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tv   Breaking the Set  RT  September 18, 2013 6:00pm-6:31pm EDT

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what's going on guys i'm having martin and this is breaking the set so remember the n.s.a. was spying on other countries and world leaders turns out the people in those countries don't take too kindly to having their privacy invaded and now one country is standing out to uncle peeping tom there's only president dilma rousseff just postpone a trip to d.c. and protest of u.s. surveillance and now the government is working on ways to circumvent the n.s.a. altogether one such plan would require internet service providers to set up local data storage centers protected under local privacy laws and brazil's postal service is taking it one step further by developing an encrypted e-mail service so here's to hoping other countries take a cue from brazil and stand up once and for all to america's global spying machine
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. the please please. please a little very hard to take a. look. at her had sex with that her great there are those. that believe. hard about you but when i think about monsanto the first thing that comes to mind
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is food safety and i mean number one after all i'm talking about a company that went from producing cancerous gems like d.d.t. p.c.b. as an agent orange do you not agree re-engineering a staggering portion of the food we hear in the us just to give you a sense of how monopolistic this industry has become consider that forty percent of the world's g.m. crops are grown in the us or monsanto alone controls eighty percent of the corn and ninety three percent of the soil corn and soy make up the base of almost every processed food item in this country and interestingly enough americans unique in its production and consumption of g.m.o. those every other industrialized country has either completely banned or at the very least labeled g.m. products why because these countries have recognized the risks associated with them most recently a french scientist concluded that g.m. corn leads to tumors in rats so with this knowledge why is the u.s.
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government giving monsanto a blessing of deregulation and not just the blessing. to sell their products but to sell them with a guarantee that consumers have no idea what they're actually eating so the answer is simple the government has no shame when it comes the revolving door policy between private industry and regulation it all started when george bush sr g.m. crops as substantially equivalent to non g.m. crops after that declaration is made the floodgates open to saturate the market with untested food products this policy continues today because of the dozens of us government employees that have a personal stake ensuring them on santo meets its bottom line take for example former democratic congressman toby moffett as connecticut lawmaker worked in congress three years before he became a lobbyist for monsanto. or think that's a conflict of interest how about the career history of margaret miller she originally worked as a researcher on bovine growth hormone or b g h for monsanto and now she publishes
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research papers on b g.h. for the f.d.a. and get this her research was backed by michael taylor the current deputy commissioner for policy at the f.d.a. this guy appeared in my eyes is the revolving door first taylor was a lawyer for one santo then he joined the f.d.a. as deputy commissioner for foods then he went back to monsanto and became its vice president for public policy yeah i'm sure as that day position help open that door don't worry is now back in the f.d.a. in the same cushy position as he was before the rubber stamping pro monsanto legislation and he's not alone take marcia hale and josh cain with left their jobs at the white house for a lobbying positions that monsanto meanwhile virginia weldon and lydia walked through to ditch their positions of the chemical giant for two job openings at sixteen hundred pennsylvania avenue i mean really you think that there was an underground tunnel between the white house and monsanto even the kings and queens
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in the highest court of the land. ties to the nega corporation clarence thomas used to be an attorney for the ag giant and now he sits as justice of the supreme court . do you know if there is one person you could think for an old mr roger beachy the cheese research from monsanto led to the world's first genetically modified crop so knowing all of this is it any wonder why congress snuck in extension to the monsanto protection act in the latest spending bill and this has been a revolving door alert of congressional sellouts and has always sponsored by monsanto. ready no nestle's making a looting canadian water in fact every year the company extracts two hundred sixty five million liters of water from the ground in hope british columbia and sells it
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back to the residents for a dollar ninety nine cents but nestle is getting away with it because the canadian province has no zero regulations on accessing its water this means that nestle can keep pillaging the land with absolutely no consequences and without making a dent and its twelve billion dollar annual profit margin understandably the six thousand b.c. residents who share a local water source with this giant multinational are concerned with the free for all and warn organization called the water wealth project is fighting back earlier i spoke to its campaign director sheila marks and first asked her how exactly did nestle come to extract water from the ground and hope completely for free here is her response. essentially it is simply because they are allowed to. break now the water laws in b.c. are set up so make it corporations like nestle are able to come in take groundwater
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not have to report it to anybody but i mean i guess more specifically with nestle they did they bought what was a family owned bottled water company that was set out in b.c. . in the ninety's and essentially nestle bought it in two thousand. where then they changed the operation from what was a nine to five quite a small scale operation to now a twenty four seven around the clock operation where they are obstructing groundwater. i just find it hard to believe that it's really is like the wild wild west out there that there's absolutely no regulation at all from these giant multinationals to extract water from the ground i mean can any other corporation big and small to be exact same thing there and what about residents. exact same thing residents corp the like it's a glaring failure. in the water a lot of this province at this time where there's a complete absence of groundwater regulations. and so yeah it's that simple it's simple you go in you drill
