private companies and in up with robots that can do this. little yeah i don't know if i'm ready for google to have a private army of iron man and let's break the sub. of the little the turtle they are looking very hard to take the turtle. he ever had sex with the terror threat there. was. a little. little. little. little.

little. sleepy. 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 veterans used to receive for p.t.s.d. so every in their brainstems yup last week the wall street journal published a stunning report about a world war two era government program involving 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 nearly two thousand veterans who've been diagnosed as quote depressives psychotics and schizophrenia. casually 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 used when soldiers exhibited signs of what today would be called p.t.s.d. these brain operations would often give the veteran seizures and motor function loss that reverted back to small children 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 on believe ability 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. the list goes on on and. from operation paperclip to be 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 federal what makes you think gives you a second thought. if you've grown up watching t.v. like me and you already know the diamonds are forever and they're 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 look 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 blood diamonds for nothin but we'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 the beers that have a monopoly on mining them 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 that have been propagated in the global culture as a rare unless you're buying a certified non-conflict i mean it's almost impossible to know whether or not the worthless rock in your room was brought to you at the cost of a human life that's why the international community as 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.

diamonds are. very valuable they're very small the very valuable in the very easy to move across borders and that means that they are rebels that's essentially the reason why you came across today is because rebel rebel movements ten years ago fifteen years ago were. mining and trading these things often includes. a company such as to be errors and mining centers and training centers in antwerp and 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 africa you can buy by maybe forty seven 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 may and 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 liberia and sierra leone. these were rebel groups that were funding civil wars with the help of diamonds. now 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 this broadening of what the conflict diamond definition is. 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 would to do would be charging to do. and respond to rights abuses by private security companies and. state security forces good point i think that's something that i take into account when i look at the conflict 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 different uses. so you see this with a lot of lot of minerals not just diamonds gold with zeppelin probably the. biggest the biggest mineral shipped out of there would be you go and you also call ten things that essentially go into things like like leaves and computers and

digital cameras. and much anything technical technological right now runs on gold chain tungsten attention to those roles. in. place like. 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 kimberly process is being very tough actions that were taken against. countries like brazil which is small but. john is also being made to to bring itself to supply the concerns but if you are a country like venezuela which of oil or. oil which is being. under review between two thousand and nine and two thousand seven. fresh the worst human rights abuses since he really process started. it was curious that we have

two fifteen to twenty percent of the world's. supply posed by production not all you but by production. and by as you've been through to process it so it's a consensus but it's organization or initiative so all you need to do is find one friend to to to be on your side to start a consensus decision on something and. 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 them and know that they're not getting a conflict that men. should question i think that a lot of times. the onus is much on on on the consumer as it is on the on the jewelry company itself. you know the jury company has a responsibility to ask questions and do due diligence on who's supplying it with the stones i think the committee process itself is no longer the. becoming

guaranteed that i think most people most consumers have a right to since it seems that the rest of us the you've got to so i think if you're a consumer certainly ask questions about where it's from and what kind of things the majority company has done to do due diligence thank you so much alan martin director of research partnerships africa canada appreciate it 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. i wonder if we can add democracy at least the expansion of the seat of the kind of styles by george w. bush to that least a few tolkien ideologies on par with communism on par with nazis among part of its militant are legion you know the ideologies that's going to make to lead to an increase in violence. i think the problem is the idea that by military force you

could be propagated government create a state of anarchy and hope that democracy would spontaneously last. the fish with the economic ups and downs in the find that they belong to the old shanghai and the rest because i think he will be everything on. mars consumer sees and i see it when i'm in the country is the federal government to simply say it's probably the united states government. is the united states

