tv Breaking the Set RT June 25, 2014 12:29am-1:01am EDT
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nine hours a day engaged in work less than three hours for leisure and pathetic one point two caring for others and there really any wonder that parents have almost no time for their kids starting from the moment they're born because perhaps the most stunning part of our and samey intensive work culture is that this country does not require companies to offer parental leave it's a problem that's so evident that even got the attention of the white house yesterday obama hosted a summit on working families where he strongly condemned american parental leave policy saying quote many women can't even get a paid day off to give birth and that's a pretty low bar there's only one developed country in the world that does not offer paid maternity leave and that's us and that's not a list you want to be on on your lonesome it's time to change that wow well for once i couldn't agree more now whether or not these words will be to action is an entirely different story in fact the us isn't just the only country in the industrialized world to not offer paid parental leave but it is one of the only
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four countries in the entire world not to do so scandinavian countries of course rank near the top when it comes to paid parental leave and in fact sweden offers a stunning four hundred eighty paid days off that can be split between two parents but this basic premise or right is hardly confined to europe australia offers one hundred twenty six days brazil won twenty china ninety and russia one hundred forty even countries like saudi arabia and north korea offer at least seventy days paid time off while a country like bangladesh where the average monthly salary for garment workers less than seventy bucks offers one hundred and twelve paid days for new parents unfortunate abate america's so dumbed down but if you bring up things like parental leave people marginalize you as a socialist but nearly every other nation in the world realizes the vital importance of allowing moms and dads the opportunity to bond with their new beau.
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child not only do mothers and fathers need time away from work to adjust of their new roles as parents but children need their parents more than ever in the most vulnerable point in their lives in fact the u.k. think tank something trust released a study earlier this year finding that children's early attachment to their parents can affect everything from their ability to speak to brain development but in a courtroom but still reeling from a devastating recession these facts mean next to nothing for employers that are trying to squeeze every ounce that they can out of fewer and fewer workers not to mention the public ridicule still bestowed upon american fathers who decide to take paternity leave in fact earlier this year new york mets baseball player daniel murphy took a mere three days off when his child was born and it happened to coincide with the opening day of the baseball season and the flood sports commentator boomer esiason to admonish murphy saying quote quite frankly i would have said c. section before the season starts i need to be at opening day wow that really says
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it all doesn't it because there's nothing more american than abandoning your newborn child to go play baseball in the so-called american work ethic isn't just affecting your parents consider that the u.s. is the only advanced economy that doesn't guarantee workers paid vacation time in fact full time american workers only get on average eight days of paid vacation their first year of work or workers who've been on the job for over twenty five years average just over fifteen days compare that to countries like portugal austria brazil finland and france where employees are guaranteed at least at least thirty days off every year and sweden is even going as far as experimenting with a six hour work day and one of its cities because so we didn't understand that study after study has shown that the more hours in the office does not equal improve productivity and back to two thousand and six report by the accounting firm ernst and young found that for each additional ten hours of vacation time an employee. as year and performance rating increased by eight percent but no amount
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of research on this subject seems to be making a dent in the ingrain notion that working ourselves into an early grave is just the price we all paid for a functioning society yet some people are still holding on to that mythical known as the american dream and still maintain it's precisely because of our obsession with work that makes us of exceptional. unfortunately far too many of us don't realize the fallacy of this fable until we're on our death beds so for now we can only hope that the next generation will finally shatter the twisted concept that's come to define america's work life balance only then can we stop over the size in the importance of work and start promoting the importance of life. in the auto crisis in order to posture for you perhaps no american city has been
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hit quite as hard as detroit and now to add insult to injury detroit's water and sewage department is turning off the water for thousands of the city's poorest residents who simply can't afford to pay the bills see detroit's water rates have risen by nearly one hundred twenty percent over the last decade and now fifty percent of all water bills in the city are delinquent as a result detroit's unelected emergency manager kevyn orr has ordered water shut off for one hundred fifty thousand residents tommy break down the details of the story i'm joined now are two correspondent megan lopez on the ground in detroit michigan why has detroit seen its water rates rise nearly one hundred twenty percent over the last decade. well it's right water and sewer department is giving a number of reasons why we are saying that right first of all they're saying that fewer people are using water itself so obviously the costs are going to go up also detroit is not unique in that it's want to our infrastructure right now. is aging
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water infrastructure in detroit is almost at the end of its lifespan it requires repair or is a requires replacement which is a very closely procedure also destroyed has been falling behind for year after year after year with its water repair and replacement infrastructure kind of needs so it's just kind of piling up to this critical breaking point where now they're actually going to start shutting off the water and have been showing off the water for a lot of different people now just to give you an idea of how much people are paying here they're paying about twenty five dollars higher than the national average people here pay about sixty five dollars each month for water the national average is about forty dollars now in july of that water rate is set to go off another eight point seven percent to another five dollars added on to that so people that are already struggling making that sixty five dollars monthly bill or higher are going to be struggling even more there's also a huge disparity between poor residents having their water shut off or forty five
