it's out again folks i'm having martin and this is breaking the set so between speaker of the house john boehner you know obama over obamacare and the design period on the i.r.s. scandal to say that congress is getting nothing done would be a severe understatement but yesterday the senate actually managed to take a big step forward and one of the most important reasons why our current representative system is so toxic and corrupt campaign finance seen a ten to eight vote the senate judiciary committee voted to approve a constitutional amendment that would overturn a notorious two thousand and ten supreme court's citizens united decision of course this ruling solidified the notion of corporate personhood and equated money with free speech by allowing companies to give unlimited amounts of cash to political action committees or super pacs which then lobby on behalf of individual candidates

now realistically this move is purely symbolic considering that a constitutional amendment requires a two thirds majority vote in both the house and the senate but the fact that ten of the most powerful members of the senate will be willing to vote against their own interests for once as encouraging chairman of the senate judiciary committee patrick leahy even went as far as saying quote i've always believe that amending our constitution must be subject to the highest measure of scrutiny it is something that should only be done as a last resort when the voices of hardworking americans continue to be drowned out by the money and few more serious action must be taken and i'm hardly suggesting that we should rely on the very people who benefit from this pay to play system to change it instead we should be looking at grassroots movements from outside the beltway movements like made a pac a super pac started by harvard professor lawrence lessig but ironically is raising money to elect candidates promising to repeal citizens united and other measures but of institutionalized money and politics less said came on the show a couple months ago to talk about why the. current system is so what poisonous any

human who spends thirty to seventy percent of your time raising money from a tiny tiny fraction of the one percent you can't help but develop an intuition about exactly what sorts of things you need to say to continue to succeed in raising money from those people and what sort of issues you need to avoid so you begin to develop a sense that this six that's what range of appropriate issues to approach and to talk about and to push are if you're going to continue to be able to be successful to raise money from these funders now amazingly that made a pact which was only started in may have this year has raised a stunning seven point six million dollars to date from over fifty three thousand individual contributors so while the future of our political system does indeed look grim the fact that there are people using the system's own tools to dismantle it is a bright spot indeed to break the set. please

please sir they are late there you are to take over the two o'clock you better act with the target there are those. that are like. the to cut. cut cut cut cut. cut. cut. as i have covered all week on the show israel has launched a now four day assault on the gaza strip dubbed operation protective edge and today and israeli was critically injured by a hamas launched rocket that hit

a gas station in the city of ashdod on the palestinian side the death toll has now surpassed one hundred with another six hundred eighty injured according to news agency but again despite this grows disproportionality the establishment press continues to the store at the truth take a look at this headline from the new york times after an israeli missile hit a gaza cafe packed with palestinians watching the world cup it says a missile at beachside gaza cafe finds patrons polies for world cup. that's right those gazans were just inviting that deadly missile to de seems like quite an inappropriate way to describe a massacre doesn't it well thankfully widespread outrage has forced the new york times to change the headline to a somewhat more appropriate but still bizarre and rubble of gaza seaside cafe hunt for victims who had come for soccer. but see this example is only a microcosm of the disturbing way this entire conflict has been framed by the

mainstream and it's the willful one sidedness that is forcing people out in the streets to voice their opposition in fact all of the world thousands are joining in protests from one in oslo with slogans such as and the siege on gaza and freedom for palestine right here in washington d.c. activists join in solidarity to large protests and from the israeli embassy but the grassroots organization code pink book i understand of this conflict has led to unbelievable tensions suffering and tragedy for all those involved a perception is everything and if we let the media dictate the narrative it does a great injustice to any efforts of diplomacy and peace because as much as we might want to deny it the fact is that israel is the largest recipient of u.s. aid to the tune of over three billion dollars a year so what happens over there is all of our problems.

perhaps there is no better way to express frustration with the current system than splashing an image in a place where the public's forced to see it which is exactly what street artist guilds doesn't places all around new york image here is just one example for powerful body of work that mixes activism art and cutting political commentary join me now is brooklyn street artist herself gil to discuss her art and advocacy thank you so much for coming on. the area i'm great and so the vast majority of art is not political what drove your passion for some balik political parties. but well i started putting work out in the street in two thousand and eight in direct response to the bush administration was awesome what was it about. the. just the. amount of terrorism i thought was happening in iraq with the torture of the prisoners and