privilege when it was going public has to realize you can't just buy. your own just throw it away. for instance belongs to the united states environmental protection agency and i found this on a dump site here this here is not a waste of. produce of the business when i have to should be able to look at these and i believe that this should be responsible. for a bill to bring. the mexico comment of mental health property will sell to murder and corporate of all but also belongs to the washington metro area transit authority to the properties of a dentist aids. and trademarks also. in the post snowden age it's no surprise that governments extensively spy on 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 activist communities see a new report by the center for corporate policy has not only confirm this but as expose just how far reaching corporate infiltration of activist groups really is the report also outlines the private public partnership for madrid intelligence agencies and state governments to provide legal protection for corporate c.e.o.'s to carry 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 science on behalf of their corporate paymasters. 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 gods 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 ago thirty thousand just under thirty thousand very very large corporations in partnership with the f.b.i. and this partnership. sickly 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 has come out over the last year or so shows that the f.b.i. has been systematically spying. and systematically helping corporate entities to spy on. civil society groups occupy wall street activists of spied on organizations like greenpeace have been spied on and the pretext fortunately has been terrorism they'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 i didn't factor this

investigation condemned the f.b.i. and said that they really shouldn't have actually open these investigations and continue these investigations to be working and speaking of justification to 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 for the legal justification we hear the same old mantras 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. this constitution of 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 by corporations can hire these guys and basically get them to do what they want it's truly astounding to say the least that is i mean i don't know i'm surprised it just keeps getting worse and worse and 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.e.o.'s in the tangible facts of

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 maximisation of profits and the people working there you know they 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 the profits of 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 by civil society groups which may damage the reputation of the company or expose some of the questionable things the company is doing or 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 in national security that's when the lines become very blurred and vested interests you know because mingled with public interest and state interest in 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 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 activists need to become more savvy about what happens when you get involved in activism and the dangers but also there are a number of very interesting recommendations in the report by the sense of across parts of for corporate policy i don't want them world getting congress involved congressman to pass more legislation and oversee there needs to be more lobbying and more activity in that sense but at the same time also i think activists 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. and more conscious of how we can actually make sure that this kind of activism is not subject to very easily. intelligence agencies or. really getting involved in on duty kind of looking at what is good what is going on well i'm glad you brought up kind of how everything's interconnected here because of course the crisis 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 nothing is 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 thus overwhelmingly responsible for climate change duffy's why is the burden of this issue on the consumer rather than

these and massive corporations absolutely it's the it's a major imbalance and i think you know i think i don't think it's right to just kind of say it it is just them i mean obviously consumers do play a role we all play a role in this kind of mass you know in this industrial juggernaut that we live in you know we buy the products we watch the programs you know 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 it's ninety corporations the most powerful corporations in the ward response of. greenhouse gas emissions you know id isn't just about consumption is also the fact that those companies are actively dominating the airwaves that dominating consumer culture and they're 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 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 devil. stating for societies including. north america that most studies kind of emphasize you know the role of developing countries or poorer countries but i see this study says that you work in north america could be really really badly affected by some of these

impacts so that 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 if the companies fall in the day we're the ones who are going to basically face the brunt of this i just i'm you know 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 absolutely i mean the people who are skeptical of what governments are doing in terms of environmental regulation no i sympathize with them because the reality is 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 we're actually it's the public that is able to have a stake in how. i did see how it was so and how one of these things they used. we hopped off to have a fundamental shift. in our consciousness of what we what we see

is as important in terms of you know what 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 and i see the benefit of others is the same as our benefit and i agree that part of the 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 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 machine breaks down the true extent of the humanitarian crisis in gaza amidst the heavy flooding also please help us get a break in the sad truth. and threw out some hashtags randomly speaking it turning on the twitter 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 brake the set all over again. right see. first street. and i think that you're. on a reporter's. to be in the know. on the law. there's a medium leave us a wee bit maybe. by the same potions to cure the other your party there's

a goal. is that no one is asking with the guests that you deserve answers from it's all on politics only on our t.v. . what defines a country's success. faceless figures of economic growth. for

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the country blocks the way to information freedom. media stuff on our t.v. . watching r.t. tonight from jail cells in count both here in sweden to solitary confinement in denmark. the founder of the pirate bay website continues his battle against the authorities in a case with powerful corporate interests play. list and power signal a rethink in this support for syria's rebel movement apparently acknowledging that the fall of assad could boost extremists such as those implicated in a recent massacre outside damascus got live comment on that coming up this hour. a new year approaching and a new start for thousands of russian prisoners who will be freed under a game changing amnesty law that has just passed parliament is good news than for the punk protest band pussy riot as well as the greenpeace activists arrested in that arctic drilling protest.