at least seventeen people have been killed and over a thousand injured israeli soldiers to line all its tear gas and brooms and clashes with palestinians on the gaza border it's another things you read the the very young kid you give the baby that can you're old and he was close to the fantasy. russia takes action to expel foreign diplomats in a tit for tat measure as the route over the script pointing escalates. and german authorities are an evil to deport sixty five thousand illegal migrants as the asylum seekers ducktown valid id papers. but you can go to r.t. dot com for more on those and other stories while coming up it's

a new episode of the big picture. this week an important story you're not seeing covered much in the mainstream media who is this man and why is he here . holland cook in washington this is the big picture on our t.v. america. hamad bin solomon thirty two year old heir to the saudi throne has been called brash impulsive reckless ambitious how ambitious a saudi arabia's defense minister he's led a military campaign in yemen since twenty fifteen his campaign against corruption at home held over one hundred princes and elites under house arrest at the ritz carlton and riyadh he's ordered that women be allowed. to dr and while he strives

to diversify his country's economy he's also pitching a multibillion dollar an initial public offering for state owned or ram coal oil and right now he's touring the usa why let's ask medea benjamin co-founder of code pink a women led grassroots organization working to support peace and human rights initiatives and redirect tax dollars to health care education and green jobs and global exchange an international human rights organization dedicated to promoting social economic and environmental justice around the world medea welcome hi thanks so much for having me on ellen you wrote kingdom of the un just behind the u.s. saudi connection title that i'm plies a curious relationship between the usa and the land of the not so free has it always been about oil. it has been about oil for many decades but more

recently now that the us is producing so much of its own oil it has also become about weapon sales saudi arabia is the number one purchaser of u.s. weapons it's quite remarkable that this kingdom that is known so much for abuses internally and its repression around the world should be the great ally of the united states but whether we're talking about oil or weapons or just money in general money talks in addition to face time with big shots here in washington the princes meeting elsewhere with names including bill gates and tim cook and jeff bezos and michael bloomberg beyond drumming up all non oil business is the prince's charm all fence of about buffing up his image with john q public here in the usa. it certainly is and they're paying

a lot of money for that they have about two dozen p.r. firms that have been working overtime to get the most incredible schedule for his three week visit that goes from the names you mention to. former presidents like obama and even george bush he's meeting with oprah winfrey and doing an interview with her he had a very flattering interview on sixty minutes it's quite remarkable the way the red carpet has been rolled out for him everywhere from the white house to very soon. disney land because he's meeting with business as well but i would say that prince charming is really not very charming while his he's being portrayed as this great reformer he is the head of a kingdom that is one of the most repressive in the world where there is no free speech no free press no freedom of assembly no national elections no free

association labor unions you name it and yet because he is quote allowing women to drive something they've been fighting for for many decades and it's the only country in the world where women haven't been allowed to drive and opening up some movie theaters he's been pretty great as this great reformer well to that point a purging saudi arabia's ruling elite seems high minded and sounds progressive but is it possible is this just baked into their culture. baked into their culture that i'm not sure what you're referring to won't the royalty always be royal. no you know there used to be royalty all over in many parts of the world but royalty has been overthrown over the years or just turned into a. symbolic. position like you see in places like england but saudi arabia is one of the only places in the world where there is

still an absolute monarchy so that somebody like this thirty two year old crown prince things because he has some blood in him so that comes from the saudi family that's been ruling since one thousand nine hundred thirty two that he should have the right to continue ruling this kingdom for who knows how long and in the process he also has in a very spectacular way pushed aside sidelined all the other possible heirs to the throne he is extremely vicious and i would say extremely ruthless and to think that a reformer is somebody who thinks by way of a bloodline that he has the right to the absolute rule of this country doesn't sound like much reform for me reform is really a revolutionary that he calls himself a revolution would be to overthrow the kingdom and have a democratic rule of law you just used a word that we read

a lot when we read about this prince when you said ruthless it's a rough neighborhood over there with saudi arabia and iran competing for influence in iraq and lebanon and syria as well as yemen while team trump is talking tough about the iran new deal cause for concern. extremely but if you want to look at one of the main reasons why it's a giraffe region region look at saudi arabia they are the ones who from their founding started with this very intolerant perverted version of islam called is them that they have been spreading around the world and it form the basis of extremist groups like al qaeda and even isis today so it's quite tragic and ironic that the united states is so allied with the country that is most responsible for spreading extremism around the world let's remember that fifteen of the one thousand hijackers on nine eleven were from saudi arabia yet to that point

