but civil civil liberties and two thousand and twelve could be the most oppressive year yet. it's tuesday january third four pm in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r.t. . well the countdown to the iowa caucus is on and with the first significant event of the nomination process just hours away three clear front runners have merged the morning register poll finds mitt romney leading ron paul and rick santorum so it appears the battle lines have been drawn and one of these three men will win tonight each candidate with a distinctly different following take a look at who they are and what they symbolize to voters well mitt romney is in first his big advantage money the candidate takes the cake when it comes to fund raising having huge support from the political establishment and big businesses

romney also considered to be the most electable among the candidates and most closely aligned with the republican establishment and then there is ron paul paul has his dedicated passion a group of followers definitely the most energetic group of supporters his supporters are those sick of the status quo not happy with the current state of the economy and the meddling and wars abroad they believe paul is the only candidate that offers real change. and a new candidate is enjoying his time in the limelight rick santorum seeing a significant surge in the hawkeye state his following are religious conservatives and pastors and i.l.s. santorum is seen as the most socially conservative taking strong stances against abortion and gay marriage well now that the troops have lined up behind their candidates who has what it takes to come out on top in iowa well to talk about this i want to bring in our own and you could cope with us here in studio thanks to see

you dmitri so we are seeing rick santorum enjoying his time in the top tier this is a big big game for him he was in the single digits before what is behind this rick santorum surge i can't i mean i don't know why anyone would would vote for rick santorum rick santorum lost in two thousand and four in pennsylvania remember back after it was popular to be pro-war so he's a radical in my view that's just my opinion i don't see you know i think if anything it just suggests that people have no idea who they want to lead because they don't like anyone there's no real option do you think that if it santorum were to win in iowa that it could kind of deal a demise the importance of the iowa caucus no i don't think i'm no no i don't think so i've heard i've heard that that's not it's not that i think it's the legitimate move the exception of ron paul who i happen to like but who i think is not it's not so much not electable that he's not he's not going to unify the country at the end

of the day there's a lot of stuff that i personally like about ron paul but there's a lot of other people legitimately don't like about ron paul so i don't see it was someone that could lead the country and there is no option in my view because obama came in he didn't do anything we had three years of nothing basically and now we're faced with an election of g.o.p. candidates the guy who is the front or supposedly is mitt romney who's the establishment pick and what's he going to do he's basically trying to out obama obama is saying obama's not pro israel it off obama's not enough in favor of wars so it's like i think that the american people just. because there is one of the pending but they don't know what to do and i think if it were to be elected that's what ron paul signifies you signifies basically hitting the panic button because you're like i was going to pull the plug on the computer because crashed and i have no hope whatsoever of getting out of this measure of anything that resembles a compromise which is what obama had promised in two thousand and eight and that is what the candidates are trying to do is that they're trying to portray themselves as who is the most anti obama who can change the way things are at the current

course of washington i want to bring up a quote from rick santorum over the weekend where he criticized president obama for for being anti-american he calls an anti-american activity as he says quote this is the most important election of my life this is where america's freedom is at stake i'm asking you to stand up for your honor so who really is the most differ and who's the most radical those are the most anti-american is the most anti-american unclear what what that means being anti-american exactly right apparently so. what do you do do you think is the most. the most different from obama in terms of the g.o.p. candidates we have to pick from and then even i don't even i don't. obama i mean i don't know i don't think there was there there's no it's the worst or not worse it's like a nightmare having to choose between any of those candidates and rich in terms of

the see if we can radical i don't know what he's talking about i don't know how anyone can think that seriously how you can see it's so funny these guys came in to run into in two thousand and twelve and they spend the podium they talk about how obama's been a disaster for the country a bomb all right yeah he's got a disaster for the country because he hasn't done what he promised to do but what these guys are promising is what obama promised not to do which is not what i want to have happen and what's not and he's saying america wants we don't want more wars we don't want i mean this is just it's absolutely ridiculous so i don't i don't know what's interesting about i mean he's basically like a throwback to bush years like newt gingrich and mitt romney like a softer version of bush. well it sounds like a lot of people think that the answer is ron paul like you said people hitting the panic button because he's viewed as the most different somebody wet with fresh ideas and that's why a lot of young people like him because at least when it comes to foreign policy his views are quite different from the other candidate and also he does want to legalize the criminality that was pervasive under george bush for eight years which is what obama's been doing which is the most absurd aspect of obama because he was

