global economy. hello people of earth i might be martin this is breaking the site well after

publicly opposing government surveillance last week internet search giant google has enjoyed a wave of good press before we all decide to instill our full faith and trust the benevolent and almighty google we might just want to use their search bar to google boston dynamics is it yesterday sergey brin the little company purchased boston dynamics an engineering firm with strong ties the military's defense advanced research projects agency or darpa so what is boston dynamics all about this terrifying and shah dropping robot such as big dog four legged robot that can climb hills or cheetah a robot that can run at twenty nine miles an hour and most lifelike that man humanoid robot that can move around like a human and detect chemical leaks so what the hell is one of the biggest internet companies in the world doing purchasing these spooky cyborgs all telling me in google's keeping tight lipped about its intentions but keep in mind the corporation has a newly created secretive robot division and it's the double on of the contracts that

boston and previously had with the u.s. military great so i guess the real question here is why should we trust a corporation that holds so much of our personal information to develop absurd war machines for ethical purposes after all we really want private companies and you know up with robots that can do this. i don't know if i'm ready for google to have a private army of ironmen and let's break this up. they'll cut you a little very hard to take the target. that he ever had sex with that hurt right there.

a. little. a little a. little. little a. little there's absolutely no doubt that there's a mental health epidemic in the u.s. military in fact in two thousand and twelve alone there was a shocking fifteen percent rise in the suicide rate from just the previous year but at least nowadays being neglected by the department of veterans affairs and being pumped full of pharmaceuticals doesn't compare to the insane method of treatment of veterans he used to receive for p.t.s.d. severin their brain stems yup last week the wall street journal published a stunning report about

a world war two era government program and valving mentally ill vets from the late one nine hundred forty s. to the early one nine hundred fifty s. v.a. doctors performed forced the bottom needs a nearly two thousand veterans who've been diagnosed as quote depressives psychotics and skits of products and occasionally on people identified as homosexuals and although this practice was known in small medical circles at the time the dark stain on america's past had been largely forgotten until now according to medical journals that documented these procedures these low bottom use were sometimes use when soldiers exhibited signs of what today would be called p.t.s.d. these brain operations would often give the veteran seizures amnesia motor function loss that reverted in by. small children and in some cases even lead to death but as disturbing as the concept of love bottom izing human beings against their will may be this revelation is only a microcosm of this country's gross history of an ethical human experimentation

take for example one of the most well known human research projects and cold just a few years at the v.a. performed these veterans the bottom means the cia began a program with the stated goal of influencing and controlling the mind the agency use unwitting u.s. and canadian test subjects to carry out mind control experiments using psychedelic drugs hypnosis sensory deprivation verbal and sexual abuse and torture these experiments took place in the course of two decades and involved the compliance of at least forty four different colleges and universities or we can point to the infamous to stevie experiment which involved the us public health service injecting deadly syphilis into role african-american men who thought that they were receiving free health care. believe a buoy this went on for forty years and wasn't stopped all the way up until nine hundred seventy three but it took up until one thousand nine hundred seven or for victims of this despicable cruelty to even receive an apology from their own government jump forward to

a couple decades of work and rational report issued by sen john rockefeller revealed the department defense had intentionally exposed test subjects to mustard and nerve gas radiation and psycho chemicals for at least thirty years. look the list goes on and on from operation paperclip to the intentional spraying of chemicals over communities unfortunately we don't ever learn about these things until much much later so the real question is what sort of human experimentation is going on right now we don't know about and if this is the way our government treats its own veterans what makes you think gives you. a second thought. if you've grown up watching t.v. like me and you already know the diner are forever and there are

a girl's best friend in fact to be hard pressed to find a female doesn't have diamonds doesn't wear diamonds or doesn't want diamonds but the giant diamond corporations advertising campaign is masking a horrific and deadly reality of how these diamonds are retrieved from the earth oftentimes the method of extraction leaves a child slavery mass armed conflict and even death and calm blood diamonds for nothin but what you're also not hearing is that diamonds are actually not rare at all in the whole would they be remotely expensive if it weren't for companies like beers that have a monopoly on mining because of this to beers is able to hoard at the rocks and create a completely artificial market the reality is that diamonds are valueless stones have been propagated in the global culture as a rare unless you're buying a certified non-conflict diamond it's almost impossible to know whether or not the worthless rock in your ring was brought to you at the cost of human life that's why the international community has an act of the kimberly process