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a well wells and you're able to access the groundwater for free you don't have to do any sort of mandatory reporting or reveal how much water you're extracting there's no oversight in terms of the long term impact that it might have to be draining groundwater in large amounts it's really again a glaring failure of water law in this province and something that i think is one of the really we're one of the last years fictions in north america to have not you know come into the twenty first century and to see any sort of regulation of the groundwater unbelievable nestle's defended its actions on its website by claiming that they're the largest employer in the area providing jobs for seventy five hope residents what's your response to that. you know it is true you know it's a small community up there folks are quite reliant on on on the industry for jobs you know that said if there was if there were you know mechanisms in place where
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local residents could be involved in making decisions about what type of industries could could could function in their communities and access their groundwater you know there's a potential that other or other industries or organizations sprout up. and i think the other the other piece to it is that it although nestle definitely is offering these jobs you know there's other. so there. i think elements that are necessary for a company like nestle to undertake before they could call themselves a good corporate citizen you know a major one is understanding the territory that they're working on and it is unseated fellow territory which means that there aren't treaties in place that really allow for the natural resources to be extracted at this at this rate and so for nestle to come in you know if they were to claim to be a good corporate citizen they should have prioritized engaging with the chihuahua nation the union bar first nation whose territory they're on to make sure that
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their operation is not violating their rights and their needs said i just want to repeat seventy five jobs i mean that's that's how they're justifying everything they're doing there is providing seventy five jobs is really a drop in the bucket when you look at the bigger picture here you mentioned the local community here how do you think nestle's footprint is inversely impacting the local population. there's also issues with with the extraction of the water how it does impact on other residents who are tapping into that aqua for their own residential use in terms of you know the water pressure that's available to them again though this is something that we don't have adequate science or monitoring underway to pinpoint if this is a consequence of nestle's operation or not because of the overarching failure of the provincial government to really prioritize regulation of how groundwater use.
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as an activist i just wanted a few a personal question do you think water is a human right and how does a personally make you feel that peter brady back the former c.e.o. nestle chairman said you know water in this way is an extreme view. so bizarre and quite delusional really but and yes the idea that there is not a human right is. the. reasonable radical perspective i mean given the fact that our bodies are more than seventy five percent made of water you know that really we couldn't go we could we could go barely hours maybe days without water to really survive when people start talking about water that water not as a human rights you know that it is something that could essentially be withheld from people. particularly based on the ability to pay framework so that's
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a that's a major problem must be nice to be printed or break back and never have to worry about having water to survive i can't say the same for millions and millions about billions of people around the world let's talk about solutions here right now are there any signs that the governments planning to take action and start regulating nestle. they're they're out there are i mean that said we've seen these signs before so it's definitely something where there needs to be some with standing pressure but it has been it's about. i mean nearly six seven years that we've seen such strong remarks coming from our environment minister stating the need to reform the water act knowledge ing that this is a problem that there's no regulation of groundwater withdrawals. said we'll see where it go i mean what what we need what we would like to see at the water well project is that those reforms take place in a good way that acknowledges aboriginal rights and titles that allows for more
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local control over these decisions you know so that nestle can't just come in and apply for a license that's going to impact the community like hope but how that decision made in a place like victoria or ottawa centrally right now we're working with legislation that was crafted in one thousand nine hundred centuries old. and. and it just hasn't been a priority for this government to respond to it or to reform it and respond. sponsor the needs of people nowadays was there not to mention an important point which is that it's not just about getting them to pay for the extraction of water it's really about shifting over the control to local bodies and really really taking reclaiming this food stuff as peter brady quinn to call it a how can we make that happen how can people in the united states all around the world really help stop nestle from taking over the planet's water supply we've got thirty seconds. he. i would say one you know of course don't buy the stuff to you
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know keep keep maintaining visibility in the in the in the in opposition to the right like that that we just can't we can't we can't we can't be bullied or intimidated or think that it's not worth it to fight back and make sure that you know that we're making these clear demand that water needs to be protected as a human right that companies like nestle aren't able to access that intake and throw it in bottles and sell it back to you know make sure that that doesn't become a norm you know push back on that normal household and so what is that right thank you so much executive director of the water wealth project really appreciate everything you're doing a no problem should wal-mart be required to pay a living wage to its workers here in the district that contract question has been causing conflict here in d.c. and will find out why next with making the us.
