hello and welcome to rostock i'm going to live on what does the year two thousand and twelve hold for the world will be is trivial and is the year before who will said the trends who'll stay in power and who will fall for the protests that started around the world continue apace and will this year be just as violent as the year the just paths. to cross talk what is in store for two thousand and twelve i'm joined by mark levine in nashville he's a senior fellow with the truman national security project and a talk radio host in milwaukee we have jeffrey summers he's an associate professor of political economy at the university of wisconsin milwaukee and in irvine we cross to mark divine he is professor of history at the university of california irvine all right gentlemen cross-like rose in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want mark we talked about the events of last year let's talk about the events of this year what would you hope for what your wish list happened this year

in two thousand and twelve on the back of such a tumultuous year. what i would hope for is the institutionalization of the move towards democracy that you know so so and through all the world in two thousand and eleven you know for that to happen we're going to see we're going to have to see even more a citizen involvement we're going to have to see citizens taking back their governments around the world and being willing to do the hard work to do this you know the one thing going back to egypt many times this year and seeing how hard it is to actually stage a revolution long term you know the hard thing is that the systems are huge they're very powerful and when when they really feel threatened they usually start unleashing a lot more violence to preserve themselves than they do at the very beginning when they actually seem to be supporting the changes that are going on and once that happens you really see what people are made of and whether these revolutions can have legs and in egypt i see ten year olds literally in the streets willing to die

to have real freedom and real opportunity i think the u.s. quite frankly we've gotten fat and lazy over the past forty years it's kind of the you know the great tunisian historian even how do news consider the founder of modern history his great theory was a kind of cyclical theory of history where you have you know nations who rise or cultures because they're hungry and they reach the top and when they get to the top they start getting fat and lazy and then they start getting the they start declining and the next great nation rises and we really have to see whether the west or the e.u. or whatever you want to call it whether we can get lean and hungry again and do the hard work of rebuilding our societies in ways that are more democratic more representative and more fair and i'm not so sure about that but that's at least i know is the task at hand ok mark in nashville we have a presidential election in the united states this year on the back of what mark said in irvine is the united states just being complacent we got to get a good a good election outcome or it or asked differently is obama going to serve another

four years. i actually will and willing to go on a limb and predict president obama's re-election i think it'll be a very close election i think if the economy continues on its slow but upward trend i think president will be reelected ali if we have a relapse if europe falls apart and that leads to an american recession that could really hurt president obama but i got to tell you i do think americans are taking back their country i think with the occupy movement with the protests in wisconsin even the tea party protests show citizen involvement and the rating for the united states congress is an all time low it's about nine percent right now which tells you that in our democracy in two thousand and twelve we're going to throw a lot of the bums out and that's the way it should be all over the world and that's when the strength i think about the united states is when things are going wrong we can throw them out and we will and i predict we will have a big defining election in two thousand and twelve my other hopes around the globe are that the syrian dictator falls i don't think assad will lead us into the new

year and that democracies all around the globe prevail whether it's in russia you have an election coming up in march and i'd like to see democracy prevail there and i want you see any reason to buy recently there is long as there are people getting hurt jeffrey if i can go to you i mean how do you look at the presidential election in the united states i mean we just heard mark in nashville say they'll throw the bums out will the new bums be any different. well no i think you've just hit on a key point there in other words just changing people and switching them out within the context of the same system is not going to do any good of course the g.o.p. has put forward its seven or eight rodeo clowns for a view nobody is very interested in the obama of course this is more of the same so i don't think we're to get much change there we need systemic change and i think that this is another thing that people are very frustrated with and i think it's very encouraging in other words you know the tea party kind of had this mentality of we'll just throw the bums out but i think with the occupy movement i think this

is what's far more interesting they are interested in serious systemic change now whether that will take a positive or a negative direction it's again too early to tell but we need systemic change and i would say that for the european union as well you know what we have to remember is the height of europe's prosperity came after world war two and this was in the context of a order that actually encouraged. it's actually under increasing integration that we're seeing less democracy and austerity with the european union so we need a wholesale change of systems easier said than done and just finally i would indicate that a leitz need to change as well so again after world war two after we had this terrible carnage a leeds finally came to a consensus that they needed to have a different system they couldn't just keep doing what they were doing right now i don't think we're there yet with our elites i think they think that we can just

