i wish i could tell you that the world is a safer place today. it's not now that mitt romney is clinch the republican nomination we're starting to see what type of president he wants to be i'll tell you why this presidential candidate is making war instead of peace. virginia's governor wants police departments to have authority be online and see what the drones patrolling the skies that's right using u.s. military technology on our own citizens will ask our guest about this domestic drone program is the rapper who's using his lyrics to change the world i'm talking about immortal technique whose songs have talked about everything from civil liberties to civil unrest in the exclusive interview.

wednesday may thirtieth seven pm in washington d.c. i'm adding martin and you're watching our t.v. even though america's military budget is bigger than the next ten countries combined it's apparently not enough for presidential hopeful mitt romney the republican presidential nominee has stated that america needs to continue to grow its military to maintain it as an incomparable force of military domination in the world so the world really is unsafe as newly minted mit would have you think earlier i asked david swanson campaigner for roots action that very question take a listen. well i'd be hard pressed to find anyone who was claiming that the world was perfectly safe so it's not clear who mitt is going up against there i think he's won that one pretty easily but as far as building the biggest military the world's ever seen you know what can i say except mission accomplished it's done we got it the military has grown every year that george w.

bush or barack obama has been president and it is the biggest military we've ever seen so it's not clear there aren't any specifics from that romney speech about how or whether it would be any bigger than it is now the dangerous elements in that speech of course are that he falsely claims iran is developing nuclear weapons to give to terrorists there is no evidence or are you know secretary of so-called defense says otherwise and he lumps of bunch of nations into a new package of enemy soon cluing russia china venice weyler. pakistan and of course iran yeah there is definitely a lot of strong rhetoric and that speech david and you're right the military has been bolstered continuously exponentially since nine eleven doubled since nine eleven in fact and obama is pretty much a war president so what do you think that's really all he has to go on that he just has to make a distinction i'm a stronger war president than the current war president. well i think in doing that

he guarantees himself a large majority of veterans votes if not active duty of probably white male vote and warmonger vote sin general because he just has to be a little bit worse than obama for the same reason that there are well meaning liberals who will vote for obama because romney will promise something worse no matter how bad obama gets so if they just have to distinguish themselves in some way the dangerous thing about it though is that obama is enlarging the military and giving it greater secretive right at sized abusive hours and romney wants to outdo him and so romney has to push it further and we don't know how big or how outrageous his military would be he claims that making the military bigger makes us safer and makes for fewer wars whereas all the evidence of the past fifty

one years since eisenhower warned us about the power of a military industrial complex is exactly the opposite the bigger the military the more momentum for wars the more planning for wars the more creation of wars or david i mean where do the end it just seems like these candidates are going to keep expanding the military pressing on on these threats from all around the world you just said yourself they present us with this false dichotomy that we have to choose between two war presidents because one is going to be a bigger war president we're kind of scared to say where he might take the country i mean where do you what do you think that this is a set up so we can continue the war as endlessly i mean there's really no other option then you're right a lot of people do choose for the lesser of two easily evils let's say. yes personally i'm inclined not to choose evil but both of these parties are sold out to the weapons makers and the other war profiteers in answer to them before they answer to the american people three quarters of us want out of afghanistan large

majorities of us want military spending cut back in the more people are informed the more they believe that we don't have that candidate in those two already and so my recommendation as always is the point ninety five or more percent of our effort and resources into building an activist movement to fix this problem regardless of who's in the white house and then don't vote your conscience there but i want to play a clip really quickly from that speech in san diego of met god and role that. we have two courses we could follow want to follow in the pathway of europe to shrink our military smaller and smaller to pay for our our social needs. and they have course rely upon the strength of america. and they hope for the best way to follow that kind of course there were you know when they could stand to protect. the other is to commit to preserve america as the strongest military in

