all right welcome back you are watching our team glad to have you with us let's take a look at your top headlines western powers that the secret to hit syria with more economic sanctions after russia and china vetoed a u.n. resolution may end up increasing the pressure on president assad this comes as the death toll rises in the city of homes as fifty more people are reportedly killed by government shelling. meanwhile ahead of his visit to damascus russia's foreign minister slams the west reaction to the double veto as indecent and hysterical he's scheduled to meet syrian authorities on tuesday to try and broker dialogue between the government and opposition. so greater political involvement for the people

through the internet prime minister putin lays out his plans to upgrade russian democracy a day after a massive pro and anti-government rally sweep the country the new initiative allows people to suggest their own laws online. and greece announces thousands of civil service job cuts amid mounting international pressure to agree on austerity measures needed to secure a new bailout if the government fails to strike a deal it could default on its financial obligations by the end of march. that does it for me my colleague carrie johnson will be here with a complete look at euro news. about thirty minutes from now but right now we go back to the u.s. for part two of the big picture with tom hartman that's next right here on our two . mission. critical three. years three. months three. three. three. three

broke your video for your media project. done to our to. go back to the big picture i'm tom arbonne coming up in this half hour democrats caved in to republicans legislative demands over a key bill how will their decision affect american workers also many argue that climate change is a very slow process that occurs over a long period of time but new research is showing some startling revelations and from coast to coast the occupy movement has lost a great deal of its initial more than it regained its energy by committing to establishing a clear leadership structure. for

wisconsin to ohio to indiana to arizona and now to minnesota workers are getting screwed republicans in the states and minnesota are pushing for a state constitutional amendment that would make their state officially a right to work for less state following in the footsteps of indiana which one went to right to work for less just last week becoming the twenty third station state in the nation to do so as i've talked about extensively on this show right for work right to work for less was lead to lower wages for workers and average about five thousand dollars lower per average for fewer employees sponsored health care plans and fifty one percent more workplace injuries and deaths so if you're watching this show and you live in minnesota and you care about having decent wages benefits and a safe place to work. now's the time to start fighting back but this isn't all too surprising over the last year we've seen a full on assault against working people led by republicans at the state level but we haven't seen yet is that same sort of assault coming out of washington d.c.

from congress until now today labor unions are saying the democrats in the senate has sold out workers by greens of demands by house republicans to make it harder for transportation workers with the f.a.a. to unionize rather than passing a simple funding measure for the f.a.a. like all previous congresses have done with no problem republicans in the house instead decided to hold the funding until democrats of agreed to insert anti-union provisions in the funding measure and a seventy five to twenty vote today in the senate the democrats caved and passed the funding bill complete with its anti-union language for more on the story exactly what's at stake for transportation workers across the union i'm joined by george cole senior director of research and development the communication workers of america george welcome thank you glad to be here so what happened today and why why that's the big question because what happened today was a blow for working americans. the as you said the in your lead up the house republicans john boehner led by delta airlines frankly decided that they wanted to

insert into an air safety provision that everybody wants to see passed in a controversial unrelated provision which would change the way the transportation workers decide to have a union or not for the last year this is been going on and delta airlines wanted it to be different to the airline union elections to be different than every other election in america where the majority of those who vote the side the outcome of the election didn't like that rule they wanted a rule which would prevent majorities of those voting if the majority wasn't as big as everybody who could possibly vote and so they fought this f.a.a. reauthorization bill insisting that their guys boehner and cantor inserted into the bill lead. would provisions that would overturn you know regular elections very limit no no they just jump into this one more second they shut down the f.a.a. the last month a couple months ago they shut down the f.a.a.

because they wouldn't let go of this particular provision and for temporary minors there is provision that says there's a lot of people needed right and so typically if you held an election and say. fifty people showed up to vote and twenty six of them said yes and twenty four said no the majority of people who voted i mean this is how we do it national exam but you got one hundred million registered voters fifty million show up and twenty six million decide the election so twenty six twenty six people but under these rules the fifty people who didn't show up would all be counted as no vote right so even though my door in georgia the people who voted voted yes it would be twenty six to seventy four rather than twenty six to twenty four right and has this ever happened anywhere in any elections anywhere in the united states or anywhere else in the world i mean this is nowhere else in the are no where else in the world nowhere else in the united states except for the airline and transportation industry and soon i mean to a union state near you exactly and that's this is the end of the real problem with