a constitutional lawyer you could say well he didn't know anything about the economy so he let wall street bankers lose to go back and lose some more but the fact that he's basically institutionalized the criminality the bush administration by passing these laws and these executive orders and by putting more power in the executive branch. i mean it's a job and so ron paul's supporters are placing a lot of a lot of support a lot of hope a lot of energy behind their candidate do you think that ron paul could offer that change that he is promising and that his that his supporters are so energized about . i think that if to be elected like i said it would be like hitting the panic button and i'm up against a steadily. he's the only candidate i would that i would elect but that doesn't mean that he i had voted for obama in two thousand and eight ok i don't consider i'm not a progressive if anything i'm more libertarian ok and yet the reason why i would have had obama over ron paul is because i thought obama offered a compromise a solution that could actually move the country towards something away from bush

back to something better right but that people would ultimately follow ron paul if if if a lot of ron paul would be elected that's basically like saying we've given up we've given up on the past sixty seven years whatever it is and we're just going to have a disorderly collapse of our of our political system ok i agree with ron paul a lot of principles but most of the country doesn't and you can't just log jam that in you're going to have massive i mean you can have a lot of teachers that are going to be against having a slashing of the part of education just like that right in any case i just think my personal view is kind of sad is that there really is no hope other than having us the system collapse because that's the only way that anything is going to change and i think a lot of people realize that when they look at i when they look at radicals like rick santorum coming out making statements and mitt romney has got the person out of a shoe horn going out and caucusing and you know sal going to just be clear you think that the system should collapse and i think it is i think it will basically will it will there's no i mean the what's the reality you've basically got

a class of all of us who have decided that they can no longer make money legitimately in the system whether it's wall street the military industrial complex whoever so they work with the executive to consolidate power and to basically say we're going to keep everything and we've given up on democracy we've given up on the constitution and we're going to create a new fuel economy based on our control and everyone else will just be serfs and the reality is history hasn't voted very well for freedom it's been a very well for that peonage and slavery but not liberty so it's an experiment that unfortunately. hasn't. very well during lent. so far this campaign has taken a lot of twists and turns a lot of unexpected you know people taking turns in the top tier what is your prediction for tonight a lot at stake. some are saying that this is the most important election in our history what is your prediction for tonight. i hope rumpole. the iowa caucus i hope

he wins the g.o.p. because at least i will have a real debate like i said i'm the panic button that's me i know a lot of other people feel the same way i certainly don't want if mitt romney becomes president i'm just going to shoot myself because i don't know what else i would do and i feel like a lot of i mean metaphorically obviously but i just i just don't know me at that point if it's mitt romney and obama who basically already screwed me over after three years after i voted for him twice to him i don't know i'm certainly not going to vote for mitt romney i don't know maybe i'll call ralph nader a national. dimitri thank you for sharing your very passionate insights with your frustration i think a lot of americans share that frustration with you that was senior producer for our tease capital account. and tension heating up in the middle east take a look at this.

well iran test fired a cruise missile today further straining the country's relationship with the us europe and israel the focus now in the critical strait of hormuz a waterway where abouts a sixth of the world's oil is transported by see this as hawkish rhetoric on both sides suggest another war in the middle east is brewing so when it comes to foreign policy what's in store for two thousand and twelve to discuss a range of foreign policy issues pepe escobar joins us now from the studio and york nice to see you. well in the breakout it's a days of the iran test firing a cruise missile is this another sign of rising tension and a step toward war with iran well two thousand and twelve is going to be a really really hard core either it's brinkmanship and blustering on both sides us into iran don't forget that on the thirty first of december obama best what is

reasonably a crude criminalise zeeshan operation of anyone who tries to do deals with iranian central bank well russia will ignore it china will ignored south korea which one of the dr importers of your own energy will ignore all other countries in the middle east and slaton america or a central asia like turkmenistan they do or guess webster instance will ignore it the saying is you run is going to be paid for its energy in the third party accounts in different accounts with the banks in turkey for instance in you one by the chinese in venezuela they have already an agreement so this is are not actually going to bite so why have they been approved in what and for what purpose in fact. they track israeli lobby once again so they're trying to ratchet up the rhetoric

and ratchet up the economic sanctions against iran trying to push the west in a little extra a year to go to war in iran which is the variables are so infinite that you can't really know if there's any small measure of success in the end so it's not going to work basically so this is how we start to thousand and twelve and some call these sanctions an act of war would you go as far as as a college that. yes it's an act of war can imagine if it was the other way around if these sanctions were against american exports of oil or if this sinks us or against china for instance assuming china you know main source of of of foreign exchange for china will be to export energy it is an act of war and this ng is how you're going to implemented and who's going to respect that being with europeans like you know today the french foreign ministry pathetically is saying look we have