a lot of the things that i saw happening over there i just i i couldn't get behind and i was really. questioning you know the dialogues that were happening in our media and it just didn't none of it made sense to me so you know i was talking to people in friends and nobody wanted to listen everybody would change the topic of conversation and so i was left to express myself visually. street art could be territorial and dangerous i mean it's a practice largely dominated by men do you think it's been harder for you as a woman to establish your name and make a space for yourself in the medium. i definitely see the sexism that exists in the streets i think a lot of times people don't take me seriously because i'm female. but you know i if anything that just fuels me to work harder. to look at from your different art work you've done a lot of work from rabin gentrification and progress banners around buildings to destroying a kitchen and gentrification pro does as

a new yorker what effects have you seen gentrification do in your city and why is it an issue that speaks to you so much. when new york is a very unique place you know it's the birthplace of so much creativity and so many of the you know the arts are so concentrated here so when i see things like the rents sense two thousand and been increasing to seventy five percent in the last fourteen years you know you see a lot of creative people being pushed out because you know we're you know starving artists or however you want to put it and a lot of us are just surviving and not thriving necessarily financially so when you see you know places like five points that giant building in iraq. you see those sort of artistic meccas and institutions that have been around forever disappearing so that they can put up you know glass structures with you know luxury apartments you kind of have to question what's the motive and. what's what's our city turning into how is this changing. the environment and how we're how are we supposed to co-exist in this sort of situation right i mean every every city that i love live

lived in the last five years it seems like they're just putting up these high rise apartment buildings pushing all the people out of the centers of the city and it's like we're not i mean you're just pushing it out so rich people can't see like the reality of what's going on and let's take a look at the the amazing clip of use of mashing the hell out of this kitchen what drove you to create this food so work. well it was a it's an abandoned building that was getting ripped down to make way for these condos and a friend had kind of gotten access to the building not necessarily legally and so a lot of us just came in and we were all going to work out and i decided to just take over this kitchen because of all places. what speaks to a family more in like where is it more of a communal space in the kitchen that's where you make memories you cook together you're talking you know you fight you argue you you know you your family in that room specifically so i felt the need to kind of destroy those memories and to

recreate a kitchen and then to to take it apart all in the name of progress just did it just felt the way i needed to go all in the name of progress it always is. and i love the work of so varied covers so much ground to take a look at copper green an outline of the famous image of the opera group prisoner with the department of homeland security freeze if you see something say something why did you bridge these two concepts. well i've i felt that we were. saying one thing to our citizens and doing another abroad and you know if. i felt the government wasn't. being honest with the population if you're going to be doing those sorts of things you know we should have a say in whether or not we find this to be ok and obviously i felt like we were we were misguided and doing things that weren't right and i was saying something i love it oh yeah another one your work such as the statue of liberty drinking the kool aid and you think nationalism is

a hinderance to the evolution of empathy and consciousness. yeah that's that's a good way of putting it i think a lot of people get that wrong sort of mentality. thinking that we can do no wrong but in the last few years i feel like that's sort of been starting to unravel and i think people are starting to really become more informed and more aware and you know shows like yours are. what are doing that so thank you for that thank you so much and the first work i saw of yours of these amazingly complicated mazes first they seem purely abstract but upon closer examination they display words and phrases out of a concept manifest and how do you even map them out we have about forty five seconds left. the concept is really about kind of getting lost in your world and also giving those sorts of words strength and power by kind of. you know exponentially growing through those lines so it's just about. seeking deeper than

reading between the lines and trying to see past what you know may at first glance be something simple and how the hell do you serious about the mo as an artist i like them they're incredible start from the inside and work out that's how it goes yeah drop your website real quick. and i see dot com. dot com thank you so much street artist really really love your work. appreciate it thanks so much coming up on future an exclusive performance by hip hop artist sage francis stay tuned. it's like you know when the bullets to start because it's like duck duck duck that stuff back back back back up mode so it's it's almost like there's a beat the blue and then you just feel the big sound that's like the bass. speaks

the language. programs in documentaries in arabic it's when you hear on. the teams in the world talks about six of the c.r.p. interview intriguing story to tell you. the. arabic to find out more visit arabic i don't know it's called. ten years ago i heard a song that deeply resonated with me and articulating my frustration with media and politics that song was called makeshift patriot it was written by an incredibly talented hip hop artist named sage francis francis is a prolific lyricist who has broken through almost every genre from slam poetry to what's been dubbed indie hop considering that francis was the first hip hop artist to sign with punk record label epitaph now he runs his own independent company

called strange famous and i was lucky enough to have an institute joins me earlier to perform a song called vonnegut busy from his new album copper gone. yet . it might have been called to her mind cement to satisfy. the light from my shoes to look like they didn't walk to my house to look like it's been in the car to look like a proper it has been driven off a cliff michael could not stop great p.r. don't clean the crime scene because tommy's money don't. seem bloody just dead people who does it we walk under cover dead with the cute little puppets discuss nothing but this was. more to get and then