this bill is two things one is that the republicans demonstrated that they could hold hostage things that everybody cares about and they could insert bills that the the the the ny workers the ability to organize and that will ultimately even though it was a long year long kind of struggle back and forth the democratic senate took a vote which put them on record as did mine workers the right to vote now that the actual provision turns out to be in the weeds a little different than what you describe but there was no question that delta airlines for the last year was pursuing exactly what you were talking about there where they wanted non majority of those who voted to determine the outcome of the russians as the in the weeds part was to shift from thirty five to fifty percent to trigger an election it's. and i but what's behind it is big money big delta a laser focused their guys looking for every opportunity that they could find right to subvert democracy so they could have

a way in which to roll back to us because unions who would raise up wages and help us create our good well and unions are democracies right they are democratic institutions where they elect their leaders but in the majority rule whether even their eggs whether they even exist or not is majority rule and and you know to have a democracy in the workplace is there any way out of this right now this is a done deal right now and so the way out of this for us is to step back and to say listen we need to create a movement our democracy is fundamentally broken you've talked about it in terms of money in corporate the corporate money in politics we've got good corporate money out of politics we've got to change the rules of the senate that allow that require sixty votes for every one of your own to buy delta you know delta airlines exactly george thanks so much for values of appreciation here kyra thank you if working people don't have democrats on their side then who do they. so sometimes you know what you know and sometimes you know what you don't know and sometimes as the firesign theater says everything you know is right. and i don't think you're wrong

if you really are you're right. you're right. you know it's wrong. in today's debate on global warming there are the climate change deniers who want you to think that climate change or global warming are absolute myths and then there are those who believe that global warming and climate change do exist but occur at such slow rates that we only need to be concerned about the effects they'll have on future generations not on ourselves but if you really think that climate change always occurs at it in infinitesimally slow rate then everything you know is wrong joining me now to discuss the latest research on earth's climate change history and ongoing climate change is dr jeffrey masters director of meteorology with the weather underground dr masters welcome great to have you with us thanks tom thanks for joining us what has ocean sediment data and the ice core drilling in greenland and other places told us about how climate

change happens in the united states. well you know. like you said that climate change happened slowly over a period of hundreds or thousands of years but looking at the ice core data from greenland we've seen some really remarkable things preserved in that ice core you see year by year and layers of what has happened and in some cases in the past the climate has gone from totally warm climate like we have now to an ice age climate in just three or less years so a really remarkable change in a short period of time if. we had it we have a graph actually of the last one hundred thousand years maybe we can throw that ok should show that full screen just during the last eight thousand years we've had this stable period of climate. but how quickly could it here say it could it could flip in three years are there any indications that we're near some kind of

a tipping point. the past history we're familiar with how it goes from ice age to kind of warm conditions at present so the big question is can we get those kind of severe jumps with the current climate going to a warmer climate in other words could there be a sudden transition in just in a few years where we break that one of these huge jumps to a completely different climate that's warmer we're certainly pushing the climate system very hard by adding all these heat trapping gases like carbon dioxide and we know the atmosphere is not stable it has these thresholds you can cross where all the sudden you're in a new state so it is a big concern with a lot of scientists that we could go into one of these you states where all of a sudden we jump to a new future warmer climate could that mean if for example the great conveyor belt the thermohaline circulation that brings warm water from the pacific around the southern tip of south africa and all the way up to the north atlantic we call the gulf stream as

a passes the united states and it keeps europe which is about the latitude of alaska like europe rather than alaska if if that thing shuts down isn't that what causes an ice age in europe and is there a possibility of that happening. when you change an ocean currents like that you can have a sudden very dramatic effect and in the past we've thought that maybe ice ages or a trigger when that kind of thing happened so yeah ocean currents are very bad to mess with and have suddenly stopped for a suddenly start and there is some scientific work which shows that yeah we would expect that europe in particular would cool very dramatically if we had the ocean currents shut down there and not only would it cool but it would drive very significantly as well we have a huge decrease in precipitation not only in europe but in africa as well so all very sudden changes that would be very bad for civilization to have a couple of billion people unable to feed themselves all of a sudden and and maybe even keep themselves warm the the the chart that we showed

a few minutes ago of one hundred thousand years in the article he wrote one hundred thousand years of climate data shows some pretty dramatic swings over one hundred thousand years but my understanding is that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere right now is something that we haven't seen in four hundred thousand years what does that make you nervous. yeah that does make me nervous whenever you push the climate really hard by one of these so-called forest seems that you add to it either you can force the climate to change adding greenhouse gases or with big volcanic eruptions or a change in the output of the sun while the climate in peru and in the past are responding very dramatic ways so i'm expecting us to see some very dramatic shifts in the climate that are unprecedented in our lives certainly and do expect to see them in our lifetimes oh absolutely i think we're already starting to see the early

stages of such we've had such amazing severe weather events and shifts in the atmospheric circulation over the past two years like i've never seen it by thirty years since meteorologists you know you had to say i want to go to a new address. almost two hundred people just died from freezing in europe in the last week or two and north america hasn't even had a lot of winter it's really remarkable doc dr masterson jeffrey masters thanks so much for being with us tonight all right you're wrong your great work and brilliant article thank you now you know everything about climate change and it's right. after the break in tonight's daily take the occupy movement is continuing to lose momentum from coast to coast how can a leader how can we establish a leadership structure to help with new energy and.