the world second to none with no comparable power anywhere in the world high it seems like in that speech i mean people are booing when he's saying cut cut the military to pay for social services i mean that's not happening and instead the pentagon is. in the military and cutting social services time and time again i mean do you think that this is also a false dilemma that we're presented with that if we cut the military somehow our country will be weak and what do you think about what he said right there well i think it's refreshing to have military spending and the costs of human need spending paired together even though he's on the opposite side from what i am that is the choice before a senate is a choice where europe and other parts of the world have been on a different direction it's not clear that the united states military is protecting europe on the contrary we seem to be making a target for terrorists out of europe offending the people of europe keeping nuclear weapons illegally and not nuclear european states and so forth i think that

there is a lesson to be found in the fact that the united states is number thirty eight in life expectancy and so on through all the categories of well being in our society that's what that crowd is cheering for running down our society for the sake of building up weapons that we do not need there is not evidence that we would not be better off following that european group i think at this point david i mean and you said that he you know he speaks a lot about iran even russia china i mean he's mentioning all these countries that i mean do you think that this is harmful rhetoric to stand behind to say that we need to be constantly on the oftens. i think it's incredibly dangerous i think this is how the military industrial conflicts worse it puts money and momentum behind war plans and neck neglects alternatives to war and we end up looking at a choice between war or nothing but it's not just romney i mean within the past

couple of weeks we've heard the prime minister of russia talking about the possibility of war offended by the bases being set up all along the border of russia in eastern europe we haven't heard this kind of talk in a long time and it's not just the result of mitt romney campaigning it's also the result of missile so-called defense bases being built and so we have a problem but it pervades both of these parties. thanks so much for joining us david that was david swanson campaigner for roots action remember how close the two thousand presidential elections were well if you don't let me remind you the tally came down to a mere five hundred thirty seven votes in florida and because of massive voter disenfranchisement many eligible voters were simply not able to vote and those affected were mostly minorities which due to sick we are more likely to vote democratic and here we are twelve years later and it all might come down to florida once again and just like in two thousand there are also moves being made to disenfranchise thousands of voters from being able to vote come november g.o.p.

florida governor rick scott has ordered the state to purge all non-citizens in the voting rolls the problem is that the list is riddled with errors and hundreds of u.s. citizens are being told that they are ineligible to vote in miami dade county alone one thousand six hundred thirty eight people were flagged as non-citizens and out of those three hundred fifty nine have already provided proof of citizenship twelve hundred haven't responded yet and they only have thirty days to do so otherwise they're removed from the voting polls so how will governor scott's voter purge affect the presidential election for more on that i was joined earlier by adam peck reporter for think progress we first discussed the importance of what florida means in the presidential elections. yeah obviously florida is still considered one of the major tossup states in two thousand and twelve and you know i think it's very telling that twelve years ago like you mentioned we were dealing with these very same problems i think there are any number of reasons part of it i think might have

to do with the fact that florida has a relatively large and are going to population and so this it's false i would say but the scare is that there are immigrants out there who are registered to vote who should not be eligible and that's the premise under which governor scott is ordering this voter purge it's under the guise of eliminating people who should not be eligible to vote from the voter rolls isn't that a good thing i mean where we're making sure that people who are not registered to vote not citizens are not voting i mean what's bad about that well on paper you know it makes sense but the problem as. you mentioned is that hundreds of people who are absolutely eligible to vote who have who are citizens or naturalized citizens are also getting purged and so the process i think that florida is employing is deeply flawed to the point where i mean it's very easy to now see where you'll get hundreds of voters across florida showing up on election day convinced that they're registered to vote because they voted before and finding out

that their name has been purged from the voter rolls and they won't be eligible to vote so you know i think on paper it's certainly a perfectly reasonable move by governor scott but the way that he and his administration are going about it is just incredibly deeply deeply flawed why do they even take this on i mean is it a huge problem that we have just massive amount of people who are not registered citizens really trying to vote i mean it's a felony to do so i didn't realize that that was really an issue even if it's not you know people make it out to be a bigger issue than it than it really is you know every few weeks it seems like you hear of another story about you know dead voters voting in north carolina. or you know people taking the identification of somebody else in an attempt to vote and it gets extrapolated by some members of the media to make it seem like it's a much bigger problem than it is when in fact there's