still in the back of our mind we've not yet resolved how much they did or did not have to do with nine eleven and. no we haven't there was a very good ruling just yesterday that law for suits against saudi arabia for the nine eleven attacks will be allowed to go forward so maybe through our justice system we might be able to find out exactly how much the saudis were involved in nine eleven back to where yemen too was here in america half a world away it's a word we see and read and hear we see clips on t.v. describe what it is like they are today. it's the largest humanitarian catastrophe in the world today with every ten minutes am in a child dying from the effects of war and mostly those effects come from the saudi led bombing campaign that the us has been heavily involved in from selling the

weapons and the bombs that are being dropped to refueling their airplanes to giving all kinds of logistical support so while this war criminal is traveling around the united states posing as a reformer and the u.s. is opening the doors for them let's remember that the crown prince is a war criminal and that the u.s. is aiding and abetting in his war crimes in yemen well i'm told by my compadres in the media that this flattering coverage you describe is something they do so much more effectively than our president does i'm told that their message is all truly under control and that whatever we read or see or hear about this tour is only half the story is that fair well certainly we will have to evaluate when this tour is over what are the results but i think that the the p.r. firms have done a good job in covering up all of the crimes of the prince the ruthlessness of this

prince the repression inside saudi arabia the disaster in yemen and so on and that's why we need other sources of media to tell us the truth and thank you for having me on medea benjamin thank you for what you do i appreciate. with a democrat now representing that eighteenth pennsylvania house district which donald trump won by twenty points and in which the president stumped twice for the republican candidate the next november preview is in arizona the eighth congressional district in the northwest corner of the phoenix area this election is to fill the seat of congressman trent franks who resigned after his words my discussion of surrogacy with two previous female subordinates and the democratic candidates unapologetically progressive approach is very different than the very republican sounding winner in pennsylvania. everyone deserves quality

affordable health care that can never be taken away we should be protecting our children's education and building an economy that values every arizona making sure that america is a place where when you work hard you rights america gave my parents an opportunity to earn a better it's up to us now to make sure every arizona has that chance to. talk to here all to prevent any and i'm running for congress because the doctor here real to pernetti is an emergency room physician whose parents moved here from india when she was just three and she cheers the usa as a land of opportunity her opponent debbie less goes montra is build the wall. our southern border is a war zone illegal immigrants cross our border ignoring our laws that's why i support president trump's plan to build the wall but that's not enough we need more

border patrol agents and the best technology to stop this invasion the list coupland build the wall more agents the best technology. this is the big picture so let's take the wide angle shot these are commercials the products happen to be politicians but this is advertising and the professionals who craft these messages are practicing what's called positioning a strategy that real life mad men characters jack trout and al reese outlined back in the one nine hundred seventy s. in their groundbreaking bestseller positioning the battle for your mind still in print. classic positioning examples are avis which touted that they were the number two rental car company saying we try harder and seven up was the uncalled for now in arizona a medical doctor and outsider like donald trump's positioning her opponent

as the kind of insider trump trashes politician debbie lesko is running for congress she's everything you hate about politics she promised to oppose all tax increases debbie won't clean up washington she's just more of the same. not politics positioning the doctor the outsiders opponent isn't tippy lesko she's politician debbie lesko it's a tag like crooked hillary lie and ted little marco low energy jeb watch this race april twenty four we will. the russians are coming for well over the last year and this is the message western

audiences have been served up twenty four seventh's what is behind this hysteria what does this message aim to achieve always russia is supposed to react importantly are we facing a possible conflict. they only climb the famed off her who is writing extensively on environmental issues and social justice issues went to these conferences in puerto rico and her takeaway was that a bunch of rich people all showed up and this is a danger to the local economy and to the local fabric of society so the first thing that strikes me is that lefties like they owe me feel they have a monopoly on good intentions which i'm not sure where that comes from. the most expensive fish in a will each one selling for tens of thousands of euros it continues to grow its

