't have all of eastern southern europe turn into an offshore financial zone which essentially london wasn't london sure of your case economy so it's a fallacy to suggest that you can spread that's not all you can get it's a beggar thy neighbor policy in the u.k. has been very good at it and wonder has been exceptional at it but not everyone can do it the other problem you have a sort of europe is that actually in terms of the percentage of g.d.p.

the rates of taxes collected are exceedingly low unlike northern europe so this this is where we actually need to reform i mean greece in some respects is far more democratic and united states the united states only rich people avoid taxes increases everyone. so this is what we have to stop and insane as well. all these problems greece spain portugal lethal. used to be dictatorships and the dictatorships left a legacy of not taxing the rich no you made a very good point look we're in a recession now you'd think that for any civilized country not europe but america or latin america or africa for a civilized area they would say with a recession you would want to have the something the bank create credit to run a deficit to build infrastructure and have employment but in europe they say no you have a recession give more money to the banks we caused the recession now. you give us the money and by the way we know you don't have a lot so off the peg but the parthenon sell off the water systems privatized

everything and let us rip you off all over again now it's time for the big rip off and that's what their idea of a central bank is and this is wrong and it's evil and that european voters see this in america eighty five percent of the voters oppose the bailout for the banks in two thousand and eight and similarly in europe really do the average american does the average american have a lobbyist in congress no but the republicans in congress knew that the polls were so negative that they couldn't get elected if they ended up in shoals for the bank in europe the population the so deafened by your rotten bankers and europe and your rotten media here the thing actually the banks think they can do whatever they want and the voters are smart enough to say well we can have a referendum like they had in iceland over whether to bail out the banks the only way we can do is throw ins on merkel and if they had a real election over this and say look if you're going to talk

a little bit more about being a girl we get after the break after the break we'll continue our discussion on what to do with the euro stay with r.t. . live live live. live. the latest in science and seeing the live

from the realms. of those who share coverage. welcome back to cross talk i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're talking about the fate of the euro all right gentlemen we've talked a lot about finance and banking what's talk about the political angle of this how is this euro crisis affecting political discourse do the extremes and i'm in those look at the left first i mean it is the leftist party a lot of esteem been taken out of their wins because of what austerity is supposed to mean or does it even energize them do you think that. you know to keep political problem is that is that what happened what needs to happen economically as to have a national half of the european central bank a common fiscal policy but there's no there's no political support for its leaders

are absolutely stuck but you know you can say that with your economic advisors ok so you do think it's necessary but these political and impossible i mean it's really it's not that it completely politically to get that desirable because there's no political control there's no common you know european political culture you know is the united states you have you know a common country you have a common language of a common media i mean people vote on issues i'm sure. i'm sure americans will take notes of criticisms as i would of the u.k. or the political system but it's you know it's roughly speaking a function in a functioning democracy whereas you have just just just isn't there is no mechanism by which for example the european central bank or europeans present the ministry of finance ministry setting coming fiscal and tax policies can have any kind of any kind of democratic leadership. that is going to thought that there needs to be more consensus here but as this crisis continues there's less consensus because the germans will say hey we've done enough more than our fair share but what is really necessary is for some kind of political consensus i'm going to stay away from the

union right now and get there later but there has to be a political consensus different possible right now because it seems that the. inclination is to go in reverse the problem is even worse yet i mean unfortunately the social democrats whether it's in germany or in any other european union country operate under thatcher's maxim that there is no alternative they're not acting as social democrats and are not imagining any different policy moreover when the public actually does begin to engage in these issues they're charged with acting in populist ways and they're just absolutely dismiss the level of arrogance of our policymakers in this particular issue is extreme and it's not even permitting any kind of meaningful debate to take place and discourse that very well when you think about it this is exactly the problem. in one hundred years ago nobody could imagine that the social democratic and the labor party are now to the right of the conservatives the left wing is now the right wing it's the left wing parties that have led the fight for privatization and to turn over power to the banks and if

they've somehow been taken over by the banking sectors in their socialists the name only we have to call them fascist in america if i can just interject with one more follow up point what it's resulted in both in the united states and in much of europe is to confuse the electorate massively so for instance the united states president barack obama who i actually voted for and gave money to has acted a very center right even right wing fashion when it comes to finance what's happened with the electorate is because he's often charged with being a leftist by murdoch media and they assume that he's very leftist and now they need to go very far right and that's i think you see this oscillation back and forth within european union countries between social democratic governments and conservative governments the electorate is just terribly confused and they just don't see and ultimately you know you know i remember watching a report about a woman in iceland that had a wonderful small business of her own she made designer clothes specifically tailored clothing and then she would during the crisis in iceland she suddenly woke

up and found out she was bankrupt and she didn't do anything wrong. all she did everything that she was told to do what i'm getting at here is that they're understanding this crisis and how it is how we've got to do it because i think what michael's getting right here is that it's more like baking fascism here but it's taken completely out of the economy we don't this is not an economic crisis it is a banking crisis it's a financial crisis and how we the european currency the euro fits into. so i disagree with his perspective here but i think you want to feed these people if you had you know the financial crash after you guys are there you have the credit crunch and all that all that stuff which was a global problem and then you have the euro which kind of came along soon afterwards about two thousand and nine because they happen to happen at the same time people sort of think that the same problem but they're not really i think i think the goddess of whether you have the financial the credit crunch or the financial pressure to vaccinate i think the euro because it's a dysfunctional currency because it was badly designed would it would have would

have created a with all of these problems i just i don't really agree that the same problem the only way they were really link was because you had a massive increase in budget deficits to deal with a financial crash which kind of exaggerated cause of yours i but i really think i think that different problems i think after analyzing and lies and separately just on the on the political point i think you know one of the big worries about a year of crisis is that it opens up to really quite unpleasant far right parties because they've been amazed because here i was a year because it's a dysfunctional because it's a bit like the gold standard in the one nine hundred thirty s. that was creating a massive deflationary forces that austerity which opened up which opened up a lot of opportunities for the right and to some degree the same thing is happening in finland with the truth that on the fascist party they are a nationalist party and the real ahead in france is the only mainstream voice that was act mainstream one way street main thought it was you know maybe she's on twenty two twenty three percent of what you know is twenty three percent of the vote would have on its head would be militias not mainstream in the sense of except movies but the crisis is making very right wing.