a very very few instances of people actually committing voter fraud in the united states and this includes florida you know every now and again you'll find you know a few immigrants who should not be eligible to vote who are registered that's that's certainly a problem the bigger problem is if they actually try to vote and if they vote successfully and that just we're not seeing that occur in florida or anywhere else in the country so you're saying or think progress is really pushing for that this is almost a false dilemma that doesn't really exist there really isn't a problem of an influx of you know registered voters non-citizens trying to vote and this is just a way to kind of create these scrub lists to cause problems in the election tell us about you know they're given thirty days to respond and a lot of people haven't responded yet what are what are the dangers of giving someone just a really short amount of time to try to get proof that they are a citizen right well for some people you know they don't have immediate access to you know the paperwork that would require that the state of florida is requiring

them to show to prove that they're citizens so that's that's one problem another problem is you know simply things getting lost in the mail think it happens relatively frequently you know for a for everybody and if they didn't find it let's say within the first fifteen days and all of a sudden they only have fifteen days in which to respond to the state of florida you know it can be really problematic for a lot of people and so yeah i think that the thirty day deadline is certainly a big issue as well talk about the fines also that are imposed by just groups trying to do voter registration campaigns and how is this affecting the vote. well i mean i personally don't know a whole lot about that but you know i think that that you know certainly is going to complicate the voter rolls initially and really and any state and i would conclude florida and that as well so i mean of course i really can't speak too much to that but. what do you think in your personal opinion do you think that we have free and fair elections in this country yeah i do and like i said i don't think

that this is as big a problem as some people make it out to be i know it's a popular tactic used by some people you know to justify these voter suppression tactics is really what they are around the country but you know i don't think that we have seen enough evidence to suggest that you know voter fraud is a huge problem in the country and has actually been widely documented mark crispin miller and ritter and greg palast also said that you know in two thousand two thousand and four even when kerry said we have lawyers on the ground in ohio counting it counting every vote and a lot of people just blame it on the you know republican dirty tricks but you could look at the democrats and say that their complicity with not demanding that these votes be counted are demanding that things are fair and free you know that could be an issue to yeah i mean i think that there's a certain amount of blame to be doled out on either side but you know the facts of the matter are that republicans have really become experts in this whole policy of

suppressing the vote whether it's through these these. tactics that in florida or simply giving misinformation to potential voters and states i think we see this almost every four years where a whole group of voters give are given the wrong voting day for instance. and almost all of these are coming from the republican side democrats i think could potentially be doing a better job of really kind of pushing back on this and in fact we are seeing them very slowly kind of take steps to counteract some of these voter suppression techniques. democrats in the senate right now are actually introducing trying to introduce bills that would push back against the republican republicans proposals for voter suppression voter id laws those those are very popular around the country as well so we're are soon starting to see more democrats kind of fight back a little bit but it's just it is slightly disconcerting to know that there are machines that vote and you know things like that going on but they do so much for

coming on and talking about this issue i was out in peck reporter for think progress virginia maybe for lovers but it's apparently also for drones well it's according to virginia governor bob mcdonnell he says drones are so successful at their missions overseas that he wants them for domestic police operations in his state obama has made drone warfare is main foreign policy strategy and many say that drones do a great job at targeting and eliminating those they consider terrorists but are they really successful and eliminate and then eliminating terrorism and what's going to happen when they're implemented by police forces here at home i was joined earlier by john glazer assistant editor for antiwar dot com i asked him his opinion of the success rate of drones take a listen. well they're successful in killing a lot of people they're not successful in terms of strategy i mean for years now throughout the barack obama drone war years. particular in pakistan but also in yemen there have been a few small voices doing real journalism exposing the drone war as killing hundreds

and hundreds of civilians despite the administration's claims that drones in the able them to hit with krista's in very specificity fick target and we learned of course in the new york times or with that article reiterated yesterday was that there's a very specific reason the obama administration has been able to claim absurdly that little to no civilian casualties have resulted from the drone war and that's because of the way they've chosen to count civilians what they have said is that any and all military age people that happen to be present when we drop a missile in pakistan or yemen is automatically defined as a combatant which is another way of saying we happen to kill you you are by definition a militant and deserve to die and guilty until proven innocent is not a shot of a doubt which is hard won sorry dad. i wanted to talk to you about what do you think the chilling effect will be once the brain is drone warfare herit home now

