tv [untitled] February 1, 2012 3:48pm-4:18pm EST
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you know you're there the n.r.a. is able to recruit intensely committed members because they're framing gun rights or threats to gun rights in a way that makes them feel like all their rights are threatened are you proud of your country and want to stay in school or i thought you know how do you really don't think you can do thousand. americans and we really don't thank you very much for. that i have a great bench thank you thousand their target audience is conservative white gun owning men and they feel pinched and they feel sort of displaced in our society i've been fired up since the last election i got enough change already and you know again only more if they're losing the country to others they feel like the minority they feel like you know immigrants and lesbians people of color are taking over the country and these conservative whites are now the numerical minority so they're
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going to act offers a message that not only are going to be taken away but so are your core beliefs your identity your values your status your power is that correct my interpretation of what you said is that the right to insurrection against the drug is a god given right that you're protecting you sure that is correct. our founders did they have this political propaganda that essentially the federal government is depriving americans of their free and that they are resistance and there shouldn't be any federal gun control or the federal government has no authority should be no federal jails there should not be a you know lifting i just out this is a movement that has potential radical if not revolutionary. intentions self-defense is a benefit of being able to shoot the government. that's why we have a second amendment that's what we did with we shot the government when the gun.
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broke the contract with the american colonies we shut up and we pushed them out the issue i call this the insurrectionists of the second amendment and it's very dangerous it is an idea that is a threat to the very foundations of our democracy it's a foul it's a threat to the rule of law itself it's an invitation to vigilanteism it's an invitation to take on literally against public officials if you don't like what they're doing. if you have any doubt about how dangerous that is reflecting back on the oklahoma city bombing. it is a devastation and on certainty in a small city that has never before been touched by terrorism timothy mcveigh nine it was an individual who absorbed this. ideology and he acted it out he concluded that the time for revolution had come. to the federal building.
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and he knew that one of the agencies in that building was the bureau of alcohol tobacco and fire which was the government agency that he thought would be the one to come for the guns in ohio citizen soldiers trained for urban combat while snipers in michigan practice with high powered weapons. this insurrectionist idea which is also what motivates these militia groups formed back in the ninety's and reforming again a report out today he claims fifty new militia training and sprung up in less than two years as one law enforcement source dangerous mix is brewing at all but smith. the founders were very clear about this it wasn't for honey that we have the second amendment they fear they feared big government and that is why the people should be armed that doesn't mean that we're agile. hating for the use of these arms but it
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always holds government in check we can't continue expanding the domestic and title one system so the time will come hopefully we will never have to use the weapons for self defense but we should be prepared but the most important thing that we do is to understand the importance of defending liberty so that we can preserve the greatness of this country i thank you very much. the rest of the world has figured out that they can do something about gun violence and other countries have taken steps to license guns to register guns require training i'm not saying all those are things that should be done here to
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sara lee but there are things that we can do. since we don't think bad guys should have guns we should do background checks and find out if those who are buying guns are bad guys or not we do that for some sales we don't do it for all of them we should do it for all it's just that simple gun still if he stops selling guns to keep. it strong sales are one of the most common ways they can to get into the hands of criminals why within congress give foresman the resources to do undercover inspections if thirty percent of the trafficking cases are connected to gun shows why would you close the gun show loophole. the way it works here is that congress is so afraid of everything else the entering into them that they won't make the simple gesture to make all of us safe so you've got to try to find the middle ground in the gun show loophole is the thing that the pump. to get.