a freak out the old couple who watches keep back now we don't know each other i'm on the road to the real sheep. sales to the sea breeze rest some wind if you want to placate day to day i'll use my colon asleep to stay awake i get to be psychic like i'm not a psychic you just ridiculous nobody left to find me if i do they will come and take the gun to something like my shoes to look like they haven't walked in my house the bike has been a car to look like a park that has been driven off the cliff micro-grid it nonstop graveyard shifts in the gases in search of the paths taken up the earth filling turns with dirt for what it's worth i'm richer than a cemetery soil to slave to make it a midnight oil night at the shade tree my i'm at the wheel of a state famously cake people call me keep mats good job only one two and two to three years to the full closure they said the war was so book we do was it they

wanted more soldiers we see. is a fresh batch of people who step back support back the old rosie get trapped in the back of the people who probably need to smoke down the debacle in american cinema which is the cult film and many think anyone there pretty positive is effective to break a promise and take a breath but it is nothing that we can stay alive under subpoena delays struggle let me ask you why did you say look at all that we took you to. played out we take all we keep. talking. mit. it might. call the kurds rights to the status quo to keep the lid or it has. more to keep the way. they're. going to keep busy. keep on with keep the.

ball going to see. hold up hold out hope. we can up one bully types as if that isn't what a. inspiration strikes like you julian a point these lines just across and i'm concluding that my momma don't want to she never has to work you can never happy while spread. thin affair with the plaintiff like my son the bottom up promise might as mocking up a man a problem probably make the condoms want to pop out of the flame repeat some type of what you don't say this as the buzz say the least little feat of the devil spanish club politics to spot none of the cement in some cases take them out with him steam rolled up two thousand sand had a couple dreams stolen gold wheat so let me stop to rebuild it feels like you go with the coal fields they keep going to the coal with their fields that keep going through hell keep it all work and as they say made the bridges that we heard like.

i'm not so much for the like they haven't walked in the house for the like it's been in my coffin the blood the fall it's been driven off a cliff michael cut off played the auction like a mushroom the flight has been blocked at my house with my kids that they didn't call it but it has been driven off a cliff. the radio on. too much too soon like that all the house to the puck is going to piss off all through the park opposite to get off a cliff michael could not stop playing golf. so long to keep busy to. sleep yes maam want to keep busy. want to keep. busy.

you started strange famous records in one thousand nine hundred six what compelled you to start an indie label all the way back then and how hard was it to get off the ground. it didn't get off the ground until like many years later but in ninety six i was introduced to the hardcore punk rock scene. and they were all releasing their own records there was no major label putting out stuff like that and it inspired me because that whole time from childhood until i was in college i was like when is a major label going to sign me and it was obvious that wasn't going to happen unless you know i had to like get stuff in motion on my own it just inspired me i watched them print their own scenes they just like they were self sufficient subculture that hip hop was lacking that was like all of hip hop was run by a leg a certain couple companies and that's all the same artist you listen to the good thing about that is like a collective experience because people came up listening to hip hop we all know the old a local j. records we all know the old run d.m.c.

public enemy but eventually when the indie scene in hip hop started to explode in the late ninety's early two thousand and then everybody started putting in the legwork to get their material out there and you know napster and file sharing companies that allowed for people in sweden to hear my music when i didn't have distribution like that certainly kick started the in the scene you said that corporations have extracted intelligence from head pop and wanted you to elaborate on what you meant by that you know well for many many years i think that they decided. to promote and push artists who appeal to the lowest common denominator was the fastest and easiest route of getting an audience who was would spend money for the albums like capitalism but like there's other things at play that i feel like russell simmons i think has been put on blast recently by chuck d. about this stuff hot ninety seven a lot of a lot of other companies who were big tastemakers in hip hop early on who went the

very easy and cheap route later on they deserve criticism because. they were lucky to be in a position where they were when they were in it when everything was was brand new and fresh and they did push artists like public enemy who changed the way people think about hip hop and music and for positive change. and then for everything to just get so. cheap and watered down and that's all they cared about was all they pushed it's like there was no dialogue about how do we better this look what it's doing to the communities and where hip hop originated from slate how are we giving back to those places like that's beyond me i don't feel like that's my position to talk about a but i do think that they deserve a lot of criticism i have to talk about this on because that's what turned me on to you makes a patriot back right after nine eleven you wrote this song a month after nine eleven you released at the same exact day of talk about