the close a team has been to the hub our of screeching for the country's mineral wealth starts its way across the ocean. now our team goes to the area. was named after lenin good looking to a different character to represent itself. for local businesses are striving to build the aviation capital of russia. for the four by fours are made and can be tested to the limit. welcome to the. russia close up on r.t. . but i'm defining it as struggling with an idea australia doing the telly on new zealand no to run to seed it to among the trees if you want to have sex go and have sex.

every now and then something shows up in popular culture that's just so brilliant i just have to share it with you check out this advertisement that ran during the super bowl. it's halftime. both teams are at their locker room discussing what they can do to win this game. it's halftime in america two. people are out of work and they're airing their all wondering what they're going to do to make a comeback and we're all scared because this isn't ok. people of detroit know

a little something about us they almost lost everything. but we all pulled together now motor city is fighting again were in a lot of tough a lot of downturns in my life times when we didn't understand each other seems that grief lost our ardor time. division and discord and blame and made it hard to see what lies ahead. after those trials. us right back to just. find a way through tough times if we can find a way them. to come together now to. detroit showing its age and be done.

that was true about him is true about. this country champion knock out with one punch we get right back up again and when we do the. edge of. time. and our second a half's about to begin. i love clinic's was work as an actor for christmas this year one of my kids gave me a complete collection of all his movies on d.v.d. but that has to be one of the best performances he's ever done good on a plant. just. the good the bad of the very very. tissue asli are doing good there michael bloomberg his handling of occupy wall street aside. that's a good work this weekend speaking to david gregory this weekend bloomberg called

for more gun control. well i guess you'd think that if a congresswoman got shot in the head that would have changed congress's views i can tell you how to change it just get congress to come with me to the hospital when i've got to tell somebody that they have son or daughter or their spouse their parent is not going to come home ever again. bloomberg started the group mayors against illegal guns which is lobbying for stricter gun enforcement laws and the group even ran an ad during last night's super bowl festivities an age when federal and state lawmakers are trying to find new and creative ways to arm the nation and get in bed with the n.r.a. it's nice to see mayor bloomberg trying to stop the needless and totally preventable violence that plagues our country the bad fox so called news on fox and friends this morning host eric bolling steve doocy and gretchen carlson actually suggested that the bureau of labor statistics was cooking the books when it came to the new unemployment figures here's what the talking heads had to say. are they playing rock the numbers look it's the bureau of labor statistics it's supposed to

be nonpartisan but that's the department of labor hilda solis heads the partner of labor hilda solis works directly for obama you know all these are kind of what i'm saying there's there's room for error there's room there's a. but when you talk about four million people how do you know i mean how do you how do you know how to make it and i don't think anything anyone should be surprised emailing to show you are equals french openly suggesting that the obama administration's engaging in a propaganda like campaign just doesn't seem very fair and balanced and the very very ugly u.s. senate candidate pete hoekstra books throws running against incumbent debbie debbie stabenow in michigan or as his campaign calls her debbie spend it now and during last night's super bowl his campaign aired this ad continuing the mispronunciation of her name hello. thank you michigan senator you have a standard now debbie stand so much and managing many more and more for much of

your economy get very weak i skip perry get the teacher's job thank you debbie spend it now i think this race for u.s. senate is between debbie spend it now and keep spending i'm pete spend it not books and i approve this message the ad has garnered a great deal of negative press since last night with many calling it racially insensitive and despicable the national g.o.p. consultant even called the ad really really dumb here we'll just call it very very . small press is reporting that there was an incident at the occupy d.c. movement a brick thrown at a cop. barreling court they said it was just

a plastic bottle but you combine that with the recent activity and alyssum in oakland and you wonder what's going on you know is this with this occupy an incident is there a flaw in this model of general assembly's frankly i think not but. what we're seeing here is a core battle and the battle lines that are being drawn with the in the occupy movement as it grows is a over the long is between whether it's going to be a liberal in the classic sense movement or whether it's going to be a conservative movement rush limbaugh versus me on the radio here talking classic sense or is it going to be a revolutionary movement or is going to be a reactionary movement that's the question this is a primary question that is literally thousands of years old i mean socrates three thousand years ago was supported the revolution of the four hundred than the revolution the forty people got so upset when they said no thanks mr socrates drink your hemlock commit suicide the romans you know sounds like