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your cancer earlier this year you said you think this bill has any chance i mean the area as opposed to this status straight victories in the supreme court here on capitol hill that killed d.c. voting rights i mean it's a curse to be going up against this out this is this is really bad today. then sure . the background check. no background check right. because. i the fact is congressman i wouldn't be sitting here in front of you today if it weren't for the events that happened i did my sixteenth two thousand and seven immersion in tech i wouldn't be sitting here in front of you today if it wasn't for the ten minutes of hell that i survived on that day and i would be sitting here in front of you today if our federal gun laws had been stronger the existing brady act as it is written is too weak to protect future americans from out from another some
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reach zero or other predator birch cers i can think of no reasonable responsible logical reason why that should be the fact is congressman i wouldn't be sitting here in front of you today if i didn't believe with every part of me that might like that officials will do what is responsible and reasonable to protect their citizens. thank you very much for your time mr goddard i'd just like to say that your testimony is compelling is a testimony i've heard here on the hill i would hope that all members of congress could hear that could make a big difference clearly with this particular issue so i want to thank all of our witnesses today for most conclude. thank you there's still another college campus shooting this time in northern illinois university in dekalb in the mayhem at northern illinois is that it's shooting at public schools and colleges in just one week what's it going to take when columbine happened people thought if
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columbine start enough nothing's enough well columbine wasn't enough a couple of years ago there was a whole string of shootings on campus virginia tech certainly most horrifically and people said if this isn't enough nothing's enough old virginia tech wasn't enough not even in virginia let alone a federal law so i frankly don't know what's. news
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seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are old today. oh so you have some sense there where the fact that that's how their money's being spent to meddle and influence and interfere in other nations affairs it seems western powers can't help but meddle in other country's affairs especially if it means a bigger slice of the pie for them we'll show you why this so-called democracy promotion is anything but that. or since i've been traveling the world and teaching people how to get through the biscuit dictates so you come up with these three easy steps . that's right overthrowing a government is as easy as one two three what may look like a spontaneous uprising is actually a carefully planned a strategy but who's really behind these how to lessons in revolution. i want to
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make sure that people understand actually drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties. exaggeration or downright lie hundreds of civilians many of them children have died in this drone war so decides when their lives are less important than our sense of security. it is wednesday february first four pm in washington d.c. i'm christine you're watching r t. well let's talk first about egypt about the current drama unfolding there involving american democracy building groups as you may have heard egyptian authorities are preventing some americans working for u.s. based non-governmental organizations from leaving the country they're talking about putting them on trial in a dispute over the group's lack of official registration with the government any of
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those americans including the son of an obama cabinet member have taken refuge at the u.s. embassy in cairo pro-democracy groups have long made it gyptian uncomfortable and we've seen in recent dec. the u.s. shifting resources to focus on these so-called democracy promotion programs throwing money political support and at force is in line with washington's agenda now critics call this political meddling. mellower a more subtle effort to create regime change in the case of egypt we do have some video from today this is still very much a country in turmoil the elections there may be over and despite the clear winners of those elections there's a lot that is far from settled there as you can see from these pictures now a sign that whatever pro-democracy groups are there now from the u.s. and other western countries well their mission will be failing well take a listen to middle east expert dr walid faris this is what he told r.t.
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just yesterday many n.g.o.s are reading in washington have been pushing for the so-called arab spring or spring into egypt in the revolt in egypt so called to do it. as a result of that and instead what we see now that useless network should be the muslim brotherhood or the salafist the result of the arab spring in egypt is not going to be immediately a secular democracy we're going to they're going to go through a an era of islamic fundamentalism while to get a better understanding of this reaction g.m. hospice gives us a little history and perspective about groups created under the guise of democracy promotion. this is what u.s. backed regime change used to look like back in the days in a bid to ensure u.s. political and economic interests were safeguarded cia backed coup d'etat was announced a democratically elected leaders from home and most adept in iran to salvador allende in chile. in their place all too often brutal dictatorships and governments
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that committed heinous crimes against their people. by the one nine hundred eighty s. the reign of terror that blazed across latin america by washington tench mn was too much for most people to stomach to replace the overt support for dictatorships a new concept for regime change was born one that sounds and looks better democracy promotion the concept of democracy promotion is simple finance training and politically back local opposition forces around the world that support washington's agenda dr william robinson is the foremost expert on regime change to democracy promotion he wrote the book promoting poly arche in latin america. eastern europe with the velvet revolutions in africa in the middle east oil all over all over the world and so the us set up these different mechanisms now for penetrating the civil societies and the political systems that have countries that are going to be
