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 in up with robots that can do this. little. i don't know if i'm ready for google to have a private army of iron men and let's break the sub. the possibly it was a. very. happy ever had sex with her right there.

there is absolutely no doubt that there is a mental health epidemic in the us 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 minute their brain stems up last week the wall street journal published a stunning report about a world war two era government program involving mentally. vets from the late one

nine hundred forty s. to the early one nine hundred fifty s. v.a. doctors performed forced the bottom means nearly two thousand veterans who've been diagnosed as quote depresses psychotics in schizophrenia and occasionally on people identified as homosexuals and although this practice was known in small medical circles at the time this 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 just

a few years at the v.a. performed these veterans the bottom is 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 and not believe a bully this went on for forty years and wasn't stopped all the way up until the one nine hundred seventy three 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. by senator john rockefeller revealed

the department offense had intentionally exposed test subjects to mustard and nerve gas radiation and psycho chemicals for at least thirty years. 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 that we don't know about and if this is the way our government treats its own federal what makes you think it gives you a second thought. if you've grown up watching t.v. like me than you already know that dining are forever and there are girls 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 their oftentimes the method of extraction leaves a child slavery mass armed conflict and even death you know calm blood diamonds for nothin but what you're also not hearing is that diamonds are actually not rare at all nor would they be remotely expensive if it weren't for companies like the beers that have been the monopoly on mining and 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 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 dining trade i first asked him how the kimberley process came about and if it's doing enough to curb the violence surrounding the chans. are are are very valuable the very small the very valuable and the very easy to move across borders and that means that they are rebels best friend and that's the essentially the reason why you. became a boss today is because rebel rebel movements ten years ago fifteen years ago were . minding your trade nice things often includes with a company such as to be yours and mining centers known who are trading centers and who happened to look even elsewhere they were quite happy to tell you these diamonds without asking many difficult questions. so if you think about the cost of funding a civil war for example you go to places where those in the middle east or whether it's asia or even africa you can buy maybe forty seven four hundred bucks if you

would if your trading diamonds with a couple million that's that's that's a lot of the people he said and your bio mother may i mean cause and what countries do you see conflict diamonds mean produce the most and what makes these places more susceptible to conflicts funded by mineral extraction. it's important to point out at the onset about how conflict is changing how diamonds or related to that conflict ten years ago when the if you would create it it was done but actually it was as a response to civil wars and angola with savimbi and also. the same bono period and sort of the oh. these were rebel groups that were funding civil wars with the help of diamonds. now ten years later if you're looking at. the diamonds are. you more likely to see either state actors or pirates. three

companies are responsible for those those human rights abuses. one thing that is being calling out for the last several years as this broadening of what the conflict diamond absolution is the kimberly process the united nations considers to be a conflict diamond right now all the some cells with or uses perpetrated by a by rebel groups. certainly is something that should be continued to to be part of the definition but i think that it's. you know more responsible thing would to do would be to actually include. and respond to rights abuses by private security companies and. state security forces good point i think that's something that people 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 there usually turn and put into two different uses. so you see

this with a lot of minerals not just diamonds gold. for example in the event of political i'm bill press the biggest the biggest been rushed out of there with the gold your so-called. things that essentially go into things like black police and computers and digital cameras. and much anything taking technological that no runs on like old tin tanks maternal those are all minerals that are in. place like clothes you know 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 example taken against. countries like brazil which the slope of africa going to is also being made to to bring itself to compliance the concerns but if you are truly venezuela which is one of oil or symbolic. which is being. under the review

between two thousand and nine and two thousand and seven. the press the worst human rights abuses since it was that started. in some i was curious that they were up to fifteen a pretty percent of the world's. supply by production not all you but by production . and by as you put it that would be processed it's a consensus based organization or initiative so all you need to do is find one friend to two to be on your side who to start a consensus decision on something in 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 them and know that they're not getting a conflict diamond. good 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 jury company has

a responsibility to to ask questions and do due diligence on who's supplying it with stone letting the committee process itself is no longer the. becoming guaranteed that i think most people most consumers have a ride on since that seems the best in years and we've got it 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 he's on met at the guardian to break down the extent of corporate espionage among black to best stick around.