entire life if it was thirty years old you might have a two ton fish out there and yet they don't get that big today because we're way too good at catching. it's only remnants of a much larger mission was once there and that was much more widely distributed we have politicians that are in office for a few years they have to get reelected everything is very very short term our system is not suited and is not geared for long term survival and that's why we have the catastrophe is. a sad anniversary fifty years ago april for darker martin luther king was assassinated in memphis in indianapolis where robert kennedy was campaigning for president the crowd was unaware i have some very sad news for all of you and i

think sad news for all of our fellow citizens. and people who love peace all over the world. and that is that. martin luther king was shot and with killed tonight in memphis. martin luther king. dedicated his life. to love and to justice between fellow human beings. he died. and the cause of that effort. in this difficult day. in this difficult time for the united states. it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are. and what direction we want to move in. this year we the high school class of sixty eight turn sixty eight as chaotic as twenty

eighteen seems it's hard to imagine all we witnessed fifty years ago happening in one year in one nine hundred sixty eight there was never a time for yet nom wasn't on page one this picture won the pew let's surprise it was the first t.v. war and the one nine hundred sixty eight we saw a case on the tet offensive in our living rooms north korea sees the u.s.s. pueblo the winter olympics were in grenoble france and there were clenched fists at the summer games in mexico city on television rowan and martin's laugh-in helped us escape reality by confronting it while also debuting fifty years ago sixty minutes in the movies didn't shy away either guess who's coming to dinner and planet of the apes tackled race dustin hoffman was the graduate confused about what next on broadway hair. the beatles' number one song was hey jude and the number one lp

was their white album dr christian barnard performed the first successful open heart transplant the boeing seven forty seven made its maiden flight nasa launched apollo seven the first manned apollo mission and on christmas eve apollo eight circled the moon denny mclain through thirty wins and his detroit tigers down three games to one one the world series after gene mccarthy gave l.b.j. a scare in the hampshire primary bobby kennedy got into the race and the president got out watching kennedy's announcement on t.v. in california candidate richard nixon said something bad is going to come of this god knows where this is going to lead. kennedy was shot moments after declaring victory in the california primary at

a democratic convention the turned violent in chicago hubert humphrey and edmund muskie were nominated in november richard nixon was elected in one nine hundred sixty eight yale began admitting women jackie married aristotle onassis charlie chaplin and helen keller died and celine dion and will smith were born gas was thirty four cents a gallon movie ticket was a buck fifty and the minimum wage was a buck sixty meg donald's introduced a big mac. forty nine cents president johnson signed the civil rights act fifty years after dr king's death and the one nine hundred sixty eight that makes twenty eight teams seem calm by comparison where are we. let's ask attorney professor activist minister and former minneapolis and the president and the chemo levy pounds welcome back. thanks for having me fifty years after

dr king what is better now. well i would say that a number of things are better if you look at the situation that was occurring in the south prior to the start of the civil rights movement there were jim crow laws in place that prevented african-americans from being able to access certain facilities to certain restaurants to drink at any water fountain they wanted to or even to use the restroom where they wanted to and so through the activism of dr king rosa parks and so many others we saw in to jim crow laws particularly in the south as well as some parts of the north we also saw the passage of the one nine hundred sixty four civil rights act than one nine hundred sixty five voting rights act and the one nine hundred sixty eight fair housing act none of which would have been possible were it not for the strong advocacy and activism and lasting legacy

of dr martin luther king jr fifty years later what is dr king's unfinished business . well unfortunately there is a great deal of unfinished business dr king was in the process of launching a poor people's campaign in washington d.c. that was actually supposed to happen in april of one nine hundred sixty eight he saw the intersection between race and class and the struggle for equality in this country and he wanted to push for a basic income for all americans affordable housing universal health care and make sure that life was more equitable for all people and particularly people of color so we know that poor people's campaign happened to some degree after dr king's assassination the impact was nowhere near the vision that dr king had and so we see that poor people across the country are still being impacted as

