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

wednesday may thirtieth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm abbie martin and you're watching our t.v. even though america's military budget is bigger than the next ten countries combined that's apparently not enough for a presidential hopeful mitt romney the presidential republican nominee recently said that america needs to grow its military and maintain it as an incomparable force of military domination in the world so the world really is unsafe as newly minted mitt would have you think to keep the military strong or be subject to all these threats against the u.s. to answer these questions and more i was joined earlier by ed cray cray esky associate editor for reason magazine here's his take on it. well i think some of those threats come a kind of blind growth of the military but i think speaking to the point. mitt romney saying that increase defense spending would improve the economy i don't think that that flies that's not going to fly unless he wants to start

a land war and i'm going to be mitt romney is going to go out and start a land war in defense robert gates if we can start another land war war anyway because we don't have the money to and we're not going to come from nowhere and he knows there's a this is too so i think what are you doing here is just trying to kind of make sure the bases with him because it is difficult to treat president obama as quote unquote on the fence at least from the way traditionally should republicans look at it so he made this media sign that he feels that he needs to kind of. preemptively strike to get these people to keep them on his side. interesting point about you know i mean some could argue that the country is actually going broke because of her defense spending but that's so that's. i want to ask you do you think it's a false dichotomy and mitt romney is there presenting in san diego saying you know if we cut defense to spend money on social services our our country's going to basically be completely weak so we can't do that and you hear people booing when he

even mentions the fact about spending money on social services are you looking at more libertarian minded where do you stand on that on my account of putting on basically saying that we cannot spend money on social services that our country every week and broke. i mean we can't spend money here we're spending about twice as much as we bring in so that number's got to come down a lot of the tea party republicans little got elected in two thousand and ten admit that part of that number to go down is going to happen to defense spending the idea that you can't the social spending required defense spending cuts i think is kind of a false choice and i think he's kind of doing that because it is the kind of the easiest way to make it any versus obama and kind of belittle this in between us because just last week in foreign policy there was a article that explained how making a very serious case that mitt romney well has brought obama secretary of state because their foreign policy is not really that different and so this is

a way for mitt romney to try to say that stereotypical of the democratic presidents week more slowly than i think he understands that there's not money there to spend more on defense that we're spending already because the so-called cuts aren't really defense than still growing it's growing at a slower pace so i think this is just a lot of hot air and i don't know how much mitt romney even believe what it is that he said there in san diego so what do you think should be done you know that the pentagon just keeps on growing exponentially doubled since nine eleven what do you think that that the government should do do you think that there's even a legitimate threat at all to deal with. well you know there are definitely legitimate threat to deal with i don't know if that's the threat that we're dealing with i think. for years now with the a lot of the a lot of military experts from outside the establishment have said his opinion to be a radical reorganization and reform of the military i think you can look at that i think there is a dollar of defense spending is not

a dollar of defense strength and i think that's the policy that southie that need to break out of if we're going to reform defense spending because there is a view and we saw this with the mitt romney speech and eagles that if we just spend more on defense will be stronger but as our teachers reported thirty three f. when even the congress has ordered the department of defense to by nobody wants them not making a stronger that's a jobs program and frankly the military is not just rolling and it's strange that wrong would kind of approach it. what do you think ad about i mean this choice that we're given between two presidents pretty much one is saying that we should ramp up war more and more i mean who are you supporting. i mean i'm not sure yet but there is a gary johnson. nominee and he tried briefly running as a republican and you do a little more temperate there i think the problem is there's kind of been a bipartisan consensus that george bush left where once president obama adopted

president bush's foreign policy it kind of no longer became a big deal for democrats i suspect some of that will change if mitt romney say we get elected we'll i think a lot of people are kind of holding their breath a little bit because they don't want to seem like they're talking against their president but when he's mitt romney doing the drones and the to listen all this all the sudden hey hold on you know the fifth amendment can be satisfied by the executive branch maybe all the people unless you aren't seeing much now about it will say more now that there's not people on the left saying me now but the democrats as an opposition party maybe four years eight years from now will feel less warlike and so i wouldn't leave home for oh how sad is that that ask to be a different party for people to realize that these policies are wrong i mean why is it so normalized under obama and why were people so up in arms about pretty much the same policies under bush i mean i don't know i think george bush was a division of president in kind of a statement of the victim in terms that he might have done nothing he can get his

