what's up people i'm not even in this is breaking it all veterans day came and went last week day full of empty gestures and baseless rhetoric of course the main unaddressed concern during all the pageantry was the dire state of american veterans today to see just days after the holiday a shocking new report revealed that almost one million servicemen and women have been injured in iraq and afghanistan that's right one million women soldiers have visited v.a. hospitals and the start of these wars compare that to the vietnam war despite the draft the number of wounded warriors total just over three hundred thousand and one million might sound extreme what's more disturbing is that it may even be more busy as of march the department of veterans affairs actually stopped publishing their statistics on injured veterans why or according to report by international business

times the v.a. cited reasons of bashful security so on top of the already and adequate health care for vets now are being censored from the eye opening up to six of the true reality of the war on terror not being able to see the truth prevents us from understanding why there's been such an exponential growth in wartime injuries and vietnam so if you want the v.a. to explain this trend to the join me and let's break the set. the the the the. it was a. very hard to take. that or had sex with her hair.

in the age of citizen journalism history is no longer written by the victors it happens in real time through photos videos and blogging but with such little financial support for alternative media it's hard to survive as a full time documentary an activist or one photographer is trying to do just that through internet crowdsourcing as activism is covered everything from occupy wall street to turkey's uprising and tells her story through provocative imagery now she's funny in a photo book through indie go go and it's already raised over ten thousand dollars and a pope joins me now to talk about her work and her activism thanks and i'm going to have you on you started your activism during the two thousand and one uprising

against governor scott walker what was it about this particular event that galvanized you to take action at that point i had never been involved political activism but that became personal to me. one of the groups of people that were attacked by governor walker's but to repair bill was teachers and my mother and my sister were teachers at the time so it became personal to me and that's what initially brought me out but after spending time in the capitol and learning about other people's stories and why they were involved. i realized it was a much bigger much bigger deal than i originally realized. and since then i've i've stayed active some incredible photos there just really catching those moments right in the courthouse there have you always been a photographer and if not what compelled you to use this medium to display your activism yeah i've always been interested in photography before i got involved in activism i was actually being paid photo shoots senior portraits weddings and then

once i got involved in activism i realized that that was the way that i can contribute towards activism and towards creating a better world. and just for people's reference all your photos are. in the cube right there for people to take a look at using social media has redefined activism and journalism. it's redefined in a very big way. i mean before the internet for social media. the only way that people got their information was through the news and even at that point you know they can only wait until the nightly news came on or into the newspaper came out the next day now people can get real time updates photos videos tweets all that kind of stuff from all different people all around the world in real time so i think it's definitely revolutionized. the way that activists and protests are around now and given those people on the ground really a voice that they never had to or let's talk about occupy wall street i know that you were you were in it from the beginning then you followed the movement one year

anniversary how did your experience with the movement change you as a person in a photographer. well actually the first time i went out to occupy wall street i was still living in wisconsin at the time and that was the first time i really went to an event specifically to cover it through photography before that i was involved in a different way when i was in wisconsin but i realize you know i'm a photographer i take photos a lot of the people that i met wisconsin a network i built up of activists in wisconsin kept talking about how. that they weren't sure if the info that they were getting was correct or not and so myself and one of my friends is a videographer and we decided to go out there is a team so that's kind of where my transition from just being an activist to also being documentary photographer that's kind of where it began so that was actually a big step for me also filling the void as a documentarian and really getting those stories heard let's look at your most famous some your most famous photos a group of riot police during the two thousand and twelve tampa bay are in. a

really powerful shot right there what were you trying to capture and why do you think this photo resonated so strongly with the public the size of a look at a storm troopers. basically what happened with this photo is there was a march of a few hundred people and it was actually a march against poverty and homelessness. it was a march led by. you know either homeless or privileged people there are a lot of women and children they had their strollers and their kids and their you know with them to show effects not only adults but also children. and so i was photographing them as they were marching down the street it was permitted march and also i looked behind me and there was an intersection just filled with riot police and that shocked me even though i've seen a lot of similar situations before it shocked me that they had that many. police officers in riot gear that looked as intimidating as that for this small march of

you know women children activists unbelievably hot firemen yes actually i had actually run up ahead of the march at that point and i wanted to get just the. police standing there. at that point i was taking some photos i was waiting for the march to get there. so yeah the photo it's gone pretty viral since that was the end of august i believe and. what they're wearing when you explain the context of this let's talk about turkey i mean you went there you fall the. what did you learn during your time there and did you find a common thread throughout your travels of all these uprisings of kind of how the people were feeling and thinking you know there's definitely a common thread i mean all across the board everywhere i've gone. you know the people they're not fighting for anything that that you know is a big deal you know they're looking for you know social equality. social justice you know they want everybody to be treated fairly they don't want there to