a result of an equitable access to opportunity and affordable housing and things like that beyond that we saw the proliferation of mass incarceration in the aftermath of dr king's assassination as a result of the war on drugs and since the war on drugs began we've seen an increase in the number of people being incarcerated a number of people being our probation or supervised release and we have the highest rate of incarceration in the world right here in the united states where approximately one in one hundred people are currently incarcerated with an estimated two point three million people overall who are serving time in our nation's djoser prisons i don't know that dr king could have imagined that the system of mass incarceration would be introduced in the aftermath of his assassination and additionally we look at how many poor people and people of color

are behind bars and how that is a negative aspect of what happened after the movement in the news is discouraging are you optimistic. well optimistic because of the black lives matter movement and allies around the nation who have stepped forward to bring attention to issues of mass incarceration and police violence i hope that that continues and that pressure continues to be applied to government officials so that change can take place but we have such a long way to go to achieve the dream that dr king articulated so many years ago thank you kim levy pounds. we also asked some folks who were visiting dr king's memorial here in washington. his legacy is. very bombastic and because of it minorities can join the freedoms that we get to enjoy in this country he's probably the sole reason but he's

a major reason why he was released something very special that he did he did a lot but i'm sure if he was around to get more things that he what i think he probably would have been able to deal with the president of peas stuck with his legacy and everything he fought for and everything we're trying to pursue and he had the drive of people it's just trying to get everybody together and i think i'll tell you it will definitely change where in the world is that right now or so many things that happened during his lifetime in the positive towards african-americans that maybe people thought were not things. you know a lot of options things have lightened a society out that would certainly have back in the day there were still a lot o. all these ballots in there was still a lot o. . things going on there is going on today blitz is not as much as it was before like they're increasingly and i think his toes and it was martin luther king was

still here and we'll hear his voice we'll hear his speeches and his speeches say his marches it wus still have that today when somebody that is the charge that smart. they shorten their lives i mean sure the we all do something i think it's not only america or it's like a global problem. here in mexico we have read you know this and our navy of stuff like that. but you know really it's not as bad as it's a busy year we would have more of this president in terms of the black community yes she was going for president for eight years i think there's a kind of like if you just look how far we came now in the studio cars was going on where just you know like what you have and life can be different tomorrow just by one thing you do just. your life what's happening now is. a problem by providence. what if you get silence. or you don't have anywhere in the. body seems like today's

with christine read the. person with. jessica and mitchell or is an award winning poet writer and activist you read her among other places in the huffington post and her blog is our legacy with an eye dot com jessica. just before dr martin luther king jr was assassinated he was organizing with sanitation workers as part of the newly launched poor people's campaign he was known as the voice for change for progress yet he feared that he had integrated his people into a burning house after the passage of the civil rights act of one nine hundred sixty four and voting rights act of one nine hundred sixty five dr king recognized that america had a critical issue that must be dealt with in order to substantially uplift the

masses it was the issue of economic justice in fact he called it the most serious problem confronting the negro and poor people generally fifty years later overt segregation is mostly a thing of the past there are no whites only signs above water fountains and park benches however today millions of americans face poverty due to a lack of living wages and a historically flawed economic system that values corporations over people. meanwhile affordable housing is scarce segregation persists through red lining gentrification is displacing marginalized communities across the nation with the racism intertwined in all of this dr king's analysis of america's race

and economic problems hauntingly remains true it is now up to our current and future generations to ensure that grass roots and you lead movements continue to be a guiding force for social justice and restorative change we can fulfill his dream with persistence eventually. that is the big picture if you missed any part of this week's show or if you want to share it you can where you'll find all our shows you tube dot com slash the big picture r t m holland cook in washington happy easter happy passover brace yourself for april fool's day and welcome back baseball i'll be back next week mean time question more.

how does it feel to be a share of the greatest job in the world it's as close to being a king as any job there is one business model helps to run a prison now we do or don't like is there nobody to be the case and i don't know what comes into them or we don't have to serve them anymore is. this what they want to do that at the moment they don't give a damn if you did so as a man there are actually paying us to put it back into the louisiana incarceration rate is twice as high as the us senate breach what secret is behind such success.

when you have no clean water no health care no infrastructure those are all symptoms of a greater problem in haiti and that greater problem is imperialism problem is debt dependency and domination that haiti has had to deal with since it became the first . free republic ruled by black people since eighteen zero four. i am max kaiser this is the kaiser report of the show that keeps a real world us becoming increasingly more serial.