oh and welcome to cross talk where all things are considered i'm peter lobo r.t. america was required to register is a foreign agent why have prominent media outlets and civil liberties groups been largely silent also making sense of saudi in lebanese politics and not american footprint in syria. cross talking some real news i'm joined by my guest mark sloboda he's an international affairs and security analyst we also have victrola bitch is a political analyst as well as a leading expert at the center for actual politics and we have some euro con she is an r.t. international correspondent based in washington d.c. all right crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate it's new let me go to you first because you're a international correspondent but you're based in washington d.c. what is your reaction to this whole fara episode i would say for

a farce when it comes to free speech well as you can see the conservative and liberal free speech warriors are totally silent and. bipartisan russia hysteria political discourse be it clearly because of that it's damaging free speech or i mean i think we have this this is the weaponization and normalization of censorship in the media and it's it's not the end of something it's the beginning of something that of course look at the situation in the united states right now you can go into a large bookstore and buy my comp there you can just write just you can write. books and you can read them freely but for some reason you can you cannot which read. and. not be you know a sympathizer of russia and now if you go and give an interview tomorrow you're going to be. i don't know if of people who give interviews to

a foreign agent and now not now has to actually register with far or stewardesses a foreign agent even though you know b.b. he doesn't have to register as a foreign agent doesn't have to. cheney's doesn't have to but he does and you know some agencies with the with it's work also do now show us what you would have to ask to register eventually so why is this happening does the american government actually believe that you can then the russian news outlets are actually more dangerous than the nazi you were or other rhetoric why doesn't believe that because he spoke and you can. provide news that the mainstream media in the united states if you do this to give to the american public as you have the political elite and you know media leads to don't want they don't have they no longer have any talent or arguments to narratives that you hear on this

television station four is a it's an old law dates back to one nine hundred thirty eight it was originally meant to stop fascist nazi propaganda in the united states it has been very sparsely and only very selectively applied and almost never to have brought media stations but it has always been political this is the most political we've seen yet there are numerous state broadcasters in the united states the wahhabi despot of qatar that sponsors isis and al qaida they're allowed to have al-jazeera. doesn't have a branch of the united states anymore but that hasn't stopped them from from broadcasting in the united states the british government has b.b.c. the united states has its own voice of america radio free liberty current time t.v. you know all over the world this is targeting specifically russian media and it has to be said that while r t international does present a russian worldview just as chinese t.v. presenter when she did see. the u.s.

state media presents us real r.t. america doesn't even really it's simply gives a platform to mostly american leftist progressives and some libertarians and that's the danger russia r.t. does exactly back to to the west what its own media has long been to russia it gives alternative fringe voices a platform to criticize their own governments that they wouldn't have in their own media and that's it that's it in the. useful idiots argument i think is what's most damaging to the media environment in the united states because if you can selectively take a law that is very rarely been applied and apply it very specifically very politically motivated it says a lot about what freedom of speech is really about if you don't follow certain narratives you will be completely shut out there is no more arguments my way or the highway especially if you're critiquing u.s.

imperialism and nato expansion and that's definitely what a lot of the guests who have been dubbed. yeah absolutely like i mean libertarians like ron paul there are leftists like max blumenthal how many how many chances do they have on corporate media to speak out against especially those topics when they have preinterview something that our team doesn't do we don't do pre-interviews. what is the i mean this is such a chilling effect that is going on in the united states you know this name and shame you mentioned lists here but isn't this certain logic dictate that if you start with one media organization it can be apply everybody else eventually and then we have the tech companies on top of the tech giants that are actually getting on board with their new algorithm and disappearing people and sites and claim in plain daylight here i mean the precedent here is something that should be worrying . everyone of course you know we it's

a test that's being played out was out at sea and sputnik right now because the american government wants to see how it can shut them down you know we were attacked by least attention of civil liberties organizations and then if washington's relations with the drink or some other countries deteriorate similar things will happen with chinese or with other international broadcasting stations so they will apply far first to see sputnik then they will go. further and as far as the tech giants you know the tech giants are so delighted when u.s. government help and sometimes it's funding some of their projects sometimes it's using military bases to conduct. experiments and. other technological feats sometimes using u.s. government transportation and other perks there saudi lying to the u.s. government there really cannot stand as an independent voice and they cannot say no

they're being told to do this in they do it. more but this and this at some point in time affect their bottom line i mean this is one of the great things about the internet is that people can choose i've said many times on this program and i will say it again no one is forced to watch the program that we're sitting in right now . the government now decides what your choices are going to be i can't see how in the longer run well that's a good idea look at twitter did with the protests to people during the election yeah i mean this is gross interference you need to censorship sites because social media let's be clear about what the government and these tech giants are now doing they are now deciding what is journalism right and they are not only that the truth with a capital particularly twitter and facebook but also the government there dictating ideology they are now in the ideology business they're deciding what views can and can't be shown and twitter has started mass removing people that