to curb our imports of iranian oil what's going to happen to the european economy if that happens now it's one hundred eighth of a barrel so it's going to be one hundred training and in one month could be one hundred forty one hundred fifty and you want to recover the economies of the u.s. and europe as well with oil at one hundred fifty is not going to happen and it's a totally counterproductive. law and amendments and the way it's going to be interpreted by the obama administration i'm not sure they're going to try to provoke a confrontation against south korea for instance an ally with russia which china or which countries in south america or in central asia for that matter and have elso want to talk more about china where you say the u.s. is a new cold war what do you mean by that. well it is called war in terms of what happened with hillary clinton's trip to central asia about a month and a half ago obama's trip to south seas australian. months and

a half ago more or less and this deployment of marines to darwin in northern australia and the progressive in the minds of washington of course in circle of china in the south china sea and the intersection between the indian ocean and the south china sea. this is completely crazy because what america is stead of america proposing a project for solves this. for the countries in the cells trying to see or a vision for the future it's some other military drive and the chinese of course because the chinese just proves they are extremely powerful no this solves. so when there is something to be negotiated in the south china sea will be on the table between china and the philippines chime in vietnam china and indonesia and not with american military interference so it sounds and it looks like

a desperate ploy from of the clone empire once again so we keep repeating the same scenario over and over again you know now i want to shift a little bit to a controversial law recently signed into law by president obama and it's related because you know the us takes launches these wars takes these steps all in the name of fighting terrorism he least recently signed this new piece of legislation into law it's the national defense authorization act and this act allows for the indefinite detention of u.s. citizens and his justification when he signed this was quote ultimately i decided to sign this bill not only because of the critically important services it provides for our forces and their families and the national security programs it authorizes but also because the congress revised provisions i would otherwise have jeopardized the safety security and liberty of the american people so he is justified but he has said this a moment that he is very weary about some of the controversial things in the bells

so. if there is such a controversial aspects of the bill why would he sign it and what are the greater implications of this. absolutely it's crazy he was force this law the apac law be in congress you have a bunch of people in congress which are decent buys by the overwhelming majority of the american population like congress' approval rate nowadays is what twelve ten twelve percent maximum they force this law to obama he signed it reluctantly with the caveat look maybe if something happens it's up to my discretion to apply this or not but the problem is the law is already signed so assuming obama would not do anything in terms of imprisoning americans for ever you have the right to remain detained for the rest of your life that's what it means this law but the next president especially if it's

a republican hard core president might well do it and presidents after that as well so this is crazy because now it's the letter of the law so in terms of the whole mist that is being propagated over and over again for. the declaration of independence that this is the food democracy now it's over and it's for everyone to see even current extremely authoritarian can point to the us as a look your own citizens are not even free anymore you can throw the whole population in jail if you want to with the excuse of terrorism so this means another thing the war on terror it was not there when the was kewl or not killed a few months ago the loss of their lives on. and i just want to ask you one more question looking at what is in store for two thousand and twelve and do you see more violent complex in the middle east as inevitable at this point. look i've been

talking to some people this past few weeks historians university professors of political science majors and that there is a sort of an official consensus that me we are approaching nine hundred fourteen situation in two thousand and twelve where you remember saraj in. one thousand nine hundred fourteen that was you know at the beginning of the first world war the great war for civilization as it was built this is not going to be a great war for civilization on the contrary it would be barbers i'm hardcore if you remember that general mike mullen the former head of the joint chiefs of staff his idea to deal with iran was a monster shock and awe was an attack there you know iraq in two thousand and three compared to me it would be like disneyland to completely shatter the communications and the lines of communication of the regime in tehran you mirrored in front of the europeans and then iran is would rally the peoples of the regime and the west to

have a new satrapi in the middle east all because this cannot possibly work but still a lot of people in the pentagon neocons and all that they still think it might have a lot to talk about will definitely have to continue this conversation another time . so not much to look forward to look forward to it seems for the new year happy new year to you that was a few times you wanted to. ask. well the u.s. government is helping you ring in the new year with forty thousand new laws from outlawing outlawing wrong milk to regulating tanning salons to restricting who can get an abortion the new year brings new laws for states across the nation and they don't stop at the federal government's sopa or the stop online piracy act allows the federal government to take down websites they think are engaging in illegal activity on its call this censorship and as we discussed earlier the national defense authorization act obama recently signed into law allows the government to

detain american citizens indefinitely so what's up with all these laws and are we starting off two thousand and twelve with less freedoms george having founder of survive and thrive t.v. joins me from los angeles to talk about this welcome george so forty thousand laws we can't obviously we can't touch on all of them but in several states they are they target hiring illegal workers wearing seat belts controlling school lunches stricter abortion laws so many laws for the most part do you think that they're making america safer or are we seeing our freedoms being restricted. well i mean on the ground here we're just trying to give ready for armageddon i mean i was just talking to a kid yesterday at the coffee shop i think sixteen to twenty nine year olds are almost fifty percent unemployment. people just given up hope on finding work and the government is just continually enacting laws that make no sense whatsoever and

