tonight on our t.v. are starving for attention some u.s. postal workers are going on a hunger strike to send a message to the government as one location after another closes our team asks well what in america be like without the postal service. plus the days of block cell phones and clunky computers are long gone but why didn't the outdated cyber policies go along with them we'll ask our digital guru when will u.s. government regulations catch up with the times. and it's a mega-corporation americans trust with their food and farms but this is one company that's leaving a toxic legacy coming up an inside look at monsanto cd history.

it's tuesday june twenty sixth eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r t. o poster we're postal workers going on hunger strike on capitol hill and hopes they can save the dying agency congress has plans in the works to slash much of the funding to the agency and mass layoff workers but postal workers are pointing their fingers right back at congress for putting them in this predicament in the first place that's because back in two thousand and six congress passed a law requiring the u.s.p.s. to prefund health benefits for seventy five years here is the ad by america's postal employee. the postal service is critical to our economy delivering mail medicine and packages yet they're closing thousands of offices slashing services and want to lay off over one hundred thousand workers the postal service is

recording financial losses but not for reasons you might think the problem a burden no other agency or company beyers at two thousand and six law that drains five billion a year from post office revenues while the postal service is forced to overpay billions more in the third little accounts congress created this problem and congress can fix it. now workers are firing back to make sure they can continue to deliver our mail something they've been doing for centuries to talk more about this i was joined by chuck better treasurer for the american postal workers union here says take. in two thousand and six congress passed a bill called the postal accountability and enhanced with act one provision of the bill requires the postal service the only agency government or private anywhere in america to prefund future retirees health care benefits seventy five years into the future which burdens the u.s. postal service with a payment of five point five billion dollars per year and certainly that's

a lot of money and a big burden to bear why you single out the postal service the honest fact behind the scenes that we need to make the american public aware of is their interests corporate interests who are trying to privatized the postal service by passing this provision in the law in two thousand and six their intent and their sole intent was to drain the postal service financially to its breaking point which they have succeeded in doing but we need the public to fight back and ask that that law be repealed and so who exactly would stand to benefit from privatizing the postal service corporate america and we believe specifically congressman darrell issa who is the author of the bill that would destroy the postal service h r twenty three zero nine speaking of congressman darrell issa we kind of have ish chart here to show how to follow the money we have this list of that the top twenty campaign contributors to representative and said this is between two thousand and nine and two thousand and ten and if you look over at number eighteen when you know it fed

ex corporations they donate donated over ten thousand dollars to his cause and more recently fed ex kicked in twenty five hundred dollars in support for him so i guess representative as to be fair he also did get some funding from the post office however their representatives now say they will not receive another dime so i mean it's pretty clear that if you follow the money that this could be could explain things oh sure and they're also billionaires behind congressman eyes as well trying to push this issue. ok and you know the options like with like we just mentioned u.p.s. and fed ex they presumably because they would be better by profits but only to deliver to places that are profitable so if this if a postal service was to be privatized i mean what does that mean for the average american you know you me who likes to send out postcards or letters in the mail

because we still do use the mail you just laugh at forty forty four cent stamp on it and then bam you get it delivered to wherever wherever you want anywhere and the u.s. i mean what would that mean for the way part of the way we still communicate right well more life or death situation being very frank here rural communities would suffer tremendously because senior citizens who live in rural communities if there was not a postal service delivering to them would not be able to get their medications at their door they would be forced to drive to the nearest post office forty or fifty miles away to pick up their medications now during severe weather conditions like a snowstorm that could cause a life or death situation for senior citizens and so what do you think about i guess maybe kind of taking a look at the other side of the argument the fact that these days a lot of people the way we communicate has changed and it was you know we text or we communicate via e-mail instantaneously and this has become

a main means of communication and because of that we don't use that mail to the same extent that we did back in the day so what do you make of that argument the fact that again the lower income americans will suffer because without a postal service they would not be able to send those bills the reason twenty five percent of americans one in four americans does not have any internet access whatsoever they rely upon the postal service to make their house payment and the credit card payments on time without postal service fed ex or u.p.s. would charge an outrageous amount to try to do that. and you could talk about more about because privatization seems to be what is behind the people that do stand to make money what that would mean and what would america look like if this was privatized or it becomes privatized sure what it would look like is a seventy five percent three fourths reduction in door to door mail delivery so where is used to be mail delivered to your house you again would have to drive