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intervening and to assure that the outcomes would be pleasing to to washington's foreign policy objectives we do this through surrogates and we do this through non-governmental organizations and we do it through people who are less suspecting the evil that may lurk behind their actions then perhaps they were before. have we learned some lessons of that guard you bet do we do it better you bet is it still just as heinous as it always was you bet so while the goals remain the same it's no longer the cia but the u.s. agency for international development usa id and its partners spearheading this effort alan. weinstein one of the founders of the national endowment for democracy explained to the washington post in one thousand iu one a lot of what we do know was done covertly by the cia twenty five years ago and like the cia usa id the national endowment for democracy and the slew of similar organizations receive funding from congress millions and millions of us taxpayer
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dollars go every year into funding for political organizations from campaigns in different countries around the world that promote us agenda and most us citizens are unaware of the fact that that's how their money's being spent to meddle and influence and interfere in other nations affairs the concept of facilitating regime change to democracy promotion has garnered widespread criticism not just abroad but also here at home congressman ron paul once wrote it is particularly orwellian to call u.s. manipulation of foreign elections promoting democracy how would we americans feel if for example the chinese arrived with millions of dollars to support certain kennedy to deemed friendly to china when you're terrible we used taxpayers' money to go over and use our military and our cia and these programs to say this is what you ought to do in influencing there's no authority for that it doesn't work. well
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i was g. and a half as reporting from washington so let's talk about these efforts and whether or not there might be some major changes in what these pro-democracy groups are capable of accomplishing these days and what this all could mean let's go to new york where attorney and author eva golinger is if i know this is a subject you know quite a bit about groups include the international republican institute the national democratic institute the national endowment for democracy groups that do a lot to sort of stir the pot internationally in favor of the u.s. government even if it doesn't favor the majority of the people in some of these other countries i want to get your take what do you think is the most important thing to consider about these groups. well first of all this is a huge business i mean democracy promotion has has become one of the largest moneymaking business is now around the world for those involved in promoting u.s. agenda and all kinds of different ways i mean the state department and us aid budget for this annually is well over thirty billion dollars national known for
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democracy gets over one hundred million dollars for its operations which then that money is then channeled into smaller n.g.o.s in different countries around the world they operate in over seventy countries around the world the same goes for state department's own democracy fund which is also over one hundred million dollars and this again again is trickling down into n.g.o.s in different countries is that use the facade of being a non-governmental organization allegedly working to promote their citizen's rights in different areas and sectors of their society but in the end it all comes back to one source they're all getting funded from the u.s. government they're getting funded precisely to promote u.s. agenda so you know that the groups may take on different different issues and may appear to be working in the interests of their own citizens in their own country but in the end they're following orders from washington and when we talk about promoting this u.s. agenda let's take
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a look now at what's going on in egypt i don't think that we can downplay how big of a deal this is you know what we're seeing right now members of these groups actually taking refuge at the u.s. embassy in cairo i think this is unprecedented and i want to ask what you think this means i mean these people who work for these groups do you think they did something that was just over the top that egypt's military found to be horrible or something else going on here well there's a suspicion in almost every country around the world where these types of organizations are operating for many reasons coming from those governments because they're aware of the funding the foreign funding they're receiving particularly from the u.s. government although it's not just exclusively from the united states the. u.s. has also forged different agreements with some european foundations and canadian foundations as well to channel funding through them so that it it doesn't always have u.s. fingerprints all over it although it has the same agenda but it's actually maybe unprecedented what's happening in this sense in egypt where it is where the groups are being targeted and they haven't been directly attacked and they're taking
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refuge in the u.s. embassy but it's not unprecedented in the sense that over the past two years several u.s. democracy and geo workers in particular for usaid and their subcontractors in afghanistan have been targeted and have actually been killed and they've been accused of being basically cia operatives at the same time i mean they they have been working except contractors particularly for a u.s. and id contractor by the name of development alternatives which is one of the u.s. multi million dollar contractors for the u.s. government working in this area of democracy promotion i mean they're basically like the blackwater you know u.s. security contractors but they're doing the same thing promoting regime change or promoting u.s. agenda just under different cover and with with different sort of objectives or appearance and as it may seem but no i mean i think that this is going to be