a good idea but only if you live in rome can you vote in only if you're roman citizen and so is the empire spread all over europe is furry small number of people who are actually voting the catholic church was asked this question can people govern themselves so this is the essential question of the of the assemblies can people govern themselves and their answer was catholic church his answer was no only god can govern us and since he's not shown up too often the the pope will speak through him and then of course you've got kingdoms which actually were always started by warlords and those warlords you know were ruling by power again they were saying no show guns and emperors you know in japan and in china for example the mayans the aztecs the you had kingdoms all of this stuff all through history everybody said no people can't people can't govern themselves that was the core belief which is the core conservative belief. then in the seventeen seventies

american democracy this great experiment as alexis de tocqueville called it was started and it has an interesting genesis the whole the whole american experiment the small democracy and it started out with thomas hobbes back in sixteen fifty one he wrote a book called leviathan and leviathan contains the seeds of both today's modern conservative and modern liberal movements you can trace both of the roots to this book and there are two central arguments the conservative argument is that people can't govern themselves because they're essentially evil and dysfunctional and therefore they need strong leaders and the liberal argument that hobbes also made was that people can govern themselves it's a very interesting debate that happened back at that time know why can't people govern themselves one of the reasons that's been proposed for a long long time is that even ate that damn apple she screwed up everybody born as is born with the original sin. and so the question is what is the natural state of

humankind you know whether you take the religious story or not havs thought that the natural state of humankind was the same thing that he thought he saw out in nature animals eight other he said if we did not have the iron fist of church or state controlling us then in such condition there is no nature and no knowledge of the face of the earth no account of time no arts no letters no society and which is worst of all continual fear and danger of violent death and the life of man is solitary bru poor nasty brutish and short and this is the core conservative worldview people are evil and therefore you need these constrained forces and this is why you know chris matthews old joke republicans are looking for a leader democrats are looking for a for a meeting is true because you know this is the conservative view then john locke came along and in sixteen eighty nine john locke suggested that the state of nature

might not be what hobbes described it might be different than other animals why because we have reason the ability to reason is what separates us from kwan fang now actually modern sure so is that the whole kwan fang thing and all that true that that there's democracy in nature but nonetheless this is the evolution of democracy and what and what john locke wrote in his state of nature was men living according to reason without a common superior off on earth to judge between them and that is properly the uniquely human state of nature and others reason that idea of locks was taken by was so and voltaire and and turned into the enlightenment a truly revolutionary period of time the end and this was when we saw the real clear definition of liberal and conservative the british were the conservatives the kingdom the liberals were the revolutionaries here in the united states and oddly enough you had a. americans who fundamentally were conservatives alexander hamilton john adams and

you had americans who were fundamentally liberals john james madison and thomas jefferson the most well known and what the difference between the two was that these guys thought the people were basically evil and therefore you had to have the appearance of democracy but not too much and that therefore the compromise for example when they wrote the constitution that the senate would not be directly elected or you know on the other hand you had jefferson and madison say no all the power has to be with the people and they were so emphatic about that that the constitution read article three section two it says even the supreme court shall function under such regulations as the congress shall make in other words everything a subordinate to congress why is that because congress stands every two years for election it's the closest to the people it's the way that you make sure that the people's will is is followed which brings us to today's occupy movement the question that they're facing is are they going to be

a liberal representative democracy functionally are they going to. operate on the assumption that everybody can participate or are they going to turn into a more authoritarian top down organization i remember the weather underground i was in s.d.s. when the weather underground came out it was an authoritarian top down organization by and large. we saw the same thing in oakland in oakland is really interesting you had in fact we had if we had a guest on the show who said you know we were the oakland occupy movement we marched in this building we had no idea where we were going because the leaders in secret decided where we go that's conservative not liberal that's reactionary not revolutionary so in a way we live right now in revolutionary times and we're seeing the same battle that was played out between jeff jefferson and adams right now in the occupy movement my hope personally is that they don't go the direction of the north authoritarian movement that they that you don't see leaders emerging but instead

it's if there is anything it will be representatives that individuals will say ok you're you're there you know collectively they you know if anybody's going to be a spokesperson they'll be elected anybody is going to be a leader they will be elected because as they say in the occupied the whole world is watching. that's it for the big picture tonight for more information to see any segment of the show check out our website at thom hartmann dot com and don't forget democracy begins with you get out there and get active tag you're it.