thirty or forty miles to your post office so three fourths of americans would be eliminated for mail home delivery and depending on where you are you would just be out of luck exactly the burden becomes up on you to spend your gas money your time picking up your mail that's something we as a postal service are doing for you right now and right now as i mentioned before you just pay forty four cents and write it pretty good deal pretty good deal there you can get it wherever you want in the u.s. what would the price difference be should it become privatized just give an example a package delivery a package the postal service would charge about ten dollars to send federal express or charge fifty two dollars. well so yeah dramatic dramatic increase in deference to have to watch what they mail than hot oh absolutely and around christmas time we're going we're talking medications a lot of mail order catalog business is being generated through the postal service that's right and a lot of people that's a way that people commune advertise that it's by direct door to door in your

mailbox still serves a function what you say and also a business function like you pointed out the postal service is the cornerstone of a one trillion dollar industry and manufacturers advertisers different people like that so closing the postal service would have a ripple effect into other businesses that rely on the postal service and you know one thing that critics say he hear from a lot of republicans i represented if i say that things are more efficient when they're privatized people say you know the long lines at the post office a lot of bureaucracy. that when things are privatized there it tends to be more competition and therefore it's a more efficient system what do you what do you think about that my campaign slogan on that is don't buy the lie because it's not true but the one area where you could consider to be true is the prison system and unfortunately colorado we've seen that

have a devastating effect on our citizens by having a more efficient prison system and a more efficient court system there are no overcapacity so that's one area where it's bad because again that's a profit driven motive behind that all right well now you are fighting back you and your fellow post postal workers are fighting back to try to prevent this from happening and tell us about what you're doing i see that you're wearing a shirt there we have these flyers out advertising a hunger strike to save the post office what exactly are you doing over there on capitol hill we're trying to draw a visual connection in the fact that we're starving but not having food in the same way that congress is starving the postal service by. not repealing the prefunding requirement congress's failure to repeal the prefunding requirement cost the postal service fifteen million dollars every day that they wait to take action that's why we're doing something dramatic by having a hunger strike to tell congress we can't afford to wait and as we as protesters

are starving every day you as congress are starving the postal service by failing to repeal the prefunding requirement and how long do you plan on going on strike for right now we're planning on until thursday that may be extended but unfortunately a lot of postal employees postal employees are going hungry all the time because of the cutback in hours because of consolidation of offices so they are starving be on this hunger strike and ultimately what would you like to achieve through this hunger strike through the hunger strike we would like to get congress to repeal the prefunding requirement of the pension health care benefits that's our main single goal as a matter of fact if they eliminated the prefunding requirement the postal service would not have to make any cuts would not have to go down to five day delivery and would not have to lay off a single person we've ran the numbers on it had the postal accountability act not passed in two thousand and six had that law not passed the postal service even in the worst recession in eighty years would have made a profit in twenty eleven of six hundred million dollars we are a viable organization we are adjusting to economic conditions and we do not need to

be shut down in any way well thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story and good luck to you thanks for your hunger strike out there stay hydrated yes sadly thank you so much that was chuck bader he is the treasurer for the american postal workers union well we all know the way we communicate has changed drastically off the recent years a couple decades ago only i've rare few had cell phones but of course these days are the days of smartphones that do all kinds of things and not only that people use social media e-mail instant messaging texting all kinds of ways to communicate companies understand this and are taking full advantage of it here's the headline. out of the wall street journal it reads quote on orbit's mac users steered to pricier hotels. that's right if you have a fancier computer you have it there assuming you have more cash to book fancier hotels and they know how to target you so companies get it but our communication