corporations schools can have drones i mean it just seems like there's going to be an endless supply of people using these drones what do you think that's going to do to the american psyche well look i've eric and typically don't start to put pressure on their government until their government starts to oppress them of course when the drones have been killing yemenis in pakistanis for so long and spying on iranians and doing all this stuff around the world hasn't had quite home yet to a lot of americans but of course when it does start to come home it is i mean. police. police when it's all over the country as you said are becoming. very intricately intertwined with the drone technology and what we have to understand of course is that we're at the beginning of this ten five ten twenty years down the line they're going to be much more technically technologically savvy

they are going to be able to create a window on you in this kind of thing so unless there's american does want. government it will start taking control and start voicing some opposition to this flagrant lawless abuse of americans' privacy and of course what they've been doing abroad but john do you think that i mean it's almost normalized a thing like there is such an anti bush fervor against the wars against torture against all these policies and then with obama's continuation and in some cases exacerbation of these policies it almost seems like there is just kind of an a sense of normal of asian and except in some of them do disagree no so far that's exactly right there's well there's two actually to be fair there's two things first of all there's normalization and acceptance that drones are reality of today and you know we give deference to the president to do what he wants with them and then

there's the other category of people that just don't know because they don't care enough to pay attention they'd rather watch american idol and you know get fat on their couches opposed to actually learn about what their government is doing i mean the it's really an extreme form of executive overreach and one of the reasons nobody in the mainstream is talking about it is because the only political opposition obama is democratic party has are the republicans who wholeheartedly agree with these policies. it is interesting that it's kind of to two areas of the spectrum one is you know i'm fighting war the smarter way there's really no alternative it's just you know you're fighting a war with drones so it's more precise and a better way to fight a war i guess you could say i wanted to get your opinion though on just the fact that a noble nobel peace prize winner has an assassination list that he's overseen that includes multiple u.s. citizens and teenage girls it's absurd isn't it not only to includes us citizens it

includes includes a teenager sixteen year old a lockie son who was killed and who the bomb administration won't even admit that they killed him the only time they've referenced them is to say he was collateral damage for another target it is absurd that this man is a nobel peace prize winner and he has hundreds and hundreds of innocent lives under his belt. that he won't even admit to without any trial without any due process without having to go through the trouble of getting a u.n. resolution or a declaration of war or telling the american people or getting extradition and prosecution these are people that the obama administration alleges are legitimate targets although they refused to give any evidence so this is just it's really a very radical departure from the so-called rule of law that liberals are supposed

to love and to do it here to. john what do you think about you know glenn greenwald was asked the other day just about what is the president supposed to do when there are terrorists abroad and when we do need to deal with them and he just said i had i look at myself and say stop stabbing yourself when you hear covered in blood and you realize that it's coming from you continuously stabbing yourself and comparing that to how when you continue to drop bombs in the middle east it just perpetuates more terrorism and more anxious toward the u.s. so what should we do i mean do you even believe that there is a threat at all and if so how would you suggest that we deal with that without engaging in this warfare there is a threat there are people parts of certain groups that want to kill americans the way that you first of all stop the way that you reduce the amount of terrorism in the world first of all is to stop participating in it stop doing it yourself be

a terrorist by bombing civilians in war zones which is usually typically called terrorism the other way you do it is stop creating more terrorism stop. giving terrorist recruitment. efforts you know an a plus and a pat on the back the one number one thing that is creating all this anti american hatred and islamic terrorism is support for brutal john like the government and john i'm sorry to cut you short we're almost out of time thanks so much for coming on that is john glaser assistant editor antiwar dot com. it's something you rarely see these days in the m.t.v. generated music industry mainstream hip hop with a message of rock truth so the pick order now better known as a mortal technique is a peruvian born harlem raised hip hop artist and political activists a self described socialist guerrilla text views about politics religion classes and

