so listen you go you know sawyer again seen as a break in the set thank thousands of people mobilize for a massive rally on capitol hill and a lobbying day designed to urge congress to act now on comprehensive immigration reform all signs right now point to an agreement in the senate that could overhaul our immigration system provide a pathway to citizenship for the eleven million undocumented immigrants currently living in this country an agreement in congress today would mean the world to millions of people who call this country home and a renewed commitment to the values of a nation i was born on the shoulders of immigrants now is the time to break the said. i. so if you've been watching the corporate media this week you might have caught the latest international scandal developing breaking news story with grey's

implications that could be in violation of international law check out. they came under fire right now so many pictures of the superstar couple marking their fifth wedding anniversary and how monna now an investigation is being launched into whether they broke the law it was their fifth wedding anniversary they did not speak to reporters so we do not know why they chose to go to cuba and chances are they will never tell us a power couple took a trip to havana last week to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary but legally you can't just take a vacation to cuba at least you and i can't. yet cheezy and beyonce traveling to the beautiful caribbean island of cuba is apparently the most important news story happening in the country right now i have to hand it to our friends at fox news because as absurdly blown out proportion as the story already is fox always manages to take it one step. or take

a look. go to cuba who are notoriously racist towards blacks also want to know whose idea was this initially did they did it did anyone in the administration think that this would be a good idea they remember in south africa i mean there was a there was a cultural blackout and nobody would go to south africa because until they change their policy but if you but that is not the case there is no man to side as it should somebody tell jay z. what how che feels about black people should somebody contact him and tell him what the word chase has used about black people somebody should look great gutfeld clearly you're the one trying to say something about black people here so why do you just come out and say instead of projecting your veiled racism on che guevara because certainly you can be talking about che guevara who first of all isn't even cuban secondly was the farthest thing from a racist he was actually an internationalist who not only left his native country

of argentina to fight for the cuban revolution but also later left cuba to fight in the congo alongside an almost all black army against imperialist forces in fact his fight for revolution in africa inspired thousands of cubans to go to angola to fight against apartheid the same che who pushed for radical racial integration of cuban schools years before it happened here in the us so it's especially shocking that dana perino actually had the gall to compare cuba to self africa under apartheid and became no lastly to imply that jay z. went to cuba on behalf of the administration is out right absurd it's a bit of a stretch to assume that beyond says some dangerous liaison for the obama administration because she's trying to get some sun even if they were there on behalf of the white house who cares would it be a good thing to open relations with a country that's been under a strict us in bargo for the last fifty one years simply because it's socialist. oh

you know how this went with love for you to believe that cuba is some desolate racist tyrannically run hell hole but it's a country that both a ninety nine percent literacy rate and a health care system that's lauded as one of the best in the world but back to jay z's trip scandal for just a second to put your minds at ease over legalities concerns as it turns out the trip was completely lawful and pre-approved by the treasury department. i guess we can all get some sleep soundly now oh wait never mind we can't c.n.n. has a new development. breaking news actually outside of it have been a cuba where our patrick ottman is standing by patrick has been chasing down these leads that these these two children who allegedly were abducted by their parents. ended up on a sailboat and in cuba but up until now we have not had confirmation that they were completely confirmed to be in cuba breaking news guys two kids were abducted by

their own parents and taken to cuba wait this doesn't help kidnapping it all sounds like a family trip but seriously the parents have lost custody over drug charges and was actually cuban authorities who turned them in but the point remains it's no coincidence that amidst the sensationalized controversy there is yet another negative story painting cuba as some sort of safe haven for criminals you and i both know that that's what the media wants us to believe because you see it's easier for the corporate press to feed into our preconceived notions rather to challenge them to report speculation instead of reporting facts were controversy about a country people know little about takes precedent well the truth is further buried under mountains of propaganda and misinformation and it's all really a giant distraction from the issues americans should be tuning into because this country's got ninety nine problems but jay z.

and beyonce going to cuba ain't one. i. want to. achieve anything like. we're living in a time where deep philosophical thought is virtually absent from the media landscape which is what makes dr cornel west stand above the rest he's an activist professor and literary scholar who constantly engages people in deeper dialogue about issues like class race war and corporate greed earlier i spoke with dr west a professor of african-american studies at princeton university and co-author of the book the rich and the rest of us i first asked him about president obama's budget plan when it got social services and why austerity is being forced on the poorest corporations are reporting record profits and here's what he had to say.