laws seem to be stuck in the early one nine hundred and some argue they're holding us back in this rapidly changing world earlier our producer andrew blake and i took a trip down technology memory lane take a look. i kind of have a couple props here to illustrate how the times are a changing this is like an old it's a clunky kind of plastic that's. a very i don't know nineteen eighties but and then zack morris the first cell phone talking about the health of let's bring up the want to act morrissey is very as one of the he called gosling made cell phone cool yeah and then they got smaller and we have this thing it kind of flips but you know like this is outdated by now more or less about a little and i think i will determine i mean i know it's funny that you bring it all up because we both have these pieces of crap that we're probably going to like

five or six so we have well you know what you did this has so much more power and memory abilities i can do my job i can promise to destroy you with this phone pretty much but the rules that govern what i can do with this phone the same phone that i can use to drive my car with the g p s and check my e-mail and watch pornography all that fun stuff that all those photos yeah and more and those same laws that govern that there are the same ones that you use on this piece of crap or this one here and i gotta say that orbitz thing from the journal. death wise because. yeah i can't i don't buy the marks on the ones that i have this fancy computer right here so you know what if i know they were talking about booking hotels that you know how if you are on a fancier computer if i'm on a fancy computer i will go with the cheapest ones so. they obviously did the research and target every you know i'm probably just the outlier here but that's not what's important what's important is that the rules that we have today. that

guard what we do with computers how we use computers what these papers do over wires over you know lawyers everything they do these are the same laws more or less that we've had on the books and since this is what was relevant. i don't even when that was the electronic communications protection act was passed in one thousand nine hundred eighty six under reagan and we still have that today and under that law the government can go ahead and ask for communication that you've done on something like this or something like this either one and there you can have all lot of leeway here and i'm not necessarily saying and i doubt think a lot of people say that we need more regulations on the internet and communication however i think it's imperative that at some point or another the government starts to catch up and congress starts passing legislation that is more appropriate with what we can do today with computers because this this. garbage. is garbage and i

don't need a crate with a last table. every headscarf. that's this calm down and the two hundred seventy basis anyway is not much that would go for whatever we'll find out later after show so you know people are worried right now that things like the cyber intelligence cyber intelligence something or other cyber intelligence protection act. whatever ok people are worried that thing's going to pass and government going to be able to go into these third party corporations are going to be able to steal your information they're going to look at it and really do whatever they want with it and we've had a couple people on our key in the past to talk about things like the electronic communications protection act from eighty six under reagan and what you can do with that is that the government can say to these third party people take it your communications they can say hey we think there's a reason that we need this and they don't need a subpoena they don't need a warrant they just have to write something to a magistrate judge and they have to say. we need this we need this form of

communication and this applies to what you do over the computer what you do over the phone you know they've done a couple provisions over the last couple of decades but not a lot so. while there's not a lot of regulations the same begging this is what the government can use to pretty much do whatever they want right now you know there aren't a lot of regulations which is trying to good keep the internet open to us from being able to you know search for pornography wall so using the g.p.s. while driving a car while texting my mom now that i've done all three of the things in the same time however because of that magnets they can also go in there and say oh well you know the law kind of might apply to that in light of the boy has the money to play that one and the people that are making these laws congress specialists and congressmen who have been in terms for generations and generations are quite sure how these things have advanced they need to have new people go in they're going to capitol hill and explain to them oh. these are the laws that we need to meet those

are to lead producer andrew blake. but we have an update tonight on a story we've been we've been covering for months it appears senate leaders have reached a deal to keep student loan interest rates from doubling next week interest rates would have jumped to six point eight percent student debt loan in the u.s. now tops a whopping one trillion dollars senate majority leader harry reid and senate minority leader mitch mcconnell say the deal should be able to pass in the house. as we all know the house and senate rarely agree on anything here in washington that's why we have gridlock in the city so does it appear lawmakers are actually doing their jobs and working together to stop the interest rate hikes before july first well only time will tell but they better hurry student loan interest rates go up in just five days we'll continue to follow this story and keep you updated in the days to come. all agricultural giant monsanto is best known for their