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days late or more on their payments how is the city justifying only targeting these people. they are targeting disproportionately african-american communities here in this right versus others not really justifying it at all all they're saying is that if people are at least forty five days late if not two months late then they're going to first of all get a couple of notices saying that they're late if they don't make that payment then they are going to eventually shut it off now in may alone they shut off the water to forty five hundred residents in detroit in the twenty four hours since twenty seven hundred or about sixty percent of the people paid their water bills and were actually able to get the help that they needed to have their water turned back on that water was restored although activists are saying that even if they pay their bills it still takes a few days if not weeks to turn their water right back on so there's a lot of disparities in what what the detroit water. sewer board is saying versus
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what the residents and activists who are seeing first hand these people water turned off are reporting well many of our activists responding to people who say well if you don't pay your bills of course you're going to have her water turned off. you know they're saying that it is a human rights kind of crisis that's going on here in detroit they say it is an an alien a human right for people to be able to have access to clean water to a bathroom to be able to flush the toilets to showers and it's not really an option so that's what their argument is they're taking a number of actions one of the actions that they have taken recently is that they have filed a report with the special repertoire to the u.n. asking for help and that's the person that you usually write for help and crises across the world in africa for instance so this is really a monumental step for them to be speaking to the u.n. repertoire which is based in new york about something that's happening not too far away in detroit detroit's emergency manager kevyn orr of course says nothing is off
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the table to deal with this mess even privatizing the water services what happens megan. one of the issues that you're talking about there is the idea of privatization now destroy water and sewer department has not said whether or not it is actually shooting for that they said that they're not however activists say that this is an idea that was really showing off this water is really trying to sweeten the pot for possibly private investors taking over but they would be taking over a huge debt so detroit right now has its debt is in the billions the tens of billions of dollars of that five billion dollars worth of debt is from the water and sewer department alone which is about twenty three percent so the idea of private privatizing water and sewers is not completely uncommon about fifty percent of americans right now cross the u.s. get their water from private companies so the idea though is that it would take over quite a bit of the. that which no one really seems to want to do at the moment and the
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other thing to kind of keep in mind here is that federal assistance for water programs within it detroit itself has gone down three quarters since the one nine hundred seventy s. so they're not getting city help they're not getting private help and they're not getting federal help when meanwhile the entire war infrastructure is falling down and crumbling and residents aren't able to pay their bills so it really is quite a quagmire here absolutely i know groups like the detroit water brigade are taking action to fight this thank you so much megan for being on the ground reporting. coming up we'll talk about a new effort to resurrect it in american history stay tuned. please try to. play pulling out of your new thoughts
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and your life before the storm you think everybody. played. so well. a lot like that. let's say the place he says he. loves to play sometimes for nothing actually played this season and it's just. it's not just you but still he could still be john if you see the state take the t.v. . but he just the other. player. plays. well into the interest please show the city for the country but building. thirteen billion euros on cold feet says to reach one
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hundred fifty million degrees with one token mark to sell from st petersburg to france we travel in search of the song. knowledge young age we've got the future covered. did you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open process 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 crust of ago we've been a hydrogen client handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers one school class i'm job market and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying the problem trucks rational debate and
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a real discussion of critical issues facing america by the book ready to join the movement then walk in the big picture. his name was use of good as he was nazi germany's minister of propaganda the midst that he created exist to this day. used google's propaganda was both actually trying to denigrate other nations while at the same time raising ordinary german so studiously to. keep its can do we do use of go bill sniff precisely what the masses need to hear in order to make them follow him he was like the pipe paper from the fairy tale that made rats follow that you know this by. the myths created by the chief nazi ideologist bound for
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town saw in the west we have to fight these myths today in memory of those who won in the second world war. when you think about the concept of banned books to tallahassee and states that practice mass book burnings probably come to mind but open societies are also no stranger to the censorship of contentious novels and historical accounts of controversial events one needs to look no further than right here in the us now of course the first amendment prohibits the outright banning it books by the federal government but there are many less insidious ways that dangerous content is being kept off american bookshelves earlier this month new york university professor mark crispin miller released a list of five historical books they've been actively suppressed and a hint from american this is