be such a large wealth gap you know when the people who have millions and millions if not billions of dollars well there's other people who are working constantly around the clock just to try to feed their family and they're barely getting by even though they're working very hard that doesn't make sense things should be so a lot of people are just fighting for very small things that should be human rights but at this point they're not being treated as that. foreign to what we go through on a bigger level smaller level we can all relate to that one human family here you put yourself in a lot of dangerous situations you know pepper balls rubber bullets. what was kind of the most scary moment for you in about thirty seconds the scariest moment was when i was in turkey. eleventh and up until that point when i was there there were no police in the area that they actually had left because there were so many protesters and the resistance was so large but they came back in to take over

taxing square in the morning of june eleventh and it was just a very chaotic scene people were all over the place the people around the water cannons tear gas everywhere and there was a point where i was photographing people being sprayed with a water cannon and the police then turned it on myself and some other people who were all day were all journalists were all taking photos or video and they turned it on us and at the right before that they had thrown tear gas directly behind us so i was basically happy and yeah so i was break down pushed into a cloud of tear gas. i was unable to see. very frightening but i was about to be there to capture it amazing amazing and incredible photos everyone go check it out jenna pople it's fun this book and you go go thank you so much for your time thanks . america land of the free home of the brave you see for the moment you're born to

the moment you die there's one thing bright in the mind of every american and this country is bigger it's better and if people don't like it they can get the hell out see it all boils down to one thing america is exceptional guess what we are at least when it comes to being bigger let's be honest guys americans fat as hell but there are five percent of the population officially classified as obese if you don't believe me you probably never been to the old country buffet feeding trough for people walmart dot com well the us has held the number one heavyweight title among populous nations for several years mexico is close to tying so we don't focus because we keep the top spot secure to be fair and healing calories isn't the only thing we're good at we're also pretty bad ass polluters so not only is the u.s. a leader in energy consumption as of this year we're also number one waste reported a whopping fifty seven percent of energy in the u.s.

whether it be from oil or natural gas is wasted annually was a pretty damn good at locking people up in cages that's why when it comes to mass incarceration the us imprisons more people per capita than any other country in the world it's actually appalling us hold only five percent of the world's population yet has one hundred five percent of its prisoners in a related category while the us fights a global war on drugs americans also consume eighty percent of the world's opiate painkillers and. don't forget where the opium comes from a place in the us have been occupying for over a decade get a stand which brings me to the category americans probably most notorious for or as the military machine drives the us economy so we are the global leader in military spending going taxpayers throw more money into national defense the next thirteen industrialized countries combined not only that but our perpetual war economy also guarantees that the us is the top supplier of weapons to foreign

countries. and being children of the empire might have something to do with america's gun culture so the gun rate is eighty eight per one hundred people far surpassing any other country just put that into context number two country and guns per capita is yemen with fifty five guns per one hundred people see guys we can back up the claim to exceptionalism just in the worst of ways which is a shame considering that we're also the wealthiest country in the world in terms of g.d.p. see in the categories of the us should be number one or not this year the us ranked sixteenth in the literacy in the industrialized world twenty seventh in life expectancy for all countries sixty nine infant mortality twenty seven the median household income and sixty first in protecting the environment so if you want to be a gun totting tell you what all of that energy waste and pill popping fat ass and

come to america because here well that just makes you exceptional. next on break into my interview with musician activist you know one of the said. well you british style. expert on. markets. can. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max conjure for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into a report. coming into the. season's he has already been plenty to celebrate. on this month's show feeling how

the future of the set in stone call to make movies with an instant messenger and their revolutionary exoskeleton makes life work of heavy lifting. as you update here on. the central. whether it's the worry of ostracizing fans or a losing financial backing from record labels most popular musicians can't call themselves political activists however one artist known simply as moby has taken on a multitude of political causes during his decades long electronic music career in the fight for net neutrality to supporting chelsea manning the six time grammy award nominee has been on the frontlines of the fight for more than lighten the world and join me or to break down his music and activism i first asked him what he thinks is the biggest failure of the corporate music industry. one of the biggest failings is that the music business and record companies have treated listeners