a lot of them i'm not particular fans of but it never stops there and where where will it go next we saw with fora when it was there was testimony and support the people driving this think tanks like the atlantic council write this european values think tank the useless idiots with this list of useful idiots i'm glad that . i they did actually put your name down as some kinds of supporter of let's talk about i mean you know he's stuck up i don't think these are jimmy carter testified that the purpose of this is not so much to affect the viewers they're not going to stop you from watching because we're labeled a foreign agent in fact it might increase our popularity might increase our street cred as critique of the us but it's meant to stop credible guests from appearing on it's meant to scare them to threaten potential journalists saying you will never have a career if you work for r.t. or analysts and politicians saying you'll be blacklisted we'll name and shilling

you feeling it will make adverts against your that chilling effect and what these tech giants are are doing is is they're being pushed and now they're moving eagerly to you know cover their own interests are pursuing this along the same line and it has to be said. media rather than raising their voice in opposition to this they're cheerleading along there are some of the people like an apple and others driving this because it threatens their narrative it starts with r t and then we'll have other russian and other state broadcasters but the next target and they've already been identified by the same think tanks as useful idiots all to media. counterpart. their own anti-war one of the interest the saddest thing to take away from all this is that i would say one of the foundations of western culture that it provides the world is

a marketplace of ideas in that what you have is the west doing it during the soviet union the soviet government didn't want for news to be heard by soviet citizens but that's exactly what's happening in the united states right now and i would say in the western world they want to shut out the outside and alternative views and civil liberties groups mean the mainstream media they're all silent on that. exactly were they something we. can be i saw that right away and for it to tell on use this is a plain and fringe went on free speech free speech the first amendment based on what the idea that russia supposedly hacked the election that's the foundation of all of this which we have now i would have you here and a half later no evidence but you know one about the west that has about itself their own liberal progressive viewpoint and this is this is what's most dangerous to them they're going after liberals and progressives but liberals and progressives

they're going to be shut down and instead of being able to to express them angry and being shut down but their views are not going to go away they're not going to go away either you go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on some real news day with r.t. . me from getting this close to the white house i'm with you. i should be sent to the town because i'm a traitor the we'll. talk of the story you don't scare me and i'll continue to voice my opinion i'll continue to speak out good company i'm in good company with me you want to use his real. crypto currency doesn't really need to replace the u.s. dollar. the euro it just needs to survive while those.

collapse under their own weight and when that happens it's going to go. i simply even begin. that didn't have ten miles from the independent with me just for that day with. the counselors. we were meeting they. were sort of my limit was speculation that me or the now we have a one quarter the only. now at the five the. hell i got money for that matter. i see like him to make the point i mean it would be in the meroka conforming course i gave up because of me. when i would.

lead. her. to know that i. was. welcome back across the uk where all things are considered i'm peter a belter man you were discussing some real news.

ok let's move on to the mysteries and paradoxes of lebanese and sodhi politics i mean for me it's just fascinating because it's so much multifaceted in the end there's there's so much to look at depending on what issue do you want to focus in on but one thing is for sure there is something going on in the middle east right now and it's not the birth pangs of democracy if we remember congolese rice markets some bullet points at least it's a big topic yeah saudi arabia is involved in so many problems and conspiracies from their invasion and starvation mass starvation or yemen right now with western and other gulf cooperation backing their their failed regime change operations in syria the mess they've helped create in libya now they're going a step further and they've stepped further into lebanese politics by many even

western mainstream accounts supposedly the lebanese prime minister. who is a pro u. s. lebanese prime minister pro so to you and pro so he has essentially been kidnapped by the new crown prince of saudi arabia and his has been held this far as i want to tell his friends by now he was on his way to france we'll see what the verdict is out of that what once he is allowed to speak freely in france but it's presumed that that saudi arabia having failed in syria and elsewhere is trying to confront iran in lebanon and they want to take on hezbollah a militant group that. they fought the israeli army and armed with the same you asked to send six right to a standstill and saudi arabia does not have the professional capable military that israel does so i'm not sure that hezbollah is

a pick that they want to when you know the way i look at it if i could just use a different analogy here i mean if we go through with the according to the in the saudi prism position the catastrophe in iraq is half in syria catastrophe in yemen and they're going to get the saudis i was going to get i was going to get there ok and they want to throw the dice one more time you know one of the fascinating things looking at western media coverage of this is that the crown prince he's. really seen if it looks like it looks like one of the most amazing incredible shakedown operations in history give me seventy percent of your wealth mr billionaire all dark and i'll let you free i think those that have been killed that that's extortion here but this is you know there are those voices in western media that are saying dismantle reform are ok as i saw on another channel but you know what saudi arabia is surrounded by problems problems it created for itself go ahead well the western media they always fail to acknowledge that saudi arabia is not