a mechanism aimed at cutting the flow of blood diamonds earlier i was joined by alan martin director of research and partnership africa canada to discuss the current state of the diamond trade i first asked him how the kimberley process came about and if it's doing enough to curb the violence surrounding these gems. are. very valuable to the very small the very valuable and the very easy to move across borders and that means that they are. essentially the reason why you. became a bus today is because. ten years ago fifteen years ago we're. minding your trade. with a company. to be errors and mining centers and training centers and hoping to look even elsewhere they were quite happy to take your time and without asking many difficult questions. so if you think about the cost of funding a civil war for example you go to places where there's in the middle east or

whether it's asia or even. by maybe forty some four hundred bucks if you would if you're trading diamonds with a couple million that's that's that's one of the here forty seven by a lot of mayhem cause and what countries do you see conflict diamonds being produced the most and what makes these places more susceptible to complex funded by mineral extraction. well i think it's important to point out the onset about how. this change and how diamonds are related to that conflict ten years ago when the cape he was related to it was done as a response to civil wars not gold savimbi and also. the same phone and. these were rebel groups that were funding civil wars with the help of diamonds. ten years later if you're looking at. violence in the diamond zones you're more

likely to see either state actors or private security companies who are responsible for those those human rights abuses so one thing that is being calling out for the last several years is a broadening of what the conflict diamond definition is that the kimberly process night of nations considered to be a conflict diamond right now all the cells with our views was perpetrated by by rebel groups. certainly that is something that should be continued to be part of the definition but i think that it's. you know more responsible thing which to do would be charging to do. and respond to rights abuses by private security companies and and. if you're a force it's a good point i think that's something that people really take into account when they're looking at the conflicts diamonds are often called a resource curse can you talk about why despite the great economic promise of these resources they're usually turned and put into two different uses. so you see

this would develop a lot of minerals not just diamonds gold with example in all of the current bill perhaps the biggest the biggest been rushed out of there with the gold your so-called. things that essentially go into things like like reason and computers and digital cameras. and much anything technical technological rate no runs on i think gold chain tungsten to turn to that when those are all minerals that are in. place like clothes or see how our state bodies are corporations made to comply or held accountable if it is discovered that they're extracting and are selling conflict minerals aside from the kimberley process it is being very tough actually for example taken against. countries like brazil which a slope of africa going to is also being made to to bring itself into the plants there are concerns but if you are going to like venezuela which has one of oil or

symbolic way which is being. under k.p. review between two thousand and nine and two thousand and seven. the press the worst human rights abuses since the process started. in samoa was a case that they would have to fifteen to twenty percent of the world's. supply by production not by value but by production and that by as you've been. in the process it's a consensus based organization or initiative so i only need to do is find one friend to two to be on your side who start a consensus decision on something and bob's your uncle i won't wear diamonds but i know. a lot of people really love them and you know this christmas what advice can you give to people to buy a band and know that they're not getting a conflict diamond. question i think that a lot of times. the onus is as much on on the consumer as it is on the on the

jewelry company itself who you know the jewelry company has a responsibility to to ask questions and do due diligence on it was supplying it with the stones i think the committee process itself is no longer the. going to guarantee that i think most people most consumers have a right to it since it seems that us and you see the movie blood diamond so i think if you're a consumer certainly questions about where it's from and what kind of things that the jury company has done to to do due diligence thank you so much alan martin director of research partnerships africa canada. you very much. after the break you guys are talking off these are met at the guardian to break down the extent of corporate espionage among global activists stick around.

rostock rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want. think that's good. that 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 albus. role. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of

our government and our press civic we've been hijacked why handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once will just my job market it on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying the problem. rational debate real discussion critical issues facing. you know ready to join the movement then welcome to the big picture. of the that. and the post snowden age it's no surprise that governments extensively spine activists all around the world three never live in a corporatocracy it's not too much of a leap to assume that corporations are conducting their own surveillance on

activists communities see a new report by the center for corporate policy has not only confirm this but as exposed just how far reaching corporate infiltration of activist groups really is the report also outlines the private public partnership for matric intelligence agencies and state governments to provide legal protection for corporate c.e.o.'s to care and espionage while subverting the democratic process amazingly according to this report as many as one in four activists could be a corporate spy and what these spies do once they get on the inside is unconscionable dirty tricks and crude hacking tapping blackmail and even the undermining of legitimate research and fine. on behalf of their corporate paymasters now fears on that author of the crisis on civilization an investigative journalist for the guardian wrote about the recent report in an article titled the war on democracy he joined me earlier to break down the report and how corporate espionage ties into the potentially cataclysmic environmental crises we face today i first asked him to explain a program called in for guard. which is really interesting because in for god is