if england terms of that he had a personality that some americans love and some americans a brothel bamma has a similar kind of personality that happens to be people who love george bush who brought obama but end of the day the american foreign policy establishment there's a certain thing to get done in terms of u.s. foreign policy and that kind of the same from one of next and mostly i think because especially now the economy being so high on people's mind they're not really thinking about foreign policy and as a ramping down the level of troops in afghanistan or iraq and waging more of these wars with drones and with. new technology even further from people's money brinkley i think that's kind of why people aren't he'll be. because it's not. isn't it what do you think about it not being on the radar i mean it should be right i mean here we are spending more and more meramec is ramping up all these threats and yet people seem to be totally detached with the fact that it's like the elephant in the

room i mean no one's really talking about the astronomical defense spending in the light of this recession sure know what it is and i think that's that's it's unfortunate and i think there was an opportunity that was in two thousand and ten after. the party congress actually worst thing you can take a look at the fund spending because nobody actually wants to come up on that offer so this isn't the meat on spending cuts are going to be hard and that's just the way it's going to be in the waters aren't we tuned in for those kind of. media as much as the should be. we don't know maybe they are supporting or supportive of the fact that there is a part of the instances where do you think that there is just a strong lobbying industry from the defense corporations to the congress i mean how come it just seems so obvious i mean here we go you know over fifty percent of our income taxes over fifty percent of government spending is on bolstering up the

defense so we already spend more than the next ten countries combined i mean what do you think it is that's preventing them from really taking us on. i mean the lot of it is it is the military difficult complex and i think it's a lot of the if that was one of the rules here is that if you look for example under the sequestration cuts there's going to be something like two hundred thousand troops can get early discharges a lot of have already been laid off under sequestration when people give out to be put aside from those legal top general laid off so i think it is about. what a lot with things in government and give that it's a great if when other great you can do it's a big leap between so there's a lot of people a lot of money we can agree we can go if you don't but eventually when the money runs out there's no more complex there's no work for the gravy train no one will definitely see when that point comes thanks for joining us i was at krauss game associate editor for reason magazine virginia maybe for lovers but apparently it's also for drones that's according to virginia governor bob mcdonnell he says that

drones are so successful at their missions overseas that he wants them for domestic police operations in his state and almost already made drone warfare his main foreign policy strategy and many say that drones do a great job at a lemonade and targeting those they consider to be terrorists but are they really that successful in eliminating terrorism and what's going to happen when they're implemented by police forces here at home i was drawn earlier by john glasser assistant editor for antiwar dot com i asked him his opinion about the success rates 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. particularly 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 christie very specific targets and we learned of course in

the new york times or what 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 counsel billions and 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 have been to kill you you are by definition a militant and deserve to die and told guilty until proven innocent is not a shadow of a doubt which is hard once they're already dead. i want to talk to you about what do you think the chilling effect will be when once a 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

mean ricans 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 and 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 now when it's all over the country as you said are becoming. very intricately in twined with the drone technology and what we have to understand of course as it 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 going to be able to fly through a window on you in this kind of thing so unless the american. want. their government to 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 that seem like there is such an anti bush fervor against the war as 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 a sense of normalization and acceptance of them do you disagree you know so far that's exactly right there is well there's two actually to be fair there's two things first of all there is normalization and acceptance that drones are a reality of today and you know we give deference to the president to do what he wants but 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 couch as opposed to actually learn about what their government is doing i mean the 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 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 is overseen that includes multiple u.s. citizens and teenage girls it's absurd isn't it not only does yet it includes u.s. citizens it includes a. teenager sixteen year old son who was killed and who the obama

administration won't even admit that they killed him the only time they reference them is to say use cloud collateral damage for another target it is absurd that this man is a nobel peace prize winner and he has 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 you know 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 i did it here too. john what do you think about you know glenn greenwald was asked the other day just about will 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're 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 anx 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 stop being 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 and like the government and john i'm so sorry to cut you short we're almost out of time thanks so much for coming on that was john glaser assistant editor of antiwar dot com america is losing its luster and its famed phrase a land of opportunity there's a growing migration of highly skilled children of immigrants leaving the u.s. for countries with the merging economies artie's marina port iowa brings us the story of two young entrepreneurs chasing the american dream in india. karen in asia is an american citizen pursuing his professional dream in a country his parents abandoned decades ago the twenty six year old relocated to one of the world's fastest emerging economies seeking the success and security that

america just couldn't offer i thought that in india there was more scope to actually break through and do something that was revolutionary rather than just follow the trends the berkeley graduate has launched a health care business in new delhi providing medical services to people of all ages and asia isn't just an entrepreneur he's the face of a growing migration trend which shows highly skilled children of u.s. immigrants moving to less developed lands abroad for a better quality of life if you look at developing countries india especially. there's a very different type of entrepreneur that comes out here there's things that are tangible that you can see being fixed and i think that's one of the reasons why people are coming out here there's a different opportunity here you can do something and actually see the fruit of your labor today's u.s. labor market currently offers only one job for every eight applicant. tonight while youth unemployment remains about six percent my parents i always tell them like you know like any kind of security you think you have is completely false because