everything in the media analysis to the u.s. fighting terrorism in the past how the hell were you so precious hint and you did not get sucked up to that patriotic fervor so soon yeah after the event i think because i did i wrote it soon after and then recorded and released it on ten eleven but. i was kind of still fresh out of university and a graduate of the degree in journalism never pursued it but at least they taught me the ethics of journalism so then when i saw how the story was being presented not only did it just kind of like the red lights blinking like someone's wrong the way they were presenting the story was wrong the way people around me were talking was wrong and like people were just yesterday and very scared and i was scared to i mean i remember being very scared but i was scared of. not like a muslim terrorist mostly like a scared of what people were doing around me. and i wanted to document the fear of

the whole thing of everything because i know those moments get washed away i think history gets rewritten so often i was like waiting for someone else to come out with the song like who's going to speak on it but everyone was just waving the flags and there was the echo chamber of you know what was being said on t.v. and i felt it was wrong i always thought it was hip hop's place to be that other voice to be the alternative and to speak some sense into a confusing or wrong situation so that was my inspiration obviously hip-hop taught me that coming up but my experience with journalism also showed me another angle so i want to do it like address that in the song and not have it be about nine eleven per se but that's part of it but it was all journalism as a whole media as a whole and culture as a whole the fear driven. populace who just were like willing to do anything the shock doctrine enough stuff you know it really spoke to me and

thank you for writing i know that it was deemed really controversial which is insane because i'm going to drop it is hard truth that no one else wanted to really get it out and i was out but i was wondering what was going to happen and i felt like i was put on i was red listed as red flags and it's on my flyer goes elsewhere and the tape and they go through all my stuff for years still to this day you said in back in two thousand and ten on our t.v. actually that you were come to what the direction obama was taking the country i wanted to see if you still felt that way i got it i got a lot for that but the thing was i felt the interviewer was steering me to talk obama and i wasn't ready to do that just yet. he had only been in office for four months and i don't know what it is to be a president i don't know how long change takes to happen but so i was like i'm waiting it out i'm not here to like. bash anyone who becomes president i was trying to see if maybe some could happen. but. no

i don't think i'm very pleased with the direction things have been taken. and i still don't know all of what it is to be president because i did feel like he had it in him should change things for the better and like i said the downward trend is just continuing that happened you can yell all day until you're blue in the face about don't buy from this company and you see that they own about a million companies and it's like what the hell you do and i'm getting sucked into this election cycle every four years and nothing changes and i think it's just mobilization grassroots and hoping we can try to create some alternative here let's talk about your new album cover gone you've taken a four year break from taurean. tell us what what when into this album cause it's full of so much tashan it's this reflection on politics the world how you interact with it how interacts with you just incredible kind of commentary there on so much . give the album. it was

a result of. i think being shut away for four years the kind of things that happen when you're you are shut away for four years media takes part in that because i'm watching t.v. thinking a lot about the same things how does that reflect in my daily life when i feel like things are broken outside but also i realize are broken inside so kopper gone was about and the title itself references how the homes around where i live were abandoned and copper pipes were taken out of it you know for scrap metal whatever so they spray painted copper gone onto the houses and in my house started to feel like that and then i started to feel like that in. just everything evolved out of that whereas like why does everything feel like i'm just been stripped clean completely no matter what we pay no matter what we do they just like people just keep taking taking take in and that was i think the driving force one of the record

of my personal life the focus not so much politics but you know politics does play a role like i said it's all political man gore i mean everywhere that i read it you can bring it back to how we interact with the world and how it interacts with us and i love what you said in one interview just that i you know i can watch the world brain around me and get there myself in the fire and what i'm going to do and tell people where they can find out more about you in your music stage get my music a strange famous records dot com. of course all the i tunes and all that stuff but because much of. band camp and for hopefully in stores if their use of a record store where you live and you can ask your local record yeah it's fun to look just you know sift through the cds if you have cd players they'll see does another thing they try to wipe out cd players like they're making cars with out on the making laptops about cd players are forcing the issue i'm not ready for the change everything's going to be streaming now it's like i wasn't ready for the

change from tape to cd eventually ten years later i adopted it and now they're trying to take away my sins whatever. it. is a great pleasure to sit back and say and thanks so much. it's thing disappear. its thing disappear. disappear we'll. see good leverage tory kirby was able to build a news most sophisticated robot which all unfortunately doesn't give a darn about anything tim's mission to teach creation why you should care about humans in. this is why you should care only on the team.