tv [untitled] August 2, 2012 5:00pm-5:30pm EDT
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don't. don't go in their. turn to some reason it was the road to produce documents that he's been since the night is going to be the best he's going to be. speaking out for her son artie travels to ecuador to speak with julian assange and his mother she talks about his asylum case and why he founded the website wiki leaks the exclusive interview coming up. what's commonly use for war and mass destruction could soon be a helpful tool in citizen journalism and breaking news events well tell you about the plans being made to make drones a friend of the people instead of all the drones you could control from your smartphone. how can you go from one city to have so much money you know i mean in
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so many jobs available for people to listen i think. that's the question many people here in the u.s. are asking how can the world's leading superpower be so divided our t.v. shows you two sides of america where the haves and the have nots live in two entirely different worlds. it's thursday august second five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r t we begin this hour with an update on wiki leaks whistleblower julian a sancia sondra me and held up in the ecuadorian embassy in london awaiting ecuador's decision on his plea for political asylum his mother is now in the country to discuss her son's fate with president rafael correa artie's eva golinger caught up with us on his mother for an exclusive interview her first question to kristina songe how does she feel about the work her son has done. when he initially
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started wiki leaks told me that he was doing something to show. people in a repressive regime to be able to whistle so i was to this image of god to be as we get the truth out about some of the abuse that was happening in the country and for us that's what happened and his life was and in the way in which he was it would work but then when these documents came to be with you dick struck box on america things will change for some reason it was all right to begin documents that other countries voted in in the united states with barack is not the kind. so i have two reactions one is the mother of course i wish he'd never done and said nothing but as a citizen hadn't visited and when he lives is down to the intense fear is it the
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world that the pieces of the ground should the kidnapping story should move in. torture. and fraud involved in the big financial institutions of course this is my son do you think that your son's life is in danger absolutely. from the beginning. from the us from politicians and from. news coming out how. they were screaming at his murder in the most brutal way this interview no. thought up at all on how they were feeling and calling out for the goofus of murder inciting move against myself. and still in the last few weeks. there's been a fox who says his integrity because fox news whole paid fallon who was screaming
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at killing six a commission this is somebody who is not right in the war and has done nothing more than any good in this a good journalist would do which is to be interested in what his wife doing it was for wearing an air quite obviously advocating for your son are you here particularly to advocate for his political asylum request is. for any mr invited me so that i could speak to him about what i knew that the conditions in this trailer for example by the government has offended him can you talk a little bit about that yes well unfortunately for straight. we have a. prime minister who is really can only be described as at. puppets for the us who prove already is twenty seven percent of people are not happy with that war and from the beginning the prime minister. condemned my son. in the media sticking ahead of a case which is unheard of in
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a stranger to speak about a case and commits judgment upon a person pro-choice trial she jeopardized his right to due to the resumption of innocence by saying that what he did was. she actually pretty preceded the american government in their statements and. despite the fact that this trial in federal police. some two weeks later. after this decided that julian had broken no laws at all in a straight line and the u.s. treasury had refused to blacklist wiki leaks because they could find no crime that had been commuted this trial in prime minister julia gillard. continued to defy my son media do you think that the australian government would hand over to the united states if they had the part about have done so and so we know this is a great concern given that the united states has been labeling its own citizens as
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low level terrorists. so with that with america being within the top five countries executing their own citizens in the world and that actually is go ahead it seems like a seven. from what here to nine hundred eighty here. what do you think would happen to jury and if he were actually added to the united states well ahead of the first hand if emotional was lucky to have been a part of what they're doing to one of their own soldiers bradley manning. which the un report on torture says is cruel and inhumane treatment and it's very concerned i was not a pedophile. cambric capital city d.c. and one of the other speakers we try to include david hicks who'd been six she's the one who. president obama came into office with
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a promise to close guantanamo. but it hasn't been close to thirty to thirty two dollars with the four group dicks going to do as we speak. and i was. told we were . going to die and this is something that we could expect to lose. that was christine anis on to the mother of julian a son and you can see artie's entire exclusive interview online you can find it on our used to page at youtube dot com slash america. well we talk a lot here about drones in these scary implications of having the unmanned aircraft hover in our skies but could it be possible to use drones to enhance our freedom of speech well that's exactly what a company called rotary robotics wants to do here's what they have in mind they want to build these mini drones that weigh in at just one pound they're hoping reporters can fly these things over crowds to get a bird's eye view of what's going on on the grass this is