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reoccurring it's happened also in venezuela where they've become targets of you know those that know that they're that these organizations are not promoting the agenda of the venezuelan people they're promoting a foreign agenda and so therefore they should answer to the laws of that country for what they're doing and it seems to me that despite these clear associations with certain heavy hitters in washington a lot of people do think there's great these groups as independent and yet you take a look at you know the ira john mccain and lindsey graham are both on its board of directors such as well quite even talk about these relationships and how they've really had a hand in shaping actual policies. well it's outrageous for the international republican is to claim that they're somehow independent they're also fully funded by the state department by us by national not for democracy and by congress and they represent the interests of the republican party in abroad in countries around the world the same with n.d.i. which is the national democratic institute this is these are organizations that
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were formed at the same time as the national now for democracy in one thousand nine hundred eighty four with that goal precisely in promoting us for us agenda particularly political agenda in countries abroad so i mean if you look at who they are who sits on their boards who's managing their operations you'll see that i mean these are the high level players of the political and economic elite of the united states government there's no question about it and i do think it's important you mentioned some of the historical underpins of this going back to the eighty's i do want to get more perspective on all of this so let's go to a place where this all began yugoslavia and eva we will bring you right back into the conversation in just a minute but ten years ago an uprising in serbia overthrew president slobodan milosevic with the careful guidance and financial support of the united states today some of the very same activist train opposition groups around the around the world exporting sort of how to lessons and revolution but as articulate the caffein
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of reports the game of regime change can sometimes be dangerous. this is the business of selling a look at the sky high heels barely there clothes revolutionary styles exported in the fashion capitals of the world hello i'm moderately evil on my right and this is the business of selling well revolution is fresh exporting how to lessons and revolution aided by the democracy capital of the world democracies after all aren't born knowing how to run themselves a decade ago mare of edge launched the serbian student movement that helped oust president slobodan milosevic. the group was called out for resistance and it bore the now familiar symbol of the clenched fist but behind the spontaneity of the uprisings was a carefully researched strategy guided by the west no boy somalia is
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a balkans columnist who's been chronicling the events in serbia since one nine hundred ninety nine the or poor movement itself was just a tiny student organization that it got subverted taken over the operatives then expanded it turned it into a branding empire and ended up basically one ing the ground the grassroots level of the revolution thus turning it into an astro turf where they were run by the needy which very openly goes in and says our goal is to more promote democracy a new york times investigation documented the extent of u.s. assistance according to journalist roger cohen poor was no ramshackle students group but a well oiled movement backed by several million dollars from the u.s. but the objective is regime change the objective is to install a government that will execute orders the worst thing about all of this is that it's undermining a concept that enabled the united states to claim moral leadership in the world in the first place with milosevic gone i've in marriage now spends his time advise
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young activists abroad. ever since i've been traveling the world and teaching people how to get rid of their pesky dictators so you come up with these three easy steps so you too can get in on the action and laugh your way to freedom the video was made by students at the school of authentic journalism in mexico for narco news t.v. but ivan has helped develop a video game called a force more powerful in which players can practice scenarios like organizing mass protests and overthrowing dictators today outdoors called canvas and with the help of the internet their methods and symbols are exploited the world over from the color revolutions in georgia and ukraine to venezuela and the arab spring uprisings in egypt william engdahl has written for over thirty years about washington secret geopolitics he's convinced that canvas is not acting alone the instigators of those so-called spontaneous protest was twitter revolts in cairo and tunisia and so forth
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have all been pretty organized and should you assume some of the people leaders of the protests have been trained in the belgrade in serbia by all poor activists financed by the us department. this thing has the state department and u.s. intelligence all over it three easy steps and that's all it takes to overthrow your very own government so this revolution become a commodity a product that could be branded popish to mass produce an export out all across the globe well just like ivan's video this too of course is a spoof but the game of regime change is quite real and it's unintended consequences can be downright dangerous. altimetry the american taxpayer i think is getting. the short end of the bargain because there are there are bankrolling people that are going around the world fomenting astroturf revolutions that are eventually backfiring and they're backfiring all over the
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place and once the people find out who was behind this their anger to. turns to the american government can do better can people who are boss or disagree you can repeat it over. and over. and easy recipe but the aftermath may be the hardest to see catherine of r.t. washington. all right so a valid to bring you back into this conversation and let's just talk for a minute about this connection here between you know the objection arab spring and also what happened a decade before. why i think it's unfortunate and those well meaning interests in the case of egypt have been co-opted by this u.s. strategy of promoting regime change and using groups like up we're canvassed to train and really get in to get themselves infiltrated into those organizations that were legitimately late legitimately working to change their system in egypt i mean there certainly are always.
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