this partnership between the f.b.i. . the u.s. department of homeland security and a whole range of very large network of private companies many of. basically fortune five hundred companies it's something like i mean the figure in the report was twenty thousand but actually it's. an old figure it's more it's approaching thousands of your thirty thousand just under thirty thousand very very large corporations in partnership with the f.b.i. and this partnership basically involves them basically feeding information into the f.b.i. guiding them on what they want the f.b.i. to basically. get involved in in terms of espionage in terms of intelligence activity so it's no surprise. range of various leaked documents and other kinds of information that's come out over the last year or also shows that the f.b.i.

has been systematically spying. and systematically helping corporations is used to spy on. civil society groups occupy wall street activists of spied on. organizations like greenpeace have been spied on and the pretext unfortunately has been terrorism we've actually used the specter of terrorism to justify some of these operations but there was an investigation by the office of inspector general in the u.s. department of justice which looked into some of the f.b.i.'s practices over about a five year period. in relation to these organizations and they found out that actually there was no justification that would in any way resemble terrorism there was no threat of violence there was no criminal activity and in fact this investigation condemned the f.b.i. and said that they really shouldn't have actually open these investigations and continue these investigations that he again is speaking of justification of how it

is how is this legal and what justification is the u.s. government using to share classified material with these giant corporations and furthermore what is this kind of partnership doing to the democratic process. well you know this is the thing that you know for the legal justification we hear the same old mantra as you know of national security everything can be justified on the national security but as you know we've kind of become come to realize that nauseum now this justification is no justification at all in fact what we see is that very very fundamental human rights and civil liberties fundamental laws of the u.s. constitution are being systematically violated in the name of national security but what we're seeing with this kind of corporate espionage is actually national security is not at stake it's not it's not the public interest that is being protected here it's the very narrow vested interests of a large number of very powerful corporate entities which are increasingly

encroaching it seems on on the authority of the state and interfering with that i mean we've got to the point where cia active cia officers can actually moonlights and and sell their services to a corporation and if you look at the existing mechanisms of accountability to inspect you know what is the transparency what is the accountability for this process is there really isn't any any oversight actually so effectively you've got this situation where hedge funds buying corporations can hire these guys and basically get them to do what they want it's true. astounding to say the least not because i mean i don't know i'm surprised it just keeps getting worse and worse i'm sure corporate c.e.o.'s are inherently evil and i'm sure in their own minds that they're doing the right thing not these how do we get c c the tangible facts up their policies well i think one of the issues is when you have a company you know a large company which is you know their only goal is essentially maximize ation of

profits and the people working there you know they're just on the job even the c.e.o. is maybe you know he sees this is what his job is his job is to make sure that this company shares go up that the profits are maximize that the revenue goes up and then the next quarter or whatever it is now when you have that kind of incentive it's very very narrow any kind of anything which would challenge that namely you know democrat democratic action or civil society groups which may damage the reputation of the company or expose some of the questionable things that companies do it just brings to light more scrutiny all of these things could be seen as dangers now when you when you have you know this kind of revolving door situation between u.s. corporations and u.s. state where you know people who are sitting on boards are also sitting on boards of think tanks and also involved enough to security that's when the lines become very blurred and vested interests you know because mingled with public interest and

state interest and then this ideology of power begins actually to confuse the two and of course you know you have people who are probably have people who maybe are fairly machiavellian and are just doing things for their own interests and don't really care about the public good either and that can create a very toxic mix so i think what's what's necessary here is one you know activists need to become more savvy about what happens when you get involved in activism and the dangers but also there were a number of very interesting recommendations in the report by the sense of a corporate sort of for call. policy i don't want them well obviously getting congress involved congressman to possible legislation. oversee there needs to be more lobbying to see in that sense but at the same time also i think. need to be a lot more aware of security issues and how they can protect themselves against this kind of speed or just kind of intrusion we need to be more tech savvy. more