that president obama but the democratic party for the most part as a whole is revealing its centrist and neo liberal quare. by that what i mean is a steal very much too big been this big money deal not putting poor people working people at the center and they've been holding back in regard to the details and we see now when it comes to the details or the low priority for poor and working people when it comes to democratic party budget and i can't help but ask you as someone who has some ideological roots in marxism what is your response of people who constantly try to label obama as a marxist socialist. it's a joke that you know when you talk about so it is like norman thomas kean jr the democratic so is that the end of his life you're really talking about people who are putting poor people working people that the center you get for right who called obama socialist has nothing to do with his neo liberal and centrist practices and he's so tied to all the darks and plutocrats on wall street and other high places

so that it's a joke it's. it's pathetic what damages it is a roni as labels do to the national discourse and why are they perpetuated. when they do show the low quality of public of a sage and that's one of the things i like about r.t.d. that you all involved in serious reflection you take time to give us time to say something clearly we're not engaged in that kind of office cation and of skewering of what is going on we're talking about just as we're talking about social misery talking about power at the top we're talking about humanity across the board. yeah i mean when you're watching the corporate media you just get these very tight packages over sensationalism driven garbage i like to call it when really this storable context the social context of these issues are of the utmost importance which is why i respect your work so much dr west you haven't called brock obama a quote rockefeller republican and blackface was unworthy of swearing in on dr

king's bible i mean in your experience alone is obama being an african-american a factor that deters people from criticizing him because inherently they're looking at him as a symbol of progress just for the sake of him being african-american but absolutely i mean one has been a shameful silence in the black community in terms of keeping alive the legacies of martin king and malcolm x. and fannie lou hamer which is telling the truth and bearing witness to justice beginning with black people but concerned about what goes on in the middle east palestine is just as valuable as israelis what's going on in one town i'm a big hundred sixty six person is eighty six and now ready to go but they refused to be released and there's no serious public conversation you all had the courage to release report that what's going on in so many different arenas what a corporate media remains hidden and concealed how many innocent children have really been killed by u.s. drones with bombs dropped on those precious persons let's just tell the truth tell the truth everywhere russia united states ethiopia wat amal. let's let's engage in

syria. highbrow journalism you know let's tell the truth and let the facts you know go where they lay and let people decide what they want to decide based on the facts available thousands dead with drones i mean obama's escalating drone warfare exponentially it's really astounding when you look at the visualization of this data dr west and i wanted to actually expand the conversation to racial inequality so staggering when you look at the prison industry alone in this country i mean it's alleged and i don't know if this is actually true i've heard both facts that there are more african-americans in prison today than were in slave torsionally in one thousand eight hundred fifty sorry in fact according to a pew research study and african-american male without a high school diploma is more likely to end up behind bars and get a job i mean why is it that the prison industry seems to be acting like the modern day slave trade. well we turn to michelle alexander the great book the new jim crow she wanted to be prophetic voices of our time the talks quite explicitly about the

war on drugs been a war of poor people especially black and brown poor people just like here in new york city stop and frisk five thousand stop and frisk cases since two thousand and two under mayor bloomberg is a low this is a mayor the president says of the terrific mayor but five million stop and frisk eighty seven percent black and brown only two percent of the criminal activity that's the kind of autocratic authoritarian sensibility we see expanding in the united states and we have to be honest about it we have to fight a fight against it we have to protect rights and liberties of everyone. now i feel like we see so far go to our facebook page at facebook dot com breaking the set and be sure to do what thousands of done already give us a like we have that in our site as daily there with links to past segments as well as reaching out to the audience for ideas on what you want to see covered in the show and also check out behind the scenes photos we take in our studios all in breaking the subtle move also check out photos from our facebook fans like this one from a chicago show away so i do our facebook page and check out all that and more right

now lead to break from my preaching but they turn to hear more of my interview with dr cornel west next. wealthy british style. expert on the right on. target. market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kaiser report.

time.

of america international and war in the very heart of moscow. where it is just as you just received anything like the. cut. welcome back to breaking the set without further ado here's the rest of my interview with dr cornel west. dr west i mean from oakland to d.c. hearing so much racist comments about how oakland has a lot of crime because it's predominately african-american i mean you're looking at things like stop and frisk obviously these institutionalized policies of racism of over polisi in african-american. areas of the cities i mean of course that's what's going to happen is you're going to have