a monolithic entity and that's how they portrayed as that this is a basically a dual dictatorship with countervailing interests between the hobby clergy and the monarchy and that's important to understand before determining its foreign policy and predicting its foreign policy that's you know it's you know i heard this term moderate islam coming out of both way top of the news station has a different take on it monarchy is against it is likely is that even though they are because going to the sentient to the throne after his for the rich has been turned in riyadh has been turned already and israel their truck exert influence over it increasingly is so with everything it's going. and that's not another and you know if you if when the soviet union was reforming it had essential you know revolution and now we have saudi arabia i don't have much competence for the region considering the constellation of forty i don't even have much confidence for the

house of saud because they say you are everything to ensure that they themselves collapse at this point and. you know what is the argument of the arguments i came across this in western media is that the crown prince is we're demonstrating that saudi arabia is good to be a good foreigner that's made. things so you take money you take tens of billions of dollars away from people illegally without any law and you want to invest your money it is really that's exactly what they want though because the reason they herald this guy is a reformer or a. bloody coup or to purge it's portrayed in the western media as courageous liberal how if you are starting to see that it's shameless i think that's what they're really demonstrating is that next week there's going to be a new king in saudi arabia and then you king needs to suppress those who are in possible opposition to him and that's what he did and everything else is nice for him that it's not just at the behest of the saudis but also the because of

i mean. that's one of the most amazing things or as mark said the nail in the head here is that all of this is going on we have breasts we have executions we have property being seized and this is being painted as liberalism in the era of the internet by the way as far as the condition isn't over it's you know there's another prison that used to have similar footing in the hague it was called the fear of the hilton well. nice p.r. but people like milosevic and others died there and there are quite. mysterious circumstances before that i was wary of the fish i want to overestimate the niceness of their three and one of the interesting things here is that something i think western media has overlooked is that this is where. rare of the the house of saud going after its own because they usually have protections you'll never go to prison you'll never be under arrest you and that would be in their spring or consents and you could be kind of pushed aside you know if you notice how and why

and another thing i was very interesting if you look at the people who've been dispossessed or in the process of being dispossessed they own media assets and in the middle east and in the western world the crown prince wants to grab those for him so to be able to control the narrative i suppose a crown prince is learning a lot from american media ok you know when you have concentrated being able to control the narrative you're mark last minute yeah when they why they were harold him as a reformer there's so much excitement about him is because he and he listens to neo liberals and they hope that he is going to privatized a lot of state saudi assets at least partially as of it like a ram coke because they need the cash oil company they want to buy into saudi control of oil and other natural resources the middle east that's why they're so excited about him is because he's a neo liberal and he listens to neo liberals and aside from that on the foreign policy angle the neo cons in the us are all too eager to do what he wants and bring the us back directly into these wars in the middle east in syria going to finally

be finally targeted rand paul or and his follow through to finally create so much imperial overstretch that the u.s. military empire overseas collapses under its own weight blowback that's the way they look at it here at russia anyway mark you always and on a very interesting point that's all the time we have here many thanks my guests here in moscow and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are t. see you next time and remember crosstalk. i played for many clubs over the years so i know the game inside i. football isn't

only about what happens on the pitch put the final school it's about the passion from the fans it's the age of the superman each kill the narrowness and spending two hundred twenty million on one player. so it's an experience like nothing else on to because i want to share what i think what i know about the beautiful game but great so one more chance for. the base this minute. scene years ago i traveled across the united states exploring america's deadly love affair with a gun if a bad guy tried to get to one of my family members he would have better luck with their iron i think they are and hurting when i buy my babies says my book was published in the year two thousand more than half a million americans have been killed by firearms in the us i way how to saute me as

i did this is a middle school we go through drills and we put ourselves some real scenarios it was interesting to see who actually got hit by. the mob and i just saw i did to return to the subject to track down each gun owner who i'd met and photographed those years ago i don't know this but we are not. with lawmakers manufacture consent to stick to public wealth. when the ruling classes project themselves. with the financial merry go round be the one percent. that's not doing or middle of the room sick. i mean real news is

real world. call now says she'd prefer snap elections to forming a minority government soft a coalition talks between love whole party and the free democrats a breakdown over irreconcilable differences. the chief advisor to the talking. president calls on parliament to reconsider the country's nato membership the tensions between ankara and the alliance escalated dramatically after president one was depicted as an enemy during recent nato drills. and suicide surges in the french police force with more than forty officers taking their lives this year alone speaks to an officer who made two attempts on her life. what

was really bad is that we were not given the tools to fight terrorism simply.