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i would rather i asked questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on our t.v. question for. the suspect. i would like to do if you did you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy schreck albus. role. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and i was proud cynical we've been hijacked right handful of transnational crime. they will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once
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told just mark it on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying. rational debate and real discussion critical issues these. are ready to join the movement and welcome to. washington d.c. is one of the last major cities in the u.s. without a wal-mart and the largest retailer in the world announced the opening of six stores in the district the d.c. council passed a living wage bill this bill would have required wal-mart to pay its employees a minimum wage of twelve dollars and fifty cents per hour while d.c. mayor vincent gray called the bill a jobs killer and vetoed that measure and just yesterday the d.c.
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council fell just two shorts votes short of overriding that veto paving the way for wal-mart to begin to take over of the nation's capital so to discuss how the lack of a living wage bill will stack dc's working class and why wal-mart should change its slogan to everyday low wages i'm joined by nikki lewis executive director of d.c. jobs but just thank you so much for coming on and again you for having me and so what now you know it's vetoed the mayor viewed videos they voted you know they voted to not over the video are there any other middle avenues that we can take to make sure that wal-mart does not set up shop here in the district while. i don't think it's that we don't want them to set up shop i personally as a resident i think that six is too many in a twenty mile radius city but we do want economic development in our city but we want it so that it benefits. the residents the people who are unemployed as well as the underemployed residents who are. really struggling so.
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while the bill didn't pass it wouldn't just have been about wal-mart it would have also affected other billion dollar corporations. here in the district already but since they're building six you know the big to do but at this point now. i think we're going to keep advocating we're going to keep telling our city council that d.c. residents deserve better and in fact this whole multi-year you know push this movement in the city to hold wal-mart accountable has led to several council members introducing a citywide minimum wage hike. which they had never introduced before. so. we have to figure out what the best steps are to move forward at this
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point. it's question is how why do you think it is that several supposedly progressive members of the council did not vote to override that veto because really it was their chance yeah it really was their chance well. council member chase said that she just didn't think it was a good piece of legislation i guess the way that it was written and she had some technical problems with it. tommy wells who. who we generally think is very progressive you know he supports paid sick days but he didn't vote for this because he said that. number one our returning population returning citizen populations need access to low wage jobs and also that. people in his ward specifically in ward six need. access
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to cheap affordable goods at a walking distance so. the thing that is disappointing about those reasons though is that again we all want economic development in our city but we just want it at a price that the rez the workers that work there can also benefit course that's always the argument ok our economic development it's a jobs killer but really i mean let's talk realistically about the living wage which is astronomically high i mean according to mit living wage calculator thirteen dollars sixty eight cents an hour to live in the district mickeys so i just don't understand this disconnect here yes of course we want jobs of course but i cannot really it's expensive. but it's really expensive i know i pay rent here and i've been up and down as a as a low wage worker myself trying to struggle and make it here. and the thing is just so disappointing is that thirteen twenty five or twelve fifty something in the
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twelve to fifteen dollars range is doable for a billion dollar corporations like wal-mart and in fact when you hey your workers a living wage it builds loyalty in them they want to sell the brand more there they take pride in their job. you know when they don't when you see how big your company is growing but how you're not profiting from it. you know you don't have pride in your job and dissent starts to happen amongst employees you know there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of wal-mart workers across the country who are starting to organize themselves are all over our wal-mart associates because they're tired of being underemployed given part time hours not given access to any kind of medical benefits or job security or a living wage. and so we see that trend across the country and that's why we are