a disproportionate representation of these minorities in prisons and it can't help but think reckon back again to martin luther king i mean last week was the forty fifth anniversary of his assassination and there are in this. i'm sure you're aware forty five years dr west and. people are i don't know whether it's something died in in all of this but think thirteen percent of black youth addicted to drugs thirty percent away due to dictate a drug sixty five percent of convictions in america are black if you want to deal with criminality you start on wall street look at insider trading market manipulation fraudulent accounting why is it not one executive of wall street firm has been investigator prosecuted many of them a dining in a white house but actually involved in an activity that is quite criminal and is not a matter of trashing wall street human beings are human beings let's have a fair rule of law and not capricious an arbitrary for the poor targeting the poor and allowing the well to do somehow get off as truthful wire tappers as truth with

torture then the bush administration while they walk around sipping tea when they violated the law analysts be up very honest but as you noted i've accused the president himself of being a war criminal in terms of the killer lists every tuesday and gazed at activities that result in the death of innocent civilians especially children those a war crimes are war crimes if they're committed by americans and russians ethiopians argentina and guatemalans africans these are. these are forms of activity that people ought to be accountable but dr west we live in a two tiered justice system where the war criminals are not prosecuted or even investigated and instead of war crimes whistleblowers the people who expose use of war crimes are imprisoned it's a completely agree just system and it's amazing that more people don't point this out as poor people are the ones suffering on the other end of it i mean i'm sure you're aware of even the civil case launched by the martin luther king family martin luther king jr family that implicated the u.s.

government in part for conspiracy for his assassination i mean why is it that ten years on this notion is so foreign to people still scoffed at as nothing more than a conspiracy theory when at the time subject to years of cointelpro surveillance death threats i mean this is coming this is if this were all declassified documents goes through a middle course if they had brought them on a civilian of the gentle way nine hundred fifty six to the day a day before the nine hundred sixty eight that was a u.s. government it was j.f.k. that was our if it was johnson all the way through but i think for example of the idea system of just markets that you know here's someone who called nelson mandela a terrorist called a n c a terrorist group here's somebody who said trade union is in england are the enemy with him they must be crushed yet what do we hear from the white house margaret that there was a great champion of freedom us a tale that allow i pray for a family i'm a christian but she was a tyrant when it came to black people of south africa she was

a tyrant when it came to working people in britain let's just tell the truth about ideas as to whether she's alive whether she did because these people are deified like reagan i mean he's hailed as this economic hear her just amazing and i mean in their death we should be telling the truth that's not sugarcoat what the legacy of these people are real thing is. when reagan talks about the repression of jews in russia for example we all now saying. he was right that's fine but when he engages in the marginalizing of black people and poor people in america somehow that's irrelevant we don't want to talk about it we only want to talk about the i'm a defender of freedom these communism or the soviet union would say no wait a minute let's be truthful across the board every person pressures whether they're russia united states in a way all dr westen you're asking people to be truthful across the board it forces them to face their own biases their own prejudice very difficult to do that and

let's talk about occupy wall street you were actually arrested at one instance you were a fervent supporter of it i mean occupy wall street you're looking at what happened brutally suppressed by militarized police federalized crackdowns across the border what do you tell people who are scared to protest because they're worried that they'll get arrested or just simply surveilled in the massive surveillance that exists today. when i was blessed to go to jail because i was willing to bear witness and deal with the consequences i would do it again but there's no doubt that the increasing repression is an attempt to create a culture not just of sides but a culture of fear especially for the younger generation to intimidate them to make sure they're so afraid that they're not willing to step out bear witness in public and have to deal with the consequences of of civil disobedience we just simply have to have more courage that would we're dealing now with a much more autocratic and authoritarian state and you have to be more courageous

you has to be more courageous to tell the truth you have to be more willing to deal with the cause and in the in some of the simply have to divide it so. yeah i mean the chilling effect is what they're counting on dr why didn't we can't let that when we cannot figure out when that's exactly right and of course occupy wall street rooted in anti corporatism a lot of people if you look at the form of capitalism are living under today and they say it's not true capitalism it's crony capitalism and capitalism is the only answer what's your response. i say one we have to acknowledge that the variety of different kinds of capitalism the there are vampire vulture capitalism that adjusts survival of the slick is indeed got sweden where you have a much more. softer capitalism where the poverty rate is two or three percent and the children see high quality education but i think generally speaking capitalism as a system. the quest for profits what it asymmetric relation of power between bosses

and workers it's very logic tied to profits with how our arc is that the workplace is very logic tends to lead for for the most part. wealth inequality that in the end is usually unjustified and so i tend to be a critic of capitalism across the board just like i'm a critic of imperialism white supremacy male supremacy as images of. a muslim sensibility and i'm very suspicious actually of various vogel forms of nationalism that tend to be chauvinist pig that think that somehow only human being within borders has value and those outside have no value with much less value but because we live in a moment in which capitalism is so ubiquitous it is so had to monic it is leading twar it its own internal collapse there's no doubt about that given the ecological catastrophe but we've still got a way to go and we still have to fight day in and day out even when the reforms are not enough the reforms do make