production of pesticides and genetically modified foods but they have a controversial history as a chemical company with a slew of toxic coverups artie's abby martin brings us more on there's cd practices and what they're up to now. together we can face the challenges of the next generation. improving agriculture improving lives the motto of the world's largest producer of pesticides and genetically modified seeds here monsanto working with farmers and partners worldwide. realize a vision for sustainable agriculture a vision not sustained by all thousands of vietnamese still suffer from the effects of agent orange the deadly monsanto chemical sprayed by the u.s. during the vietnam war and the town of anniston alabama still poisoned with toxic chemicals contamination covered up by monsanto for over forty years court documents

showed their response when they when the executives learned that they were quietly poisoning the people of anniston alabama with their p.c.b. factories they said we can't afford to lose one dollar of business today their most recognized for their growing monopoly over genetically modified seeds they patent seeds that many argue do more harm than good to have a clear answer are devastating biodiversity inside human health and to our chances of producing food into the future currently seventy percent of food in the u.s. contains inadequate modified ingredients that consumers have no way of telling as there is no labeling requirement and one poll that ninety five percent of americans support mandatory labeling so states are taking their own initiative like vermont despite passing out of the house a cultural committee by a vote of nine to one the bill didn't make it any further because of the fear of a lawsuit from this huge multinational corporation

a reasonable fear one hundred forty four small farmers who say monsanto's g.m. seeds blew into their farms and cross pollinated have already been sued for patent infringement it's a disease that's been affecting many of the commercial pollinators. effect the population of the bees and in fact about a third of the bees die every year due to colony collapse the latest buzz about money. sandow is that they're genetically engineered crops and herbicides could be a factor in the decimation of the honeybee colonies. in poland fifteen hundred beekeepers recently demonstrated against monsanto's mon eight ten corn deposit in thousands of dead bees at the ministry of agriculture in europe they're against g.m.o. because they know about it in the u.s. smith says it's been a carefully controlled media control and another coup according to critics monsanto bought b. research firm the logic's last year has also passed and as the ones investigating colony collapse disorder explaining what happened and certainly we want to be

a logic and vested gating the connection between g.m. and colony collapse disorder monsanto claims is the responsibility of the f.d.a. to assess g.m.o. risks but the revolving door between the corporation and government could be distorting the facts the person in charge of policy. who made the policy. as he was monsanto's former attorney later months not just vice president and back if you next year's u.s. food safety zone are hardly reassuring for americans concerned about the safety of their food. abby martin r.t. washington. and abby joined us earlier today to talk more monsanto and g.m.o. foods i first asked her about monsanto is history of scandals here's her take. yeah there so much scandal it's hard to put it all in one package but going back to aspartame it's an artificial sweetener that's two hundred times we were the sugar first owned by cyril who the c.e.o.

was donald rumsfeld at the time and then when he joined reagan's cabinet they passed through aspartame when the national association of soft drink association said we do not want this passed all the tests that cyril have presented to us are full of holes shoddy at best so that was passed through santa later acquired cyril and then you see the f.d.a. commissioner who was appointed during that time that passed aspartame later joined the public relations firm for monsanto and cyril so there's just a revolving door that goes back decades with these companies also d.d.t. it was a pesticide that was produced by monsanto that was banned in one thousand nine hundred eighty two and since that ban we've seen a ten fold increase in bald eagles and osprey and also bovine growth hormone and other another interesting thing that monsanto has tried to put a lockdown on the labeling of bone growth hormone and we saw two reporters from fox

news who tried to put the story out and monsanto directly put the black hand of censorship over them and said you know you can't air this and when they decided to go out with the story they were subsequently fired so there is a long saloon scandal that didn't even fit into the story today that's just a small portion of you know what monsanto and you had mentioned there are a lot of the chemicals a lot of the additives in these foods ultimately how is that affecting our health care in the last. yeah i mean unfortunately you don't see a lot of independent studies done in the us because of a lack of funding and monsanto has threatened a lot of independent scientists with cutting their funding so you see a lot of studies done outside of the us jeffrey smith an excellent research about this but it's shown in animal studies cancer birth defects hormone. qualities just so much a slew of things that are just found with genetically modified foods unfortunately it's hard to test because we're all like sitting guinea pigs in our generation