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a broader rotary robotics web site it says quote we are currently developing our first product a one hundred dollars surveillance aircraft designed to bring airborne imagery to the masses this aircraft functions as a flying point and shoot camera allowing any operator to gather aerial photos or video with no prior training in aircraft or r.c. planes the aircraft is preprogrammed or a map based application on your computer or smartphone but it's out more about these little jerome james tavor a one of the founders of rotary robotics james welcome so tell us more about the little drone that you have in the works. well our goal is to bring aerial photography to the masses we really want to create a product that changes people's perspective on drugs and in fact we don't really consider to be a drone we really considered to be flying on to a camera ok and how did you come up with this idea where did you see the need for something like this actually one of the inspirations for the concept was the
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russian protest of two thousand and eleven two thousand and twelve. the phone cameras have become really common in all these kind of events you see people snapping photos of all kinds of world events all over the all over the world but those phone photos really only bring you the ground perspective on these events and one of the things that happened during that protest is the obvious came out there with an anti plane with a camera on it and it took a photo from the air and it really transformed the way people view that event and that photo was circulated all around the world and that's kind of one of the inspiration or we really wanted to bring that capability to everyone is obviously that the tool that he was using was really expensive and he was a hobbyist of experience with it not something that everyone could use and we wanted to take that same capability and give it to everyone understand that this technology is pretty simple you can just get these parts at your local electronics store well you can but it takes
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a lot of skill to put it together that way we're really focused on creating an integrated product right out of the box anybody can use to take photos and literally something that will be any harder to use than your average point your camera that you know your average store all right and i guess my next question is where do you draw the line i mean they're kind of touting the benefits of having like this in terms of reporting but when does it switch from being useful to being invasive. well you know the same kind of privacy laws laws apply to drones as a plot of camera and cameras have been around for a long time and you know people come up with ways to deal with these problems you know on a drone is really a small zone like this is not any different from a legal perspective is a guy standing on a ladder with a telephoto lens or someone you know far away with a telephoto lens the same laws apply you can take a photo of someone that invade their privacy with a camera or with
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a drone ok the danger is there any any at all if they got into a hand of a a stalker you know maybe if you want to spy on your acts or something like presumably something like this and make it much easier to do that. well maybe every technology has you know good and bad uses. i think that there's a lot more positive impact that the negative i mean we see the same things on that or anything. i think this is something that really coming pretty quickly and it's going to be a part of our lives you know within the next decade small smaller will be all over the place all right you know if you're violent and we hear the word drone we think you know being used for surveillance or for law enforcement or in the wars abroad so. are you now trying to change maybe the image of a hero and then saying hey we can use these for for for useful purposes we
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definitely are we actually we don't even really like the word drone we will use it sparingly but people know we're talking about when we say we're really trying to create a camera i mean it's really we don't think that we want people to use just as a camera that just happened. you know people when people think of drugs they think of high expensive military technologies when you tell them that they might be able to have something smaller and convenient that they can buy one hundred dollars they usually come up with really great ideas for how they can use it in their everyday lives and they think that there's a high demand for a device like this we definitely do i think i think the applications really haven't even all been bought us we have a lot of patients that we were marketing it for i think farming is a big one farmers use it's a survey their crops are farmers already do this they're all farmers and really important i think with our device to be able to do but i think consumers will just latch onto it as a really neat for toggery technology and we spend
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a lot of time talking to people about the technology and telling them what we think they could you did for nearly every person we talked to comes up with some way they can use it in their lives which a lot of times we can think of you know people have a hobby or an outdoor activity they live and then they say well i have this you know i could take really cool for. those what i'm doing are you know enough to walk as far as i can see further when almost everyone thinks of new applications where they can use in everyday life and how far along are you guys and developing these drones well we've been. around and i have been working in the military and the space for a long time and we want to get out of there and really develop in the more people and more more applications so we've really been working on the technology for a while we're pretty familiar with how to put together but at this stage in our product really just developed a prototype and we've been showing it to people we've been showing it to businesses and really showing it around and trying to get people feel for what they feel to do
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with it and now we spoke to you for still in around six months or so and just a hundred bucks that's all it's going to cost initially it's going to be more than that our corporate goal is to really get it now it's one hundred dollars. like the barrier after a blue hundred dollars really is a price where anyone can buy it i think initially it'll probably filter around two hundred or three hundred dollars which is still pretty inexpensive but once we get the volumes of and the quantities up and people are really buying a lot of the one hundred dollars is definitely achievable all right james and at last i want to ask what is your vision for this for the little girl and i mean are you hoping that you know every household in america can you know soon get a whole the drone of their own that definitely we'd like to see everyone have one i think average american you know in america we probably own most people in two to five cameras for households we'd love to have an aerial camera be one of those cameras they have their s.l.r.