keep doing what we're doing we can just try and provide some kind of cosmetic fix we can just impose some more austerity and somehow the system is going to return to some functionality in the past what this is resulted in is a dysfunctional should create of destruction in which the destruction took the form of warfare to cleanse the system i certainly hope that we don't call that. again mark in irvine if i can go to you do you think that the the momentum that we saw in the arab spring and last year is going to continue through this year and what are some of the new lessons because what we've learned is that dictators are going to have a they have a learning curve is well and they know how to start cracking down on people fighting for the same kind of liberties that we in the west of always expose but don't always practice particularly in the arab world. well i mean i think the learning curve isn't just with the systems like in egypt which have proven much

more robust than people might have hoped on february eleventh but also in the u.s. where the system as both pointed out is seems unable to actually put forward new candidates who actually want to fundamentally transform the system what i would hope for is that you know everyone would start actually reading adam smith. you know you have on the one hand these these free marketers you know sort of quote unquote fundamentalists who who have this imagination of what smith was about and who want this unfettered global capitalism which clearly has produced an incredible amount of wealth and growth but at an incredible cost to most of the people on the planet and what we what we really need is a kind of capitalism which is again much more localized which is what smith was always talking about not the not monopolistic where the cost of production are internalized to the products and not externalized on society where corporations make their profits but society as a whole has to pay the price of that what is what we've seen with these banking

crises and what this is going to take however is a lot of honesty it takes governments and people and corporate elites looking at each other in the face and having a conversation what do we want what matters most is it just the unfettered acquisition of more and more wealth no matter what the cost or is it creating a society where we can all live in healthily if we're not ready to have that discussion globally and we have to have it globally then we're not going to get anywhere and of course those who have most of the power most of the wealth have absolutely no interest in fostering this discussion so they're going to do everything possible not to do that so the question really is are there mechanisms institutionally within the democratic countries of the west to actually force this conversation or or is that conversation going to have to happen more violently and from below in dictatorships or places like egypt where there's less of a democratic situation clearly it's going to it happens from below and more violently by. in the advanced industrial democracies where we generally been able to resolve this through some kind of quote unquote grand bargain over the years

between labor you know working class a business and government that's fallen apart in the last generation and a half with globalization and if we can't reestablish some kind of bargain between business the working class and the government then we're going to see this fall apart even more ok martin and national do you think you see that kind of grand bargain being played out in the presidential election because i don't know i mean a from of from a far you know republicans and democrats don't look so different and marc in irvine is saying that the united states and the western world need something far more robust to change what we've been basically what's happening now is just slow paralysis. well i live in washington d.c. where the republicans and democrats look very different one from the other there is a slow paralysis that has to do with the american style of government where both parties republicans and the democrats still have significant sway you have the republicans in charge of one house you have the senate which is in charge of the democrats and of course president obama. though i agree with you about the seven

rodeo clowns that the republican party i think they are bringing the debate to the issues i mean if you the americans have been watching these debates very carefully it's interesting there's an all time record for watching the political debates and that's because of americans do hunger for change they want to see the economy get better and they want to know the difference between republicans and democrats and that's why just this last week we had a really amazing come together where president obama stood firm which has been often done against the republicans and got a tax cut proposal he's been trying to get for some time against the republicans so i do think there will be a very very detailed election at the end of the day you know it's good these protest movements they help both parties perhaps the tea party moves republicans to the right and the occupy movement moves the democrats to the left but it gives us a choice a real choice and i think the real choice to be made in november ok jeffrey if i go to you just real quick before we go to the break you tell us we know all of your candidates just agree on one thing the u.s.

should bomb iran. unfortunately there does seem to be some gets us around that but you know i just want to say that i unfortunately i disagree with much of what mark in nashville said i don't think that we're going to see much in the way of differences emerging from the two thousand and twelve election i think that barack obama followed through on almost the agenda that he put forward in two thousand and eight and it wasn't just because of g.o.p. obstructionism i mean in terms of the economy he you know he kept. the head of the fed he chose by all accounts republican to become the head of the treasury. he really did not act on any of the progressive agenda. and here we're going to assure you did the first thing that he let me go to him after that you're broke we'll continue our discussion.

it's getting bad out here. not saying. you know. what's going on here. creek.