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a book focused on issues from abortion to financial unequality and tell stories of america that don't conform to the mainstream narrative we've all been taught me now to discuss further i'm joined by new york university media studies professor mark crispin miller himself thank you so much for coming on mark. good to be back at thank you so mark outlined some institutionalized ways that literature is routinely censored in this country. well the as you pointed out in your introduction we don't ban books the first amendment prohibits it but there's more than one way to skin a cat and in fact hundreds of books on crucial subjects indispensable books books full of truths that americans really ought to know have been undone in one way or another threats of litigation for example by powerful interests. review reviewers freezing out certain titles or
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what happens most often is books are written off as conspiracy theory what we're doing i want to make clear it isn't just listing five of these books which we will talk about in a moment those are the first five books. in a new series called forbidden book shelf whose purpose is to make important works that are now out of print available again and the great majority of these books were indeed deliberately done in by harville interests by the cia by corporate powers and so on we're taking advantage of the digital revolution to do a dozen books a year we're doing e-books so that americans can finally get hold of these of these crucial writings and mark why did you choose these five books for the first of the series what common historical threads do they share. well you know it was an embarrassment of riches but but i guess you could say that we picked the first five
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because they offered a very. interesting range of different concerns and also because i'd say four out of the five really speak to the to the moment we're living in right now. first of all there's the phoenix program by by douglas valentine this came out in the early ninety's it's an absolutely crucial and harrowing study of an enormous cia. covert program that took place in south vietnam during the the war there it was basically a terror program its purpose was to combine the forces of the military and the police and intelligence. and basically pacify the south vietnamese population. and keep them quiet. basically enforce the rule of the south of the enemy's regime all in the name of fighting terror now in his new
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introduction to this book doug valentine points out that the phoenix program could be regarded as a kind of template for our war on terror here in the united states that increasingly we're we're losing our civil liberties bit by bit so the government uses the danger of terrorism to justify all kinds of horrible infringements you know on our on our constitutional rights so that it's now ok for example to assassinate american citizens with drones it's now ok to subject american citizens to indefinite detention by the military all of this was first put into practice by the cia in vietnam through the phoenix program which which accounts for the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in south vietnam who were tortured in assassinated this is a book that as i say speaks to today i want to jump in here really quick. read a quote from that author's new introduction because it's so damning he claims the
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phoenix phoenix already landed in america of course same take heed reader phoenix has come to define in modern american warfare as well as its internal homeland security apparatus indeed it's with the phoenix program that we find the genesis of the paramilitary zation of american police forces and their role as adjunct to the military and political security forces engaged in population control and suppression of dissent markets amazing that i didn't even know about the phoenix program and i know a lot about covert cia operations i mean it's incredible that this really apparently did provide this blueprint for the ongoing war on terror can you speak more about. well yeah and the fact that you don't know about the program. basically means that you don't know about the book and you don't know about the book because the book was marginalized ignored and so on doug valentine had a lot of trouble i mean initially he got the go ahead from william colby the head of the cia who was the most prominent defender of the program before congress and
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on that basis valentine talked to a lot of cia officers who've been involved in the program so it's a very very solid in a scholarly way very well documented but it was it became clear to the agency after a couple of years that they did not want this guy to between this research so they mediately clammed up and he had to go to war with them legally the the a.c.l.u. helped him but then what happened when the book came out is that morley safer of c.b.s. wrote a very damning review for the new york times whether he did this at the behest of the agency or not we don't know but in either case basically meant the end of valentine's career as a writer who would have a major publisher do his books he was basically blacklisted in an informal way so we're trying to rectify that great wrong and help americans we discover some crucial. information about about our recent past by bringing the book out again in
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the forbidden book shelf absolutely we keep seeing these stories repeated time and time again another book lords of creation written by frederick lewis allen going for about twenty five hundred dollars a pop new print copy on amazon why is this book such a forbidden treasure. mark can you hear me. i'm not hearing anything. but we're talking about a book about the economic system and how it's basically predicted that capitalist expansion and pretty dictate all of these things that are going on over the last hundred years the robber barrons the rot child all these different families in the financial elite that are basically consolidated power and wealth over the years predicting and predating everything that happened this book was written back in one thousand thirty five mark why is this book such a forbidden treasure going for twenty five hundred dollars