a difference because every individual ought to be viewed as being precious but i think in the end without a need for the middle transformation of the capital. and imperialist world yes i definitely think thinking of states as just nation states and not extending empathy across nation states is one of the biggest it turns toward world peace and i was also just global empathy and global consciousness but i mean capitalism and peerless and seem to go hand in hand where you have the global had your man now encroaching on the last remaining independent states that are bucking the world system and crushing them and and trying to destabilize them and it worries me because and what i want to get your opinion on is it is a system of conscious capitalism where the free markets harmonize with the planet instead of concentrating wealth in very narrowly is this attainable. well i mean we've got to believe that either it is over it's a regular old is worth fighting and dying for that might be of course that the

species as a whole just doesn't possess the moral and intellectual capacities to sustain itself on the globe given the levels of greed and envy and resentment but especially the power at the top that could be a possibility that takes us to our takes this is your back it takes us to checkoff it takes us to john coltrane and toni morrison and others but in the end we have to believe that we can make a difference and therefore capitalism ought to be not just criticised but we still ought to fight to fundamentally transform it but this is true for patriarchy this is true for homophobia is true for white supremacy is true for all of these various systems that lose sight of the humanity of other people and will die struggling for these causes dr west then. passed it on to the younger generation. oh. no you're right i mean we you know i wouldn't be doing what i'm doing you wouldn't be doing what you're doing if we didn't have faith that humanity could turn this around that we could really come up on top and win over this global

struggle and i wanted to actually mention a podcast that you just had with doctor. ron paul congressman ron paul which really does showcase how there's a lot that libertarians and leftists can agree on we can unite on a lot of things against the establishment instead of having such a fragmented opposition how can we focus more on this unification. what are going to be a number of different coalitions and coming together that will surprise people that brother ron paul and brother rand paul i come together with in terms of their defense of rights and liberties drones has been the focus of the thirteen hour filibuster brother rand paul thought it was wonderful i wish that he had talked about non americans as well as americans would at least the issue of receive a certain publicized invisibility when it comes to ron paul in the in the dialogue that we have come together with him and his powerful rejection of the patriotic act his powerful rejects in the national defense authorization act with the president

has the right to detain american citizens without due process without a trial without any judicial process whatsoever that's the signs of an authoritarian state of course the problem is my libertarian by the so this is they are very sensitive to highly concentrated forms of power when it comes to the government but they don't talk about the how the concentrated form of the power when it comes to corporations the big banks oligarchs and plutocrats seems to me we have to have with a great dane also to call constancy we have to have more consistency we ought to be critical of highly concentrated forms of power wherever we find it because that that kind of power is usually subject to chronic abuse and it affects each and every human being no matter where they are and and dr west knowing this i mean taking all of this into account i mean the corporate takeover of governments clearly more apparent than ever before any quality is greater than ever before what is the solution i guess is it's to keep fighting within the system that we have and

outside of the system that we have and kind of can join in the radical faction and the establishment faction and really try to make a difference i mean do you recommend. overhaul ideally. what i think we have to be jazz like then the dead. know you have to be flexible in fluid you have to fight on the outside bring pressure to bear did you had to fight with some progressive insiders have been sold as souls and been so thoroughly co-opted by position and wealth and put and power that they no longer want to tell the truth there's some bernie sanders and others on the inside who want to tell the truth about corporate power we need organizations movements on the outside bring in pressure to bear in the end we do need a fundamental transformation there's no there's no doubt about that but we've got a long way to go in that regard the first moment is one of those social. motions and then you've got social momentum going to generate social movements then we've got something absolutely i can't see lobbyist stopping driving on the hill anytime

soon and i definitely agree that we do need a fundamental transition and overhaul of the current system that we have dr cornel west activist author professor amazing to have you on thank you so much strong my this is continue to be a force for good thank you so much. i agree with dr west to be working through all avenues that are available to us right now inside and outside of the system so there's an impetus for a revolution of values and when that happens can we seize the opportunity to implant the fundamental changes needed to move this country and the world for a more equal sustainable and peaceful future.

conflict. has changed. a modern islamic nation. i had a peaceful world has failed islam is first of course was secular last second recession. and so was in place of films and. well old traditions still cannes and mondo cannot go on the catwalk in a swimsuit. just the republican contrasts on o.c. . do we speak your language i mean some of the well i know i've been. one news programs and documentaries and spanish more matters to you breaking news

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