anything can happen and you could lose everything armed with a degree in environmental geography and public policy. hasn't been able to land a secure job since two thousand and eight when i started applying and i just wasn't getting any response i was completely like at a loss i don't know what to do the twenty seven year old will soon be relocating to india where she plans to launch an environmental nonprofit organisation for sustainable living she says the american dream her immigrant parents chased three decades ago has become something of a nightmare one of my main reasons for. not wanting to live here is if i start a family so i don't like to deal with what i had to deal with in terms of. like going to school paying one hundred sixty thousand dollars for an education that didn't really get me anywhere and you know god knows how much it's going to cost you know in the future a rapid exodus of enterprising americans may cost the country its economic

supremacy and competitive muscle if skilled innovators are chasing brighter futures outside their borders many experts say the land of opportunity stands to become the land of last labor and i can assure you from countless talks i've had with big business leaders you in new york. that they agree most large companies that are multinational corporations are referring to the united states these days as a quote unquote much sure economy that's a polite way of saying no growth anymore over the decades india was drained of its best and brightest as millions fled for a more lucrative life in america today's trend may see that brain drain in reverse during a fortnight arts new york. we're going to take a quick break but stick around for an exclusive interview with activist and musical artist immortal technique back in a minute. r t is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like.

russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us. just burned your eyes right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. much stronger than anything you'd be by a lot of. thousands of times stronger than any kind of.

well it's something you rarely see these days in the m.t.v. generated music industry of the mainstream hip hop with a message of rock truth philippic oh now better known as a mortal technique is a proven born harlem raised hip hop artist and political activist a self described socialist corella text views about politics religion classism and racism are expressed poetically and powerfully through his lyrics and some of his albums packed more historical relevance than an entire school history book to maintain control over all his work tech a sign with the late was never sign of a label which gives him the ultimate freedom of expression is a vocal supporter of many political movements and struggles for justice since occupy wall street started last year has been an active voice of support for the cause and now a documentary coming out july tenth gives us an intimate look at his life music and activism check out the sneak peak. of. the voice of. all around the world in the name brad your problem is i was someone

else simply because of the music and then there was no way to. thank you. thank. you so much. it. was nice. for us. to discuss more about his beliefs and his art moral technique himself joined me earlier today i asked him first of dumbing down of the music industry is meant to keep people disconnected from important world topics here's his response. there are a group of people who feel that the corporate system specifically targeted that sort of message and said no we want to turn this into an entertainment form you know an intense attainment you know if you don't like the idea that they did that with that then you're not going to like what they do with t.v. either the way they tell people oh you know what no honey you're too fat you're going to have to go throw up somewhere in order to be on television or you know

what bro you know we want to put this on you or you're going to play this sort of character everything you know it's turned into almost a caricature of itself not that everything is like that just saying that in the majority of mainstream things that you'll find is kind of built around that they found a cookie cutter the same way hollywood did you know hollywood got tired of doing original stuff so they said hey let's just remake all this stuff from the eighty's and then we're going to rape a bunch of cartoon series and make this come to life and you know the kid and everyone who's thirty or forty will go see it now now mind you they do this in a very very creative way sometimes and sometimes it's a flop so it's just hit and miss and i think that for me the way that was explained when i was a lot younger was that hip hop always had these two characteristics in the same way you know on a plantation people saying songs not because they felt happy of being there but because they imagine another life swing low sweet chariot coming want to carry me home to take me to another life and then there was a different slave that said no minutes plantation is we're going to get out of here

right now so in hip hop not everybody wants to hear misery and chaos and destruction sure we want to party we want to dance but there has to be a balance because we cannot become a caricature of ourselves people cannot be defined by one specific tiny thing that happens to be a piece of who they are you know and i think that marginalization was given free range by the industry rather than being curtailed and held to a higher standard. and talking about just corporations want to maximize their profits and that's really why we see a lot of the elephant let's talk a little bit about the other. builder group coming out this weekend and chantilly when you think of groups like this the trade commission all of these new world order a leader's establishment think tanks let's say do you think that there's a more sinister thing going on that there is this in the ferias group of people trying to control or dominate the globe or do you do is look at it like you just said and just say it's just a group of rich elitists trying to maximize company profits from all across the

spectrum 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 solis 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's disco most 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 them sees 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 they 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 food 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 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 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 does it for now.