racism are expressed poetically and powerfully there is america and some of his albums packed more historical relevance than an entire school history book to maintain control over all his work tech has never signed with a label which gives him ultimate freedom of expression is a vocal supporter of many political movements and struggles for justice and the occupy wall street started last year he's been an active voice of support for the cause and now a new documentary coming out july tenth gives us an intimate look at his life music and activism here's a sneak peek. of. the boys of. all around the world in the red. i was someone else simply because of the music and then there was no way to. thank you. thank. you so much. it. was

made in order. to discuss more about his beliefs and his art immortal technique himself joined me earlier today first here's his thoughts about the upcoming build the birth meeting take a look. but i think that when you discuss it you don't need to use these ideas of you know that for a fanatic would rely on to say hey you know maybe they're they're planning some secret attack or something no but all corporations are a nation unto themselves you know they're defined as a human being even though the majority of them and practically all of them are solace and i think that at some point you know when when you approach that level of understanding you can excuse it in that manner you can say oh yeah this is just a business is just how they make money but real people's lives are being affected you know there is this almost seems to be a meticulous strategy to keep anything that is thought provoking out of the mainstream and that's a shame and i think that there's a new generation of mcs that are coming up now which make

a different type of music and i think that's good i think that we need that sort of diversity in hip hop to be a resurgence of the culture now you know is it a corporation that decides these things for human beings you know it doesn't need to be a secret society but a mcdonald's will tell you the recipe for what they have in our how they make a fried these things a secret we don't even know the ingredients that's in the food america makes it incredibly difficult for people to understand the genetically modified things that they're consuming and a lot of times you know it's been a struggle to even get them to label it that so if they're so keen on keeping the secret the food that could potentially cause cancer in people do you think they would give an inkling of thought to what could potentially be dangerous about words that are set in music that people listen to. what about the regulatory bodies that people rely on to pass these foods on of the public i mean why do you or the irish scientists or the idea that you know that this country is led by moral leaders by

people who are distinctly above in terms of their decision making capabilities and others i mean when you see them talk in congress you obviously can tell that a lot of these people are incredibly uncultured and uncouth so when the finger is pointed at hip hop for being the cause of these things in the youth. you know always remember that when you point a finger there are three fingers pointing back at you or reflects life. let's talk about you know you talk about false flag a lot you talk about these perpetrated acts of terror by our own government on the restaurant our society why do you think it is that people just don't question this conventional wisdom. like you're saying americans are so it seems like blissfully unaware of this like i was going on you know what that's a common misconception to me that america is somehow more ignorant than the rest of the world i think that an interesting analogy could be made let's say there's a homeless person who's an alcoholic lying in the middle of the street who says

alcoholism is really affecting the sides himself tearing his own life apart you know now let's take a different person a school bus driver taking your kids and my kids to school who disses how the whole is an effect a hell of a lot more people a hell of a lot more lives you know if someone's going to be ignorant in some small town in the middle of siberia or some you know rural village pick a cousin that you know who is their ignorance truly affecting but whose ignorance is truly affected when you have someone that invades the wrong country you know or decides that you know these are. acceptable casualties or collateral damage or there's no even conversation about who drones are really hitting i think at that point our ignorance is just more for the public's display that other people's and since we're driving the world as a school bus driver that our ignorance affects a lot more people's lives than anybody else's but i don't think that americans are naturally more ignorant i think that they have a lot more things to pacify themselves with than other countries and i think that

plays into a little bit of the apathy that takes place when we talk about human rights and real tangible things that affect people in other places that was rapper and activist immortal technique you can see our entire conversation on our you tube channel that's you tube dot com forward slash r.t. america and that does it. now for more on the stories we covered go to our website are two dot coms usa and they will find a bunch of stories we don't have time to get on air today today our web team wrote an article about troops from one thousand nations wrapping up a massive military training drill in the middle east many speculate that they're simulating an attack on iran and that the countries are preparing for war you can also follow me on twitter at abby martin c.n.n. half hour. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it sort of to be made who can you trust no one who is you know in view with a global missionary see where.