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we're looking at the two thousand and twelve crystal ball say. soon. mark if i can go back to you in irvine like it's look at some of the global trends here and the on the back of two thousand and eleven do you see a slow a continued slow decline of the west because of the the political tsunami that we saw started in the arab middle east i mean the united states played catch up by trying to be on the right side of history it's still i'm very it's very unclear if it's on the right side of history in many cases if we look at the specifics of the of the the arab world country by country but i mean is this is there something that's going to happen the catalyst where we'll have the finally the end of the neo colonial project that has been beset on the arab world for so many for over two

centuries if not more. well i mean i think first of all the very term the west is really. that is the program and i know what you say i know what you mean we've done a program and because there's a level of you know china is now in terms of the global economy fully you know part of the west so it was the west mean and i think what you have are global elites that have a shared agenda and a shared set of interests and the question is whether these elites can be pressured from all levels from below enough to be forced to shift their interests right now the u.s. the russians the chinese all the major powers the french the germans have an interest in preserving kinds of authoritarian systems you know even if they support of an ear of democracy that allow the status quo to remain which is you have countries which are geared towards accepting lots of military aid or lots of military purchases from various countries that come up to hundreds of billions of dollars orienting their economies towards exports and growth in

a way that benefits you know the major global corporations and not their local people and keeps prices artificially low on the global market for many things that are important in the west so so in this year are they are they going to be forced to actually change their ways no certainly not because this is going to take years not certainly one year so the question really becomes is do you have globally and this is where new media and the ability of people in wisconsin in cairo in russia and moscow to talk to each other from below is so crucial are you going to have a discourse articulated from below that is coherent that is global that has similar demands that can really get the most the majority of people who have given up hope all over the world and who really see that there is no possibility for change to give them hope that there is the possibility of change and to give them an idea of what that change can and should be if you can begin to have that in two thousand and twelve which is a much more modest goal then i think we're laying the groundwork for

a long term shift in the global. anime towards an economy that benefits more of the people in this world which is more sustainable and which lowers the massive levels of inequality which leaves half the world living on two dollars a day or less so that would be my hope in what the most is that we can achieve in the next year you know jeffrey if we can if i can combine with what mark just said in irvine i mean he brings up a very good point i mean we're looking at certain elites you know maybe it's better to stop thinking in purely geopolitical terms and i tend to agree with that is that something that is really going to be more and more on the agenda here because we've talked so many times before on this program about the fate. of the euro. well yes but i would have to say that in terms of change again it's typically just as in nature you see rupture i mean just as in evolution you see lurches forward in terms of change just as say with a geologic fault you see pressure is building up and then you see

a quick release in terms of change we don't know what will happen we see the pressure certainly mounting and it could snap at any time it could be tomorrow it could be thirty years from dial i think of course it's going to be closer to then rather more distant but you're right elites have to make a decision whether or not they are going to modify the system so that it can be sustainable or if they are going to try to hold on to what they have and if they do that those pressures will continue to build and we will see the system. break apart and what it does one does not know the outcome of that it could take a fascist direction it could take a progressive direction well we we really can't predict in advance which way it will go but i don't think that change happens gradually i think. as it usually is usually violent if i go to mark in nashville it's going to be the dynamic as we go into the presidential election in the united states is that because the last general election round we had we had the group the tea partiers

and they kind of really shook things up a bit there and now we have the occupy wall street movement so occupy versus tea party i mean if we look at this is a binary where you think it's going to fall where who's going to have much more in who's going to be the candidates are going to court who more to what degree or do we do stay in the mainstream. i guess i would look at the by there i actually think the occupy movement and the tea party movement have a lot in common they may not see it so much but they should because both of them are fighting against coinstar to sions of power you find for example the occupy movement is mostly focused on multinational corporations but they're upset at the government and the tea parties mostly of said the government but they're upset it all to national corporations and i think worldwide we're seeing this fight going beyond governments in taking it to multinational corporations so i would look at such a binary fashion it's true that washington is always split between republicans and democrats and the focus will very much be on president obama and the likely nominee mitt romney who i think will be the nominee of the republican party and so yes

america will be driven but either way you've got forty percent republican forty percent democrats and flavors in the middle the real battle is between the people and the small the national corporations and governments and the elites it's going on all over the world and that's the one that i think it's almost more interesting than the twenty twelve race ok mark and irvine if i go back to you in the previous program you talked about the rise of china what about international institutions i mean the i.m.f. the world bank i mean again and now invoke the term the west with the understanding of what you're caviar to use but you know we have we have rising economies around the world that have ridden out this global recession reasonably well and they want more of a stake at the table they want to be shareholders here is this you think another benchmark or milestone that we could see is that will see the others the outsiders moving in to take take a greater place in in western institutions or will these institutions suddenly unravel we'll have new more global i'm sorry more regional institutions that deal