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a pop on amazon. yeah the lords of creation is written by frederick lewis allen who was a very. popular writer in his day. and all of his other popular histories were in print this one book is not in print the lords of creation which is a really highly readable account basically of the early history of the one percent it starts with. j.p. morgan's creation of u.s. steel and takes us through the history of how these buccaneering financiers of basically subjected america to repeated booms and busts and always enrich themselves in the process it has the the edition in forbidden book shelf has a new introduction by gretchen morgenson of the new york times who really hits the nail on the head when she says that this this this history will help us understand where we are today and recognize that what we're going through now economically has
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has deep roots and went on for a long time mark another better known operation then the phoenix program is operation paperclip of course outline and christopher simpson's book blowback it's not necessarily the story but i wanted to talk about it this is new introduction and this e-book is particularly fascinating to me because it outlines overt censorship that he encountered as an archivist when trying to issue a. a written critique about the government's declassification process can you briefly describe the story and why it reveals or what it reveals rather about the way the government archives its own hidden history that's right he was part of an advisory group of historians who were supposed to help the government. assess its own efforts the declassification specifically of documents having to do with our involvement with. nazis and fascists after the war and he wrote a little piece that was supposed to be published in a larger collection
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a piece that was strongly critical of the declassification program and took issue specifically with the attempt to appoint john yoo you remember that name john yoo the notorious attorney who sought to justify the bush regime's torture program they tried to put him at the helm of the national archives now there was a fuss over this and the cooler heads prevailed but the interesting thing is that that christopher simpson's piece about this which is submitted to the national archives for publication in their report was itself since they left it left it out of the report so it's now part of the new introduction to christopher simpson's blowback which is the first and i think by far the best history of the u.s. recruitment of nazis and fascists after world war two for help in the cold war certainly tells a different story than what we've been told about world war two and if you have
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hans the germany you know i have to say in the introduction to this series you write an excellent introduction to the five books on the books that once these books are gone out of print are gone forever is that really true though because i was able to find these books in full on amazon i mean what's the big deal with not having a hard copies mark when the advent of the internet is making the books obsolete anyways. well so forget we are publishing e-books so you're. no we're not actually offering hard copies i actually wish we were because i'm a kind of diehard fan of of actual book folks nevertheless your point is well taken which is why we're doing me is the books many of them are available used additions online but the fact is that when you publish a book properly that's a way of introducing it to the world you know if you go to look for a particular volume to buy it used on amazon that that suggests to me that you already know that it exists and see my point whereas what we're doing is we're
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really publishing them we're making the world where the babes this and crucially were we're offering them with new introductions to bring them up to date we've got a lot more books coming out you know in in the next few months and in the years to come we're going to be doing i have stones hidden history of the korean war we're also going to be doing stones underground to palestine along with all of his other writings on israel and palestine we're going to be doing girard colby's du pont dynasty behind the nylon curtain this is an amazing history of the dupont dynasty that the du ponts corporation itself managed to kill twice both in the seventy's and eighty's we're bringing that out with a new and to mark i have to tell you that i mean i was so fascinated just reading the books that you sent me i cannot wait to dig more and it is really hidden history here that everyone needs to check out thank you so much mark crispin miller amazing project everyone get involved thanks ed. that's our show you guys join me
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again tomorrow when i break the fat all over again. i'm happy martin the stories we cover here we're not going to hear any right story straight headlines there's a reason they don't want you to not. want to raise that we should leave now let's break the set. and the prospects of peace preliminary talks of a limited nature are underway to avoid an all out civil war to be seen whether the regime in can be serious today one thing is certain violence foamy divides ukraine . you know general macarthur once said americans never quit that was when there was something worth fighting for before fraud was the only way
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of life post gold standard abandonment and bankruptcy before the population grew morbidly obese downing bargain cans of processed food bought at the company's store wal-mart where their food stamps what the furthest before the patriotic scoundrels of perpetual war which can never be funded by a low wage high food stamp economy. we
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a pleasure to have you with us today i'm sure. his name was because he was nazi germany's minister of propaganda in the midst that he created exist to this day. propaganda was actually trying to denigrate other nations while at the same time raising ordinary german soldier students who would. keep kids. knew precisely what the masses needed to hear in order to make them follow him he was like the pied piper from the fairy tale who made the rats fall that you know despite. the myths created by the chief nazi ideologist bound for tal saw in the west we have to fight these myths today in memory of those who walked in the second
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world war. libya heads to the polls to choose a new parliament against a backdrop of bloodshed and chaos three years since the. regime promised to bring peace and democracy. and europe security watch for the troops in eastern ukraine to be extended his renewed battles between the on. and local militias rattle the temporary cease fire and as orbiting junk threaten to cut us off from vital communications satellites we speak to the man on a mission to save.
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