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fighting so hard to make sure that companies that can pay do it is beautiful to see workers not only there in the fast food industry as well and i want to kind of debunk these myths that we hear a lot you know what will drive up the cost of consumer goods out wal-mart if they do pay a living wage i just wanted to really quickly wal-mart since this is a claim it would drive a consumer cost but according to a study by u.c. berkeley if wal-mart paid its workers twelve dollars an hour it would cost the average shopper almost fifty cents per trip i mean just that and i think that a lot of people would agree about this morning absolutely why you know what is their argument when they're faced with these facts i guess that they just kind of not address them and it's really the same argument that has existed since the one nine hundred thirty s. since eighteen seventy's you know any time you give your workers a little bit more it's going to kill jobs going to kill jobs and so in this situation. before the jobs even started or before wal-mart had
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a chance to make profits they're like well we're just going to not build three of the six stores here because so they're killing the jobs and four they even get here there's plenty of residents that needs jobs here and in fact mayor gray just there's a thousand new people moving into the district every month like there's there's people here. that want to shop they just talk about the health care we're also subsidizing for wal-mart workers. care and food stamps is while i can't say the exact statistics what it is but i just read somewhere on twitter earlier today that some percentage of wal-mart employees actually are on public benefits i think what i just read is that one superstore one wal-mart superstore we taxpayers pay almost a million dollars one hundred thousand dollars to subsidize i mean that's that's them. you know i mean that's just an astounding figure so really you have to look at you know the cost benefit analysis here to talk about this race to the bottom
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approach to business in general i mean why is it so destructive. it's just struck just because. like wal-mart has been such a profitable model in our economy that other businesses are looking in saying walk in and do what they're doing is well so it becomes kind of like the standard you know and over the last several years you see this proliferation of low wage jobs in the retail industry as well as the restaurant industry and. i think that we can do better because they're so profitable there's no and i want to debate about thirty seconds left but what can people do to help make sure that wal-mart really holds off accountable and pays workers a living wage i think that every time they go in and shop at a wal-mart they should tell the manager like i want to be a patron here but i want to know that the workers are treated good and i'll stop shopping here until i know that you improves quality for workers and you have any
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websites or organization that you can get involved in or go to or are they can check out our walmart dot org as well as d.c. jobs and justice dot org and. i think you have c w dot org as well all have information thank you so much nikki lewis executive director of peace and justice you are driving me going to. school with a choice she just was going to tell you. guys over the years we've seen what the true nature of so-called free trade agreements have been effects of which created the leading job market for the american middle class x x pointed of working conditions for foreign workers but over the last few
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years a new kind of trade deals been in the works it's called the transpacific partnership where the t.t.p. and its unprecedented series of negotiations not led by world leaders but by multinational corporations yes big banks global telecom companies pharmaceuticals and fossil fuel giants are all stand to benefit immensely from the passing of this deal only to add to this troubling scenario is that negotiations are being conducted and total secrecy not only are the american people up in the dark but members of congress are too to make matters worse as public attention is finally starting to shine a light at this shady dealings it seems that now these same multinational groups are looking for a way to fast track the t.t.p. go shaders have launched a campaign to force u.s. lawmakers into an up or down vote without having a chance to even review the content of this international agreement. we can not let this happen fast track in the t.p.t. this conniving trade deal goes against basic democratic principles this friday
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september twentieth leading t.p. negotiators will be right here in washington for another round of secret meetings so if you're in the area come join the rally outside the office of the u.s. trade representative and also. your congressmen and senators the phone calls and e-mails and tell them no vote no on the t.p. if you fastrack and the t.p. in general is a call to action guys time to bring the t.p. out of the shadows into the light.
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i would rather ask questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on r.t.e. question or. admission free accreditation free. for charges free. range human free.
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free. free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects and free media. dot com. summer is coming to an end to the crew of the. is waiting for the. station to pack up for winter everything has to be done quickly if the wind gets any stronger. be able to take off and there's no other way of getting people onto the ship from the station they need to hurry winter begins tomorrow.
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used to be. stationed. now it only works during the summer. in the southern hemisphere summer starts in december and ends in much. so seasonal operations are over. in the summer a loaded into containers. from the station and windows are boarded up and filled with. given even the slightest chance to sneak in it will be impossible to get out. to be shut down no one can survive without heat.

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