with regional issues. well i mean i think when you're talking about the so-called bric economies countries like turkey or brazil which i think are two of the major major examples of this not not the biggest economies in the world a level like china but certainly becoming very powerful and they've outgrown the need to deal with the i.m.f. and the world bank as clients and in fact are much more stakeholders this is a crucial thing because these countries ring their own perspectives you know turkey so when the great success stories economically of the last twenty years brazil is well they they did it however through the kinds of policies that are precisely what the i.m.f. and world bank don't like people to do and i think they show that there is a different model for developing economies to follow that can preserve their own interests at a smaller scale again something that adam smith would have would have certainly supported and you don't have to follow this kind of international globalized neoliberal model and that in doing so you can generate the kind of growth that

creates a model for others however we need to remember they're doing that in the context of a larger system that still is globally neoliberal the question is it's just i'm starts to fall apart and they actually retain the power they have or have they found a niche in the larger system which which they still need is one i don't think anyone knows the answer to but as they become more powerful i would presume in the next few years you're going to see these kinds of countries getting permanent seats in the security council which is very very important i think you're going to see a weakening of the veto power of the major powers russia the u.s. and china especially in global affairs and i think that that's all for the good i think the more that these emerging economies can have a defining say in how the world is managed the better it's going to be is long as again they do it with the elites who are responsive to their people which has happened in brazil in turkey let's say in to an unprecedented level if these elites start to separate themselves and become part of the global elite then the compact

that forged these success stories are going to start to fall apart jeffries the euro going to die this year. the whole. well that's a very good question and i think it will change so i think we're going to see some truncated form of the euro it can't be sustained across the entire european union in its current form and so with that of course we're going to see a period of crisis instability and great concern regarding the future but i think at some point of course the north and the solved are going to have to separate in terms of a unified currency it doesn't necessarily mean of course the breakup of the european union but it does of course auger a different relationship that has been hoped for in terms of an integrated europe and of course we know part of the problem is that germany wants to maintain itself as a country which continues to export produce high value added products and uses east

europe essentially zone for exporting goods and of course it does the same with southern europe so the whole thing is unsustainable and there will be change just referencing very quickly mark's point that he just raised regarding the bric countries you know that's a whole nother dimension to this crisis and it's very serious when i think you should do a show about it frankly and that is that i think we're returning to a world that thomas predicted but never was realized at the time that he wrote about it in other words i think we're seeing these twin movements you both of a situation in which these bric countries are becoming far more productive they've created economies just as mark has said. on policies that are the opposite of what the international financial institutions hold but in so doing they've created additional pressures on the global system the global economy we now have a real food shortages and again that was a contributing factor to the protests in the middle east. if you will if we see

a revival of the global economy fuel prices will escalate and then that will bring the economy right back into recession so we see real shortages. put shortages in the global economy and right now nobody is addressing that seriously and it's only going to create more political instability and greater economic stagnation and crisis unless we find a way out of it and that's going to require technological innovations of an order of magnitude. a very long. massive investment we've run out of time here one year from now i'm going to see if any of you guys were right many thanks to my guest in milwaukee national. crime remember. any.

technology innovation. developments around russia we've got the future covered.

civil uproar in america as a bomber enforces a nor to detain terror suspects without charge trial or the right to a defense. iran test fires a long range missiles during naval drills in the persian gulf and says it's prepared to hit back if attacked by anyone. and turkey sends up a new eye in the sky a satellite which could give the world close up images of security conscious israel for the very first time. world news and much more twenty four hours a day this is r.t. civil rights groups have criticized president obama over

a controversial defense bill he's authorized the military to indefinitely detain terror suspects without charge or trial unprecedented in u.s. history. serious concerns about parts of the us pledged it won't be applied to americans the rights advocates are describing the bill as a blight on his legacy expect the white house to break its promises it comes as the notorious gone time of bay prison remains open despite the president's reelection to shut it down by the beginning of twenty ten report not. long before he became u.s. president or a nobel peace prize winner barack obama was a constitutional law professor we have never been more energized neither did i a civil liberties champion turned charismatic candidate who vowed to reverse the abuses and policies of his predecessor george w. bush.