i've got a quote for you. it's pretty tough to. say where it's about story. but to describe what would smear about guns instead of working for the people most issues in the mainstream media are working for each other bridegrooms didn't. come home because. they did run it well. i think. everybody. did you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and the concept that's because

a free and open process is critical to our democracy shred albus. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and our crisis of a girl we've been a hydrogen lying handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers one school class i'm talking mark and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world if we go beyond identifying the problem to try to fix rational debate and a real discussion critical issues facing america to find them or go ready to join the movement then walk a little bit there. in

the post snowden age it's no surprise that governments extensively spy on activists all around the world are enough to 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 matric intelligence agencies and state governments to provide the 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 now fears are met the crisis on civilization and 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 it is this partnership between the f.b.i. . u.s. department of homeland security and a whole range of very large network of private companies many of. basically fortune five hundred companies 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 go thirty thousand thirty thousand very very large corporations and.

partnership with the f.b.i. 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 has come out of 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 unfortunately has been terrorism they've actually used the specter of terrorism to justify some of these operations but there was a 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. in any way resemble terrorism there was no threat of violence there was no criminal activity but 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 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 so. liberties fundamental laws of the us 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 the authority of the state and interfering with that i mean we've got to the point where cia active cia offices can actually moonlights and and sell this overseas 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 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 in this case at 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 nothing is how do we get see this in the tangible facts of their policies well i think one of the issues is when you have a complex you know large company which is only goal is essentially maximization 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 the profits of maximizing 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 that companies do. it will

just bring to light 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 the think tanks and also involved enough to security that's when the lines become very blurred and vested interests you know because. 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 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 corporate policy i don't want them world getting congress involved congressman to possible legislation and you know so obviously there needs to be more lobbying 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 all right aeration and getting involved in on duty kind of looking at what is going on so i'm glad you brought up kind of how everything's interconnected here because of course the crisis civilization does point out very recently 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 ever knew. right 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 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 is just i mean obviously consumers do play a role we all play a role in this kind of you know in this industrial juggernaut that we live in you know we buy the products we watch the programs you know because we all 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 of response of. greenhouse gas emissions you know i did it isn't just about consumption is also the fact that those companies are. dominating

the airwaves that dominating consumer culture and 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 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 impacts of water scarcity the impact of agricultural collapse as well as today makes in diseases and things like that could all be interacting and that they could actually have in a worst case scenario global. impact which could be very very devastating for

societies including. north america that most studies kind of emphasize you know the role of developing countries or poor countries but i see this study says europe and north america could be really really badly affected by some of these impacts so that's just highlights 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 company's fault in the day you know we're the ones who are going to basically face the brunt of this you know these companies 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 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 a 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 precaution 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 fundamentally 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. able to have

a stake in how energy how water and how one of these things are used. we have to have to have a fundamental shift. now consciousness of what we what we see is important in terms of you know what are our values as human beings what do we see as important is it basically a loss of individualistic materialism or is it actually do we see ourselves as connected with other human beings and i see the benefit is the same is out but the point of cultural shift is also very very important thank you so much unfortunately we're out of time the nazis are mad 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 the show including random thoughts i have throughout the day everyone to check out my interview with phyllis bennis yesterday machine breaks down the true extent of the

humanitarian crisis in gaza amid the heavy flooding also please help us get a break in this set. and threw out some hash tags randomly so you can get training on the twitter sphere like today and turning 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. technology innovation all the developments around russia we. covered. i. think.

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 our t.v. question more. elaborate .

eleven. cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want. i'm the best at it and pick a side but i'm a big corporation kind of can consume can do and the bank i think it's all been all about money and i'm just fascinated that for politicians write the laws and regulations that bankers come up. here just to pledge pratt isn't a guy. that. nothing . was.

more people seek medical help after the terrible loss we also update you on the struggle for survival of two children transferred to one of moscow's top hospitals . the un says violence in the central african republic has reached a vicious new level despite french chef this to quell the bloodshed with their own troops and. oil wells and two bodies lying face down in the sand we were poured on the mysterious goings on in libya a country now viewed as almost entirely new. welcomes nice to have you company you're watching international.