terribly for a long time you know like over charging for c.d.'s in the era of c.d.'s. punishing people for downloading music and. basically trying to make people feel guilty for listening to music and i just think it's created a very sort of strange and very unhealthy climate around the release of music you've also stood up to the recording industry association of america and even called for the group to be disbanded in two thousand and nine for its two million dollar lawsuit against a mother who illegally downloaded music what prompted you to go after the r i a a well. i mean the whole reason i make music and maybe i'm stating the obvious is because i love making music and i love the idea of people listening to the music that i've made the idea of punishing the audience even if they're downloading music illegally i don't think an audience should be punished nor should like the are i a take litigious action against soccer moms you know who are just downloading music

because they want to listen to it and. i don't know it's i mean it's seems very self evident to me that if you're trying to sort of like generate goodwill. suing the people who are ultimately patronizing your business is not the best way to go about that let's talk about your new album innocence why did you choose that name and how is it different from your previous work well the name and the sense boy i'm going to try and like not give a long winded self-involved grad student answer because i'm really good at long winded self-involved grad student answers but basically when i was in college i was a philosophy major and i just been obsessed with this simple question like what does it mean to be human and the universe that's fifteen billion years old like what what significance to our lives have. meaning to our lives and when i look at

our collective response to the human condition i see a lot of confusion a lot of fear a lot of sadness and in a strange way a lot of innocence because the truth is none of us really know what we're doing you know we might put on a brave face when we go out in public but at the end of the day we all get old we all die we're all confused and i feel like collectively even though at times we're not necessarily doing the best things we still have a quality of innocence to us and that's what the title of the album comes from and also this is really fascinating you're also on a board member you're a board member for the institute for music and neurological function which studies the effects of music on the brain and talk about this what have you learned as part of that organization and how convenient is it be used in therapeutic ways well it's funny because i've dedicated my life to making music and but honestly i was taught music was something i loved and it was really fun but i never thought it actually had anything beyond

a very sort of frivolous utility and then dr oliver sacks and dr connie to meno are two amazing. brain neuro scientists and they started this institute for music a neurological function what they've seen is that music is a remarkably powerful healing modality. i mean when i talk about the sort of the healing affects of music it almost sounds like i'm indulging in hyperbole but it's truly miraculous like people who are a faith who've had strokes when they listen to their feet favorite music from childhood even if they've lost the ability to walk or speak they can still dance and sing and i know that sounds like the most absurd claim but dr sacks and dr tomato have documented this and they're going before congress to try and get more funding for music therapy because it really is a phenomenal healing the only problem is it's hard to make money from it so clearly the pharmaceutical companies aren't too thrilled about a non profit powerful healing modalities and you know they are testified in front

of congress in two thousand and six about net neutrality when you get out there and testify about music therapy. hopefully soon i mean the funny thing about talking about music therapy is you don't have to convince anyone of its power all the have to do is say like ask anyone how they respond to their favorite song you know like if you even right now think of your favorite song you could almost feel like a physiological and neurochemical change and the truth is like it's a real change like and it promotes healing and it decreases stress hormones like norepinephrine and adrenaline and cortisol so i mean in the future i think people will look at music not just as something fun but that is a really really powerful healing modalities yeah it's also a revolutionary tool which is such a travesty that it's the first thing really from public education as music and arts i mean it is really unfortunate i mention that you did testify in front of congress on any child it let's talk about that what did you tell them back then and are you worried about the current circuit court lawsuit that could entirely abolish the

concept yeah i i mean. so i was a little bit confused because. in two thousand and six and now the internet seems to be working fine the way it is and i don't understand the idea of to an extent in very broad terms privatizing the internet when it's this fantastic egalitarian granted chaotic but democratic institution that serves everybody equally and so when you have these like big corporations who want to get involved and sort of try to monetize it and prior and privatized it i just don't understand why they would mess around with something that works so flawlessly the way it is how much do you think the music industry is a part of that push i mean we know that sopa was obviously trying to implement a lot of seizure on their quality as well. yeah i mean i'm in some ways i'm the wrong person to ask because i love what i refer to as like the democratic chaos of

the internet you know i love the fact that it is strangely self-regulating it kind of polices itself and i've also been a lifelong member of the a.c.l.u. so i'm just a huge proponent of the free and uninhibited dissemination of information. yeah i love that about the i mean the the militant egalitarian method that the internet started out as and unfortunately we're going to go by the wayside it's really important that we cement that notion quick let's talk about another thing that they say they use really big on bradley manning chelsea manning rather you were also part of the i am chelsea manning video a few months back why is this case so important to you. well it's important to me and and i certainly i mean it's a tricky thing to talk about because there is i mean what do i know i'm a musician i live in l.a. so if i worked for the n.s.a. or had worked for the n.s.a.