you get to the point where you start giving up on the government and. i know this happened in russia where people just lost lost faith in the bureaucracy lost. in the leaders and i think we're getting to that point a lot of people a lot of my followers on my channel started to give up on the whole process of what america is supposed to be and i want to talk to you about sopa this is a very controversial bill critics say it's censorship that or it restricts freedom of speech on the internet but one public publication is standing behind this very controversial bill the boston globe states quote free speech and fair use can coexist while the n.c. piracy bill still needs further refinement to ensure that its legal wording precisely matches its legislative intent online piracy as a major problem that imposes a real economic cost congress need to take action to protect american jobs from

piracy although the proposed legislation may be imperfect it is a strong and decisive step in the right direction so i want to ask you why would the boston globe come out publicly support such a controversial bill. i think it's it's confusion there's two points i want to make on sopa in what is it seems like the users of the internet are the only ones fighting against this kind of tola tarion view and shutting down of channels of communication there's a moment when that the everybody that would be me that would be well everybody has you in saying you know google and facebook yahoo these are big corporations that are again it's so that i believe where or why are they there throwing their money at congress why are i mean why are these big internet companies getting involved and throwing their weight around financially the fight against these arcane laws

you know the companies that are supporting so are you know you are hollywood the motion picture association the music industry. the question is the second wave of this is we're talking about a whole change in the way we view. personal property rights you know we begin in industrial era revolution and now we're heading to a whole new type of society where people share information the internet. copyright the idea of copyright is being put into question and i think what's happening with these laws that are being passed are just the old guard trying to hold on to power and that's all that this is then what do you think are the greater implications of this a bell at. that piracy and illegal behavior online but could it be a greater you know window for the government to come in and gain more control of the internet or what could this and what could this lead to. i think what it's

going to lead to is a virtually they're going to use it to shut down websites you know of course web sites that are hiring probably movies and music but that's the fine line where is it going to be overstepping of that protection of your personal property rights you know if i post a link on a website there's entire huge websites the drudge report there's news agencies that link to copyrighted material. is that a hand in the shutting down free speech of course it is and once again the big picture is there's a lot of people a lot of companies that have been. formed on the idea of copyright protection and we're seeing an evolution of it we're seeing a sharing of information and there's news agencies like yours that are out there that are are basically embracing this and they're the ones that are going to survive and thrive in the future of the companies that understand this new paradigm

of sharing information rather than just trying to hold onto it and quickly want to ask you with all these laws forty thousand new laws and some very controversial federal laws are these are all signs of the times of what's to come of the future of more laws and less freedoms. maybe i break it down simply but i'm sure you know people were wondering the same thing when nazi germany came to power and i just i put that as on my thinking i just ate you know what we're in the process of it because of the empire we've missed it many times before but as that happens you're going to see more towards areas and you're going to see more control you're going to see more government authority getting involved in your lives and what i basically telling my audience is. in your own personal lives do what you want to do you exercise your freedom because eventually we're all responsible we all feed the beast and that's basically what the message i tell people are all much you know

various living really especially if you thank you george for coming on the show that was george hammond founder of survive and thrive t.v. . well the capital account is up next on our t.v. let's check in with lauren lester to see what is on the agenda today lauren live happy new year that i know it's a year then nice to see you hope you had a nice break i know that you spoke to our producer dimitri kovtun us on the show and you heard him ranting a very dimitri kovtun absolutely about this run up to the presidential election of course with the iowa caucuses tonight given that the economy is so important to these elections long term systemic joblessness and the fifteen trillion dollar u.s. debt being just to reasons why we are going to focus a little more in politics than we typically do because this really warrants it we're going to talk to former assistant treasury secretary under ronald reagan paul craig roberts to talk about if there is an option for the american people thank you

lauren for giving us that update that is coming up next and that is going to do it for the news for more of the stories we covered go to r.t. dot com slash usa and check out our you tube page it's youtube dot com slash r t america i'll see you right back here and a half hour. for . download the official anti happily cation your i phone or i pod touch from the i.q.

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afternoon and welcome to capital account i'm lauren lyster in washington d.c. the iowa was circus oh i'm sorry i meant to caucus is tonight forget the republican horse race though we asked what real options do the american people have to positively affect their financial future not to mention democracy it doesn't look to us like there is any leader who can unify the country after obama did three years ago you could argue but squandered that support so where does that put the us exactly.