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camera they have a point and shoot they have their their two cameras and then they could have a fine camera all right i guess pretty soon we can all have a drone of our own to share how i feel about that but it sounds like a good business idea james thank you that was james tavern will one of the founders of rotary robotics. well still ahead on r t we take you want to trip to connecticut where an interstate highway is the dividing line between two vastly different lifestyles spotlight on the inequality playing out here in the u.s. next. hour. might be time. as a surprise is. what
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question morning. 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. we just put a picture of me when i was like no new years old on your shoulder true. i am a total get over friends that i would cry because he's like the tree. he
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was kind of yesterday. i'm very proud of the world with its place. well it's no secret that the income inequality gap is widening in the u.s. today and in some areas this reality is more glaring than others and the state of connecticut is one such example interstate ninety five was once the ribbon of hope for the promise of prosperity to highway one symbolized but it seems that has changed our correspondent on the stasi a church going to takes a look at the economic divide in the constitution state. calvin is the master barber at a hair salon dubbed the home of the six dollar cut. service is being cheap business is steady in this town america definitely definitely industries and jobs have faded
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a lot there used to be about five hundred factories in bridgeport in the thirty's today it's largely a wasteland abuzz with the booming factories and its peak years bridgeport is now a town filled with sites like this one abandoned lots and buildings that were once the work place of a prospering middle class these days there is simply no work to find here that unemployment rate is ridiculous i've been looking for a job for about two years and i haven't been able to find anything. it's hard this twenty three year old mother jobless and burdened by college debt keeps afloat by selling scrap metal that others throw out it's hard to drive around all day and find stuff on the side of the road gets tiring today taking her son along on the hunt brought her luck. joey and made sixty seven dollars and a few cents. for each board stands off the i ninety five highway in connecticut. i rode the ribbon of hope in the fifty's when industry flourished here. our drive
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from bridgeport. life is a ball in the picture perfect town of greenwich it's just a place that every by desire to live really it really is like getting your worries forgotten i think you know the crandell a crime of the financial world flock to this paradise where our wall street bedroom primarily i mean obviously we have lawyers and doctors and retailers but yeah a lot of wall street around here here restaurants overflow with clients with an extra buck to spend luxury cars are shiny and homes state of the art it's the most affluent time and in the united states it just it is it like not my fault but. well greenwich and bridgeport are still tied together by the same small strip of asphalt the i ninety five of today is a ribbon of inequality rather than a. reflection of the transition to me
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today. from opportunity to lifestyle to backdrop reality is increasingly contrast in the u.s. . well production and manufacturing the sources of the american dream have all but vanished i don't know what happened you know everything that they go by the. wall street continues to prosper increasingly hedge fund hubs like greenwich and industrial ghost towns like bridgeport will live side by side but worlds apart is this a church in a party connecticut. to talk more about this a ribbon of inequality robert johnson executive director of the institute for new economic thinking joins us now welcome robert so we just saw in that story there greenwich it's referred to as the hedge fund capital of the world home to plenty of wall street bankers and their salaries are often justified because people say you
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know they're part of the select few that can actually run these banks and what do you make of that we have to start with a confession i lived in greenwich connecticut for sixteen years you know for manager so i write for instead it all out of there i'm actually from not too far away from their tariff so i don't hold it against syria. well why would i say that with a past life or we don't no longer live there but. there is clearly a sense of unfairness america and financier's who are essentially repackaging companies and restructuring things making enormous was mostly money in many cases dismantling was companies and causing great harm to a great many people as there are a lot of say pushed out of one sector and forced to change their life or move to a different place is just it's just. it's an american story it's
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a very painful story that it's it doesn't feel like just as in the aftermath of the big. now in two thousand years i want to go over this this this this fact here it's kind of startling from one nine hundred seventy eight to two thousand and eleven c.e.o. compensation increased more than seven hundred twenty five percent and that's substantially greater than stock market growth. and worker compensation comparatively to other to other jobs i mean how does that happen i mean this it's completely not proportionate i mean how does that happen well first of all you have a broad array of stockholders and you have a board that's usually picked by the management the management pays themself or the board goes along and stockholders can stop and there's a collective action problem within corporate governance that allows people to essentially. the organization we see an awful lot of stock buybacks to support