cultures of how we can actually make sure that this kind of activism is not subject to very easily. intelligence agencies all right or a shouldn't really getting involved in on duty kind of looking at what is going on well i'm glad you brought up kind of how everything's interconnected here because of course the crisis of civilization does point out very lucidly and your article of the same article that you wrote you also talk about how the same corporations that is conducting this corporate espionage are largely responsible for climate change not these i mean you write let me grab that quote here just last week the guardian revealed that ninety of some of the biggest corporations generate nearly two thirds of greenhouse gas emissions and are overwhelmingly responsible for climate change duffy's why is the burden of this issue on the consumer rather than these massive corporations absolutely it's it's a major imbalance and i think you know i think i think it's right to just kind of

say it is just that i mean obviously consumers do play a role we all play a role in this kind of you know in this industrial juggle that we live in you know we buy the products we watch the programs you know because we are complicit in to that extent so we have to acknowledge that but at the same time you know it's doesn't make sense when you look at when you look at the tiny number of corporations who are responsible with the corporations the most powerful corporation the wall response of. greenhouse gas emissions you know id isn't just about consumption is also the fact that those companies are the gold. in the ways that dominating consumer culture they are the ones that are making the most benefit out of it so you know there is an imbalance there and even though we should recognize the role of the consumer we also have to acknowledge the overwhelming role of these companies and that's very worrying because there is recent research that has just come out in the last week which i wrote about today in the guardian

which just shows how devastating climate change could be in terms of its impact its social consequences as economic consequences. by the national academy of sciences has just put out a range of studies peer reviewed studies which show that the impact of droughts the impact of water scarcity the impacts of agricultural collapse as well as today makes in diseases and things like that could all be interacting and that they could actually have a worst case scenario global impact which could be very very devastating for societies including. north america the most studies kind of emphasize you know the role of developing countries or poor countries but actually this study says that europe and north america could be really really badly affected by some of these impacts so that's just highlights that you know even if we don't you know even if we kind of just turn a blind eye and say well it's the companies fall in the day we're the ones who are

going to basically face the brunt of this and it's the these companies are going to continue doing what they're doing so we really do have to start thinking about innovative ways we can challenge these companies in the way that they do things yeah and here we are still arguing about whether or not climate change is a real nazis i mean it's happening right in front of us i just think that there's so many people who think that environmental regulation or environment or informal somehow inhibit their personal sovereignty and it's really just beyond that and we really need to start talking about solutions here let's move on to those innovative solutions how can we take back this planet for the benefit of the people of the land and create a system that's harmonious not combative with nature. yeah absolutely i mean the people who are skeptical of what governments are doing in terms of environment regulation no i sympathize with them because the reality is that you know if you look at what president obama for example was pushing through not only is it highly inadequate. but actually you know a lot of those policies do benefit large corporations a lot of those policies are about you know creating

a big carbon bubble that will benefit you know the energy industry so there is reason to be skeptical of the way in which government and corporations are exploiting climate change for their own interests as well as using it to empower themselves further whereas what we really need is a decentralization of power and we need from them is the as you mentioned land which is really important we need to really look at who is it that control owns and controls the world the planet's resources and it is these tiny minority of corporations we need to find a way to equalize the situation how can we get to a position where actually it's the public that is able to have a stake in how energy how water how and how all of these things are used and really we have to have to have a fundamental shift. in our consciousness in terms of what we what we see is as important in terms of you know what are our values as human beings what do we see as important is it basically a life of individualistic materialism or is it actually do we see ourselves as

interconnected with other human beings to see the benefit of others is the same as our benefit and i agree that part of cultural shift is also very very important thank you so much unfortunately we're out of time there now fees on that investigative reporter from the guardian really appreciate your insight. for i get out of here you guys let me tell you all about my twitter check out twitter at abby martin if you like what you see you can follow me there you'll find all my tweets linking to all the segments from this show including random thoughts i have throughout the day everyone should check out my interview with phyllis bennis yesterday and she breaks down the true extent of humanitarian crisis. in gaza amid the heavy flooding also please help us get a break in the said corona need i threw out some hash tags randomly so we can get credit on the tours for like today and trying all the shocking things israel blockades from gaza so head to twitter check me out at abby martin and that's our show guys thanks for watching join me again tomorrow when i break the set all over

again. wealthy british style. sometimes tirelessly. 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 in to cause a report. that. aside. i'm sick. mind. and. all that.

money and i was actually sick for a politician right. here just two. days. i think. everybody. should you know the press is the only industry specifically mentioning the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy schreck help us. to you know i'm sorry and i'm a show we reveal the picture of what's actually going comment on the world we go beyond identifying and trying to rational debate a real discussion critical issues facing america about ready to join the movement then welcome to the big picture.