i might have a different perspective but it seems like sometimes governments including our own our interest. did in restricting information because it is actually sensitive and to disseminate it would be compromising but other times people almost restrict governments restrict information either because it's embarrassing or it's just a kneejerk reaction you know this feeling like like it's their job to restrict access to information and that's why i thought the bradley chelsea manning case was so important because he was sort of drawing attention to the arbitrary seemingly arbitrary way in which the government was trying to restrict access to simply classified information right it's also a crime to overclassify we see things just being classified for the sake of classified and then of course we know that no one actually was hurt by the release of those documents what are your thoughts on other whistleblowers in the public spotlight that's the hot lights are you right now like edward snowden. again it's

tricky because everything i say has to be qualified with sort of like the coffee out that i am a college dropout and i make music and i live in l.a. so my opinions are vaguely informed at best but i mean i'm just a fan of openness and i can't think of too many instances where erring on the side of openness has done harm in fact quite the opposite you know we live in a culture where it's becoming increasingly difficult for anyone to restrict access to information which personally i think is great you know i'd much rather have a few instances where potentially sensitive information is released but as a result you have liked so much information that's of public benefit is released as well and you know you keep saying they are your opinions are you know vaguely informed at best you can be shocked at how uninformed americans are i think it's very important to voice your opinions when you wield a lot of influence in this industry and it's unfortunate that others don't why do

you think that not other musicians you know entertainment people celebrities out about these issues. i think probably because they're getting much better advice than i am. because what i've found is like by being an opinionated loudmouths as i am i do oftentimes run the risk of alienating a lot of people so i think that a lot of musicians actors whomever are getting good management career advice and you know their managers their agents are saying oh keep your opinions to yourself because you'll sell more records i unfortunately never got that advice and i was raised by progressive hippies who told me that if you have the ability to to i don't know reach people and communicate you might as well try and say something that has i don't know some value or some merit to it or at least try to do so i agree with your parents let's talk about veganism your whole so you can even release the book of as a as critiquing the modern meat industry what led you to the decision to practice

the can is and what are your biggest frustrations right now with factory farms. well. i mean i've been a vegan now for twenty six years and an animal rights activist for about thirty years and what informs my view going is i'm an animal rights activism is pretty simple like i love animals and i don't want to be involved in any process that contributes to their suffering and you know i mean i guess look at objectively death is inevitable but suffering isn't you know and i think that we have the ability to treat other creatures with respect and dignity and ameliorate their suffering and i just wonder why we don't make more of an effort to do so why why collectively we're comfortable with contributing to the suffering of literally tens of billions of creatures who are all incredibly sensitive and you know i think it was either albert schweitzer or i'm stein said you know the question isn't do

animals have an intellectual life the question is do they have an emotional life and. no one who's ever been around animals knows full well that animals have incredibly profound emotional lives are incredibly sensitive and i just feel like it's incumbent upon me and hopefully the rest of us to sort of like decrease the amount of suffering we cause while we're alive right and we're so detached from the food that we know i think if people really saw the suffering then they would be absolutely horrified. i mean the food industry has so much autonomy so much political influence i mean just look at monsanto alone how can we ensure that the food we're eating is safe and not destructive the environment doesn't contribute to the suffering of creatures. well one thing when we put out the book gristle which is about factory farming. i was asked that question like what could we do what one thing could we do that would sort of i don't know make factory farming either go away or become

a lot better and one thing would be and subsidies to meat production because meat production and i'm not even saying people shouldn't eat meat but i'm just saying like the production of meat it decimates the animals it decimates the workers it decimates the communities and the end result is a product that causes diabetes arteriosclerosis heart disease obesity etc so just end all subsidies to it and let me actually cost what it should cost because the truth is without government subsidies a pound of hamburger would cost around thirty dollars and i have a feeling if you just let me cost what it should cost all of a sudden you see people eating a lot less meat very well put totally agree thank you so much for your input on not and so much more moby artist activist really appreciate you coming into the studio always my pleasure it's really nice talking with you thanks so much that's the first show you guys.

i'm a big corporation kind of can. do i'm the bag i take all that all about the money and i was actually a politician writing the laws and regulations that. somehow. there's just too much. of a society. that. crosstalk

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