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stock options we're not investing in r. and d. and we're not investing in retraining workers so there seems to be in the ethic no on corporate america. which allows the very top to take care of themselves to the detriment of everybody else now a lot of people blame wall street for the economic downturn some people blame congress and i know that you worked on the senate banking committee do you think legislators have a a strum a strong grasp of the economic issues. yes unfortunately you think they have too strong a grasp of the role of money in politics and so their judgment regarding social policy is often compromised by their desire to do fundraising for their reelection and i think this pervades not only wall street reform but health care reform questions of military procurement and everything else we have a broken congress in washington that's really what you might call the parker and
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groaning capitalism that it's it's quite discouraging for the american people and we saw today the effects of this we saw how devastating the economic downturn was for a lot of folks across the country now towns and cities are filing for bankruptcy the latest is in san bernardino california today i understand they filed officially for bankruptcy can we draw any connections here well once again the old and famous book the logic of collective action by many for olson said the common interests is often defeated by the concentrated interests so san bernardino california has many many people way underwater in their mortgages but they can't get a restructuring citibank can get a bail out wells fargo can get support goldman sachs will get support but a broader array of diffuse middle class americans are not being assisted and they're essentially not being assisted so that banks don't have to record their
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losses they can overstate the rings overstate their earnings means they can overstate their bonus pool and pay those executives you mentioned earlier in the segment. much of that the banks are getting the bailouts but you know the people aren't and i know we did a story not too long ago about the city of oakland and set a filing for bankruptcy they are now trying to fight back against goldman sachs and just refusing to pay them an interest rate that they think has been unfair i mean what are the alternatives can what what can what can people do. one of the very big difficulties is how concentrated the financial sector is the come two thousand and eight a lot of firms were on the cusp of the bankruptcy or do go back wrapped and were purchased in absorbed with the help of federal reserve loans by the very strong so it's tended to make it what you might call you and i have few fewer choices in the banking industry that we did a few years ago and they can extract a greater pound of flesh from each of us i think these banks are clearly too big to
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fail. too big in the realm of politics. and they can even which you might say back up against the wall a municipality like oakland i just wrote another bit in the los angeles times on tuesday about municipal finance and it's abuses and what we've often seen is politicians want to avoid tough decisions before elections so they make a derivatives contract to hide from the public what they're doing and pay fat fees to wall street which needs that municipal treasury down an awful lot of money for providing it disguised and now these municipalities are in dire straits and they need transparent financing and they need help for financing not predatory financing now rather we are seeing that the wealth divide it in the last graue it's no question that it that it has grown and we only expect that gap to widen
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while i really think. in the aftermath of occupy wall street. widening trends that have been going on for almost forty years in the united states or now which you might say commonly accepted knowledge i think the outrage is growing i think the politics of the united states is going to become potentially much more combustible meaning the potential for outrage in revolt chris hedges new book days of destruction days of revolves is about places like camden new jersey being pressed all the way really dismantled by financial engineering and wall street and how these people are starting to rebel and as i see more of that on the horizon i don't know what what what point do you think that that will happen i mean when what will it take for i mean you had mentioned that a lot of this is systematic you know that the government being cozy with wall street what will it take for real change to happen i mean we're seeing that the
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these protests spark but i mean when do we reach that threshold where real change can occur when you think well my sense is that we are headed towards a session after the election what they call a lame duck session where the congressmen of the senators either are the outgoing ones or the new or the existing ones do not fear the public for at least another two years and four years in the case for president and they will it by opinion put the screws to the population at that time and those cuts on the back of weakness on the back of unfairness on the back of rising health care costs will push a lot of people to a point of rage so i would say look next spring will have acted those cuts as phil for rebellion by the american right i guess are going to have to wait and find out robert thank you so much for coming on the show that was robert johnson executive director for the institute for new economic thinking and that's going.
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