since we don't know what's caused by what so we're all modified foods and over seventy percent of all the foods in our supermarkets a lot of people say will you know i'm not eating g m o's because they don't know but the base of all foods in supermarkets is corn and soy the majority of them in all processed food so it is hard to tell you know where these health effects are coming from diabetes and and that's i think because in other countries they require labeling several other countries require labeling of g.m.o. foods and here in the u.s. americans like to know if the foods where you're eating are g.m.o. contain g.m.o. products why don't we have that labeling. well unlike other countries we have deemed g.m.o. foods to be substantially equivalent bush sr passed this through in one thousand nine hundred two with the f.d.a. and what it says is that g.m.o.

foods are substantially equivalent to non g.m.o. foods so they're pretty much equal and that's completely different than any other country really and you know. there's well they're both a parent way according to the f.d.a. there's no proof and like other you know unlike other countries the u.s. does not require their own independent tests of verify whether these foods are safe or not what they do is have these firms and agricultural giants conduct their own research and tests and when the f.d.a. passed this is the equivalent there was internal documents released later from f.d.a. scientists that said hey this isn't true and we completely disagree with this but it's kind of been swept under the rug like i said there's a revolving door between this corporation and the government all the way back to the acquisition of cyril and also michael taylor who was working for monsanto's the vice president is now the food safety czar in obama's cabinet and it seems like

there's a lot of between businesses and congressmen in this revolving door ultimately if it's not benefiting and not in the best interest of americans how is this all able to happen. through lobbying i mean really the corporation has so much control over the research and over the facts in this country and we just saw vermont try to take initiative to form their own label in the law and they didn't pass through because they were scared of a lawsuit from one santa i mean monsanto is gone after one hundred forty four small farmers because their crops have cross pollinated and just their whole business practice with their seeds they genetically they have patents on their genetically modified seeds and if these genetically modified seeds cross pollinate which crops do out in open fields i mean these aren't contained in domes of course you know polling is going to spread in other fields and when it does they can go over to

these farmers land and say you need to destroy not only this harvest but all of your past harvest seeds and for small farmers i mean this is their whole family this is their whole life the good are these seeds that have been you know part of their generations so their seed tactics are completely horrendous according to these farmers the the lawsuits the threats i mean and there's this huge corporation how could how could people possibly stand up to them and when the government really isn't doing anything and when you see the revolving door it's just really hard to face up to this you know go why it and are our farmers fighting back yes they are last year we saw two hundred fifty thousand small farmers which is a lot try to counter lawsuit do a kind of lawsuit against one santa unfortunately a district judge dropped the case but in brazil five million brazilian farmers are suing monsanto which is and a huge number and month sandow has so many mana crops of soy and corner across the

world and we see a lot of countries either banning santo outright or requiring labeling because they are more taking a preventative action instead of saying you know we're going to wait and see after these generations. like america's doing where they're saying you know there's no proof they're going to take in preemptive measures and saying there is enough proof and we're going to give the consumers the choice and i really think that that's the real issue here is that it's not even about the health effects it's about giving consumers the choice to eat g.m.o. foods or not and that's the choice that we don't have right now and so you know and you had mentioned a large huge percentage of the food that if you go to the grocery store that is on our shelves do contain g.m.o. is i mean as a consumer what kind of what can one do to kind of take control of what they're putting into their bodies it's really hard because even some stores like whole foods who you know as mainly organic even they have not said that they're

completely organic it's very hard to tell now what is organic and what really isn't but mostly you know just supporting local farmers going to your farmer's market buying organic as much as you can there's a non gmo shopping guide and an app that i actually just download on my i phone where you can determine you know where to shop who to support what's really going on because it really is up to us it's up to the consumer because we really can't count on these regulatory bodies to determine whether or not these foods are safe when we see this kind of corruption inclusion going all right whether luckily there was a natural farmer's market over here in d.c. over the weekend i'm glad i was able to check that out for you we'll see more of those abbi thanks for staying on top of this really important story that was abby martin party correspondent. and that's going to do it for the news for tonight for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t. america there you can watch all of the interview this from today so click comment and forward the.